Taku 2013 - 2: Working Out the Dissapointment
July 26-28

Bucked up spruce tree

It felt like a repeat of my last attempt at a full week of summer adventuring a month before, substituting the two day Taku trip with my parents with a four day camping trip to Pavlov Harbor with Chris and Dru. Actually, the similarly lay with the fact that I hadn't made it to Snettisham for an extended stay as planned (which was the original purpose of the summer weeks off), but was finally able to depart on Friday morning for a simple three day weekend. I'd been disappointed after our return from Pavlof that the Ronquil was still in the shop. It might be ready Wednesday afternoon, the welder thought, but more likely Thursday afternoon. I was too exhausted and discouraged (and maybe coming down with something) to go back to work, so I wiled away three days at home running errands and catching up on housework and relaxing here and there, waiting waiting waiting for the call that never came. Thursday morning I left a message for the welder that was never returned. Thursday afternoon I ran into my mother who told me that Dean (the welder) had told my dad (who had the Alaskan at his shipyard) that my boat was ready, how he'd called me, and was surprised I hadn't picked it up right away. Naturally I checked my phone log and no such call was logged. So I quickly called them, gave someone my credit card number, and rushed down to pick up the Ronquil. The shiny new floorboard supports looked fantastic--it was clear they'd done a fantastic job and for exactly the budget I gave them.

That morning I'd done some reconnaissance at Home Depot and other lumberyards expecting to find all the supplies I needed to build a railing system on the bridge. I was gravely disappointed, as the pre-cut cedar railing posts I had at Snettisham are no longer carried at Home Depot and no one else seemed to have anything like that. As I didn't have enough posts for the whole bridge, I had to come up with an alternative, and the only thing likely seemed to be doing it entirely with pressure treated (PT) lumber and cutting the posts myself. And so I spent considerable time during the day drawing bridge schemes until I finally came up with a simple solution involving a single cut to the posts (where they meet the logs), then attaching 2x4 railings toward the top and bottom of the posts, 2x6 railings across the top, and 2x4 balusters (since they don't make 2x2 PT lumber). I drew it all out based on the existing notches I cut in the logs eight feet apart and put together a materials list. After I picked up the Ronquil I went right out to Home Depot and bought it all, including lag bolts. Chris helped me load the boat, all the lumber fitting tidily along the center line--one stack from between the seats onto the back bench and the rest from the bow onto the other stack. I was all packed and ridiculously looking forward to working hard on that bridge, my muscles feeling somewhat atrophied from lack of mid-summer labor.

Friday morning dawned mild and wonderful. The winds were calm, a blessing for a heavily loaded vessel and frayed nerves. To capture the joy I felt at sliding the Ronquil into the water for the first time in a month and a half, I took a picture with my iPhone, intending to text it to anyone who cared with a caption along the lines of "I am made whole." I felt perfect. Cailey was annoying me a little, as the tide was very low she was enjoying herself with the halibut carcasses stranded on the launch ramp. As the engine hadn't been run in some time, I expected it would start slow, which it did. After a few quick starts, I kept it going with generous choke and at some point the engine kicked into gear which it does occasionally when heavily choked. No worries, I shut it down and started it again. Cailey was refusing to pull herself away from carcasses, so I untied us (figuring she'd come running as I pulled away), and (still exhaulted), put it in gear. Or, rather, I tried to put it in gear. The engine whirred but nothing caught. I tried reverse, same result. That smooth green water out beyond the harbor would not be enjoyed that day by me. I admit that it was not my finest hour and there may have been tears as I puttered around trying to think if there was anything I could do. Of course there wasn't. I called my mechanic, Scott Lawless, and he graciously told me to bring it right out. I waited almost half an hour, though, as the tide had fallen so low that the trailer wheels would drop below the concrete launch ramp onto less solid substrate and I wasn’t sure how well they would rise back up with my load. I sat in the car, overcome with moroseness, and read a little of a book I'd brought along (Blue Water, White Death) to distract me. When I finally delivered the boat to Scott, he was kind enough to explore some potential quick solutions, all to no avail of course, and in the end suggested it probably needed a new gear box. I left the boat there, lumber and all, and drove home numb with disappointment.

Thankfully, the weekend wouldn't be a total adventure loss. My parents were headed up the Taku so I joined them after an hour's down time at home. We took off over the same calm water eating popcorn from Petro Marine, drinking the Modelo Especials that my mother brought, and trying to let only a little of my sullenness show. Poor Cailey had had just as bad a day; her short morning walk was interrupted by my hurrying back home to get my garbage up in time (I assumed I'd missed it, but saw the garbage truck nearby and heading my way), then I'd let my irritation at her waywardness at the harbor be compounded by my general frustration, and I'm sure she was affected by my mood even when not directed at her. But Jenny was there, and I knew she was about to have a wonderful time, even if it wasn't the weekend I'd planned.

