Wireless internet... There goes the beer plan.

When you’re scheduled to fly on 6/6/6 you kind of expect the worst, but overall the first day of this field season was just surprising, not satanic. I thought it was going to be a nice organizational evening in Whitehorse when we arrived yesterday afternoon, but instead we had a truck with the keys in the ignition, and instructions to book it out to the Logtung junction to meet Dave, the Camp Manager. So we quickly grabbed some good coffee in town and left right away, without so much as a phone call, and accepted our mission.

We stopped in Teslin to pick up two quad tires, 4 buckets of drill mud and a mystery box for the drill company, and while Lee was in the store I got accosted by an overzealous drunken fellow whose name I didn’t catch. He told me he’d borrow $200 bucks and we could go to Vegas and blow it all. Wahoo. I got a giant bear hug and a few more unmentionable comments (which were supposed to be flattering but instead made me cringe) before I pretty much elbowed him in the gut (and mentioned my 6’4” football playing boyfriend) to get away. Ahhhh, the local character. And it was still only 4:30.

When we arrived exactly on time at 6pm at the junction, Dave was nowhere to be seen so we sat and ate chips. Dave showed up later and said very little, which I figured out later was probably due to fear that we wouldn’t make it up the 12 km road, which was actually a giant oubliette of mud and slop. Most of it was ok, with only a few scary tire spins, until we got to the bad spot.

It was pretty amazing. It was the Bog of Eternal stench (except it wasn’t that smelly) come to real life. But luckily, a giant skidder (= a giant tractor with very deep treads and giant rims) with a chain was set up at the spot for just this purpose. Dave fearlessly made it through, and his truck looked like it was riding the high seas as it went through at about 100km an hour. He hooked up our truck to the skidder and pulled us through. It was absolutely amazing to feel the truck get pull by this thing and yet feel that under the truck the wheels weren’t actually touching any solid ground, just sort of floating along the top of it. But we made it, and I can check off yet another odd form of field transportation.

12 km (and another hour and a half) later we reached camp which has utterly changed forever. Last year it was Lee and I and that’s it, no man made structures, just an old road. Now there’s a cook-shack, a washhouse, six tent frame cabins, an outhouse, a big core-shack, an office tent, an industrial generator and a drill running 24 hours. There’s three trucks, an ATV, 10 people (including a cook), and three dogs. And now us. Its great – there’s even wireless internet which is how I’m able to write this, but I think I like the fly camps better than drill camps. I like the pristine wilderness better. The picture below is a nice view of where our little camp was last year - it was just inside that upper cirque at the far upper right of the photo.

The best part is the dogs. They’re husky crosses and they are therefore very vocal, and join in almost every conversation with howls and yelps and really odd sounds unless they’re sleeping (and obviously dreaming about chasing caribou). The snow is still very deep, up to 40ft drifts in some places, so we’re praying for sun to come in and melt it off our rocks. Since I’ve been stuck in camp looking at drill core all day and sorting everything out with the core loggers etc, I can’t wait to get out for a hike.

I miss everyone! Already! And I don’t care how dumb that is. Mom, dad gramma don't worry about bears - the uberloud generator that runs 24 hours a day keeps the bears away.
Meg I had chocolate cake!!! In the field!! and it was pretty good. Joshie I hope you figure out what a blog is and how to find mine. Love you guys. P.S. I'm makin 250 a day and we had ribs for dinner.