Lake Bathymetry: Alaska Pt. III

Which is your favorite view of Upper Twin Lake?

As promised I return with tales of my Great Alaskan Adventure, this time of the last half of my time there the vast majority of which was spent at a place called Twin Lakes. I am going to warn right off the bat that there will be a lot of photos associated with this part of my journey, mostly because this may have been the most beautiful week of my life. And that is saying a lot because all of my weeks in Iceland have been spent with the über-beatiful Dr. David Hoekman. But I digress, let me start at the beginning, before we even left Port Alsworth.

Always gotta be on the lookout for my midge friends!

After arriving in Port Alsworth from Silver Salmon John and I took advantage of “civilization” to clean ourselves and some of our gear, as well as sleep in a real bed. The next morning we were tasked with fish tracking in Lake Clark. John had been radio tagging sockeye salmon earlier in the summer down near Iliamna Lake and now he and the other members of the “fish crew” were tracking them as they moved up through the watershed and into their spawning grounds. This is done from both boats and planes as I found out and mainly involves listening for a specific frequency being emitted from individual fish.

Port Alsworth is so isolated all fuel has to be flown in.

This information can then be used to see when, how far, how fast, and where fish are moving. These fish come from Bristol Bay, which is regarded as the premier salmon fishery in the world, for reasons of both the number of fish as well as the effective management that has allowed it to be sustained for decades. It is one of the cornerstones of the economy in this region of Alaska as well as being invaluable culturally to the native peoples of the region.

John downloading data from the fish tower.

So we jumped into a small boat named “Fishtrap” and set out up the lake towards what is known as Little Lake Clark; a part of the glacial basin that is being pinched off from the rest of the lake to the south by a river delta. Just before we reached the delta we had to stop and check a fish tower. This apparatus can automatically monitor fish as they pass near it, providing park biologists with the same information that they can get by manually tracking the fish. Like the fish weir it ran off of batteries and solar power, and the data needed to be downloaded from time to time.

Fishtrap.

We tracked for the entire afternoon and into the evening, enjoying the mirror-calm lake. In conversations with John before arriving he described his time there as “mostly miserable but with days that will make you not want to be anywhere else in the world.” Well I think that this was one of the latter because it was so gorgeous!

John chasing radio tagged fish.

When we returned to Port Alsworth we were told that we would be leaving for Twin Lakes at 7 the next morning which meant that we had to get our stuff together. To do bathymetry, or lake bottom mapping, we would need a boat, motor, depth finder, gas, safety gear, plus all of our food and personal gear. All of this we would have to stuff into a Cessna 206 on floats, and let me tell you that it is a little disconcerting to think about stuffing a ton of gear into what is more-or-less a 1960s VW Beetle with wings. We caught a couple hours of sleep before waking in the morning and heading to the bay/airport for our delivery on Lake Clark Air.

Our float plane heading back out into the lake.

It was about a 45 minute flight to Twin Lakes and when we arrived the lake was still as glass. We were going to be staying in “Hope’s Cabin”, the middle of three cabins on a small delta on the south side of the lake. Just up lake was “Spike’s Cabin” and about 100 meters south is “Dick’s Cabin.” We hauled our gear to Hope’s and tossed our things inside.

Taking it all in for a moment.

Now Dick’s place is semi-famous outside of Alaska and I am told that it is the most visited place in the park. That is kinda saying something because it costs around $2000 to fly there. Needless to say you have to want it. “Dick” was Richard Proenneke, an Alaskan individualist that is not so unique for what he did (building a cabin in the bush with his own hands) but rather for the fact that he documented it extensively through photos, video, and writing. A documentary about the building of his cabin and his subsequent winter at Twin Lakes called “Alone in the Wilderness” is apparently a perennial favorite on the PBS circuit.

John looks pleased with out new digs; Hope's Cabin.

We thought it would be a good idea to check out the cabin, so after getting settled a bit we returned to see what “’Ole Proenneke” had scrapped together here in the middle of nowhere. All by himself he had built a cabin, toolshed, outhouse, and elevated food cache. The workmanship was impressive and I especially liked the turf roof. Everything has been preserved as it was when he left over a dozen years ago (he left Twin Lakes in 1998 and passed in 2003). For much of the summer there are park volunteers who live here but they had left a week or so before we arrived.

Dick Proenneke's cabin.

Well then we got down to business, which meant inflating our Achilles dinghy and mounting the engine upon it. We didn’t make it too far before we had a pretty serious mechanical failure that meant we had to call off our work for a day and wait for a replacement outboard to be flown in. We enjoyed light rain falling on the lakes as we cobbled together a mechanism for anchoring our boat offshore to keep it from being gnawed on by the local bears. Always gotta be mindful of the bears! Good thing I had John around to keep me honest.

Dick's view of Upper Twin Lake from inside his cabin.

The next morning we had some time to kill before the plane would arrive so we took a little hike up along Hope Creek. It didn’t take much climbing to get above the treeline for a wonderful view of the lake. The sun was shining brightly and with peak color all around it made for a spectacular sight. We heard a plane and quickly descended back to the lake edge and while passing Dick’s we heard voices.

