Juggling work and adventuring in the summer is always a struggle.  Work this spring/summer had been particularly busy for me, and finally taking significant time off during the summer wasn't helping me catch up.  I'd intended to go on several site visits for work too, but in the end wound up combining a couple of potential trips into one four-day excursion to the Kenai, Anchorage, and Mat-Su during the only week I had available, the first week in August.  I spent the weekend prior in Juneau, in part because we'd just finished Sweetheart Creek on Thursday and because I needed to get ready for site visits on Monday.  I also spent a good portion of that weekend preparing for an adventure the following weekend up the Taku, which was essential planning as I only had Thursday night at home after traveling and we were expecting guests that night.  When I got back to town the boat was already fueled, the gear assembled, I was all packed up, and I had a clear list of things to do on the counter.  I was exhausted when I left town on Monday and knew that I wouldn't come off of four days of site visits any more rested, so my intent was to relax and sleep the weekend away (and pick berries). 

The tide was at 3:30 Friday afternoon, but I didn't feel like I could leave work early (it was a bad week to be gone to begin with), so stuck it out until 4:00.  I headed home, loaded everything up, and Chris and I hustled to the harbor as soon as we could.  We wound up departing at 4:45, myself more than a little anxious about heading up the Taku on a falling tide.  It was choppy in the channel, which didn't help my nerves, but lightened up around Salisbury and we ran at speed from there on up.  It was overcast and raining intermittently.  My dad had cautioned me that they'd gone aground in front of Hut Point a few weeks earlier and that the channel was farther over on the Taku Glacier side than in past years.  Unfortunately, I took this advice a little too much to heart and just as I was cautiously slowing down in front of the glacier we went aground for the first time more than two hours after the tide had turned.  We explored various potential channels over there for a while, stirring up a lot of mud and poling here and there until in frustration I finally headed back toward the other side of the river and quickly found the deep channel.  Chris used a 1x2 to test for depth that I'd cleverly marked with a sharpie last winter at one foot intervals.

From there we had no problem making it to the cabin.  Where the very end of the meadow meets the sheer cliffs around the corner from Hut Point we saw the carnage of a very large avalanche that had taken out quite a few trees, depositing some of them in the meadow below.  At the bottom of the cliffs nearby there were still banks of snow at the water's edge.  Nigel began to sniff the air happily (the Taku is his favorite place in the world).  We unloaded the boat at the bank of the cabin, really enjoying the nice set of stairs that my parents installed this spring; Chris hauled the gear to the cabin while I anchored the boat, tying a line to shore to retrieve it later.  We opened up the lodge and settled in, lighting a fire and the pilots on the stove and the refrigerator.  We had pasta and peas from my garden for dinner and watched part of The X-Files before drifting off to sleep.  Well, the drifting off to sleep part happened after I picked my way down to the generator shelter in the dark to turn it off, talking to bears the whole way. 

Taku cliffs

Nigel smelling the Taku

The Ronquil at anchor

I managed to sleep in a little the next morning, but berry bushes drew me out of bed.  On our way up from the boat the evening before we'd passed blueberry bushes ridiculously laden with berries--I've never seen so many berries on one bush, branches drooping with their weight.  And they were all ripe!  Exhaustion or no, I couldn't pass that up.  I picked  for about half an hour in a few of the patches near the cabin and came back with four cups, carefully leaving at least half to 2/3rds of the ripe berries on the branches for wildlife.  Where there are normally groups of two or three berries together I found clusters of four, five, or six on many bushes.   I couldn't believe there wasn't a bear right there munching alongside me, but I suppose the whole valley is full of berries, and fish.  It's a good time to be a bear!  There were also ripe strawberries, but I concentrated on the blueberries.  I came back inside, salted the berries, and played several rounds of gin with Chris before making quesadillas for lunch.  What I probably should have done was stay there on the couch and take a nap.  Instead, I forced myself up for another adventure.  I was on a roll this summer of doing things I've dreamed about for years, and thought I'd ride that momentum into another adventure.  When I was growing up at the lodge my family used to take the river boat up into Johnson Creek, about a mile upriver, and fish for dollies and cutthroat trout and I have nothing but fond and nostalgic memories of those times.  It's a beautiful creek and I hadn't been there since I was about 14 and have dreamed of going back there for years.  If I'd lacked sufficient motivation to undertake it the week before due to exhaustion and other factors, wandering around lots of gorgeous, clear water salmon streams on my site visits steeled in my determination.  I would visit Johnson Creek.