Thankfully, by the time we left the Taku on Sunday, I'd worked hard, accomplished much, and generally had a fantastic time. We made it through the sandbars with no issues and arrived at the landing, noting its general brushiness with new logs and detritus washed up. I opened up the cabin and met my mom at the shed to pick up the 4-wheeler. My dad reminded me how to put it into reverse (which is a little complicated) and I picked up all the gear. That evening our main task was to get the water pump working again with the new pipe parts brought from town. We lubed up the threads with a new tub of pipe thread lube and put it together in short order. The bugs were only slightly better than the last time we'd been there and were particularly bad in the woods. My mother fetched water to prime the pump and on the first pull we had water. We hooked up the hose, put away the tools, and all wound up back at the cabin. After a little more than ten minutes of pumping, I heard a strange sound and got up to see water pouring down the bathroom wall between the logs! The tank had clearly overflowed, so I ran down to the pump and turned it off; overflowing is normal, but we'd never had it seep through the walls before!

All in all it was a success and we had running water again. That evening I ate organic spaghetti-ohs for dinner (they sound better than they taste) and half a can of peas and went to bed early.

Cailey thought 7:00 was an appropriate time for getting up, but I managed to ignore her pacing until 7:30. Then I joined her and started puttering around outside, still desperately anxious for physical labor. First I dug out around the outhouse in preparation for moving it down over the new outhouse hole. In place for about 20 years, 3-8" of dirt had built up around it, so I dug it away, clipping tree roots as I worked. When I'd cleared all the edges I found the outhouse amazingly easy to pry up with a crowbar. I took out the bag of lime inside (the only heavy thing), but further work would require assistance.

As my folks were still having breakfast, I started wandering around the property on a task I'd been meaning to do for a long time. Years of weekend trips to the cabin had resulted in garbage lying around all the areas where work takes place--a forgotten glove here, a random board thrown over there, an old piece of plywood stashed under a tree and long rotten, a piece of plastic tarp under three inches of humus, etc., etc. I finally went on a cleanup mission, first around the work shed (gathering up trash and consolidating some pieces of the ruined plastic pre-fab shed that were strewn about into a single pile), then moved over to the wood splitting area where there was an old black plastic sheet that had probably protected the wood, an overturned barrel that I righted and stashed between some trees, and three sheets of badly rotten plywood that I leaned against a tree to break up and burn later. From there I wandered down to the riverfront where I pulled a stray square of black float into the bushes where the whole pile lay (I'm not sure I knew they were there until that moment), moved some boards in there too, and picked up a little garbage. Although a small task, I was pleased with the progress.

By that time, my parents were ready for work and their first task was clearing out the debris from the boat landing, which was not only a little out of hand but prevented the riverboat from being pulled alongside the Kathy M. We headed down there and my mother and I started looking at the log that was just upriver from the landing; although tied to the bank, the log appeared to have drifted downstream somewhat and was in the way. Just above that was a root wad, also tied to the bank. We thought we needed more rope to move the log, so Dad went back with the 4-wheeler to pick up a big spool. In the meantime, my mother and I surprised ourselves by rolling the log upriver where we wanted it; she untied the root wad from the bank, which had a lot of excess line, and we wound up using that line to tie the log up close to the root wad and both to the bank.

From there my mother began trimming branches off the massive tangle downstream from the landing which were sticking up every which way and getting in the way when we pulled in. She was targeting a long piece of driftwood stuck on the outer edge of the mass and a big log there, but was unable to reach either at that moment. While she worked on that, my dad showed me the trees he needed cut down in order to connect the 4-wheeler road to the boat landing with the track that runs to the guest cabin so he could make a loop instead of laboriously backing up. The small, dead trees were easy to cut, but I was a little more cautious about the live tree, about 6" in diameter. But, the cut went pretty well and the canopy was so thick that it didn't fall very far and my dad showed me how to cut upward from a tree at a right angle to the trunk which causes it to break at the point and fall down. That in combination with some good shaking and leaning brought it most of the way down.

Out of the way of the 4-wheeler path we turned to the bigger spruce closer to the river. This was a scary cut, a substantial tree that, unlike all the others around it, had short live branches growing all over its trunk down to the ground (the rest were dead up to the canopy). For this one, my dad had me cut a notch on the mountain side, then cut from the riverbank side downward toward the notch. Everything he recommended seemed to work and I came away from the whole process with a lot more confidence in tree cutting. The little Stiel I used didn't hurt either--it's a fantastic, light little machine that is easy to start and perfect for those sorts of tasks. I worked for quite a long time before I felt any back aches—much much longer than I can work with my 16" Poulan.

