Salmon Survey

Last week I took a trip with the fish biologist at the park Dave, to help him with a salmon survey on Copper Lake and Tanada Lake. We were delayed a day due to cloudy conditions, but eventually we were able to pack-up the float plane leave for Copper Lake. When we got to the lake Dave and I had our own cabins, so I put all of my things in the cabin. When I was about to head back out of the cabin I noticed this bucket with a little bit of water in it, and inside there was something dark. I looked at it a little closer and this is what I saw

that is a dead bat by the way. Um yeah… It must have fallen into the bucket and couldn’t get out. When I dumped it outside it had been in the water so long it just burst open when it hit the ground, it was pretty nasty.

At Copper Lake we collected flesh samples of salmon. Copper Lake is unique in that it has kokanee salmon, this is salmon that remains in the lake it was born into for its entire life. They don’t grow as large as the sockeye salmon that go out to the ocean for a few years. The park is interested to see how closely related the kokanee salmon are to the sockeye salmon in the lake, so it was up to us to collect DNA samples that could be compared. We just walked along the shore the first day and collected samples from fish that had washed up on shore. The next day we took a boat out to find fish that were floating on the lake. I had to scoop up the fish and put them in the boat.

Later in the day we were picked up by the float plane and taken to Tanada Lake which is not too far away from Copper. Luckily this time when I got into my cabin there wasn’t a dead bat, well at least one I found : )

At Tanada Lake we were still collecting dead salmon, but for this study we didn’t need good DNA we just needed the heads to be intake because we were collecting otolith bones from the fishes’ skulls. Otolith bones are two small bones that rest just underneath the brains, during the fish’s life the bones get larger forming distinct growth rings that can be used like growth rings on a tree. The whole point of collecting these bones it to see the relative age of the fish spawning in the lakes. Because these were just bones in the head, it really didn’t matter what the

rest of the fish looked like, or smelled like for that matter. I picked up some of the nastiest fish I have ever seen and then I just had to throw them in the boat. At points I was kneeling in a huge pile of rotting oozing fish. Luckily I had rubber gloves so my hands didn’t smell super nasty and Dave was the one to cut open the heads and get out the bones, I was tasked with opening and keeping track of the vials the bones were going to go into. Hey I wasn’t complaining, these fish were disgusting, I am glad it was windy because that would have been bad.

Snow has begun, ice was starting to form on
Tanada Lake : (

This was my last trip for the season, for the next 30 days I will be tasked with writing the end of year report and mounting collected plant specimens that are back logged from previous years. All in all it was a good last trip; I got to see a really clear night sky a couple of the nights, there were water fowl all over the place, and I saw my first caribou. Plus now I REALLY know I don’t want to be a fish biologist. : )

These salmon get some pretty nastly teeth when they are spawning

If you look closely you can see the age rings on each of the otolith bones

Marc and Me

The first week of September Marc came to visit me in Alaska. I have been looking forward to this for weeks and have been very excited as you can imagine. I picked him up in Anchorage at about 2 on Sept 1st and we headed to the Alyeska resort about a half an hour south of Anchorage. It was absolutely beautiful we had a great time. They had a great pool, awesome landscaping, and the hotel restaurant was wonderful.

The next day we made our way further south to the coastal city Seward. We went to the aquatic center, which was pretty cool. They take in rehab animals from the bay area and set them free when they get better, so we got to see all sorts of animals. Later that
night we took a little hike in Kenai Fjords National Park up to the Exit Glacier. I tried to get Marc to climb

These fish were super cool they held onto the glass
with their fins it was crazy

on it with me but there were signs saying not to go up there so Marc wouldn't let me go. Oh well, he missed out on an awesome experience. That night we tent camped in the park at their little campground. It was a pretty cool spot to camp, there weren't many people around which was a plus. The next morning we got up at 6:30am because I had a surprise event for Marc. I planned a sea kayaking trip to Caine's Head, which is an old WWII base. We kayaked to the beach and then took a hike short 2mi hike to the base. Our tour guide's name was Tramp he was really great and told us all sorts of stories about the stupid questions people ask him. (This is something every person working with tourists can understand.) One of my favorite ones was how people want to know when the smoked salmon run is...you know that is where you get smoked salmon from, right? ; ) We had a lot of fun. We saw a harbor seal, a sea otter, jumping silver salmon, and lots of sea birds.

