Taku
2022 - 6: Close-up
September 28 - 30
It's day three and, having accomplished much yesterday, there's no reason for antsiness and I'm hoping to get caught up on this log while my mom and Roger chat over coffee and cookies. An unexpected addition, Roger had returned from a couple of weeks hunting in Windom Bay the morning we left and turned right around to come with us. We switched boats in the slip and left around 2:00 under an overcast fall sky. We slowed for some Taku seas between Bishop and Cooper, but surprisingly, they laid down as we approached Jaw Point. We saw porpoise between Bishop and Salisbury and again beyond Jaw. The air grew chill as we entered the river and tried to keep clear of the many logs flooded out of the river from the 68,000+ CFS from the day before (following a big, rainy storm on Monday). We did pick up a willow branch near Scow Cove and had to dislodge it from the lower unit, but otherwise followed the usual route and made it up in good time. The river was still high (around 50,000 CFS) and the meadow was flooded so that the channel could only be recognized by the clumps of willows and alders, and rootwad, along the bank. For the first time, we found the water above the level of the landing and were faced with an apparent four-foot gap between the end of the floats and the stairs. While my mom and I were unloading gear, Roger shimmied onto the leaning log nearby and up the bank. I tested the depth and found the platform in only about eight inches of water, so handed the gear up the stairs to Roger from there. He grabbed a 2x8 that Cailey and my mom crossed on. We got our gear up to the cabin in one cart load and opened up.
More rain was forecast, so although I wanted to crash, I thought I'd better take the opportunity to go for a final canoe and pick up the avalanche rock game camera while it was still dry. Mostly jokingly, I invited my mom along, and to my surprise, Roger talked her into it and we soon headed out. The meadow was stunningly beautiful, with yellow birches and streaks of red on the blue mountainside. The slough, of course, was high, and I could barely reach the first line on the canoe. My mom and I boarded and floated forward to untie the second line, then realized we were backwards in our seats and turned around awkwardly for the rest of the short trip into the side slough. The water had surrounded the back of the rock face, but was just narrow enough to make a wide step across. It looked like there were mounds of sticks and debris there which we speculated were marking stations for beavers. Unfortunately, the camera was just there, having been knocked down the back side of the rock. The avalanche had melted more than I'd expected, with a wide arc of rock visible through the middle and an ice cave above.
While there, a boat with a canoe inside cruised up the slough and passed the landing, so on the way back we checked on the status of the no hunting sign on the mountainside channel and found it intact but submerged. Back at the landing, Roger said he thought the boat had stopped within the property boundary, and it was such a fine evening that we decided to walk the meadow to the property line to check. We had to work a little to cross some of the small sloughs which were flooded, but otherwise the walking was easier than mid-summer. We finally reached a slough that was just too deep and wide to cross and followed it inland until it split and we were able to cross both smaller tributaries. This turned out to be the meadow area past Pretty Meadow that I'd followed inland until I reached the tree we'd had bucked up in June. To my surprise, everyone wanted to continue (with the possible exception of Cailey) and we followed the loop to the property line. There we saw the top of an engine in the slough, but beyond the boundary. We could neither see nor hear any activity, which was puzzling.
We checked out Devastation Alley and Roger picked a couple handfuls of nagoonberries. Most were overripe or gone or still unripe, but there were a few delicious ones (even strawberries) if one took their time. By then it was sprinkling and we headed back along the trail. My mom heated up some corn chowder which we ate with pretzel rolls for a late dinner.
