We just finished up a twelve day stint across the bay working in the park. Needing some time off in Homer I decided not to do any hiking around the park and instead enjoy and explore the town a bit more. All of us went on a little backpacking trip before the twelve days of work. We had a three night trip planned out, and work hike into the lagoon to start work the next day. One of my coworkers ended up twisting and messing up her knee during our first day out from there it turned into quite the adventure. She was completely unable to walk the next day. So another guy threw together a sketchy stretcher and we were planning to hike her out to the nearest beach where she could be easily picked up. That was a struggle, we ended up running into the paid trail crew, who were out cleaning trails. From there after calling and talking to one of our bosses it was decided that a different mode of transportation was needed. One of the flying type, a helicopter was called in. Then after bushwacking for a couple hours we made it out to a river flat where the heli picked her up, our mission complete. From there we were able to continue our adventure. We headed towards the glacier to camp out there that night. The glacier was amazing, we were able to walk out onto and explore the lay of the glacier. It was also the night of the summer solistice which was weird to witness up here. During sunset the sun dipped below the horizon and came back up with a 30 minute period. Since we were behind schedule we were picked up later the next day by our crew leader, but only after a chilly and refreshing dip in the bay. The next morning it was time to start work. We were busy working during the entire twelve days. During the first couple of days we replaced three bridges in a swampy muskag area near the ranger station. Next we took the boat out to a campsite along the bay where we fixed up some tenting areas that day, tented there for the night and then logged out another trail. From there we headed back to the lagoon ranger station. The next days we worked were spent logging out trails and a couple more night camping out on the trail. Chainsawing has been fun, but we are slowly getting into some brushcutting. Brushcutting is a slow and tedious job that I'm not looking forward to getting into.
The salmon have came into the lagoon which has been exciting to see. However the numers this year are minimal. In total less than 10 fish have been caught in the lagoon. I've been told that there used to be schools of a hundred salmon swimming around the lagoon. The biggest school I've seen so far was like than 15 big. I haven't caught any so far. My boss has snagged a couple. Let me tell you that you haven't eaten slamon till you've eaten some that's been caught the same day. Outstanding.
Now we are hanging out and relaxing in Homer, we are off till Friday I believe. Two days ago we did a tasting at the local meadery. Mead, if you don't know is a honey wine, but they also include local fruits and berries. The mead was something that I enjoyed. Yesterday we checked out the local winery that's a couple miles down the road. That was also delicious, they also included many local fruits and berries into their flavors, something new for me. Today is July 4th, we have plans to cook out and we might make it to the parade. Hopefully I'll be able to upload some pictures onto here soon.
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