Light rain on a still lake sparkles like a gem.

We stopped for a better look and came across two dogs and two people. They were very friendly and so we started talking to them about the place, who we all were and what we were doing, and how much we all loved Twin Lakes. They have driving up from Buffalo and Colorado through the Canadian Rockies and were now enjoying Alaska. Their home away from home was a small hunting cabin across the lake, from which they had taken their boat to visit Dick’s cabin one more time before they were to be picked up that afternoon (Sunday). It was fun to talk to them and who knows but we may see them again someday. Shout out to Kris and Brandon!

Our Upper Twin Lake buddies!

It didn’t take too long after they left for our plane to arrive (the earlier one had been a false alarm) with the new motor. Thankfully they also delivered some toilet paper, something we had forgotten to bring with us the first time around. Unfortunately around this time the wind began to pick up and we knew that this would not make our job very easy. Of course we had to try so we geared up and jumping into the boat. We thought it would be best if we headed up the lake rather than down it as the wind was coming from the head of the lake.

Working the depthfinder/GPS unit.

If there is one thing to stay about bathymetry it is that it is slow work. It is not at all difficult, but you cannot move very fast, which at some scale may not be that bad but on a 6 mile long lake tends to add up (especially when you have to maintain a speed around 3-4 miles per hour!). Our boat was equipped with a depth finder, basically a fish finder, that had a built-in GPS unit. Every two seconds the unit took a simultaneous depth and location recording. John’s boss Dan had given us a 400 meter square grid to run on the lake and a computer program would then use the data from the transects we ran to interpolate a surface for the bottom of the lake.

Hard not to smile in these surroundings.

We were particularly interested in this task as nobody had ever mapped Twin Lakes before! We imagined ourselves as explorers charting an unknown world. The Louisiana Purchase had Lewis and Clark; Twin Lakes had Rodsrom and Dreyer! We would often take note of the depth readings, taking pleasure in the fact that we were the first to know these facts. As a scientist this is a particularly fulfilling experience, like discovering a new species or curing cancer. OK, maybe not like curing cancer but probably more like mapping a lake bottom that has never been mapped before. As it turns out Dick or somebody must have done a bit of bottom exploration because as I was reading his journals he knows that it is at least 280 feet deep. That guy…

Hope's Cabin; stove going.

After a solid eight hour day we retired to our wood-stove warmed cabin for dinner and some rest. The next day we woke up and went out on the lake, but things were looking rather bad out there and it didn’t take long for us to have to abandon our work. After a few fitful attempts to find something to do we retired somewhat early with a plan to take a hike the following day.

Upper Twin from Low Pass.

A hike that had been suggested to us was through a valley called Low Pass. This feature linked the Twin Lakes basin with the next large valley to the south. Tuesday was again very windy and so with little else to do we thought this was a great idea. We started up the pass and it didn’t take too long before we were rewarded with more wonderful views. Unfortunately the weather was pretty poor, with lots of wind and drizzle to keep us cold and wet. This did not dampen our spirits however and we climbed higher and higher.

Enjoying the hike.

Eventually we reached the center of the pass, and like good explorers that we were we decided to keep going at least until we were able to see into the next valley. I have found that these sort of situations require a modicum of self-discipline as there is always one more vantage to reach. Sooner or later though you have to turn around and head back, as painful as that may be. Perhaps the sun sensed our distress because soon it began to peek through the clouds, rewarding us with some wonderful rainbows.

Looking into the next valley.

The two days were once again too windy for us to do much work. By Thursday we were resigned to our fate and plans were made for a plane to come in with somebody to replace me. That evening we enjoyed some fishing in front of Hope Creek and consumed the fish of our labor, a wonderful lake trout. It was sad to pack up and go to sleep that evening, knowing that I would be leaving John and Upper Twin behind. The next morning Leon and Dan arrived to take me back to Port Alsworth in the red 185 floatplane and after a gear transfer we were off.

Filtering some water. Probably unnecessary.

I spent the next 24 hours in Port Alsworth, getting repacked and cleaned up and going for hikes. Friday afternoon I took a hike with one of John’s co-workers to Tanalian Falls. Saturday I attempted to summit Mount Tanalian, but the entire thing was shrouded in heavy clouds which made my solo climb both somewhat dangerous as well as unrewarding. After coming down and warming back up I boarded another Lake Clark Air flight, this time a twin engine Piper Navajo, to Anchorage for the one hour flight. After a stop at the Moose’s Tooth I was off to Ted Steven’s International Airport and soon airborne for the Lower 48.

The red 185 with Mount Tanalian behind. I made it up to the treeless shoulder.

The beauty of Lake Clark National Park, both natural and personal, with be with me for a long time. I feel utterly privileged to have had this opportunity and I cannot say enough thanks to John and Dan. Hopefully some day I will return. I refuse to believe I have seen the last of Alaska.

The most beautiful flight of my life to date.

Thanks for sticking with this saga. Next week I will return to what is going on in the lab here in Madison. We actually have a lot of news concerning some papers and we have coming out soon and work in progress here on campus. Team Midge is also looking forward to a visit from Hilary in a week’s time!

Bless,

Jamin