Picture Time!!

My first Rainbow Trout!


Me eating my first Rainbow Trout!


The crew I went camping with.. eating Lake and Rainbow Trout! Can you tell I'm proud of my Rainbow Trout that I caught?


Bears; Sow and three cubs about 3 feet from the window I was standing at!


The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes.


My roommate Stephanie and me on the fight to Brooks Camp for our fist day in our new home!


From the NPS plane.


Landed on the icy shore of Lake Naknek our first day at Brooks Camp!


The view our the visitor center front door, practically. La Gorce, the (glacial) moraine, and Mount Katolinat from left to right.


Me at Brooks Falls. This where many many bears will catch fish in July!

I got my boxes!!

05_26_08

This week we did vigorous two day training for bear management. We were taught everything from how a bear mates to what to do if a bear thinks that you are food; fight back by the way if the bear starts eating you. (Although from what the bear techs said, that doesn’t happen very often.) Bear mauling usually happen if you come around a corner, see a bear, and yell, “SURPRISE!!” Just kidding, but honestly bears don’t like to be surprised or have you in their personal space… they’re no fun. Ha. Bear management training was really interesting though. I knew that bears were complex, but so complex that we had to talk about them for two days straight, that’s just crazy.

Funny though, because just the day before as the interpretive rangers were getting training for the cultural walk, a sow and three cubs went running past us while we were in the building that contains the reconstructed archaeological site. It was incredible. I usually call all the bear followers around here “bear stalkers”, but at that moment I could see how someone would want to be a bear stalker. Generally though I like to not stalk the bears; let them do their own thing.

We were giving bear mace training as well, but I’ll be honest, I don’t believe in the stuff. I’m not sure a little bit of pepper would deter a bear if it really wanted you, and the likelihood of spraying yourself instead of the bear is way too great for my liking. I don’t want to be a tasty treat for the bear thank you very much.

Speaking of tasty treats though, I do like getting tasty treats in the mail!! It’s amazing how happy people get when Alan, our pilot, comes in with lots of boxes! The other day when I received food from Amanda and my mom I was so ecstatic that I thought I was going to cry. Hehe… I wasn’t really going to cry tears of joy, but I was really really happy! Oh my gosh are Betty Crocker Fudge Truffles good!! For a person that doesn’t really like sweets, Amanda did an amazing job picking some out!

Over the weekend we all meant to do something fun and exciting, but once again the weather dictated everything we did, including going out on a boat to the Bay of Island. It’s supposed to be beautiful there. I can’t wait to see it at some point.

It’s ridiculous how the wind can blow out all the clouds and make Brooks Camp and its surrounding area beautiful, but make it miserable to go anywhere in a boat or a plane… or out to the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes for that matter, where the ash is blowing around everywhere.

A group of us did get out of camp on day trips though. We hiked to Mortuary Cove on Saturday and to the Three Forks Overlook on Sunday. Mortuary Cove is known by that name, because no matter how hard the east winds are blowing, that cove is very calm. It was nice not to have the wind cooling everything down. It even looked and felt as if in the middle of summer I may want to go swimming there. The Three Forks Overlook overlooks the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, so we had to take the NPS Excursion out to kilometer 32 and then hike the rest of the way to the overlook. It was a good hike and the view was completely worth it! I already have the idea that this summer at some point I want to go to Novarupta (the site of the 1912 volcanic eruption that the park was formed to protect). I think it would be just incredible to hike over the ash that is 200 feet deep in some areas and see what has and hasn’t recovered after 96 years. It’s an incredible sight to see, even from the overlook!
The most excited news as of late though, is… get ready for it… I RECEIVED MY MISSING BOXES! Yay! Now my hair doesn’t smell like Pert and I have chips to eat! I got a bunch of other things as well, but I’ll be honest, I was pretty excited about the chips. My roommate also got a few things including sausage… mmm so good! It’s like Christmas!

Tomorrow we meet the concession people (Katmai Land) and have an all Brooks Camp employees’ meeting. It’s quite exciting really. We’ve been meeting people here and there, but it’ll be good to meet everyone. I’m not too happy with the Katmai Land people at the moment though. They woke me up at 9am this morning cutting down Spruce Bark Beetle killed trees. It’s probably my only three day weekend this summer and I didn’t sleep well. I was grumpy this morning. Oh well, the day turned out alright after all.

