Pinchot Demobilization

Photos from the Pinchot Demobe

From Road’s End to Wood’s Creek is 15.1 miles.  From Wood’s Creek to Pinchot Pass is 7.7 miles.  From Pinchot Pass to Bench Lake Ranger Station is 3.5 miles.  Total = 26.3 miles.  You start at 8:00am and end around 8:00pm.  The best part is when you arrive at camp and have some friendly hikers already having dinner there, so getting in after hiking a marathon is broken up by some good company.  And the next day you are tired, but really not that sore.  Not too shabby.

We stayed at what is known as the Bench Lake Ranger Station, which is really just a collection of bear boxes next to a large wooden platform where the canvas-tent ranger station used to be set up.  The best part is the picnic table, completely unexpected and unnecessary in the backcountry, but totally welcome.  The lakes near the ranger station are known as the Pinchot lakes, because the pass close to them is Pinchot Pass. 

There is one lake with gill nets at Pinchot, and Mary had been to it once.  We promptly lost our way to it on our first day of work, and had some wandering before it was found again.  J  Of all the lakes I’ve been in, Pinchot was the deepest and perhaps the coldest (the wind didn’t help any).  In two days time, Mary and I pulled out all the nets, mended what was necessary, set winter nets, dried out all the nets to be stored, inventoried quite a bit, drew a new map of the lake, and cleaned all the dishes from the season (apparently no one cleaned their dishes at the site!).  An additional, unexpected, task at the site was that we needed to collect 15 live fish from a nearby lake, euthanize them, wrap them in foil, and do a lot of labeling, for a mercury study that some researcher is doing.  This task led to one of our days being a 12 hour day (and I am quite good at euthanizing fish with a sharp blow of a rock). 

It was so nice to work with Mary again, even if just for a few days.  It was just like last year, where we worked together really well, usually with little need for either of us to say what needed to be done, in camp or for work, because we were both already in understanding of what should be done, and when, and how.  We also had some pretty cool spiritual conversations, as well as times of companionable silence.  I simply love working with Mary – what a treat!  What an awesome person, and an awesome friend!

After our helicopter took our gear away, Mary hiked back out to the west side to get her car, while I hiked out to the east side (9 miles downhill – quite the slog), where Sean picked me up in my car and we had dinner at the Still Life Café one last time – fancy French food: roasted pork over pasta with caramelized onions with a fine house salad.  So, so good.