I didn't think I'd make it up the Taku again in 2010 but....well, I'd realized the previous weekend at Snettisham that I was done working for the season there, and my folks were heading up the river, so I figured I'd finish a few of the tasks I'd started there, relax a little, and embark on one more adventure.  We took off around 1:45 to catch the rising tide at 3:00, though at 19.8' there was little concern about going aground anywhere near the tide.  It was sprinkling a little as we left, but the clouds soon started to break up and the ride was smooth.  Highlights were the prodigious quantity of gulls in the inlet between Flat and Jaw Points (thousands upon thousands) and a tiny, square rainbow against a mountain nearby.  We cruised up to the landing spot at the property with no incident, Nigel sniffing happily along the way, and had just unloaded our gear when my folks pulled in behind us.  I left Chris and Nigel on shore, anchored the boat while my folks unloaded, and then hopped on the Kathy M to help my mom anchor and get to shore.  At least, I intended to help, but I think my efforts hindered more than assisted.  It wasn't the most graceful or quick affair; I really didn't understand the system very well (they were using the same line to anchor and tie off to shore), and I wound up both dropping the anchor without tying it to the boat and (unknowingly) commanding my mother to do the same.  We finally anchored effectively and made it to shore.  It didn't help that the incoming tide (now past Juneau's high tide time) was strong enough to swing our boats and push them upriver!

By this time Chris had hauled all our gear to the cabin and we walked back up while my parents finished loading their gear.  It had turned into a beautiful afternoon, so Chris and I decided to go on a walk while my folks opened up the cabin and unpacked.  We headed upriver with Nigel all the way to the property line, discovering all along the way big patches of a moss I have yet to identify that bore myriad spore stalks in their prime.  Clouds of yellow pollen billowed out as we stepped through them, unpleasantly coating our mouths if we unluckily had them open.  It was very impressive, and fun to watch Nigel go through them.  The meadows were starting to show their fall colors with red fireweed leaves and blooming goldenrod.  In the meadows upriver, Nigel came back from romping with a big smile on his face and his tongue lolling out, which looked suspiciously black in places.  I looked closer and confirmed that it was mouse hair!  Given that there were big patches of it on his tongue, I suspect he may have eaten one that was not entirely fresh...

Back at the lodge we all had drinks in the living room, then my mom cooked dinner.  Afterwards, Chris and I took to the back porch where there were several loads of firewood that needed stacking.  With two of us working (one handing and one stacking), we had it all neat and tidy in no time.  Although discouraging us from working further, my dad showed us how the trailer hitched to the 4-wheeler and we drove it down the hill to the wood cutting area and brought several more loads up while my dad cleaned the kitchen and my mother started filling in the septic drainage ditch with sand.  Then Chris and I went for a walk downriver to the little guest cabin and into what was formerly a strawberry meadow beyond, but which is now mostly young spruces.  My mother made an amazing lasagne for dinner.

Rainbow in Taku Inlet	Moss (?) pollen	Firewood to stack
Nigel (with a hairy tongue)	Firewood stacking on the back porch	Evening view down the river

The next morning Chris and I stacked and loaded more of the firewood while my parents finished filling in the septic tank drainage ditch, had quesadillas with everyone for lunch, then got ready for our little adventure.  You may recall that we'd laboriously made our way up the river to Johnson Creek the year before and I swore I'd never run the river in my boat again.  Well....I changed my mind.  With more patience, a 19.4' tide, and a canoe for backup, I thought we'd make it okay, and I was anxious to see if I would have any luck with fall coho fishing.  I thought we could at least make it across the river to the glacier, then could anchor up and take the canoe from there if necessary.  We took off at around 12:30 with the canoe tied down across the back of the Ronquil and the canoe's motor tied up in front of it.   It was still almost three hours before high tide, so the sandbars were exposed; we puttered downriver to the little triangular sandbar that separates the channel along the bank with the main channel that cuts across the river and used my parent's new walkie talkies to alert them of a great blue heron that stood on the riverbank (we'd seen one fly by the cabin the night before, unusual for the river).  They continued south to retrieve some logs in the meadow below the slough to act as wave breaks along the eroding beach front near the cabin.  We turned upriver and sought the deep channel, as evidenced by upwellings in the water.  A jet boat sped by and helped make my decision about which of two channels seemed the most likely, its wake washing across an obvious sandbar upriver.  We headed more toward the middle, in deep water, bordered by two sandbars.  Ahead of us we saw a seal in our channel cut across a shallow area (his wake revealed the sandbar).  We avoided that area and turned upriver, only to find ourselves aground.  To both sides of us and ahead were sandbars, yet just behind us was a strong, deep current.  It was very puzzling, but we decided to follow the seal (seals usually linger in deep water) and managed to pass over the sandbar and back into deep water where we met back up with the helpful pinniped. 

