We didn’t plan to go on an adventure this summer. With an infant new this February, we kind of figured it would be impractical. But once Katmai arrived, we realized that babies are quite a bit more portable than we had imagined.

On the scale of our adventures, it wasn’t much. Eight days in the field, two small backpacking trips (3 days and 2 days), some easy packrafting, a few thick bushwhacks, a bit of scrambling along the edge of a glacier, bugs, sun, and logging roads…

The Mission

We’d been invited on this journey by Gabe Scott of Cascadia Wild, looking at the aftermath of several decades of logging at Cape Yakataga and Icy Bay. 20,000 acres (over 30 square miles) were clear cut, mostly on Mental Health Trust land, with some on state land to which the University of Alaska had logging rights. But they stopped logging in the summer of 2007, just before we walked through the first time. Not because of any outcry at the vast expanse of forests being flattened, not because the waste inherent in the operation was unacceptable, and not because the system where we fund our universities and mental health programs through clearcutting seemed dumb. They stopped the logging because the it stopped making money. We were there to look at how well the logging company had cleaned up, to do a few experiments, and to plot out restoration possibilities.

Down the ditch and up the ditch and down the ditch again… The logging company had done a pretty thorough job of tearing out their bridges and culverts, turning the logging roads into a long series of steep and scrambly ditches. And the bridges needed to go. If left behind, the gravel and log bridges would wash out, sending sediment into the salmon streams, and suffocating incubating eggs. At these stream crossings we took carefully located photos. We measured the steepness of the banks (nearly always steeper than they were supposed to be), and noted slumps and other signs of instability. We scribbled notes about streamside vegetation. I nursed the baby. Our cameras clicked away.

We were careful to walk around the willow stakes that Gabe had planted the year before – tiny wands of greenery protruding from the gravel banks – standing against a landscape of devastation.

Yakataga from Bretwood Higman on Vimeo.

Crossing rivers

Ferry across to avoid a sweeper, ride through a few small waves, and shoot over to a landing spot on the far side of the roiling brown waters of the South Fork Yakataga. Simple. Until you add two packrafting novices and a small infant.

I like to think that we contributed to the surveys, provided entertaining company to Gabe and Jordan, and added a couple pairs of observational eyes. But our most important contribution to the mission was probably the packrafts. With the bridges gone, walking the 15 miles to the end of the logging roads at the Duktoth River was an obstacle course of crossing after crossing.

We blew up the rafts for Gabe and Jordan to paddle around in a tiny pond, trying to convince them that maneuvering them in a river (no large rapids, but very swift water) was actually much easier and safer than it looked. With Katmai, I had a different problem. We’d bought a nice life vest for the baby, and tested it in the pool. But how was I supposed to keep a hand on the baby, the packraft, and the paddle at the same time during launching and landing – without letting any combination thereof drift down the river without me?

On the first crossing, Gabe and Jordan realized that the packrafts were indeed easier to use than they looked, and I managed to cross with a rather pissed off life-vest clad baby with a little help on both ends. For each subsequent crossing, Gabe and Jordan were substantially more relaxed. But it does take a little trial and error to realize how fast you need to ferry in a packraft. So there was some overeager paddling, and some undereager paddling (Jordan missed one pullout and nearly crashed into Hig as he was videoing from just downstream), but no major casualties. And Katmai stayed in his wrap, usually somewhat annoyed at all the awkward maneuverings (threading his life vest into the wrap with him, tucking his head in so he wouldn’t arch back into the swinging paddle) required for each crossing. But as long as he was securely attached I knew I couldn’t accidentally send him drifting off down the river without me.

Walking Roads

Logs littered the ground on either side of the road in the 2 year old clearcuts. The high cost of getting any log out of this remote wilderness meant that many that would be valuable at a mill were instead left here to rot. We paused to count the rings on one discarded giant – nearly 500 years old.

We barely got a chance to see living forest – just a grove of lush growth off the end of the clearcut. After days of grey gravel and grey logs, stumps and slash, each green shrub looked especially vivid, and each soaring trunk seemed especially tall. Then we launched into the Duktoth River, floating 6 or so miles to the ocean and our base camp at Cape Yakataga.

Revisiting

Back at Cape Yakataga, our base camp was familiar. In November and December 2007, Don and LaHoma had been our generous hosts. We’d picked up our mail drop of food, shared meals of canned bear with the couple and their pet bird, and enjoyed the warm glow of hospitality and a respite from the storms.

This time, their cheery house was empty and dark. Since we came through a year and a half ago, Don had died, and LaHoma had moved away. The new owner had given us permission to use their house as a base-camp. It was nice to have a roof for a few of the nights, and a place away from the bugs. But this time, it seemed a sad and lonely place. I picked the rhubarb from what remained of their garden, combining it with their abandoned stores of dry goods into pancakes and pudding.

And in a different season the Lost Coast was a world transformed. No howling winds came to tear out the stakes of our shelter. No blizzards whited out the world. Instead when we camped, mosquitos swarmed in the warm calm air, filling our pyramid shelter with their buzzing. The white of snow and the gold of autumn grass had been replaced by the grey of silt and sand, the bright green fog of horsetails in the floodplains, and the enormous leaves of skunk cabbage. Even the waves seemed subdued. The Lost Coast in June was like a wrathful giant sleeping. And the harsh, wild, desolate, amazing place I remembered had been replaced by something less wild and more alive, but no less amazing.

Mission Possible?

What can we do here? As four people (plus one tiny passenger) with only a week there this year, we knew it wouldn’t be much. Gabe comes out here every summer and does what restoration he can, but the main mission is always experimentation and documentation – hoping in the end to get money for a larger restoration team, or to convince the state to do it on its own.

We planted willow stakes in the hope that their spreading roots might keep a bank from collapsing, preventing the salmon eggs from suffocating under a wash of silt, helping out a salmon run that might otherwise dwindle. We experimented with quick ways of strewing or planting vegetation on the road, hoping it might accelerate the rate at which the gravel turns to forest. Decades from now, Gabe speculates that perhaps the young dense trees in the upcoming forest could be thinned.

But even if we had teams of minions to do this on a large scale, all across the 30 square miles of clear cut, I wonder how much it would matter. After the fact, clear cuts don’t leave a whole lot to save. With or without our help, this land will turn to forest again, but only very slowly. In another five hundred years, we may have some trees as large as those that were cut and left behind, and habitat to rival that which was lost. We may be able to speed it up, but I don’t know by how much. No one knows.

But there is old growth still here. They mapped out patches that they didn’t quite get to, designated for some future loggers. For now, it isn’t economical for the loggers to come back. But prices change. The question will come around again. I hope the answer isn’t the same as the first time. Now is a good time to protect what remains of the Lost Coast’s forests.

For more on baby Katmai’s adventure (with more pics and video), see Katmai’s blog

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