Just like I might say on the radio… it’s time to go. 625 clear. :-)

Fishy!

5_21_08

It feels great to be alive!

It’s amazing how fast days go by here. One would think that living out in the middle of nowhere would give me more time to write in my journal or write letters to people, but it’s just not true. On work days I get up, eat oatmeal for breakfast, and work from 8:30am to 5:30pm, with an hour long lunch (which is not enough time in itself), then after work there’s always something going on around camp. On my days off I find that there’s always been something to do as well.

For example, tonight we had a pot-luck dinner that lasted a little over an hour and now there’s a movie on in the auditorium that I’m missing out on. (I thought it was time to write about my adventures and do some long over due reading instead of watching a movie called King of the Corn, or some such thing.) Yesterday after work I showed one of my favorite sitcoms; Coupling. Thankfully Amanda was willing and able to send it to me. Yay for very funny British comedies!! Then I chatted with some of the other crew in camp until about 11pm. The day before that I went fishing right after work. It was wonderful! Well, mostly wonderful; I wasn’t too happy about having to throw both of my Rainbow Trout back because they were too big. The regulations say you can only catch and keep one Rainbow Trout a day as long as it’s less than 18 inches in length… or something like that. All I know was that I was fishing with one of our law enforcement rangers and the first Rainbow I caught was 20” and the second one was about 23”. They were awesomely big, and would have been tasty fish!! Dang law enforcement! Oh well, Ralph, the very sweet and smart law enforcement ranger I was with caught a Lake Trout so we did end up with fish for dinner. It was a very late dinner at about 10pm, but it was yummy!

I haven’t been getting to bed until about 11pm every night. It doesn’t really matter though, because it’s still dusky at 11pm. Gee I love Alaskan summers!

Speaking of Alaskan summers, I’m living this one up! Last weekend a group of about 8 of us went camping on a little island in the middle of Lake Brooks. It was a bit of a learning experience. We only had one day off because our schedule has been weird, so we left on Saturday after work and hung out on the island/hiked Mt. Brooks on Sunday. On the day we left we couldn’t get the boat situation figured out, because the person who had the boat hadn’t seen that it was already checked out by our group. I therefore ended up sitting in the middle of an aluminum canoe so that we could get some people out to the island to set-up while the others waited for the motorboat to come back. The first thing I learned was not to assume that the pants I think are waterproof are actually waterproof. After what I think was about an hour or longer in that canoe, but butt was FROZEN. The only thing I could think about when we got to the island was building a fire. It was really too bad that I sucked at building a fire though. I couldn’t remember any of my Girl Scout training. Ha! Lucky the motorboat pulled up at that minute with my collogue Mason who gave me his rain pants to wear. Unluckily though he had forgot the big tent at Brooks Camp. We had to boat back to get it and then we were going to go fishing. As we headed out, I realized that I didn’t have a lifejacket, so we had to go back. When we arrived at shore I should have gone with Mason to get the tent and a dry pair of pants, but I wasn’t that smart. Instead I tried to warm my butt by the heater in the cabin by the lake. It wasn’t helpful. When Mason arrived back at the boat we finally headed of to go fishing… only to realize that Mason was the one without the lifejacket now. We of course had to go back for it. Another lesson was learned; make sure you have all the gear you need before you head out to go camping or fishing.

Fishing was good though. I think we spent about two hours and forty-five minutes on the water and caught a total of two fish. I caught the first fish. I was so proud of myself, I was the only girl on the boat, I caught the first fish, and it was a Rainbow a little under 18”! That night we had a feast of one Rainbow and one Lake Trout. Lake Trout is pretty good, but along side a Rainbow Trout it didn’t taste like much. Rainbow Trout is really the way to go.

The next morning we had a very nice camp breakfast. It was great! Thanks all to Mason, the backcountry chef!

As you can see though, I’ve been up to a lot. Training has been going well and I can’t wait to meet the visitors. Tomorrow is more bear training… or should I say, people management training. One of my main responsibilities as a park ranger is to make sure people don’t get in a bear’s way. It sounds very complicated and stressful if you ask me. I’d rather just be giving hikes and talks, but guess this people management will give me more experience with other things I may do in future parks. (Then again I don’t feel like I know where my life is going at the moment. It’s a bit scary at times.)