So we set out at 2:00 pm with a couple of trout poles (one of which had been unused on the back porch of the cabin for many years), a backpack, and the dog.  We'd intended to take a canoe to go into shallower reaches of the creek, but didn't remember until we were underway (actually Chris remembered) and I decided not to go back.  It was, more than anything, a reconnaissance trip.  We dropped downriver 100 feet or so, then turned at a low angle across and up the river between some of the buoy (presumably left over from the mine barges).  We soon turned and crossed the river, then read the signs of deep water and made our way through what appeared to be a deep channel between some sandbars before traveling close to the face of the Hole-in-the-Wall Glacier.  We headed upriver until we neared a red buoy and the channel that crosses to the lodge.  A sandbar just upriver was host to about 35 harbor seals who were unperturbed as we passed.  We began to slowly cut between an alarming number of sandbars and logs, with no clear channel. I was happy to watch a jet boat pass to see what channel it chose, but it moved too fast to follow.  We made it about half way across before we hit bottom the first time.  Chris poled and gave me updates on depth as we inched our way across the river with the engine tilted up as far as it was functional.  Eventually we pulled into deep water and emerged in front of the lodge.  I watched the tourists happily wandering about my old home as we passed.  Now that I was confident of the channel, we sped upriver and it wasn't long before we passed into a wide channel between an island of cottonwoods (I think we called this Eagle Island at the lodge because of its big nest) and the shore.  The water was still silty, but we could see the main channel veering off to the left.  On the other side of the river was a stunning view of the spectacular Twin Glaciers. 

We moved slowly up this channel, again going aground several times in different places, with no way to determine the location of a deep channel, if there was one.  This short trip seemed interminable, as I could see clear water and the mouth of Johnson Creek ahead.  Eventually we passed over the line and could suddenly see through the amber water, following the deep channel with ease; a pink salmon finned nearby.  It was wonderful.  We went up maybe half a mile or so until the creek split around a large, grassy island; we took the right side and could suddenly see schools of pink salmon shooting by.  We thought that was a good sign, so pulled up to the island, anchored the boat, and walked up to a little sandbar near a deep hole in the slough where we could see fish gathering.  On the way I saw a perfectly round hole in the brush about ten feet from the creek and wondered if it was a beaver or otter hole  There were salmon pieces around on the ground and feathers, so it was an area clearly used by eagles and possibly bears.  Neither of the poles we'd borrowed from my parents had been used in some time, but both were functional and we soon started casting, enjoying the feel of the nibbles on our lines and watching the fish casually pursue our lures when we could see them.  We were interested in trout, and silver salmon if they were in yet, but it was good to have something biting.  Chris snagged something and lost his lure, so I went back to the boat for more lures and swivels, soon changing out mine as well.  The sun came out and suddenly I was overwhelmingly hot in my turtleneck.  After half an hour or so we decided to continue up creek, myself remembering a trout hole farther up where we'd fished a lot when I was a kid. 

We walked back to the boat, then headed upstream. Unfortunately, Johnson Creek widened and shallowed and we didn't get much farther than the end of the island.  It looked pretty enticing up there, but would require other means of transport.  In turning around we got stuck for a few minutes and I had to get out and push downstream.  We passed the island again and decided to continue fishing there for a bit from the boat.  We shut down and drifted up the creek a bit, casting from opposite sides of the boat.  We drifted back into the main channel and I hooked a beautiful little pink salmon.  It was incredibly fun to see it underwater and slowly reel it in.  We very gently netted her and removed the hook and she swam away to rejoin the others.  I confess that I'm a little ashamed of this, as I've never been a proponent of real "sport" fishing (catch and release) where you inflict pain and terror on fish just for the fun of it and many of them die afterwards.  But, I guess I do understand the draw....it was pretty fun.  We did hope that there might be trout in there picking up eggs if the pinks were spawning, but we didn't have any luck.  We repositioned back downriver, hoping to drift toward a hole where bunches of salmon were gathering.  We had more strikes, but didn't land any. Unfortunately, as pleasant as it was, we had to pay attention to the tides and left at 5:20, or a little over an hour after the tide began to fall.  I wasn't as concerned going down river, as I figured there would be plenty of water to float if nothing else. 

So we secured our poles and headed south, going aground for the first time not far into the silty water.  We saw a picturesque eagle in a dead cottonwood on Eagle Island, then went aground again.  Really we were just gently touching bottom, but each time we shut the engine off, tilted it up, and poled our way to deep water.  Once we got back into the main channel we were able to run at speed down past the lodge.  Finding the channel back across the river was more of a trial.  I made it almost half way across, then couldn't decide whether to go above or below a log right in the middle of the channel.  The water ran equally as swift all around it, so I chose upriver.  We soon went aground and this time couldn't push off to deeper water.  Although the water was only about two feet deep or less, the current was so strong that it pushed us toward the other side of the river where there were only sandbars in our future.  We obviously needed to go back toward the lodge and below the log in the middle, but pushing with poles wasn't effective.  Cursing, I jumped overboard, flooding my xtratuffs with river water.  Chris continued to pole while I tried to manhandle the boat around, but succeeded only in slightly altering its course.  The river was far too strong to push against.  By this time I was pretty unhappy.  All I wanted was a pleasant afternoon at a childhood creek!  It was starting to look more like an evening on a sandbar in our future.  I jumped back aboard and cranked the engine which, even tilted as high as it was functional, stirred up the muddy bottom (the prop was clearly in the mud).  With the engine whining and me biting my lip and apologizing, we managed to get the boat turned around and into the deep channel.  I decided that that was the last time I would run the river in my boat.  We made it back the rest of the way without any problems, but it certainly hadn't helped me relax. 