From there the going was easier and we didn't go aground again until we were across the river and heading north again.  We got into another puzzling area where the deep channel disappeared, but managed to escape again by tilting up the engine and puttering over a shallow area.  By the time we were adjacent to Sockeye Creek we'd already been underway for an hour--about the same time it takes in the canoe--which wasn't very heartening.  Then started the nerve-wracking journey back across the river to the lodge.  Unfortunately, the tilt on the engine failed again and got stuck tilted up with the prop nearly out of the water.  It was a little embarrassing as we slowly worked our way across under the eyes of a boater who'd grounded on a sandbar on the upriver side of the channel (I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, but he sure stared us down and rudely refused to return my wave).  Hugging the edge of sandbar on the upriver side of the channel seemed to work best, until it didn't, and we had to move across a shallow spot and back into deep water.  At last we emerged in front of the lodge and were able to pick up speed; again, I was a little embarrassed while being observed by a number of folks on the dock at the lodge, especially as I still wasn't able to tilt down the engine.  Thankfully, I managed to get up on step eventually and we sped upriver to the mouth of Johnson Creek right along shore.  My dad had mentioned that the last time he was there, this entrance only ran some of the time, but that there was another entrance farther upriver where the creek drained more reliably.  We tried to go up the entrance we'd just found, but it was far too shallow, so I continued north until we came upon Eagle Island without finding another entrance; my dad has said it was well below Eagle Island, so we decided to turn around and use the canoe in the first channel.  Maybe I misunderstood the directions!  Anyway, we anchored up the Ronquil at the edge of the sandbar at the mouth of the creek, loaded what we needed into the canoe, and mounted the engine for the next leg of the trip.  It's a gorgeous area in there, the 20 foot wide channel bordered by great cottonwoods and willows, steep blue cliffs rising on one side beyond the trees.  The water was still opaque and silty, evidence that the river did work its way into it; we passed two small riverwater tributaries on the way and continued to go aground periodically.  At long last, when I was about ready to give up, we finally passed one last river tributary and crossed into clear water at the real mouth of Johnson Creek.  By that time we'd been underway for two hours and 15 minutes, and only had 45 minutes until high tide.  We grounded the canoe and spread out, Chris first trying upriver from the edge of a grassy meadow and I trying father down from the muddy shore.  The creek was about 20 feet wide at the mouth, then opened up into a pool about twice as wide before narrowing up again.

We didn't see any sign of fish when we started, no carcasses or anything.  I started casting from a large boulder near the mouth of the creek, happy to have finally arrived and be fishing in a beautiful, clear water creek.  Suddenly I had a strike and quickly set the hook.  There at my feet was a big, gorgeous coho salmon, silver bright with a light rosy tinge down her side.  She was twisting and turning in the clear water to escape, but not going anywhere!  I immediately started loosening the drag, but turn it as I would, the line would not go, and she soon snapped it and disappeared.  With a roar of frustration, I returned to shore to replace the swivel and hook.  The whole real had jammed and needed to be shaken loose, something that had happened once the week before.  But, at least we knew there were fish there.  Chris came back and we both fished for another 45 minutes near the mouth of the creek.  Soon they started jumping, mostly around a submerged rock in the middle of the creek, not more than ten feet away.  We targeted our efforts there, taunted relentless by the splashing fish that seemed oblivious to our lures.  We could tell there were at least a couple, as some of the jumpers were dark rosy red and others silver bright.  Chris caught a beautiful, spotted fish that was so small I thought it might be a cutthroat until I brought it to shore, but it was a small coho that we released.  After that, nothing.  Finally, at 15 minutes past the high tide, I finally relented, uneasy about the trip back downriver.  I'd just stowed my pole in the canoe when Chris shouted "Fish on!"  Shocked, I saw that, sure enough, he had a coho, but had his drag too tight for it to make much headway.  Anxious not to lose the fish, he took it right to shore and I reached in the water and scooted that fish several feet up the bank to ensure it didn't escape, then bonked and bled it.  While Chris held it in the water to bleed out, I tried a few more casts, but to avail.  Chris said he'd been able to see several fish lingering at the bottom of the creek, and had targeted them (dropping the lure to them) once I stopped fishing in the same area.  We loaded our gear back on board and headed out again.  When the boat came back into view I started panicking, as it had drifted back onto the point of its sandbar and I was afraid it had gone aground on the falling tide.  We paddled harder, and thankfully found the Ronquil floating gently against the edge of the sand.  We strapped everything back on board, Chris iced the coho, and we headed back downriver.  The motor still did not tilt, but it had worked its way down a bit which made getting on step easier. 

