May Creek

I haven't talked much about working for the NPS lately. Basically it was all I was talking about on my blog. . . boring. However, I think I will mention my latest excursion into the bush. This time we went to a place called May Creek which can only be reached by plane. Here is the only real picture that I could find on the net of May Creek.

This is the airfield, which I must add is pretty snazzy; it's almost a mile long. . . long enough for a C-130 to land on.

First of all, flying on a bush plane. AWESOME! We flew in on a Beaver, built by de Havilland in 1948. It's serial number was like 38 or something like that. . . the plane was a classic. The cool thing that I noticed about flying in a bush plane was that we only flew at an altitude of 3000 feet, meaning that we flew between the mountains instead of above them. It was pretty awesome to look out your window and watch the mountains sliding by, or being able to pick out individual trees on the ground below. Cool stuff. I've decided that I still wish to pursue my childhood dream of becoming a pilot and will, at some point in my future, when I am rich, buy myself an airplane to facilitate the fulfillment of this dream.

We touched down on the Airstrip, unloaded our gear and then reloaded it on a couple ATV's and proceeded to our cabin. One of the first things I noticed on the way was a big fat pile of red pooh. Bear pooh. The area is berry heaven, and therefore bear central. It seems bears don't really get that much from berries, they shoot right through their digestive system, so the pooh was about as abundant as the berries. EVERYWHERE!

We had a cabin, complete with woodstove, propane, and solar power for the lights, and a sweet outhouse. Yes, we were living the high life.

Work was typical for the next week; rainy, which wasn't too bad because we knew that we had a warm dry place to go after work. I spent most of my time working a chainsaw, and swamping (dragging what we cut off the trails into the woods), not that fun, but not really all that bad either.

It may have been day two or three when I saw three bears, a mother and two cubs crossing the airfield. They sure took their time, and didn't even pay any attention to us. One of the cubs, after they crossed, darted back out of the woods and wrastled one of the orange traffic cones that outlined the runway for a few minutes before mama got him back on track. That was my only notable bear encounter. The rest of the crew had their own encounters at some point, and I would wager that we had upwards of 10 encounters/sightings of different bears among the whole crew. Some of the guys had their coats hanging under a weather port, and a bear shredded them a bit. I was with a group that startled another. We never saw it, but we heard it scramble down an embankment and then were able to track where it had sprinted down the trail ahead of us. There were tons of bears, but thankfully, there were no. . . physical. . . encounters.

There was also a wolf that was scouting our cabin, but I only caught flashes of him moving through the woods. I've seen them before, but it still blows me away how ghostlike wolves can be. . . or any other predatory animal for that matter.

On a different note, because we are a group of hairy Alaskan men, we naturally gravitate towards competition, and in honor of the Olympics, we had our own version right there in May Creek. Our events were things like: left handed football toss, free-standing ladder climb, the ladder hop, horseshoes, and the May Creek Mile (run on the Airstrip). I can't say that I did particularly well in any event, though I did have a pretty sweet stall in the freestanding ladder climb, showing a dancer's balance, but I wasn't high enough enough to win--the typical technique was to scramble up as the ladder was falling. Bah! Where is the poise? The control?

The mile was a beast! I have not run since high school basketball, but I still beat my previous fastest time by seven seconds. . . which isn't saying much, I'm not a fast runner.

We flew out on Sunday, and while waiting for our plane, a group of us hiked up the trail towards the old Chititu gold mine and did some gold panning above some falls; cleaning out a seam in the bedrock. Of course this included a pretty hairy crossing of the Chititu, which was quite fast and muddy. We found some color, and a copper nugget, in about an hour of panning. What could we have found with a full day, and a shovel?

Anyway, those are the highlights of a pretty fun trip. Alaska rocks! Even if it is a bit cold and rainy this summer. And, someday I will own a digital camera so I can capture at least some of these moments on film.

NPS Week 5/6 and Stuff

This is going to be a bit random.

I spent the last eight days camping and working in the wilderness. It was nice--muddy, but nice. Anyway, I shan't bore you with the details other than to add that I am sore and tired, and even after a long shower after I got back I still have dirt ground into my skin.

