Saturday Morning:
Met Johnnie Laird at the Ketchikan airport. Got bags and headed
to his home to organize the gear. He had great news, the weather
was to remain clear and we were flying out that afternoon on
a 2:00 pm. bush flight with Taquan Air. We did some shopping
for a pair of caulks (special jungle boot) and a few odds and
ends. Then back to his home to organize and inventory our gear
and food for our trip.
We went over the detailed topos of the area we would be hunting
and headed over to Taquan where we met our pilot JJ. JJ was an
experienced bush pilot which is important in the Mistys. All
the pilots out of Ketchikan are good ones because the rest are
dead! In the below photo, Johnnie and JJ roll our gear out to
the Beaver float plane. Note cruise ships in the background.
Saturday Afternoon.
The flight was thrilling as usual, we buzzed the mts. and
saw lots of goats. The population in this area is more than I
expected - this is going to be fun! As we approached our area
we kept a distance so not to get the goats too spooky but we
carefully noted where the goats were hanging out and possible
routes to get to them. I was surprised at the greenness but that
did not seem to diminish the incredible steepness of the country
- as you can see by this aerial photo.
The bush plane landed and within minutes we were unloaded
and waving goodbye to JJ as he flew over our base camp. It was
now Johnnie and me for the next few days. We set up a base camp
at the low elevation lake. Tomorrow we would do the death march
to our mid-sized spike camp called camp 2. We enjoyed our last
Blimpie Sub and even toasted our upcoming adventure over an Alaskan
Micro-Brew. We knew that after tonight it was stream water and
tightly rationed freeze-drieds for ten days.