More about my trip! Were going to do this FAQ style.
What was I doing? I did a month long sea kayaking course through the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) in Southeast Alaska. I paddled about 300 miles over 28 days without seeing as much as a building and seeing very very few other people besides those in my group. My group consisted of 12 students and 3 instructors.
My route is highlighted in red on this map. The main island that we circumnavigated was Kuiu Island. We left from the Tlinget villege of Kake on Kupreanof Island and ended at Mitkof Island. The slightly larger island to the left is Baranof Island which provided most of the white-capped mountain type scenery.
Where was I? As previously stated, I was in Southeast Alaska... more specifically, the section of Alaska that hangs down next to the Canadian Yukon territory. We actually paddled around the Alexander Archipeligo (an archipeligo is like an island chain that is right off a continent) and the Tongass National Forest. The Tongass is an interesting place because it's the countries largest (about the size of West Virginia) and most contraversial national forest. It's a temperate rain forest in a very remote corner of the world and has, for the most part, gone largely untouched. In my opinion, its one of the most beautiful places in the world.
This was pretty much daily life in Alaska. The picture was taken at one of the first campsites. It was also at 10-11pm when I took this picture, close to the summer solstice
What was one of my favorite moments? The basic idea behind NOLS is that at the beginning, the instructors are very much in control of the course. As it goes on, however, they turn the course further and further over to you so that by the end, the students are completely self sufficient and have the skills to go paddle for a month in the wilderness by themselves. In the middle of the course we were in sort of an intermediate stage where the instructors would paddle about 15 minutes behind us and let us make all the navigation, weather decisions, etc.
It was my turn to be leader of the day and I was responsible for taking the group safely around Point Barrie. We tried once and had to turn around because of the wind... the next day we tried again and the wind was even worse. I pulled off the water to the nearest beach where it proceeded to dump rain on us for 8 straight hours. I set a weather check for 5:15 but by 4:15 I was wondering if I should even bother. It was still dumping rain, people looked genuinely cold, wet and unhappy. In the next hour, however, it cleared up signficantly. People were feeling lazy and made it clear that they wanted to stay and camp the night there. The beach sucked for camping and, being somewhat of an uncle tom, i told them we were leaving the beach even if we had to paddle backwards on our course to find a better one... which is what we ultimately decided on.
By the time we got on the water, the rain had stopped, the sea was calm and the sun was starting to come out. There seemed to be a group consensus to try Pt Barrie again (which mildly irritated me... "an hour ago you people didnt have the energy to paddle 2 miles to look for a better beach, now you want to paddle 11?!") but who was I to argue with a consensus. So paddle to Pt. Barrie we did.
Just as we got to the actual point, I saw several Orca fins glid out of the water a few hundred yards off. I stopped and waiting, excited and hoping they'd come back. For a few minutes, nothing happened and then the suddenly appeared 10 yards off our boat. A mother and two of her babies, head out of the water and everything. The funny thing is.. if we hadnt gotten winded in twice, decided not to go then decided to go.. I wouldve missed it completely.
I took this picture at Table Bay where a landslide had occured the previous winter. The mountain was actually a lot bigger than it looks in the picture and it was a fairly impressive sight. All of the rubble had collapsed on a stream damming it up and it was clear that it built up until it burst. Pretty neat spot.
What was my least favorite moment? We started out at Port Beauclerc with the intention of going 16 miles that day (a very average day). This day, however, it was jusdt POURING. Normally we'd get showered and it didnt rain all that hard, it just rained all the time, hence the rain forest... but this was a real rainy day. I had this paddling jacket that one of the instructors, Eric, had issued me as gear for the trip. Before we even got on the water the paddle jacket, which was supposed to be waterproof, was completely soaked through so that you could see my windlayer below it. Eric came up and asked me what kind of person would issue me a terrible paddle jacket like that, hah.
