Snettisham 2010 - 4: A Hose in the Wilderness
June 18-20


Nigel cooling his feet in a stream

Having taken a weekend off from Snettisham, I'd planned to head down around the weekend of June 12.  I was on target to go right up until early Friday afternoon and spent all lunch (and a little more) frantically running around the house and garage packing things up; I only needed to put the perishables in the cooler and the gear in the truck and I'd be all ready.  But the forecast became more ominous, increasing the seas to five feet and throwing in a small craft advisory for good measure.  The word direct from the NOAA weather center was "If you go out now or anytime tonight you will get your ass kicked back to town."  I decided to bag it.  A huge storm came in off the gulf and bent the trees in great gusts all weekend.

And so I was compelled to go down the following weekend, which I'd originally set aside as a town weekend in order to attend Chris's Lego Robotics competition.  The tournament was on Sunday at four, so I decided to leave work at noon on Friday and get a day and a half of work done before heading home early on Sunday.  Nigel and I left the harbor around 1:45 under a pleasant low cloud cover that billowed around the tops of the higher mountains; the water was choppy in the channel, then calm the rest of the way down.  Nigel was comfortable enough to sniff over the side of the boat on and off the whole time.  I saw no whales in Stephen's Passage, but found three feeding at the entrance to the Port along with an intense concentration of marbled murrlets, so many that I suspect they were fledglings mixed with adults, though I never confirmed that.  I passed another whale in the calm, green water along the south shore, another where the Port splits, and another feeding in the inlet.  I anchored the boat, lit the pilots, and got to work.

The first task was to finish bringing water to all the cabins.  I had two 100' coils of polypipe, one left over from first installing the system and the other purchased a few weeks before.  I hauled one up to Hermit Thrush cabin and laboriously started to unwind it, tucking one end under a log behind the cabin to pull against. Being the wider of the two coils, it was relatively easy to work with (though still annoying to manhandle through the devil's club), but it soon became apparent that it would not even approach the existing line it was meant to splice into.  Resigned that I could, at most, connect water to one of the two remaining cabins, I returned to the lodge to fetch the other coil, this time bringing it up the trail toward the creek, breaking off to find the water line in the area I thought would be the most efficient splicing site.  Although my cabin is close to the creek, I took a diagonal course to the water line instead of going straight up toward the olive barrel, which I believe involves less pipe (since that spot is considerably lower in elevation) and saved me the hassle of certain tree and devil's club obstacles. There was a bear bite spraying water nearby, so I decided to fix the leak in the process of splicing.  This coil of pipe was considerably more difficult to unwind, and the terrain was rough and uneven with gullies and rotten logs and dense devil's club.  Plus, the area around the pipe was saturated with water, all of which made for unpleasant hose wrangling.  Eventually I forced it to comply somewhat to my will and brought it downhill, across the path, and on toward my cabin.  It looked like together the two pipes would make it to Hermit Thrush, but only just.

I took a break from that and went back at the lodge where I began to assemble the last two wooden shelves that I inherited from the ADF&G camp.  The first one went up easily enough, but the second bundle turned out to consist of two small shelves supported by legs with notches that fit into the shelf pieces.  I managed to assemble one of them (though I discovered later that the shelves were upsidedown), but the notches in the legs of the other would in no way fit its shelves.  I figure the wood must have swollen.  At 7:00 I headed back up the trail to the water system and shut it off, then started the cut at the bear bite to let it drain.  On the way back down I followed the new pipe toward my cabin where I cut off two short lengths of pipe to use in T connections.  Back at the lodge I connected a T-coupling and a valve on either end of one length of pipe, then returned to the soggy splicing site to finish the cut.  Connecting the two ends of the hose back to the coupling was surprisingly difficult, as neither one had very much flexibility.  Again, the wet forest floor and the devil's club made this an unpleasant task, but opening the valve caused water to gush out with gusto at the other end of the pipe, so that made up for it a little.  At the lodge I discovered that the single hummingbird who'd fed at the feeder earlier (her wings fluttered against the plastic flowers in her eagerness to drink) had multiplied to four.  By 8:30 I was very tired and went to bed with a book.

Nigel Boat Dog leaving Douglas Harbor

Starting to uncoil the polypipe uphill from Hermit Thrush

Hummingbird

In the morning I dragged the loose hose to the end of the connected hose and spliced them together, discovering that it reached Hermit Thrush with only a few feet to spare.  I cut off about six feet of hose, then spliced in another T-fitting with a valve at the stem end and the other side open in preparation for connecting to Harbor Seal (Cabin).  Then I went over to Cottonwood where I'd brought water a few weeks earlier and added a similar fitting to it, then spliced in the balance of the hose, which brought it about half way to Mink and added a valve to that.  Somewhere in the middle I used the nearby outhouse and, because I was alone, left the door open.  I decided there that I could add great views from bathrooms/outhouses to the quality of life virtues that keep people in Alaska (the upstairs bathroom in my house has a stunning view of the mountains in the winter and treetops in the summer). 