Then it was off to Denali National Park and Preserve. It took us about 6hrs to get there from Seward (now that may seem like a lot, but in Alaska that really isn't that bad of a drive. For example it takes me 4hrs just to get to Anchorage.) We camped in the park upon arrival and tried to have a little fire, but for some reason the fire just wouldn't take well. The sky was really clear at this point and it was getting late so it just sucked all the heat away. I was freezing at this point so I just climbed into my sleeping bag and tried to think warm thoughts. But it was fine layers is the trick, and a really really nice sleeping bag. The next day Marc and I set off to look around the visitor center at the park and then onwards to a hike. We had lunch at the visitor center and this guy got all excited because I was wearing my MSU rowing jacket. He talked to us for awhile and when he was leaving he told us to have a good trip, make love, and stay together forever. Haha I didn't really know how to respond to that, um thank you? After that we took a hike to try and see Mt. McKinley. We had to hike up this little mountain side, or more like a tall hillside. Marc was struggling a little bit to get up the trail, but he did it eventually. I was so proud of him. Plus it was worth the hike up because we did get to see the mountain way off in the distance. Which apparently only about 30% of people who visit the park actually get to see. (Denali is so touristy, it was crazy. We saw more people in the morning just walking around the visitor center than I think I have seen come into Wrangell-St. Elias. I mean I don't really interact with guests here, but still. I can't even imagine what it would be like to work at Yellowstone, that would suck!)

Marc halfway up

Me halfway up

Same spot hahaha
I love you honey. (He is going to be so mad at me)

 

After our fun in Denali, it was off to boxtown just to hang around for a couple of days. We went fishing and one of my co-workers had a little hangout at her place, I cooked some salmon for Marc, and we watched some of the Office. All in all it was a really great vacation, I am so glad Marc was able to make it out here we had a lot of fun exploring Alaska together.

Return to Grizzly Lake

Peter let me use his fly fishing pole and show me how to fly fish

A few weeks ago Peter and I took a float plane to Grizzly Lake to do surveys for aquatic invasive plants. So in remembering how fricken cold I was the last time I was determined to be more prepared. I brought so many layers my pack was extremely heavy and full, but I was more than prepared. In actuality it was a really great week with super nice weather. We spent two days paddling around Grizzly Lake. We went fishing at the end of the work days and I caught several graylings, we only kept two for dinner one of the nights. But they were really good.

The third day we were picked up by the plane and dropped off at Copper Lake, which is a much larger lake nearby. We spent two days paddling around this lake looking for invasives. We didn't find any so that is good. On the last night there we went fishing again and I caught a good sized trout. I filleted it all by myself (this was the first time I have filleted a fish) and it actually turned out pretty well.

Then we tried to cook it...Yeah that could have went better. So Peter had this little piece of aluminum foil. We wrapped the fish up with some butter and seasonings. Then Peter made this little woven wooden structure to hold the fish up over the fire. I asked him if maybe we should soak the wood for awhile to prevent it from burning, to which he replied "We could, but it is sort of delicate." That should have been my first clue this wasn't going to turn out well, but alas I just brushed it off. So we put the fish on this little structure and Peter had me help to bring it over the fire. At this point it is cooking well and thinks look good. Then the foil starts to break open, because the fish is expanding slightly with being cooked. One side of the fish is getting close to being done, but the thicker meaty part is still very raw so Peter tries to flip the fish. That works for a little bit, but then one of the sticks in the woven holder falls and so does the fish, into the fire. Don't worry! all is still good, the foil is still covering most of the fish and only a few chunks of ash got on it; those can be picked off. So Peter decides we just need larger sticks to hold up the fish and takes some thicker pieces of wood and drapes those over the fire. At this point the foil is just falling apart everywhere. So he tries to put the fish on the three sticks without the foil. Well that didn't really work, because one of the pieces was nearing being done and the top half of the fillet (a.k.a the good meaty part) fell into the fire. There was no saving that piece. At that point little flies where flying everywhere biting us and trying to get to the fish. Eventually I just took the rest of the fish off of the fire cut it up into little chunks and threw it in this little pan I had and cooked it the rest of the way. Peter felt really bad about losing some of the fish, but honestly I wasn't even mad. We still got to eat plenty of fish, it was delicious, and it also makes for a good story : )

Horsefeld

Last week we flew into the backcoutry to Horsefeld, which is a hunters’ camp fairly close to the Canadian border. We were flown in on a beaver plane, which is a pretty large plane as bush planes go. The flight was about an hour long and it took us through some really beautiful country with a lot of glaciers. Upon arriving in Horsefeld you could see two fairly small runways that were basically just clear cut ground. The pilot circled around and we started to land on the larger of the two runways, but when we were

almost touched down he decided he didn’t like that one and took off again. He moved to the next one and started to land, then he decided he didn’t like that one either. Finally he moved to the original runway and started to land again. I’m not going to lie at this point I was getting pretty nervous, just saying that wouldn’t be an ideal way to die. We landed and the plane jumped up several feet then hit again and bounced once more. It was fine in the end, but still it wasn’t really a great landing for my nerves.