So the bigger tree was cut easily enough; it slid off its stump and stopped completely. The canopy was so dense that we had to pull it twice with the 4-wheeler to bring it to a cuttable angle. I was less comfortable making those cuts, so my dad made the first several and it worked its way down 20 feet or so. He wanted to buck it all up into firewood right away, so I took the chainsaw back and, without further instruction, bucked up the pieces of the larger spruce my dad had just brought down, then made the rest of the upward cuts to bring the full tree down, limbed and bucked it up, then did the same for the other live spruce. While I was working on that, my dad was loading the 4-wheeler with the rounds and my mother was clipping the smaller branches off the logs I hadn't cut yet. After my dad took the final live rounds, I used the clippers to cut a path through the devil's club for the final 15" to meet up with the road (following the route my dad had made with the 4-wheeler). Then my mother came back, I cut a few more dead trees, and bucked all of those up as well. My dad's been talking about making that loop for years, and I was delighted to help, to get more comfortable with chainsawing, and get some exercise too.

After that we had lunch and all of us took a well-deserved nap. Then I wandered upriver to check on my meadow, the ripeness of the blueberries, and see if I could make it to the meadows upriver. For the last several years, either crashing through the brush to get upriver or skirting around the brush in the meadows have proved an arduous task, making the cabin feel somewhat hemmed in despite the 4-wheeler road we made last year and my meadow. There used to be a clear trail, but we hadn’t found it recently and the people from the lodge who are largely responsible for it (despite the fact that it is on our property) have apparently abandoned it (possibly because the strawberries at the other end of it are so scarce anymore). But it was always hard for me to believe that it was really so far gone, as I'd used it not that long ago. It was, in fact, still there, just badly overgrown. Just after turning upriver inland from Debbie's meadow, the obvious way to go is angling toward the meadows, and that's what kept getting us in trouble. Blocked by fast-growing willows, the actual trail bears left and is recognizable for some distance, the light loving plants growing there pale and lanky as they are squeezed out by willows and alders overshadowing them along with their prickly spruce cousins. But I was able to follow it for some distance, and trimmed for an hour or more to make the trail passable. Eventually I encountered the edge of a slough I didn't recognize and lost the trail. Feeling like I should get back and help anyway, I returned to the cabin to find my parents busy, so immediately set out upriver to sit in Debbie's meadow. All this while I'd been barefoot, but I felt pressed for time and did not walk as slowly as I should. The trail upriver is covered in the small stumps of blueberries, willows, and alders, so abundant that trimming them tidily down to the ground or below was impractical when we cut it. Grown up with flowers and other plants, they cannot be seen. I'd stepped on many of them uncomfortably already, but on the way upriver I stepped on one with my left foot and compensated with my right foot, which managed to step on another one, cutting it. As I sat beside the large spruce at the back of my meadow I spied some yarrow and smushed some leaves onto the cut to stop the bleeding. Other than that, the sit was pleasant. The sun was out, the glaciers shining, the day exceptionally beautiful and warm.

When I got back, my mother and I worked on the outhouse. This process went surprisingly well. We wound up detaching the partially-loose sunwood or pressure treated 2xs from the bottom of the outhouse and using them as skids. My mother did most of the pushing while I used Big Charlie, the immense crowbar, to raise it up. I think we were both surprised by how well this worked. Not that it wasn't a lot of work (my mother discovered she'd abraded her back the next day when she sprayed Off on it!), but we were successful in getting it down to the new site, turned around, and over the hole before dinner. My mother made artichokes and scalloped potatoes and we feasted after a good day's work. After dinner I returned to the outhouse and shoveled the entire mound of dirt and sand onto the previous outhouse hole (level with the natural ground) and into the trenches I'd dug around it and covered it all with a couple pieces of plywood to discourage the dogs.

Cailey and Jenny play on the way up	Moose tracks!	Dad brings the spruce down
The new trail	Bucked up firewood	Bucked up spruce
Pink wintergreen	Cailey rests in the meadow	Mom and the dogs relax

The next morning Cailey vomited at 5:00 and I got up to clean the carpet before it dried. Surprisingly, she didn't want to come downstairs so I avoided letting her outside. Apparently exhausted, we both slept until 8:30. After washing up, the sink in the bathroom overflowed (I'd for some reason decided I didn't need to check on the status of the bucket since my parents were there) and while I talked to my mother about the best strategy, we all heard the most horrible dog fight sounds coming from outside. I could only imagine that both dogs were being mangled by some sort of aggressive wildlife, but all I found was Cailey on the ground screaming with Jenny attached to her head. I yelled and moved toward them, not sure what was going on, and they separated. Cailey had two good puncture wounds between her eyes; my guess is that Jenny got her jaws accidentally locked around Cailey's head when they were playing and wound up unintentionally biting down. For her part, Cailey seemed unphased (more interested in finding scraps of food when she came inside than anything) and the dogs were playing again shortly thereafter.