Signing off for now. I have to get up in the morning and be prepared to learn more about bears. I hope everyone is well!

So much to say

05_13_08

I’ve now been at Brooks Camp in Katmai National Park for about 5 days, but it feels like I’ve been here a month already because of all the things that have been going on.

Day one started with weighing myself and all my gear in King Salmon, Alaska to prepare for a flight on the single engine NPS (National Park Service) plane. All the rangers headed out to Brooks Camp on Friday were allowed themselves and 100 pounds of gear (enough food, clothing, and other items to live on for a couple of days to a couple of weeks, if needed). It was very nerve racking to try to pack 100 pounds of essentials. Luckily though, the pilot, Alan, didn’t seem to care that I was carrying 115 pounds of gear. As a matter of fact I think we were able to get about 200 pounds of my gear onto the plane. Apparently I don’t weigh much. Sometimes it is a bonus to be little.

The flight itself was awesome! It was a 15/20 minute flight from King Salmon to Brooks Camp. I did not get motion sick and I saw a lot. We saw moose, bear, and even a dozen caribou. We also saw the landscape change dramatically. It was gorgeous to see the flat bland lands and little ponds turn into mountains and huge blue ice covered lakes. The best part was the landing though. We really did a dive bomber move. Alan cut the engine and practically pointed the nose of the plane at the beach (we did an off runway landing). Thankfully I felt completely confident with Alan behind the yoke, otherwise I would have thought for sure that I was going to die. I think my confidence in him, and myself, was boosted by the water ditching training we had the days leading up to the flight. For your information water ditching went well… for the most part. (I need to get the photos and videos from my boss, Roy.)

As a side note, make sure your seat belt secure when flying in a small plane. When we did the simulations for a water crash in a small plane there was one time that my seatbelt unbuckled itself and I really got thrashed around in the PCP simulator. Also learn to hold your breath for a very long time … they practically rolled us half way across the pool in one of simulations that my partner and I did. I was sure I was going to try to take a breath if I had to stay under water for much longer. That would have been no good. I was totally panicked. I do not want to do that training again for a very very long time.

Back to what I was saying… Once my roommate and I landed in Brooks Camp it was off to our tent-frame “apartment” to set-up. It wasn’t very cozy to begin with, but it now looks colorful and lived in! We also had the bonus of some cool Christmas lights that were left behind that helped! That night we had our first on the ground bear sighting; a courting couple. They were about 100 yards or more down the beach from where we have camp. I feel like the rangers are bear stalkers though, with the way they try to get a good look at the bears and figure out which bears they are.

In total since Friday I’ve seen something like 6 bears since being here. At least 5 of them were stalked by the rangers. The other one was seen moving through camp. He was so close!!

Day two of Brooks Camp was a day off. Stephanie and I spent the majority of the day organizing our tent-frame just a bit more and hiking. It was good to see Lake Brooks and the Brooks Falls. I’m pretty sure we saw a river otter while we were at Brooks Falls. We had seen one the pervious night as well. I wish I could have taken a picture, but there’s not even a chance that I could have taken a good picture with my camera. It was way too far away. With how beautiful of a day it had been, we were wiped out at the end. The only problem was that I wasn’t able to sleep the whole night through. I’ve been sick with a deep cough for the past couple of days. It gets worse at night.

Day three was very windy!! It was so windy that some of the flights that were scheduled to come out weren’t able to. I also was beginning to think that I could be turned into a human kite. For training we did go on a hike again to Lake Brooks. The shelter from the trees kept a lot of the wind at bay. That was nice. It was nice to get a tour of camp and the 3 trails we have around here as well. Yes, 3 trails, the rest of the trails you make yourself. For a post hiking activity, we sat in the one and only well heated cabin (the management cabin) and watched a movie about Salmon. It was interesting for the most part. I was just happy to be warm really. The wind was coming off the still frozen lake and nights in the tent-frame are awful so far. They are very very cold, even with two space heaters… and me being in the loft.

Day four was tedious… unwrapping little pins from plastic, cleaning buildings with no heating because the electricity to them hadn’t been turned on yet, and trying to stay out of the wind. It wasn’t very exciting at all.