But here are a few things of note, and random thoughts that this latest excursion sparked:

Showers and Toilets
I have never in my life gone for eight days without some sort of cleaning ritual. Sure, my family was without running water and other societal amenities for a year, back in my younger days when we first moved into our cabin, but we compensated for that by heating water on a camp stove and bathing in a wheelbarrow. But camping in the wilderness offers no viable alternatives other than plunging into barely above freezing glacial runoff water, which I am not willing to do. So, this was the longest time I have ever gone without bathing. . . wow. Showers (and baths) are awesome! After about the fifth day, you start to have a hard time being around yourself. . . On a personal note, I do not have stinky feet, I never have. But after several days in damp leather boots, my feet did develop a nasty odor. . .

Along these same lines; toilets are awesome. Sure the porcelain may sometimes be cold, but generally they are quite comfortable and clean smelling. I like them.

In short, don't take indoor plumbing for granted.

Pain
The second day out on the trail, I developed one of the worst headaches that I have had in years. It was so bad I couldn't work, or even think. . . I tried to be a tough guy and not show my pain to the rest of the crew, but after a while I had to sit down and start punching myself in the head (don't ask me why, but the shock creates a jolt and then ebb of pain which I find preferable to straight blind pain). Anyway, I solved this problem by downing two Excedrin (which I must add, is a god-send), which I have never before done. . . usually one is enough to knock out my headaches, but this time two seemed prudent. Eventually my headache went away, and then I was high on caffeine for the rest of the day (65mg per Excedrin. . . whew!).

This got me thinking, and I realized that the worst pains that I have felt in life have been rare headaches like this one. I've sprained my ankle, broken fingers/toes/thumbs, woken in the night with a terrible wrenching stomach pain, developed water in my hip joint so that I could barely even walk, and fallen--unconscious--on a wood stove and burned my arm. . . all these pains I seem to have forgotten, but I don't forget the pain of headaches.

Headaches suck. Thankfully for me they are rare.

Wolf
At some point we were working on the trail, and a wolf passed by and watched us. We found his tracks very clearly defined in the mud, but never saw him. . . his prints were five inches across.

Alaska Rules!


I miss ballroom. . .

Working for the NPS: Week 4

I have a couple ideas for different blog entries floating around in the convoluted depths of my mind but none of them are thought out to the point that I am ready to write about them. So, that means you get to read about me and my fabulous job. . . again.

This week I actually went out in the field for training on "Trail Layout and Design." What that really comes out to is "hiking around in the woods." Yes, I spent one day getting lectured about making good trails, then I spent the next three days wandering around in the woods looking for possible trail routes that filled the requirements that we were looking for. The area that were in was beside the Gilahina River and we were looking for a possible trail that would take us to the Chitina river about seven miles to the south, but that didn't work. We eventually decided on a loop trail that went up to a saddle between the Gilahina and Chokosna and then followed the edge of the cliffs that overlooked the two rivers until their confluence. It was beautiful country, and the trail that we eventually decided upon will be awesome--that is if the final proposal can get through the billion levels of management. One of the possible drawbacks for this trail was the obvious level of bear activity in the area. There were bear trails everywhere, and one spot that we visited (on the Chokosna side of the saddle) was an obvious feeding ground--fish skeletons and all. Our camp was also the site of a bear rub--where a bear rubs against or scratches a tree as a territorial claim. I can't say that any of the bear activity was recent or not, I saw no obvious signs, but I did track what I thought to be a bear for a way before the trail was obliterated by my companions--there were like fifteen of us.

Anyway, it was a pretty good four days of hiking/camping, though it did get cold, and it rained for the first day. Other than that, I had a blast! And we did finally encounter a a young grizzly bear when we went out to Kennicot to scout a site for a bridge, but he ignored us and just wandered up the mountain.

I wish I had a digital camera so that I could post pictures of all this. . .

Working for the NPS: Week 3

Day 1: Memorial Day. . . a national holiday where I stayed home and chilled with the family, and got paid! Boo-yah!

Day 2: The rest of the crew arrives. We spend most of the day getting them all ironed out straight. Most of the crew, actually all, of the crew are people that I went to high school with. I think I am the oldest. I'm also the only new guy who got hired to a WG 5 position, even some of the returning crew are still at WG 3. That means I have at least a little authority. Whoa!

Day 3: ATV training. I thought this was going to be a joke, but the course was actually pretty intense. I spent most of the day inhaling dust. We were kicking it up so thick that I couldn't see the orange cones 10 feet in front of me. When we were done I had a thick layer of dirt that started below my goggles and circled around down my face, kind of like a goatee. My lips were black. This is the life! We then took the ATV's back to the shop, ran a few errand type activities, and then started a chainsaw training lesson to finish the day.

