Angoon is a small village on Admiralty Island in Southeast Alaska. Currently it is accessible by boat or float plane. There is no airport or gravel strip. Some people like it that way some people don't. I honestly think most people that live there don't care one way or another.
In early June one of our Geologists and I traveled to Angoon to scout possible locations for a future airport. There were 4 possibilities, three WAY off the road on the other side of the bay.
Our second full day was spent bushwhacking through the rain forest. It took us about 14hrs to go 7.5 miles on an island with the most dense population of Brown Bears in North America. Armed with only my .40, two cans of bear spray, and our voices the only angry animal we encountered was an upset Canadian Goose. While we didn't see a single bear I'm sure more than I would like to imagine saw us.
The owner of the lodge where we were staying told us he always figured that a mile hiked on Admiralty Island equaled between 4 to 7 miles of hiking in Wyoming, and that there were bets between him and the fisheries people that were there whether or not we'd cover all the ground we expected to. We did, they were impressed, and they never told us who won the bet.
Below are a couple pictures from our treks through the forest.
There was a lot of dead fall to crawl over. Some of the logs were easily larger than 4 feet in diameter.
There were times that the brush was so thick Callie (the geologist) couldn't push through. Lucky for us my mass is about twice hers and was able to clear a path. The picture below was taking standing on a log about 4 feet off the ground. You can get an idea of how thick it was.
1 comment:
That is some serious brush!
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