That night before dinner (and after we warmed up), Chris and I picked about six more cups of blueberries around the cabin, hitting some of the most abundant bushes.  When we'd finished with a bush, there were still so many berries it looked untouched.  While we were among the widely-spaced trees just upriver from the cabin we heard a big crash not far away which had to have been a big animal of some kind, but we saw nothing and Nigel never smelled it.  We ate dinner late; I'd managed to leave the halibut behind, so we had salad, soup, biscuits, and wine for dinner.

Hole-in-the-Wall Glacier	Taku Lodge as we cross the river	Johnson Creek
Chris fishing	Eagle on Eagle Island	East Twin Glacier

The next morning after I dealt with some flooding in the bathroom sink (I think the faucet had a drip all night which filled the 5 gallon bucket underneath) I headed upriver with Nigel to do more berry picking.  I wanted to hit some of the good blueberry patches up there and check on the nagoonberries too.  Sadly, the strawberry meadow upriver is largely overgrown with spruce trees now--much worse than I expected.  If we want to save that meadow we'll need to use a chainsaw and cut down some pretty substantial trees.  It was discouraging, as all those berries and flowers will soon disappear, replaced by a dense, unproductive first growth forest.  Some day it'll be a wonderful old growth forest, but not in my lifetime.

I walked to the other side of the meadow and picked several more cups of blueberries.  The nagoons there were still unripe, but I thought I might have better luck upriver on Forest Service land where they ripen earlier.  People from the lodge (I assume) had cut a trail through the brush, which annoyed me.  That area, too, is growing up rapidly.  Near our property boundary I started to find a few ripe nagoonberries here and there and stopped to pull a container out of my pack.  I watched Nigel pounce nearby and was a little surprised to see him come up with a huge mouse in his teeth.  I dug out my camera as he dropped the mouse, still kicking its little legs in the air.  I encouraged him verbally to continue (no sense letting it suffer further) and he, uncertainly and very gingerly, picked it up by the tail end and slowly started chewing his way up the body, eventually swallowing it whole.  It was impressive and I'm a little pleased that my dog hunts.  It's not the first time he's killed mice, but I hadn't seen him do it for years.  As Nigel continued to pursue rodents (I don't think he killed any others) and explore the meadow, I roamed around in search of nagoonberries, picking the bulk of the 2.5 cups I picked from one particular area among some patches of crowberries.  They were still a little under ripe, but will work for a sauce and I wasn't sure if I'd have more picking opportunities this summer.

Although I don't think it rained much while I was picking, Nigel and my backpack were completely soaked from walking through all the wet brush from the rains during the night.  Chris and I had quesadillas for lunch, then we cleaned up the cabin and packed our gear.  For the first time I started the generator and actually vacuumed the cabin.  We changed the sheets and washed the dishes, causing another flood under the kitchen sink.  Eventually I collapsed on the couch with Chris and started to feel relaxed for the first time all weekend.  But, soon enough we had to go to catch the tide and work our way back to town.  We turned off the propane, locked up, closed the shutters, and loaded up the boat.  Just before we reached the slough I beached the Ronquil at the edge of a fireweed meadow to take a look around.  The fireweed in Juneau was already fading, but flowers bloom later up the Taku and this field--one of the densest I know of--was at its prime.  Just as I got off the boat, though, I looked down at a clump of turf from the meadow that had fallen on the sandy bank and noticed some gray paper-like substance like an old wasp's nest.  On closer inspection, an active wasp's nest was tucked inside a nook nearby, covered in yellow and black wasps!  I took a couple of pictures, showed it to Chris, then hastily moved the boat farther downriver.  We stepped up into the meadow for a few minutes before continuing on our way.  Thankfully, there were no groundings on the way back!  The water was flat calm and we made the entire trip in an hour and twenty minutes.  Although I didn't feel very relaxed at the cabin or manage to spend any lazy afternoons on the couch, I think the weekend did do its job.  That evening and the next day I felt more relaxed than I had in some weeks.

Nigel eating a mouse (you can see it)	Nigel hunting in the meadows	Wasp nest (look at the wasps!)
Debbie in the fireweed	Norris Glacier	Harvest