Peter and I unloaded our things from the plane and started to hike to the camp which was about a

15min hike away from the runway. We met the owner who was only about 25; he had inherited the camp from the previous owner. He was supper nice and offered each of us our own little cabin, which was nice because that means we didn’t have to tent camp.

For work we hiked around and mapped the various horse trails that braided the land surrounding the camp. Most of the horses that were at the camp were not really used to new people so there sort of avoided us, but there was one chestnut horse that actually let me pet him. Plus during our work hikes we saw a cow moose.

The return trip from Horsefeld was less nerve racking because the pilot landed by himself on the small runway and the runway on the other end was a nice gravel strip. Plus I was able to sit in the front of the plane this time and got to see whole new perspective.

Kennicott Root Glacier

This is the first glacier I have ever been on and it was a truly amazing experience. Honestly when I was hiking on and exploring the glacier it was easily the coolest thing I have done and seen in Alaska.

Bonanza Mines

I took this standing at the path looking up.
This part to the top took me the longest.

A couple of weeks ago I was stationed in Kennecott to work with a crew of interns to pull weeds. I decided to stay a day later and hike up the mountain to one of the three old copper mines. I started at about 8am on a beautiful sunny day. It took me roughly 3 hrs to hike the 4.5mile trail, I scaled roughly 3,800ft in elevation. But when I got to the top it was well worth the trip, I got to see an awesome view of the glacier and down the mountain. (I took a video of the view while I was up there, but for some reason my computer does not like the videos from my phone so you will have to settle with pictures.)

I stayed up in this little spot I found and just

looked at the amazing views for about an hour. The walk back down wasn’t so fun as the trail was steep the entire way which makes going down a lot slower, well going up it slower for that matter too. All in all I am super glad I stayed and went on this hike it was an awesome experience.

I found this guy at the very top just happy as a clam

Nugget Creek trail

This past week Peter and I went on a 3 day trip along a 15mi trail to Nugget Creek for survey and control work. We were able to get a UTV to use so we didn’t have to have to hike the entire way out and back. On Monday we left the headquarters and started our journey to the trail. The trail starts along the McCarthy road, but we didn’t have to drive the entire three hours to get to the end we just needed to go about an hour. After we got to the trail head we loaded up and were on our way. It took us about 2 hours to get to the end; we had to drive over some pretty big boulders, go through 3 or 4 creek (aka smallish river, and by no means gentle) crossings and some pretty wet swampy terrain. At our ending point was Nugget Creek. Now earlier in the season you are able to cross the creek; but not now, this creek was a good sized fast moving river. We unpacked our things at a camp site a little ways from the river and when we were finished Peter looked at me and said ok are you ready to cross?

Um, no!

So Peter failed to tell me there would be a creek crossing so I did not have do sturdy sandals to cross with, I had rain boots that were going to fill up super fast. Thus I elected to try and just walk through the river on the smooth river rocks. Peter went first, I wasn’t really watching him cross because I was attempting to get to the crossing location. So he gets across and goes to me, “it should be fine it was able this high.” The this high apparently meant his knee, but I was looking at the water at that point and didn’t really register what he was saying and I sort of was getting antsy knowing this was going to be cold so I just went for it instead of trying to figure out to where he had indicated. I did look up and see his rolled pants weren’t wet at all so I just figured it would be fine. Wrong! So Peter is a 6’4” tall guy who is pretty solid verses my 5’4” body. That foot in height makes a lot of difference when crossing a river because about a quarter of the way in I was getting soaked up to my thigh. We both had found walking sticks to help us cross, I heard walking stick so I assumed use it like you would a walking stick. Well apparently that is not the right technique I lost my footing and almost fell. At this point I am so cold by body is starting to shake (that water was fricken cold), so crossing is getting harder. Peter had to come out and help me to rest of the way, because it was getting harder and harder to manage. My bare feet were really hurting, I was soaked up to my butt and it can be difficult to recover from a near fall when water is still barreling down on you from above trying to make you fall. In the end I got across, plus I had on my 5.11 gear pants that are quick drying and awesome, so I was dry pretty quickly

Once on the other side we walked around the public cabin that was just up the river bank and surveyed the area. As you may recall our camp was set up on the other side of Nugget Creek so we got to go back across, Oh joy! : (

At this point I developed a new strategy, this is one of those things I won’t let beat me. I was determined to get across with no assistance. For one I was prepared for the fact that I was going to get super wet. Also after Peter came over to help me the rest of the way I saw how he crossed and developed that stance. Finally, and I think probably most importantly, I took the insoles out of my rain boots and put those on for some protection against the rocks. This time I crossed like a pro and only managed to get my rolled up pants wet to the mid-thigh, whoo! The rest of the night we made some food and had a nice little campfire near the river.

wooo bug jacket!