At that point I took a break to make my monthly COASST walk while the tide was still low.  On the way back to the lodge to get the paperwork, I passed a family of six winter wrens, which bounced around adorably and begged for food.  While I was struggling to get a photo of them in focus, a Townsend's warbler entered the scene and captured my attention.  These have to be one of the most spectacular song birds in Southeast Alaska. but this one refused to sit still long enough for me to focus on him.  Gorgeous.  Back at the lodge, the number of hummingbirds darting and quarreling around my feeders had grown to seven and they'd nearly drained them out (I gave them a refill).  They, too, were fledging!  I didn't find any critters (dead or alive) on the beach, but I did enjoy watching whales feeding in the inlet as I walked back.  A total of FOUR humpback whales fed in the area, lunging wonderfully on and off.  I've never seen so many and they passed by very close to the edge of the sandbars. 

After the walk I brought a short hose and fittings to connect the valve to a garden hose at Cottonwood and hooked them up.  In a few moments I had a functional hose in the middle of the wilderness!  It was pretty wonderful.  I sprayed down some of the cabin to try it out, then used a garden sprayer to spray on oxygen bleach (a non-toxic alternative to chlorine bleach).  I then filled a bucket with a similar solution and scrubbed one wall.  I was disappointed by the mildew stain that remained and the difficulty I had in scrubbing under the eaves, but pleased about the green-grey water coursing off the wood when I rinsed it.  At that point it was 3:45 and I decided to stop for lunch.  I find it interesting that I sit most of the day at work feeling at the edge of starvation, but I can happily work at Snettisham without breakfast and well past normal lunch.  It was a spectacularly sunny day, so I indulged with some nude sunbathing on the deck while the whales blew loudly in the inlet (I think something about the conditions of the day made them particularly loud).  The hummingbirds, now numbering ten, filled the air with their buzzing and chittering.  I rested for an hour, then returned to scrubbing Cottonwood, making occasional trips back to the lodge to rinse off my face and arms when too much solution dripped on them.  Cleaning under the overhang over the porch was particularly unpleasant and I more or less decided to spray them down in the future rather than scrubbing.  I cleaned one wall with a chlorine bleach solution for comparison, but didn't notice any difference (though the solution was not very strong).  I also washed the back wall of Mink, then smoked a stogie and had a beer on the front porch of the lodge in the company of the hummingbirds (who'd already drained the feeders again), admiring the nearby branch drooping with ripe salmonberries.  Interestingly, the ones to the right of the porch were predominantly red and the ones to the left were predominantly yellow.  Irises bloomed unabashedly in the meadow; it was a beautiful time.

That evening I took a chisel to the offending shelving unit and soon had it together.  Then I undertook a brutal, messy, exhausting task that I've wanted to do for a long time.  I started up the generator and began cutting out the siding that overlapped four of the windows where I hadn't cut them to fit before attaching them.  I had trouble figuring our where the wall started behind the paneling as I was cutting, resulting in many cuts into the 2x4 along the edge.  The machine vibrated terribly, it was hot, and sawdust flew everywhere.  I sawed the panels away one jagged inch after another, making a complete mess of them that I hope to soon cover with trim.  I broke three blades on the first three panels and almost quit.  The only blade left was a tiny one with very small teeth that didn't seem at all suited for the job.  However, it managed to cut much better than the others and I cut nearly as many with it as I did with the other three together.  While working in the vicinity of the two newer propane lights on the south wall, I managed to vibrate one of them apart (shattering the glass globe on the floor); I took the other one apart before it suffered a similar fate.  I finished up on the window over the sink, leaving the last two inches in place as the dishes desk was in the way.  It was a miserable task, and messy, and I was very happy to be done.  My ears rang after.  It was 9:30 and I quit for the day.

Humpback feeding at the drop off	All the tools for splicing	Water at Hermit Thrush!
View from the outhouse	Townsend's warbler (blurry photo)	Baby winter wren

I needed to head back the next day to be in town in time for Chris's competition, so I got up early to do a few tasks before I had to go.  I scrubbed the remaining three walls of Mink, regretting that I'd chosen to buy such a short hose (which didn't reach three of the walls).  Then I finished cleaning up inside with my newly constructed shelving units.  I traded the mouse-proof food tin (no longer necessary) for the larger shelf; the food tin I used in place of a large cardboard box to store ripped up cardboard for fire starting.  I used the two smaller shelves for paint cans and other miscellaneous items, getting most of the items on that wall of the lodge off the floor.  It looks great.  Although it was still only 9:30, I decided to leisurely get ready.  It was another stunningly beautiful day, but I was wary of a west wind blowing down Stephen's Passage.  On my way out to the boat, I noticed a large group of seals clustered near the shore just where the channel on my side of the river drops into deep water.  So, I decided to take a little time to visit them and drifted in with the current, my camera at the ready.  They came up all around and seemed to startle less than usual, spending more time swimming and watching and less time splashing away when they got too close.  I could hear them breath loudly as they swam past.  As I drifted, I saw a whale fluke out in Gilbert Bay, then watched him breach grandly a few moments later.  He dove again and breached twice more--the first breaching I've seen at the homestead!  The photos are distant and out of focus, but...well, it's a breaching whale in Snettisham, so I'm pretty pleased!  I took a detour toward the middle of the river where a whale was feeding, then doubled back to the boat, snapping a photo of one of the parent eagles on the edge of their nest.  After dropping off the kayak and picking up the dog, I refueled while drifting again, then puttered down toward the whale, who was moving back toward shore.  He lunged beautifully a few times not far away.  I ran into a bit of chop in Snettisham on the way out, but otherwise had a calm ride home and took in some sun.

Hummers	Group of harbor seals	Breach!
Breach!	Harbor seal	Parent eagle on the nest