July 23, 2013
By Ari Blatt (Western Washington University)
Since ending our time on the Nakina River, there have been many a bittersweet moment.
First off, there was the initial moment of leaving. Fairly early on the 17th, we packed up our camp and began our journey back to Atlin. Just under an hour into our hike, we reached the ridge from where we first saw the confluence of the Nakina and Sloko Rivers on our way in. I remember this first glance vaguely: it was sometime past 11:00pm, past my usual bed time on this program, past my normal time limit for a hike (as we had been going for about thirteen hours at that point), and past my normal limit for physical pain and mental endurance. With all this, my visual memory is fuzzy, but I recall an uplifting feeling overcoming me at the sight of these rivers we had only before been told about. The second time around, the view was much more clear, and the same uplifting feeling occurred, along with some wariness over if I would ever see this place I had come to love so much again. As we continued along, both of these feelings continued. I was more and more grateful with each step that another hard trek was nearing completion, and I grew more and more sentimental as we passed familiar markers from the way in. We reached John Ward’s Camp that evening in far less time than going the opposite direction had taken us, relaxation soon ensuing.
Ellen, Hayley, Cynthiann, Susie, Ari, and Gioia, making our very own rainbow.
Looking towards the Coast Range from John’s Camp on the Nakina Trail.
That first day was certainly easier than on our way in, and the next day was a relative breeze. With only four hours of actual hiking, we reached Kuthai Lake around 4:00pm, the shining sun calling us down to the water’s edge for a dip off the dock. A couple others and myself even took the time to soap up with lavender Dr. Bronner’s. Feeling clean and refreshed, we were called to dinner shortly after, prepared by the very generous Greta, a woman working at the Tlingit fisheries camp at Kuthai for most of the summer. Our Round River crew enjoyed her company, as well as that of the other Tlingit people there: Jesse, Joseph, and Dakota, and their dogs Alaura and Toby. Their hospitality and the beautiful scenery surrounding us made me wish we could stay just a day longer.
Later that evening, Joseph took us down to the bear lookout. Unfortunately, the bugs were having a field day at the time, so not many of us endured the sitting and waiting for very long. The next morning however, we were informed by both Joseph and Jesse that we could have seen a timber wolf not far away if only we had had more patience. Though we did not enjoy such a sighting, that morning we did get to enjoy a trip across the lake in Jesse’s boat, cutting out about an hour of the wettest portion of the trail. It felt great to be out on the water like that. The views we had of the surrounding mountains and forest were so different than those we would have seen on the trail, giving us yet another perspective of this spectacular land, nearly untouched by human presence.
Kuthai Lake.
On our very last day of the hike, we were overcome with determination. Knowing that we had long ago gotten the worst of the walk out of the way, we quickened our pace quite a bit as we travelled through various woods and meadows. Within the last half hour or so, we made two creek crossings in which we traded our stiff boots for comfy sandals, rolled up our pants, and found relief in the cold moving water we walked through. Morale was at an all time high as we made our final crossing through the O’Donnell River. Knowing that all we had left afterwards was a short ways up a hill to the car, we didn’t even put our boots back on, our feet thanking us.
The next two days were spent working furiously on two Grinnell Journal entries, catching up on the foods we missed out on the trail, and doing laundry in Atlin. Then, on Monday the 22nd, we were back to fieldwork. As we ventured up to the high-alpine summit of our GLORIA study (in which plant and lichen species on four different-altitude summits will be monitored each summer to see how climate change may impact what grows where) I enjoyed the feeling of being in a completely new part of this area, as well as not having to carry a thirty-some pound pack all day long. We completed our work on the summit within four hours, through multiple periods of rain and wind.
Hayley, Cynthiann, and Will working on a vegetation monitoring plot in the Lina Range, Atlin Mountain in the background.
The 23rd was then spent on our other study: the marmots of Ruby Creek Valley. Here, we are gathering baseline data on the behaviors of the marmot population of this area, where exploratory mining roads have scarred the land. This involves walking to locations where past burrows have been found to see if they are still active, searching for new burrows on talus slopes, listening for the characteristic whistling sound made my marmots in alarm, and gazing through binoculars to see if marmots can be found basking, alert, feeding, or moving about. On this day, Gioia and Ellen were lucky enough to observe three individuals. Meanwhile, Hayley, Cynthiann, and I were busy finding mostly inactive burrows, a “post office” (where marmots communicate with each other by leaving tons of scat on top of flat rocks), a burrow under construction, and one actual marmot. Unlike our day on the high-alpine summit, this day was beautifully sunny.
Can you find the marmot basking on top of the rock?
The 23rd was a very special day for Ellen, as it was her twentieth birthday. In Japan, where Ellen is from, this is a very big deal, because this is when one is considered an adult. We celebrated with a great feast and the company of Nan Love. Dinner consisted of delicious pesto pasta and Nan’s fresh greens in a salad. Then for dessert we devoured chocolate cake topped with strawberries and flowers from the fireweed in the backyard, as well as moose tracks ice cream. Ellen was happily surprised by a couple of gifts from the group, including herbal teas made from various boreal plant species.
Birthday cake!
Ellen tries some of the nastertiums from Nan.
The birthday girl!
All in all, the past seven days have gone by like a whirlwind, as much of our time here has. It is so hard to believe we just have two weeks’ time left up in this Great North.
Photos by Gioia Cabri, Will Tyson, and Susie Dain-Owens.