The next morning we woke up had some breakfast and got ready for the day. The night before all we had done was survey the area at the public cabin so today we needed to go back and pull everything we found. From the time I got up I was sort of dreading having to cross the creek. Mainly because it was quite a bit colder than the previous night and the sun also hadn’t peaked out of the mountains yet. So when Peter asked if I was ready I was slightly less than enthusiastic with my response. When we got to the creek I tried to suggest several different areas to cross but each and every one turned out to be far worse on closer inspection than the original spot from the day before. So much for trying to stay slightly drier. Either way, you gotta to what ya gotta do. So I slapped on my rain boots, shoved my hiking boots in my backpack, rolled up my pants, walked up to the river, did a sort ‘Don’t let me fall because that would really suck prayer’, and death gripped my walking stick (in the proper stance) all the way across without any problems. Plus, once again my paints weren’t as wet had they had been after both crossing from the night before.

After I poured the glacial water out of my boots and had a little bit of time to recover from the shivering I had a little ‘hell yeah!’ moment in my head and we were off to the cabin. Peter was ahead of me and was going

to go into the cabin to retrieve the garbage bag we had left there for the night. I was just walking up the bank and Peter was almost to the door when he let out a little shriek scream. (I was making fun of him today about it and he claimed it was a manly scream, it wasn’t, but if he asks say it was.) I stopped in my tracks because he backed away pretty quickly from the door. I asked if it was a bear. To which he responded, “No a porcupine!” Sure enough was is a very large porcupine displaying its many large barbs just chilling on some logs that were near the cabin entrance. Apparently it wasn’t too happy with Peter interrupting its sleep haha. We had to yell at it a few times because he wasn’t willing to leave this fine spot. The rest of the morning went like normal just controlling the weeds around the cabin. Then we headed back across the creek. I got across with no problems, Like a BOSS! We loaded up the UTV and were off back to the beginning of the trail.

Now the first day and night out on the trail really wasn’t very buggy. We were in a pretty open area with the creek nearby. This was not the case heading back slowly along the trail. The mosquitoes were everywhere. I wore my bug jacket the entire day and was even forced to eat lunch and dinner inside the jacket. I felt like a freak, but being a freak is better than being covered in mosquito bites. At the end of the day we reached the half way camp and unpacked. There was no sitting out in this buggy area for longer than you really needed to so once we were done eating dinner I stood by my tent planning how I was going to get into my tent with the least amount of mosquitoes. I decided on standing a few feet away breathing out hard a few times to get those horrible things to fly around my face (I still had the bug jacket on), and then I ran quickly unzipped the tent and dove in. Again I am sure I looked like something is wrong with me, but I don’t really care.

The final day we packed up and continued mapping and pulling invasives along the trail. About a mile away from the half way camp the UTV just died. Luckily we had a satellite phone and we were able to call the maintenance people. They had to drive all the way from headquarters to pick us up after finding some ATVs to get to us on the trail. Needless to say we called at 10am and they weren’t there until 2:30pm. Two guys showed up each on an ATV, they weren’t able to figure out how to fix the UTV with the limited resources they had so they decided to tow it out. The towing went pretty well considering we still had to cross a few creeks and some pretty swampy areas. Really I was just glad we didn’t have to hike out. We would have had to carry a lot of crap for about 7 miles. Plus we still had to make it the rest of the way along the McCarthy road to reach Kennecott by nights end, if we had to hike and then drive 2 more hours I would have just keeled over. We ended up making it to Kennecott at around 7pm so it wasn’t that bad from our planned 4:30pm.