Day 4: Since we can only work 40 hrs a week, and we are working 10's, and we were credited 10 hrs on Memorial Day, we got Thursday off. We couldn't take Friday off because that was when we were scheduled to do shotgun training. I puttered around the house, began a work project for my dad, cooked hamburger stroganoff for dinner, but was otherwise quite lazy and content.

Day 5: Shotgun training. This time I was much more relaxed, but I was a little worried after I could only see a couple holes in the target (and these were all from the wads) after my first five rounds. Well, upon closer inspection, I had four slugs that went through the required target area grouped so close they overlapped edge to edge, my fifth slug was a stray, about an inch below this group (but just outside the target area). My second round of five was exactly the same and by the time I was done, I had just one big hole in the target about the size of the mouth of a coffee mug (with two stray slugs just outside). All I needed was familiarity with a dad-gum shotgun. Then, just for fun, we did a bear charge simulation drill. We set up three targets (one at 30 yrds, one at 15, and one at 5) and then sprinted about fifty yards towards the firing line where we were handed a gun and were then required to fire three shots in five seconds, one at each target. I fumbled around trying to rack the first shot and undo the safety, but then blasted my three shots with significant time remaining. My first shot was low ( at the feet of the bear target that I posted before), the second was about 3/4 an inch off of dead center, and the third was right through the center of the left lung (and I didn't even aim for that one, I just blasted him). Anyway, good day, and redemption.

Then we finished our chainsaw "training." I felled a couple trees and then sliced them up. No big deal.

The End (of week three).

Working for the National Park Service: Week 2

Ahhhhh, another day another dollar. . . or lot's of dollars in this case, hehehe.

Day 1: So my second week began with new employee orientation. I was expecting some sort of hour to two hour little session. You know, "hello, welcome, we are so happy blah, blah, blah." It was that for like the first fifteen minutes, but then it just got to rules and regulations blah, blah, blah for the rest of the morning until lunchtime. . .five hours! After lunch we had a safety lecture then we got trained on how to use fire extinguishers. Boo-yah! Then the day was over.

Day 2: This is where things got interesting, because Tuesday was still orientation. This time, bright and early, we showed up at the "airport" (Five-ten planes, runway built during WWII) for bear safety training. But the ranger assigned to teach the class didn't know that he was assigned to teach the class and was, therefore, still in bed. So we commenced with shotgun training until he got there. When he did finally get there he rambled on for a while on bears, told a few cool bear stories, showed a can of pepper spray and let a couple volunteers fire it off. The end. Back to shotguns. So, I like guns, but it turns out that I've never used a shotgun before. This was my first time. I should also mention that I haven't actually shot guns enough to become Carlos Hathcock or anything, and I am a bit rusty. The last time I went shooting was before I started going back to BYU, four+ years ago. Anyway, so we got trained on the use of a shotgun for about an hour, which really wasn't that hard. Then we went to the range to get qualified. As a precursor I'll mention a few things: I was kind of nervous, a little tense and all (Why? I guess being judged or something), I was new to the shotgun, and, on top of that, after the hours of yakking I had developed the need to empty my bladder. What this all boils down too is that I missed with my first four practice rounds. . . with a shotgun! I missed the whole dad-gum target. Well, I was embarrassed. It turns out that I had become a bit twitchy. The instructor came over, after sending all the other students away, and told me that I had developed a "shooter's flinch," where you anticipate the kick of the rifle. He "cured" me of it by mixing a live round with dummy rounds. The funny thing, I think I still missed every time the round was real. After that, I think maybe he gave up, and so we had to do our qualifying test. The test was basically to fire five shots, four and then one reload, at a target that was maybe 25 yards away, twice, while getting a score of 7 out of 10. While he was gathering the others, I relaxed. Then once we were all lined up, at the sound of "Bear!" we all started shooting. The range sounded like a war zone, as I pumped off all my rounds to the smell of gun smoke in twenty five seconds. Then we did it again, this time, my final shot jammed, so I never got my tenth round off. Then we went to look at our targets. Well, I had a nice tight group of shots clustered on the lower left side of the target (in the heart/lung-ish area on the target to the left), but three were outside the desired area, so I failed. The instructor however was more impressed, "Wow, for somebody who had shooter's flinch, this is a very nice group," but I didn't get my 7 for 10 (in my mind I got 6 of 9, it's not my fault the gun jammed). Luckily, we got two chances to qualify in a day, so I got to go again. This time my very first shot drilled the target dead center (where all the heart valves and stuff are), but then every shot after that got progressively lower, and wouldn't you know that my gun jammed on my final shot, again! This time I fixed the jam in time, but somehow my last round had lost itself in the depths of my hoodie pocket and I couldn't find it. How frustrating. In the end I got the same score again 6/10 (or 6/9). Failure sucks. The rest of the day was easy, because shotgun training took us up until another 1pm lunch. Am I really getting paid for this?

