A Life Outside: We're burnin' daylight...

Thanks to the efforts of one of the hardest working crews I have ever been a part of, we have finished the stream surveys in the first watershed about two days ahead of schedule. Our days were long and breaks were held in check by Tony who, despite the inordinate amount of daylight surrounding the summer solistice, kept us on track by his ever-vigilant reminder, and now project mantra, "We're burnin' daylight."

Our fearless crew on day 1...

Essentially what we are doing for the surveys is walking upstream and collecting a bunch of data (coordinates of structures and features, bank width, water depth, bankside vegetation, stream bank and bed composition, gradient, fish trapping, etc.) that will be used to classify the type of stream according to regional protocols. As we encounter tributaries we start the data collection over again for that tributary. The watershed we were in this last week is essentially a big bowl with steep slopes that has an inlet on the north side and an outlet on the south side. Numerous streams carved valleys throughout the bowl sides and allow for run-off from snow melt in the higher elevations. The inlet is fed in part by a higher elevation alpine lake and the outlet dumps into an ocean bay. The watershed is an important fishery for local communities and the data we collect should be beneficial in helping to protect the entire watershed and the fishery.

Setting fish traps...

Measuring pebble size...

Our home for the week turned out to be shared quarters with a fish weir crew at their camp that sits on the river between the lake and the bay. The camp has developed over years of operating the weir and includes a separate kitchen (complete with a refrigerator that was packed over terrain that is questionable without a load), sleeping quarters with plywood bunks, and DVD's via a TV powered by generators.

Home away from home...

Getting a canoe to the lake--not for the faint of heart. This is the path the refrigerator came down on the back of one of the weir crew...

Wildlife sightings were pretty slim and consisted of a few deer, plenty of deer sign, some bear tracks, typical regional birds, and one very protective family of gulls that dive-bombed us when we motored into a stream near their nesting area. We passed the nest that contained two young chicks in downy feathers hunkered down on top of a moss-covered log that protruded from the lake. The location provided protection from land predators; but, when we went by the following day the chicks were gone--presumably a snack for the numerous bald eagles that also kept the gulls busy.

Here today...gone tomorrow.

As usual in SE Alaska, the terrain provided some challenges. Once again our crew consisted of members who knew how to traverse the numerous downed logs and thick vegetation. Keeping up at times was a challenge for a relative flatlander like me (despite Tony's reassurance that I was in pretty good shape for a 240# guy), especially when crossing mossy, wet, and, therefore, slick logs that spanned streams.

I am smack dab in the middle of this picture holding a survey rod. The vegetation made taking measurements at any kind of distance difficult.

One of the numerous log bridges throughout the watershed.

We crossed the lake in a 12' boat (with an outboard that was also humped over the less-than-ideal trail) numerous times in our search for streams, the scenery was a definite bonus.