Three hours later, its still pouring... my torsos been soaking wet the entire time. I can feel that my body temperature isnt where it should be and that paddling and eating food isnt doing enough to fix it. The waters gotten super choppy and the options for pulling off the water have not been good. I realized that I was starting to get hypothermic and mentioned to Eric in a very casual tone that I'd like to get off the water, preferably within the next hour, to deal with the paddle jacket issue and to probably make a makeshift jacket out of my raincoat. He offered me his wool hat but I said I was cool and just needed a beach break to sort things out. In general, I'm not stupid or dramatic about safety/injury things.
An aside about me: If I say something, it's because somethings actually wrong, but I'm not going to make a big deal out of it. I'm also not going to try to act like a tough guy and fight through it. My theory is that in the backcountry, its not your prerogative to be careless with your health because if something happens to you it becomes a problem for your whole group. There's also no use in freaking out like, "Oh my god, I'm soooo coold im gunna die! Call the coast guard, I can't paddle any further!"... Anyways
So we finally do get to shore, mostly because someone else in my group had gotten sick. By the point though, Im having trouble articulating what I'm trying to say, I'm having trouble getting my jacket off and I feel pretty woozey and out of it. I got hot water to drink, food, had to take off all my wet clothes on the beach and put on dry long underwear and several layers. I put on way more layers than you'd ever normally paddle in but at that point being way to hot while paddling sounded good. After about 45 minutes on the beach I had regained my facilities. Eric said that if he had realized how cold i was on the water he wouldve forcibly thrown clothes on me, but I hadnt made a big deal out of it so he didnt take it too seriously. I ditched the shotty paddle jacket, put my rain jacket over everyhting (layers, pfd, etc) and got back on the water to finish paddling. Having hypothermia though was the worst, most sick feeling I had during the trip... especially since its not like you can go inside and warm up. Anyway you deal with it, its outside and in the rain...
Ok, that's enough typing for now. More FAQ's later, including: What did I eat? Scariest Moment(s)? etc. PLUS... have YOUR FAQ answered! Just provide it in the comment space below and I will, eventually, get to it
What was I doing? I did a month long sea kayaking course through the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) in Southeast Alaska. I paddled about 300 miles over 28 days without seeing as much as a building and seeing very very few other people besides those in my group. My group consisted of 12 students and 3 instructors.
My route is highlighted in red on this map. The main island that we circumnavigated was Kuiu Island. We left from the Tlinget villege of Kake on Kupreanof Island and ended at Mitkof Island. The slightly larger island to the left is Baranof Island which provided most of the white-capped mountain type scenery.
Where was I? As previously stated, I was in Southeast Alaska... more specifically, the section of Alaska that hangs down next to the Canadian Yukon territory. We actually paddled around the Alexander Archipeligo (an archipeligo is like an island chain that is right off a continent) and the Tongass National Forest. The Tongass is an interesting place because it's the countries largest (about the size of West Virginia) and most contraversial national forest. It's a temperate rain forest in a very remote corner of the world and has, for the most part, gone largely untouched. In my opinion, its one of the most beautiful places in the world.
This was pretty much daily life in Alaska. The picture was taken at one of the first campsites. It was also at 10-11pm when I took this picture, close to the summer solstice
What was one of my favorite moments? The basic idea behind NOLS is that at the beginning, the instructors are very much in control of the course. As it goes on, however, they turn the course further and further over to you so that by the end, the students are completely self sufficient and have the skills to go paddle for a month in the wilderness by themselves. In the middle of the course we were in sort of an intermediate stage where the instructors would paddle about 15 minutes behind us and let us make all the navigation, weather decisions, etc.
It was my turn to be leader of the day and I was responsible for taking the group safely around Point Barrie. We tried once and had to turn around because of the wind... the next day we tried again and the wind was even worse. I pulled off the water to the nearest beach where it proceeded to dump rain on us for 8 straight hours. I set a weather check for 5:15 but by 4:15 I was wondering if I should even bother. It was still dumping rain, people looked genuinely cold, wet and unhappy. In the next hour, however, it cleared up signficantly. People were feeling lazy and made it clear that they wanted to stay and camp the night there. The beach sucked for camping and, being somewhat of an uncle tom, i told them we were leaving the beach even if we had to paddle backwards on our course to find a better one... which is what we ultimately decided on.
