Scat Man

And I ain't talkin' bout Charlie Parker! I'm talking about Martin, the guy from our NPS Anchorage office who spent much of yesterday taking pictures of bear scat. Yesterday's adventure was an overnight trip on the Resurrection River trail, a 40 mile stretch through brown bear country that connects exit glacier road to the town of Hope, on the far side of the Kenai Peninsula. We saw plenty of signs of the bears, and even scared something BIG off about 50 yards in front of us at one point, but we never actually laid eyes on one. I will say that it is a bit disconcerting to see a downed log that has been demolished and still sports claw marks in it (see photo above), but 5 cans of bear spray + 1 shotgun = happy Mike.

(The pictures from this post are here:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=441023&id=572250523&l=14dec90b0f


just follow the link and you can view large versions of each picture by clickin on them, whether or not you're a facebooker. This thing won't let me upload pics)

The hike itself was a trip. Never one to settle for the "normal" way, I decided to step up the game (NC style), and hike a whopping 4 miles instead of the full 40. I mean almost everyone who hikes this trail hikes the whole thing..it's kinda like "what's the point in that?" Let's just say that my father often said to be a leader not a follower, thus I led the 4 person group I was with to the first major stream crossing where I promptly declared "No way I am crossing that, it's too cold, the water's moving too fast, and my stomach is growling too much" at which point we stopped and set up camp.

The reality is that we had every intention of pushing further, but the melting snow coming down the slopes from Mt. Ascension turned Martin "Creek" into a river that scared me more than the time a 225lb ripped Marine buddy with bullet tattoos practiced giving an I.V. with my puny arm as his test dummy. The result of our failure to cross the creek was that we ended up having a wonderful evening beside the river munching on fresh Alaskan halibut that had a slightly spicy taste to it. The spicy flavor came from an accidental discharge of a shot of bear spray, which ended up soaking/burning my clothes, hands, tongue, eyes, and pride. Word to the wise: Don't put bear spray in a cargo pocket where a clown (i.e. ME) swinging a handful of firewood can hit the spray button, sending his friends running off into the woods coughing. To all my Marine buddies..CS ain't got nothing on bear spray! I was still getting it in my eyes this afternoon despite vigorous scrubbing w/ soap and water.

Tomorrow morning I am leaving and spending a week living on ship. Many of you recall (or were a part of) my short-lived sailing career whilst deployed on the 26th and 24th Marine Expeditionary Units. Well it's round two, starting at 7:45 tomorrow. I am leaving with a crew of archaeologists/cultural resource folks from the park and heading deep into Kenai Fjords' coast, where few people ever travel due to the remote location. By day we'll survey old Alutiq settlements and mines from Alaska's gold rush era. By night, we will sit aboard "The Serac" and dine on meals cooked by the boat's deck hand/Chef. Not too shabby, and (unlike last time I was on ship) I won't have to worry about running into a grumpy 1st Sgt. w/ too much time, and too little brains/vocabulary on his hands:) I hope everyone is well.

Cheers,
Mike