We found this old shovel in camp, an artifact from days long ago.
Here are the modern versions of our tools.
Full packs, time to beat feet the final 6 miles back to the airstrip. Ahead of us, one big tree and about 10 smaller ones. Easy peasy!
It was a nice cool morning, in fact, cold in camp but it was warming quickly.
Our tired crew leader checking the GPS. “Hey! Wait a minute! Still says we have 5 miles to go!”
Remember this beast! Time to deal with it!
Art arrived just before John and I and had formulated a cut plan.
The stump relesed with the first cut and things were already much safer. Time for cut two.
Cut two complete, time to roll the section out of the way.
After moving the lower section, a little clean up and we were done.
Time for some photographic artistry!
At lunch, we only had about 1.5 miles to go but you can see the troops were tired and dirty! We were already thinking about the small comforts of home we had left in our airport bags back at the ranger station.
Our hearts sank as we moved into the basin. We relalized that the wind had dropped about 50 additional trees over the trail we had cleared 5 days ago……
Hot and dry. The work was hard!
Still time for a quick self-portrait!
Dog Creek Crossing.
Pack, stop, work, pack, stop, work, rinse and repeat!
Finally! The airstrip! Our home for the evening and the finish of the long hard hike.
A couple of evening shots then to bed early! Also, a big thanks to Peter, the wilderness ranger assigned to this guard station. He hosted us for the evening and made us feel welcome and comfortable. FYI, Peter may have the best job in the world!
Despite being super tired, I knew that I had a small and unique light window between about 2:30 am and 4:00 am to shoot the Milky Way. The moonset was to occur about 3:00am and around these parts at this time of year, the sun starts rising about 4:00 am. The Frank Church Wilderness it one of the darkest places in the Lower 48 so I needed to get some star photography done…… Tune in tomorrow and see how I did
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