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I headed to bed early and didn't sleep particularly well, getting up around 8:00. I had some breakfast and enjoyed a cup of coffee Roger made with heavy cream and maple syrup--delicious. Then, while my mom and Roger enjoyed a leisurely morning, I headed out to get going on close up projects, ever unable to relax with chores hanging over my head. First I checked on the boat, amused to find the floats sitting on the edge of the landing, now about 8" inches above the water (easily shoved off). I filled the empty water jug and, one more time, replaced the water in the old water jug that had been bleached earlier in the summer, then unscrewed the bear-proofing plywood on the water tower after marking the river side pieces with arrows and marks to indicate where they should go (R for "river" with an arrow). The sharpie quickly died, so hopefully what I was able to do will make sense in the spring. I left the olive barrel open to drain, then headed down to Alder where I filled up the 4-wheeler and generator with gas and added an ounce of fuel stabilizer to those engines and to the splitter. I started the generator and turning the fuel off to run until it died. I also took out the 4-wheeler battery to take to town (which required me to unfasten the wires connecting the rack to the back of the 4-wheeler). Earlier, I'd started the water pump but it was running so poorly I shut it down. When Roger and my mom came out, he drained some fuel out, figuring it was water in the gas, and it ran until the water overflowed, though continued to sputter periodically. Roger went to put putty on the two window panes he replaced on their last trip while my mom and I added fuel and stabilizer to the water pump fuel tank, unhooked it from the well pipe, and used the small aquarium siphon I'd bought off amazon to pump the water out of the priming tank. Then we headed up to the cabin and cut the old boards that had been outside Alder and that had been bothering me for years for firewood using my skilsaw, followed by the old lumber from the garden boxes that had been stashed under the back porch. I swept the back porch, dumped the rest of the water out of the olive barrel, and put it up on the back porch (the new supports on the tower caught the olive barrel nicely as it drained). My mom had brought up garden stakes, so I staked up the roses on the side of the cabin; results exceeded expectations, making them more attractive and possibly more protected from snow fall in addition to clearing the path for walking. Finally, I harvested the Tlingit potatoes. Although they produced maybe half what the ones at Snettisham did, we were pleased that they did exceed the seeds by a significant degree, producing a number of lovely little potatoes in both pots (more in the garden box than the pot at the river). My mom found some tiny rutabagas in her garden box and the beet roots actually tasted like beets!
I went in and cooked quesadillas for lunch and we relaxed as the rain went from moderate to heavy. We headed out to stash the floats for the winter shortly before 3:00 in the pouring rain. I had to return to Alder to grab some stakes and Cailey followed me back from the landing, but probably missed my turn and went up to the cabin instead. When I didn't find her at the boat, I had to return to the cabin, coaxing her to come. I should have put her back inside. Down at the dock, we decided to tow the floats alongside just where they were attached to the boat. Roger retied the lines from the Kathy M while I untied the lines holding the dock to shore. The anchor line was a tricky one, having been under pressure and underwater all summer, and I laid down on the floats to pull it apart. Then I had to untie the anchor line from the tree from which I fed it a little at a time to my mom and then Roger at the dock pulling it through the floats until we were free. We all hopped aboard then and we pulled into the river. I drove the boat, very slowly, down into the slough and up onto the bank just beyond the property line. There were interesting ducks in the slough with white patches on their cheeks, but birdwatching was difficult. Not only was the rain torrential, but, consequently, all the windows in the Kathy M were hopelessly fogged up. Everything was wet.
Pulling the floats up in itself went really well, though we had little inefficient hangups like that the Kathy M couldn't get up on the grassy bank far enough for my mom's short rubber boots and then when I put the anchor out I didn't throw it into shallow enough water to fetch it later. The dogs jumped onto the floats, so we had to extricate them and Cailey was unwilling to jump into the flooded land, even though there were only a few inches of water on the upper side. Impatient, I unceremoniously scooped her off and felt rather bad about it. She had leaped onto the floats all on her own, which was quite cute, but she quickly got quite wet, from all directions. At my suggestion, we rotated the floats 90 degrees so the walkway faced the slough; my thought was this meant that the least amount of the floats would float at high water. My mom was worried it was the weakest part and most exposed to ice or logs, so we put one of the stakes on that end and tied a third line along the upriver side of the floats through the tongue and the middle of the floats and to a willow. Roger and I had pulled the floats high enough so my mom could join us and maintain dry feet and then the three of us heaved maybe six times before we had the top edge up onto dry land. It all went pretty quickly and we left the floats intact. I left Roger tying his line to the same willow I'd tied mine to, then went and fetched the canoe with Cailey, unloading the pup and then picking up the others stranded on the floats. This solved the problem of the anchor being in water over our boots. Jenny, for her part, leapt onto the boat eagerly.
