Alaska Surveyor Photoblog
June 13, 2010
Our new rental....
forward operating command base in Levelock....
Kvichak River at high tide....took us 3 hours to go 14 miles dodging sand bars...
somewhere along here the fiber optic cable will cross...
Juvenile bald eagle
had to locate these primitive dwellings so the Fiber optic operation can stay clear of them....these are up to 8000 years old and the ground under the veg is littered with cultural artifacts.
Shooting meanders
the Kvichak on a calm day....the next day it was rock n' roll..
...well...we ditched the Lund and upgraded...the way to Pile Bay from Pedro Bay.
Two USGS surveyors came in the same time we did because they had less gear they arrive via deHaviland Beaver...
These work horses were first used in the 1940's
I told Ralph this was the picture of the day...and he say "That?...it's just a cap...."
But I say you don't see a 1927 everyday. ...too bad 1986 mucked it up
Fishing Boats waiting for high tide to get yanked out of the water and trucked to Iliamna lake
Williamsport (population 0)
trashing the country side
Fishing boats trying to get from the Cook inlet to the rich salmon waters of Bristol Bay can either go around the Alaska peninsula on a dangerous and expensive trip or get trucked for 15 miles to Lake iliamna and motor west and down the Kvichak river.
15 miles of a one lane gravel road...
Our ride back to the airstrip at Pedro Bay....we blew the water pump in the outboard along the way...and I ended steering the boat for an hour with the kicker...
Badges?...we don't need no steenkin badge's...
thanks Jeff
One has to wonder how the plans got as far as to actually build an oil terminal in this location. 6 million gallons of crude is stored here. Besides the yearly undulations of the river...If the Mt. Redoubt volcano has a pyroclastic eruption a lahar travelling at around 250 miles per hour would destroy it. They don't call it the Drift river because it is inherently stable.