Retracing our steps on the way down was considerably easier; we struggled a little crossing below the lodge, but the tilt started working again, which made shallow crossings easier.  Plus the tide was up (and possibly even still rising, as the tide is somewhat delayed on the river), so we had less and less to worry about the farther downriver we got.  The return trip took less than an hour; soon we were back at the cabin, thoroughly exhausted.   After we anchored, we took some photos of the coho and discovered that it was missing its adipose fin, suggesting that it was sampled as a juvenile and may house a coded-wire-tag in its nose.  While we were gone, my folks had sawn their log in half and towed one of the halves back to add to their growing breakwater near the cabin.  We were all ready for dinner, so my dad set about making an alder wood fire in the barbeque over which my mom grilled halibut while I made a few simple side dishes.  We were exhausted, and went to bed relatively early. 

The channel out of Johnson Creek

Leaving Johnson Creek

Sunset looking down river

The next morning was another beautiful partly cloudy day, but with an ominous overtone--the forecast called for high winds in Taku Inlet and seas to four feet.  Indeed, as the morning progressed, a breeze started stirring down the river.  Chris and I finished stacking the last of the firewood, stowed some polypipe laying near the cabin under some trees for the winter, and cut the last of the small spruces growing up near the garden patch at the side of the cabin (which had been spared the mower).  Then we decided to head upriver to the meadow I'm maintaining/creating.  We brought along clippers and my chainsaw (with its chain intact again) to cut the last three trees that had eluded my mom and I last time after the chain came off.  Looking around the meadow I saw that there were quite a few other trees that would widen and lengthen the meadow nicely; unfortunately, the chain came off again while finishing the cut on the third of the three trees in question (they were large, dense spruces and difficult to handle).  It was fun trying to fell them, first cutting a notch, then coming at it from the other direction so it fell away from me; I don't know what I'm doing, but it's fun when it works.  From there I got a little crazy with the clippers, cutting all the baby spruces (and a few hemlocks) growing up in the meadow as well as quite a few trees that were an inch or two thick and three or four feet high.  I enlarged the meadow considerably, pushing back the border of the trees on the inland side, though I felt rather bad about all the felling.  It'll be good to have a meadow there, though, and a walk later through the first growth forest below the cabin reminded me again that most of the trees I cut would  have been dead in five or ten years from overcrowding.

We gathered all the cut trees and stacked them near the shore, then made our way back to the cabin to pack up.  My folks were busy winterizing, so we decided to head out a little early.  We dropped off our gear with the 4-wheeler, then I returned it and picked up the dog.  Fortunately, the Ronquil was floating up against the riverbank, so I was able to board easily, pull anchor, and bring it to shore.  We puttered downriver in the sunshine, passed the slough, and made it most of the way down the meadow before running onto a sandbar.  And there we stuck.  I've never been stranded along that stretch of shore, where the channel runs reliably close to the bank, but we were stuck fast and unable to tilt the engine up.  It looked shallow all the way to shore.  We could see a few possible edges to the sandbar, but they were all some distance away.  I tried fruitlessly to get the engine to tilt, and Chris more heroically plunged into the river to try pushing the boat from behind and also pushing up on the motor while I pulled to see if we could manually tilt it (after loosening the screw).  We even moved the dog and our heavier gear to the front of the boat.  None of our efforts were successful, though a few serendipitous boat wakes allowed us to move a few feet downriver.  We noted that the boats went well around us, whether to avoid us or the sandbar I'm not sure.  Eventually I dug out a deck of cards and began a round of solitaire, which was going really well until the mounting breeze made playing impossible.  We sat there for at least 45 minutes before Chris happened to step onto the bow and I could feel the boat shift free.  We pushed our way to deeper water and were on our way again.

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful.  We had a following chop entering Taku Inlet, but it died out completely by the time we rounded Cooper Point.  Inside Douglas Harbor we finally took photos of a  very tolerant seal who's lingered between the slips and Mayflower Island for much of the summer.

Thousands of gulls in Taku Inlet

Heading home

Our seal friend