Today was nice. It was a day off for the most part. There was non-mandatory training that was supposed to be going on, but because of the winds the planes with all the people weren’t able to land until later in the afternoon. We did finally get to part of the training at the end of the day. Tomorrow will be a full day of boat training. It will be interesting to see if the have us boating at all tomorrow. It’s a bit cold and windy. Also part of the training is swimming in the lake. You know how last journal entry I said I wasn’t ready to swim in the lake… I better get myself ready, because it’s going to happen sooner than later. I can’t believe I’m doing this voluntarily. I just keep telling myself, “it’s free training and it’ll look great on my resume.” It’s really just too bad that I’ll be sick while doing it. I hope it doesn’t mess up my body too bad!! I like learning the information though.

Well, I suppose this is long enough to bore anyone, myself included, so it’s time for bed. I look forward to another day here at Katmai National Park.

By the way I think I may do my evening program so that it’ll involve SCAT! Hahaha… I was thinking “Moose Poo: What does animal evidence say about an animal?” or some such thing. My program is a whole other journal entry though.

Peace out!

P.S. I've decided to spend my day getting healthy instead of jumping into a freezing cold lake. Also pictures are taking forever to load... so I need to figure out some other way to get pictures up or I need to sit here for a long while... or I need to take less quality pictures... hmm I'll work it out.

Written 05/06/08

Wow, where to start… Things here in King Salmon have been very busy! It was only a few days ago that I flew into King Salmon with a hang-over, but it feels like it’s already been at least a week.

My last day plus some in Anchorage was fun filled with Olin and Amanda. While Amanda did her crazy accounting job (which is actually a decent amount of hours at the moment), Olin took me out to do last minute shopping for fishing gear… and anything else I had forgotten earlier. By the time I shipped everything to myself I truly did feel like one of those Master Card commercials:

$300 for food
$800 for gear
$200 to ship food and gear to myself
A summer at Katmai National Park…. Priceless (at least I hope so)

I can’t believe how nervous I still am, and I’m already half way there. I guess my nervousness comes from the fact that I haven’t received even half of the food I’ve sent to myself. We leave for the camp on Friday and I am allowed to only take 100lbs of food and gear with me. It has to be enough to get by for one or two weeks. I have no idea what-so-ever how I’m going to do it! Also, the lakes are still frozen. This does not help my decision to fish for supplementary food. I can’t ice fish! Long story, short, I hope that the rest of my food gets to me and that I figure out how to pack it.

I’m a bit stressed you could say. Not as stressed as I was when I was working on my masters… but stressed enough.

Training has helped keep some of that stress under wraps, because the park service keeps us very busy. So far we’ve filled out paper work, watched a bunch of videos, took a tour of the King Salmon area (not the “city”, because that takes 3 seconds… literally), and flight safety training. Tomorrow we will be doing the “water” part of Water Ditching Training. Basically what they will be doing is simulating a water plane crash using some weird pc pipe rig. We will have to show our trainers that we know how to escape a plane if it crashes into a lake. I’m not sure how I feel about it yet, but we are doing it in a warm pool according to the rangers. I suppose that’s a bonus. I can’t even see me in a lake here… at least not yet.

The only other thing really that is causing frustration in my life is my uniform. It is so not fair that I have to order all of my uniform using the crappy internet here and not knowing how it’s going to fit when it gets here. There is a return policy of 30 days, but if you keep returning items it will be the end of the season before you have all of you uniform.

As far as good things go, I have a great roommate, I’ve been to a Naknek beach party, I’ve already had salmon for one dinner, and my co-workers and I went to the King Co for a Cinco de Mayo party.

My roommate is wonderful so far. :) She’s an anthropology major. She finished her masters in New Zealand. She speaks German. She plays flute. She’s creative. It seems like we’re a pretty good match. I’m excited! I think it’s amazing that our supervisor randomly put us together and we just lucked out.

I suppose it’s time for me to make dinner… with the little amount of food I have. *sadly shakes head* Dang post office.

I hope everyone is well. I miss you all immensely already. It’s weird being disconnected. I think it’s something I need to get used to though. Hopefully I will. *crosses fingers*