Everything was ridiculously wet and the rain kept coming. We tied the canoe off to the side, then took a tour upriver until we found the track of a moose that had been drug to the slough just beyond big bend, the trail climbing the slope of the nearby moraine. We were saddened, though at least there had only been one trail along the slough to that point. The scenery was spectacular--low misty clouds, raging waterfalls everywhere, red and gold and yellow and orange on the mountains and around the deep brown slough. I stoop in the back deck in the pouring rain and watched the scenery go by while Roger drove, as I could see nothing inside and was already wet. By the time we got back to the landing, we were all chilled, both dogs shivering, and Cailey wouldn't look me in the eyes. Roger brought the Kathy M up right next to the landing, which was a couple of inches above the water and handed the dogs off the bow. I went back out with a long line and anchored the boat, canoeing back with the line that I'd tied to the stern. Dry clothes and a warm cabin were very welcome. We'd been out around three hours. My mom made a salad and sockeye salmon for dinner with oatmeal raisin cookies for dessert.
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The cabin was very hot when I headed upstairs to stretch and go to bed, so I stepped onto the back porch to cool down. I don't think the rain was torrential at that point and the overwhelming sound from the darkness was the roar of the mountainside from the waterfalls, some distance away but like the sound of a jet plane overhead. I slept a little better and got up around 8:00, enjoying some leisureliness and catching up on this report next to a cracked window, the cabin having heated up very quickly again in the morning. Around 9:45 I got antsy to do the remaining projects, suited up in raincoat and hat, and headed down to Alder with the bolts my mom had bought to replace the screws that came with the new sliding bolt kit which risked the possibility of someone simply unscrewing the hardware to get inside. I found the screws much too robust and tight for my electric drill, but managed to unscrew one by hand with a large screwdriver. I couldn't find a bit that was small enough for the bolts so, figuring I needed to shore up the canoe at the landing anyway, I headed down to where we'd overturned the canoe and quickly supported its center with the block of concrete we had stashed there. Then I easily pulled the Kathy M into the bank with the stern line. It came in just slightly upriver of the landing, so I had to make along step to get onboard. Once there, I let out about six feet of line, hoping to make loading that much easier when we left. The water was then a couple of inches below the landing. I grabbed a bit from my drill kit (which we'd loaded the day before) based on the bolt I'd brought and returned to Alder. I had to pound the bolt through with a hammer and clean the sawdust off the end with a wire brush before the nut would screw on, but it went well enough. With some work, I was able to unscrew the remaining three screws and replace them, tightening everything with a socket wrench.
While I worked, Roger came down and fetched the jar of diesel, some injection oil, and a funnel and filled our can of fire-starting oil. When my project was complete, I picked up the lumber my mom had set aside to shore up her canoe and carried it down to the landing, adding those pieces to the 2x8 I'd left there in case we needed it for loading the boat as we had for unloading (having forgotten that there would be no floats when we left), which filled the needed gap. It was then about 11:30, so I added rain pants to my outfit, filled my pockets with my inreach, leatherman, zip ties, wire, and a trail camera and grabbed a hammer and shims and headed out back while my mom and Roger harvested the garden and took the screens off the windows. I dropped the shims at the board over the slough and hopped along the edges of the rest of the trail to avoid the deep pools that had formed. The meadow was gorgeous and the cliffs alive with waterfalls. I first stopped by the no hunting sign near the slough border which was facing the wrong direction, finding that the stake was twisted in place (above ground) about 140 degrees. I wound up pulling the whole thing up and resetting it so the flat side of the stake faced the direction the sign faces, then rewired the sign in. Then I headed to the floats and switched the two stakes my mom and I had pounded in so the longer one without the flange was in front where the floats might float (worried that the stake might get pulled out if it hit the flange, since that end of the floats would float first). The water level, though near low tide, was just about where it had been when we'd left them the day before.