By the time we got on the water, the rain had stopped, the sea was calm and the sun was starting to come out. There seemed to be a group consensus to try Pt Barrie again (which mildly irritated me... "an hour ago you people didnt have the energy to paddle 2 miles to look for a better beach, now you want to paddle 11?!") but who was I to argue with a consensus. So paddle to Pt. Barrie we did.
Just as we got to the actual point, I saw several Orca fins glid out of the water a few hundred yards off. I stopped and waiting, excited and hoping they'd come back. For a few minutes, nothing happened and then the suddenly appeared 10 yards off our boat. A mother and two of her babies, head out of the water and everything. The funny thing is.. if we hadnt gotten winded in twice, decided not to go then decided to go.. I wouldve missed it completely.
I took this picture at Table Bay where a landslide had occured the previous winter. The mountain was actually a lot bigger than it looks in the picture and it was a fairly impressive sight. All of the rubble had collapsed on a stream damming it up and it was clear that it built up until it burst. Pretty neat spot.
What was my least favorite moment? We started out at Port Beauclerc with the intention of going 16 miles that day (a very average day). This day, however, it was jusdt POURING. Normally we'd get showered and it didnt rain all that hard, it just rained all the time, hence the rain forest... but this was a real rainy day. I had this paddling jacket that one of the instructors, Eric, had issued me as gear for the trip. Before we even got on the water the paddle jacket, which was supposed to be waterproof, was completely soaked through so that you could see my windlayer below it. Eric came up and asked me what kind of person would issue me a terrible paddle jacket like that, hah.
Three hours later, its still pouring... my torsos been soaking wet the entire time. I can feel that my body temperature isnt where it should be and that paddling and eating food isnt doing enough to fix it. The waters gotten super choppy and the options for pulling off the water have not been good. I realized that I was starting to get hypothermic and mentioned to Eric in a very casual tone that I'd like to get off the water, preferably within the next hour, to deal with the paddle jacket issue and to probably make a makeshift jacket out of my raincoat. He offered me his wool hat but I said I was cool and just needed a beach break to sort things out. In general, I'm not stupid or dramatic about safety/injury things.
An aside about me: If I say something, it's because somethings actually wrong, but I'm not going to make a big deal out of it. I'm also not going to try to act like a tough guy and fight through it. My theory is that in the backcountry, its not your prerogative to be careless with your health because if something happens to you it becomes a problem for your whole group. There's also no use in freaking out like, "Oh my god, I'm soooo coold im gunna die! Call the coast guard, I can't paddle any further!"... Anyways
So we finally do get to shore, mostly because someone else in my group had gotten sick. By the point though, Im having trouble articulating what I'm trying to say, I'm having trouble getting my jacket off and I feel pretty woozey and out of it. I got hot water to drink, food, had to take off all my wet clothes on the beach and put on dry long underwear and several layers. I put on way more layers than you'd ever normally paddle in but at that point being way to hot while paddling sounded good. After about 45 minutes on the beach I had regained my facilities. Eric said that if he had realized how cold i was on the water he wouldve forcibly thrown clothes on me, but I hadnt made a big deal out of it so he didnt take it too seriously. I ditched the shotty paddle jacket, put my rain jacket over everyhting (layers, pfd, etc) and got back on the water to finish paddling. Having hypothermia though was the worst, most sick feeling I had during the trip... especially since its not like you can go inside and warm up. Anyway you deal with it, its outside and in the rain...
Ok, that's enough typing for now. More FAQ's later, including: What did I eat? Scariest Moment(s)? etc. PLUS... have YOUR FAQ answered! Just provide it in the comment space below and I will, eventually, get to it
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
Many of our urban area lakes are hydro reservoirs .[ But hey it sure beats coal & natural gas fired power generating plants
you are one scruffy adventurer.
soy cheese