Working in Yakutat

Robin and I both spent last week working in Yakutat.

As part of my job, I went to Yakutat to attend public meetings and a city council meeting to talk about SEAtrails and determine what trails Yakutat wants to list as part of the SEAtrails network. This, of course, meant going out on the area trails. (A really tough part of my job!)

See photos of our Yakutat work. (Be patient ... other photos of Yakutat scenery to come soon.)

If you go out on trails in bear country with the Forest Service, they require a certified rifleman to accompany you. (This is a good thing.) There was fresh bear scat (poop) all over the place and plenty of bear tracks. We went to about 5 trails, including Harlequin Lake, where you can see icebergs and the Yakutat Glacier. We also toured one of the public use Forest Service cabins and one of the airstrips. The airstrips are basically clearings in the trees (in the middle of nowhere) where anyone can land their plane, provided the strip is long enough for their plane, of course. And it's light out. And not too windy. And they're not worried about trees, flat tires, etc. because these strips aren't paved, lit or maintained.

For Robin's work, we did a bunch of projects, including enduring an incredible amount of mosquitos while digging a post hole for a radio antenna installation and painting a fuel tank. There were so many mosquitos it was impossible not to paint them into the tank, which is now a non-skid surface thanks to the thick mosquito coating!

We rode along with the Park Service on what's called a "transfer". That's when Park Service people are taken out to board a cruise ship for the day and talk about the area. We went out on a little boat, rode up alongside the huge cruise ship, the cruise ship dropped a rope ladder, and the Park Service people climbed up the ladder onto the huge cruise ship. It's really neat but pretty darn scary!

We were lucky because they had two transfers the day we went along. This meant we had to hang out on the water for a while until the other cruise ship came into the area. Robin fished for about 10 minutes and couldn't keep his line in the water because there were so many fish biting. He literally caught at least 8 fish in about 10-15 minutes. It was hysterical ... no one could believe how many fish he was catching. (I stayed clear of the harpoon!)