On the way back, I encountered a lively group of chickadees in the willows near the edge of the trail. There were at least seven of them, cheerily calling to each other as they bopped around the bushes. With them was at least one ruby-crowned kinglet and one that I believe was a golden-crowned kinglet, though I could never get a good enough look to be sure. I had considered bringing binoculars, but it was raining so hard I opted against it. It's so hard to bird watch in the pouring rain. On the other side of me, a dark song bird flew into the bushes that I would guess was a fox sparrow. It was a lovely little fall flock and I was happy for the fall birdwatching.
Back on the trial, I shimmed both sides of the board bridge so it is reasonably level, using the thick end of one shim on the mountainside and two plus a thin shim on the cabin side. I had to excavate along the edge of the board with the claw of the hammer and then pry it up to place anything underneath, but it went pretty well and now that board is noticeably more level. These small improvements make all the difference! Back at the cabin I got a message from Ezra with the forecast: 2' seas that day building to 5-6' seas that night, then 6' diminishing to 2' the next day. Having finished our chores and with high water, we decided to head out early. I suggested 2:00, with half an hour for lunch and an hour to finish cleaning and pack (it was then 12:30), but quesadillas take a long time to cook one at a time and we didn't get moving until I pointed out that we'd spent an hour for lunch and it was then almost 1:30. I packed my own gear and then swept while my mom cleaned the bathroom and Roger washed the dishes. I'd already dumped what I hoped was enough water out of the water jugs and put them inside and, when the dishes were done, opened the valve to the water tank and then we opened the valves under the sinks. And then we were out in the rain, heading to the landing, the river totally misted in and calm. The water was about half an inch from the top of the landing on the front side and just above it on the back--the result of the level of the support beam being half a bubble off. The same was true along the back, the downriver corner being slightly above water. Every time I stood on or looked at that landing I was beyond pleased with it--I still think it's one of the best things I've ever done!
The boat came in with the back corner lining up perfectly with the landing. I tightened the line and stashed the gear that my mom handed down to Roger and Roger handed down to me. The dogs stepped on with no hesitation. Then my mom returned the cart to Alder and locked it and the garage door up while I untied the line holding us to shore and held on with my hands (effortlessly). When we were all aboard, Roger pulled the anchor and off we went at 2:30 on a river only slightly lower than it had been on our arrival. The inside of the cabin was hopelessly fogged over and my mom used a spare windshield wiper blade to repeatedly wipe the front windows while Roger drove. Back with Cailey, I could see almost nothing, and wound up telling Roger to avoid the rock wall before we were actually there because I couldn't tell one cliff from another--not to mention the blossoming waterfalls everywhere! We escaped the river without issue and were relaxed enough by the time we reached the Scow Cove coastline for my mother and me to open our tiny champagne bottles and toast to the successful and wonderful summer. The seas were mild and we barely felt them. Roger had been following a track of his down the river and, after passing Jaw Point, had kept going down toward Grand Island instead of turning and following the coast to the channel. My mom asked him where he was going and he made a small adjustment, but continued southeast. My mother and I shared bemused looks and eventually gently suggested that he might want to head for the channel... Roger finally realized that he was following the track back to Windom Bay rather than to Juneau! We were making such good time that it didn't make much difference, but we had a good laugh about it. My mom and I had second bottles of champagne as we finished the journey, me managing to keep warm enough with long underwear and gloves on. Ezra met us at the dock and the four of us quickly tied up, unloaded, and headed home. It's the next day now and it still hasn't quite sunk in yet that summer is over, the cabins are closed up. I'm sure I need a few days to relax and fully recover, but in general I feel better than I ever remember feeling at the end of the season--that is, like I'm just me and not an exhausted summer zombie. Happy Fall!
Fall mountainside