My parents decided to continue to try to get the mower going, which had failed to start the previous afternoon, so I worked on the outhouse a little and then went upriver again to the end of my trail and crashed through the brush figuring I'd make my way to the meadow upriver and then backtrack looking for the other end of the path. Going through the forested section was relatively easy, as the undergrowth wasn't very thick, but once I reached the alders which must border the spruces, the going was slow and arduous. The alders seemed to go on and on with no end in sight! I eventually veered back toward the mountain and stumbled upon the trail again, grass and pale flowers overhung by a deciduous forest. I worked my way back until I found the slough I'd stopped at the day before and turned around to continue cutting. I was at it for at least an hour and a half, cutting branch after branch after branch, first carefully pushing them off the path and under the trees and eventually just leaving most of them where they lay. I couldn't believe how long the trail was! I didn't remember taking that long to pass through that section. I eventually stopped cutting and just walked the rest of the distance to satisfy myself that it ended, still farther along than I thought. In the end, I did make it all the way to the start of the meadows (beginning to fill in with spruces), but didn’t manage to cut through the last few stands of trees.

When I got back, my dad was happily mowing the meadow, so my mom and I finished placing and leveling the outhouse. The ground was surprisingly sloped around the hole so we had to put a 3x and a 2x under the back to make it almost level (with a 2x in front too). This created significant gaps along the sides through which critters could get in. Despite my efforts to cover the hole and create an escape route after I dug the hole, about four shrews had fallen in and died and I didn't want to repeat that, so we went about filling in the gaps with scraps of wood and dirt.

After that we broke for lunch and then I walked upriver to the meadow to show my mother the rediscovered trail. We took much longer than we needed to, as I couldn't resist cutting more branches back as we went (and we also cut a trail through the clump of bushes that separate the first meadow we broke into with the rest of them). Back at the cabin, my parents started getting ready to go so I went to work back behind the wood shed. Earlier I'd moved the second stack of broken pre-fab shed to a spot right behind the work shed and brought over the other stack to consolidate the clutter and improve the view. My mother and I had talked about a strategy to create a trail back there that allowed the 4-wheeler to loop around the work shed rather than having to back out when pulled up on the downriver side. So, having nothing else to do, I decided to work on that trail. The space between the well and the side of the shed on the upriver side really wasn't wide enough for the 4-wheeler, and I was loathe to cut a path through the blueberries up toward the cabin, so I came up with a plan to loop through the trees. It would be tight, but I thought it was possible. Use a swede saw, I cut the several dead and two live alders (barely hanging on) behind the shed at the start of the trail, then trimmed dead spruce branches and cut other dead alders and dead alder stumps until I had a path. I used the 4-wheeler to test it out and, by turning as sharp as possible just past the work shed, I was able to circle through the trees and comfortably miss the water pump, winding up back where I started. It's not perfect, but functional and better than a path through the blueberries!

My parents were still packing up, so I went down to the river to sit and read for about half an hour on an old log there. Though I was loath to leave, I remembered I'd left my watch upstairs and pulled myself away after freshening up with a spit bath in the river (there was the potential to show up at Chris's work party straight from the harbor and I'd been working hard in the heat). I met up with my mother coming back from the boat landing with the 4-wheeler and showed her the new path. We walked back to the boat, loaded it up, and she made an attempt to cut that pesky branch on the way out. It proved surprisingly difficult and it still there as I write this, though more than half sawn through. The whole departure was a little chaotic as the boat was still aground and required the engine to back her away, Jenny was reluctant to enter the boat at all, and we seemed to have different agendas. It was well before high tide, so we nervously cruised down over a river that is clearly changing dramatically. Where once there were deep channels, there are now sandbars and rocks and riffles. But, we made it out with no incident and enjoyed another sunny, calm ride back to Juneau, my brooding mood entirely lifted and excited to come back up the Taku and continue my work. Over the last two years I feel like I've reclaimed the Taku--learned the systems to maintain and operate the cabin, cut trails and meadows to make the place more easy to move around in and more enjoyable to use, and generally helped improve it. It's not just a place I like to go, it's a place I own now. And while cutting trees seems a strange way to prove that, somehow it solidifies this relationship. Untouched wilderness is priceless, but we are creatures who need trails if we are to live on the land (at least in a place as dense as Southeast Alaska); without trails, we cannot use the land enough to really love it. And so by trimming and cutting and occasionally killing trees, we nurture and become a greater part of the land.

The new path upriver

The loop behind the shed

The outhouse in its new position

Taku Glacier at dawn