"Two little feet to get me 'cross the mountain
two little feet to carry me away into the woods
two little feet, big mountain and a
cloud comin down, cloud comin down, cloud comin down
I hear the voice of the ancient ones
chanting magic words from a different time
Well there is no time there is only this rain
there is no time, that's why I missed my plane"
Decided to refer back to my journal and a Greg Brown song for the third part of "Waste Not Want Not"
This is what I wrote (with some editing)
On day two of of waiting a day for a pickup, Jonathan and I decided to abandon the richness of our shelter for the less than certain chance of a floatplane pick up at sea level. We were motivated by travel plans (me to Glacier bay, Jonathan to Washington and Idaho) and by losing our only way to communicate with the outside world (Barth and Mary made it out in the morning). They left us food and a tent cached at Sisters lake, our job was to get there and hopefully meet a Ward Air plane at 5pm. There is a trail from Rust to Sisters lake, so this didn't sound all that bad and in fact it was quite doable. What is so bad about carrying alot of stuff downhill?
We left the tarp structure standing, the tent up and the less desirable food, garbage and traps up a tree. I somehow managed to fit all of my belongings into the large pack andstrapped the day pack to the outside of it. Jonathan carried the press and the few of his belongings that would fit in a large dry bag/pack, his camera bag and sleeping bag. Then there was the food bag with radio and water bottle; rather heavy, but it needed to come with us.
Paddling across the lake was a bit easier this time; serenaded by Jonathan and at the beginning a loon. The beginning of the trail wasn't terribly obvious,but we did find it. The trail itself was rather tricky, appearing and disappearing at rather inconvenient times. Alas I sent us off on a very wrong turn which added some distance and some totally unnecessary elevation gain. The trip down took much longer than the 1.5-2hours Barth thought it would. The wrong turn and the ridiculously heavy load didn't help. Happily we made it down in plenty of time, found the stashed gear and food, relaxed for a few minutes and then the Cessna arrived.
The float plane was wonderfully warm and dry after that sloppy wet walk.
The ceiling was just barely above 500 ft, we traveled along the outside coast of Khaz then down the outside of Kruzof as Salisbury was full of clouds. Great aerial tour of sandy beaches and survey of trollers on the eve of opening day. We finally made it across Kruzof just north of Mt Edgecumbe.
Mary met us at the Forest Service dock and saw Barth cheering from the fuel dock. It was nice to make it back in time for a cheeseburger, shower, deal with the plant press, laundry and repack for Glacier bay.
Left the house at 4:45, flew to Juneau, had breakfast at the Silverbow, did some grocery shopping and left Juneau for Glacier bay at 11am on board the Iyoukeen.
It turned out to be 10 days of sun
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