Happy Belated Birthday

Because my parent’s flight back to Michigan was on July 5^th, or in other words my birthday, I didn’t really celebrate it too much. So my fellow boxtownies proposed we celebrate the next weekend. I had to work on Saturday because we had to do the Weed Smack Down. This was a little event set up by several different organizations to inform people about invasive plants in Alaska and to get some community involvement. The

event went really well, and we ended with a pretty large area in Glennallen being weeded of white sweet clover. (White sweet clover is a very aggressive invasive plant that can cause serious damage to river systems, by causing the systems to narrow. River narrowing is bad news for running Alaskan salmon.) When I got home from work my roommate Amy looked at me and smiled saying “I have something for you!” She led me into the kitchen and there on the counter were cupcakes with my name written on them. It was so sweet.

I got to make the movie choice; I picked Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 because it is adorable. Then we made a fire and just hung out the rest of the night. A great belated birthday!

Parents to Alaska

I am sure many of you who know my parents closely have already heard a lot about their trip to visit me, but here are some more pictures anyway.

A birthday gift from a gift shop in Glennallen. I laugh every time I look at the guy's face

Mom and Dad in Kennecott

So my mom and dad flew into Anchorage on June 29^th. I had just flown back from Grizzly Lake earlier in the day. So I had to get back to boxtown, quickly wash some clothes and then pack to go pick up my parents. I got into Anchorage at about 10:15pm and just had to hang out for a while until their flight came in at 11pm. I drove them directly to the hotel because they were pretty tired when they finally were able to get out of the crowd of people along with their bags. I asked my parents to pack lightly before they came; so of course they both had large checked bags, the largest allowed carry on and a smaller personal item. (Rolling my eyes, haha) Luckily my car has a large trunk.

orca pod

The next day we woke up early because we had to have the car packed and ready to go by 8:30 in order to get to Seward on time for a day Cruise. Seward is about a 2hour and 40min drive and we need to be there by 11 am with the trip at 12pm, so we had enough time. The day cruise was really fun. At the beginning of the trip my mom asked me what I wanted to see. I had 4 things that I have always wanted to see; humpback whales, orcas, porpoise, and puffins. If I got to see those my trip was complete and I was more than happy. Well what do you know, wishes do come true because

humpback whale (there were two)

I got to see each and every one of those animals and then some (although the porpoise I saw really only lifted its fine out of the water for a half of a second so I am not actually sure I saw it, but who is complaining?).

Our hotel was in Seward so we hung out there for about half of the next day, but we needed to make our way to Anchorage to pick up supplies and also to continue on to Wrangell-St. Elias. I showed my parents the awesome Brown Jug Warehouse liquor store (my dad enjoyed, mom not so much but oh well). We also stopped and

ate at Moose’s Tooth. They make super good homemade pizza there so it was an obvious suggestion. Then we were on our way to the park. Now for those of you who do not know, Alaska is a very VERY mountainous state. So when driving really anywhere you have to drive up, down, and around mountains. In addition to this, guard rails are not always present (actually there are a lot of times they are no more than a few poles sticking in the ground with reflectors). Call me crazy, but I am not too fazed about that sort of thing. Now my mom on the other hand does not like heights and she just so happened to be sitting on the side closest to the edge. I thought it was funny but I don’t think she did haha.

The rest of the week I had work as normal so I didn’t see my parents during the day. I did cook for them a couple of nights. The first night I cooked up a fillet of burbot I had from Grizzly Lake. The second night we make steak and fresh salmon my parents had caught down in the coastal town of Valdez.

On the 4^th of July I had to be in McCarthy early to run a booth for the Exotic Plant Management Team. That means we got to wake up and be out the door by 6am to make the 3hr trip on the dirt road to McCarthy. It wasn’t that bad though. There was a little parade in the town we got to watch and people seemed pretty happy that we were working to keep out invasive plants in the park. My parents decided to go on a flight seeing tour so I had some free time to hang out with some of my co-workers who were in McCarthy for the festivities. We all ended up going swimming in this little area that is sort of offset from the glacial fed river. It was super nice. Some of the people were complaining it was cold, but compared to the river it was a hot ^th of July.

spring so I wasn’t saying anything. When my parents returned from their flight we all went up to Kennecott (it is an old copper mine from the early 1900’s and is a national historic site that is being restored), to look around and do a little hiking. My parents wanted to go out on the glacier, but we got up there too late for that, so we just hiked to the top of this little waterfall with a foot bridge across it. All in all it was a pretty good 4

On the 5^th we all got up early again and were out the door by 6am. It is a 7hour drive from McCarthy to Anchorage and my parents wanted to do some souvenir shopping in Anchorage before their flight at 4pm. In Anchorage we went to the Ulu factory (an ulu is a type of knife that has been used for many hundreds of years by native Alaskans), to a pretty huge super tourist shop, and my mom got to go to a quilt shop. Then it was off to the airport.