Day 3: This time another trail crew member, who had arrived on Monday, and I went out to a remote trail that meandered along the Gilahina river, we took a few "before" pictures with a GPS camera, and generally scouted the trail. Then we went back and ate lunch. Then the work began, he cut a few logs out of the way, and I ran a self propelled brush cutter (think of a lawn mower that mows small trees), for the 3/4 mile of trail. The day was warm, there weren't any mosquitoes, so overall it was quite pleasant. At one point I had to stop the brush cutter so a fat little baby rabbit could hop off the path. It took us a couple hours to do this, on the way back, I mowed the other side of the trail while my compadre followed and took the "after" pictures. Then we drove home. Final score? 2 hours work, 2 hours semi work/hiking, 4.5 hours travel time, .5 hours loading/unloading truck. What a day, I don't know if I can handle this. (Wink, wink).

Day 4-5: More hanging around shop doing small odd jobs trying to keep busy. Next week the rest of the trail crew arrives and things will get moving right along.

I think I like my job!

Working for the National Park Service: Week 1

Well, my first week of working for the U.S. Government is now at an end. I must say that it turned out rather different than I expected.

I work as a trail "Maintenance Worker" for the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. Basically, my job entails grooming and maintaining the few trails and "airports" (where the trees don't grow) that do exist in this pristine wilderness. However, when I showed up on Monday, my supervisor had not been told that I was coming. I soon found out that a flight was scheduled to go fix up the "runway" at Horsefeld so I got pretty excited. I have been looking forward, with great anticipation, for flying in a small bush plane for the first time. I was pretty bummed when I discovered that I had not been included in this trip.

Day 1: I showed up bright and early Monday morning at 8am. The weather was cool but not cold. I was met by my boss who directed me to my supervisor. The rest of the day was to be spent with him getting organizational things out of the way. One of the first things that we did was head over to the park headquarters to do some paperwork. It was all rather mundane and boring until I was enlisted to haul a box of envelopes down into the basement. My supervisor was with me, and a worker from the visitors center. Instead of taking the stairs, somebody suggested that we take the elevator. Bad idea. As we stepped in the elevator, my supervisor commented that it would be nice to kill two hours in there. At that comment the other employee commented on being stuck in an elevator one time. As soon as she finished speaking, the lights went out, the emergency light came on, and the elevator stopped. Thus began a very entertaining 45 minutes--on government wages mind you--until we were rescued. It turns out that the power had gone out, which is quite common in Alaska.

After lunch I got fingerprinted, and I was also trained in using a $1000 GPS digital camera, which is pretty sweet. And that was all. It was a good day.

Day 2: I showed up bright and early at 7am. My compadres and I (there were four of us) got in three different rigs--two end-dumps, and a pickup hauling a skid-steer on a trailer--and traveled for around three hours to a gravel pit just across the Kuskulana River. About an hour of the drive was spent on a nasy little stretch of asphalt thut bucked and pitched like a roller coaster. Another hour was spent on a gravel road that was actually better than the aformentioned road. Once we arrived at our destination we filled the two end-dumps with gravel (with the skid-steer) and traveled six miles back down the road and turned off on a one lane track through the woods. It was such a tight fit, that branches and trees were constantly smacking our rigs. It would be an understatement to say that the drive through this bit was rough, but considering that it took us an hour to drive four miles of this "road" sort of suggests something to this effect. The culminating point was driving through a creek and powering (barely) out of the steep incline on the other side. We did this eight times, and it took us all day. It was pretty brutal, those eight trips, I felt like a rag doll in the washing machine. Towards the end of the day, two other guys left early and I stayed so that I could drive the truck hauling the skid-steer home. The day ended with that three hour drive--my first time hauling a trailer, and I'm doing it with 4 tons of machinery, heheh, I love this job already. 13 hours, most of it riding shotgun. What a day.

Day 3-5: Not much to report here. My crew flew out to Solo Creek (Horsefeld was too windy) and I stayed with the Maintenance shop crew and we all tried to look busy. It's a bit early in the season right now. Things will pick up later. Other than that, it was a great week.