Ministry Patrol - Atlin NW Loop

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After a well deserved day off, Jamie and I were back at it early this morning. We were starting on our northwestern loop, heading up to Partridge first, then back down to Lindeman, Warm Creek, Taku Arm, Lost Lake, Llewellyn Glacier, Pike Lake and back to Atlin. We weren't at all sure how long all this would take. It would depend on whether we ran into any problems, I guess. We were checking cabin conditions, signs of humans, looking for wildlife and possible poaching, checking snow depths (DEEP), etc. So we were going to be busy and expected to spend at least one night in one of the cabins, at the very least.

The trip up to Partridge was pretty nice. Beautiful scenery although vis was down a bit in very light snow. Temps were really warm at -5C for the most part, which is about 20 celsius degrees warmer than what we had been getting the past week. After loading up the aircraft, we said "so long" to the ranger based at Atlin and headed off westbound across Atlin Lake.


Shortly after crossing Atlin Lake. It was still pretty early in the a of m at this point.


Beautiful scenery along this route!


This is heading towards our rather sharp turn to the right to head up the valley that would take us to Partridge


Finding the cabin was pretty easy this time. Note the rapids (mostly frozen now) in the upper part of the pic. I landed as close to the east shore as I could to stay out of the main current as I wasn't all that sure of the ice.


All worked out well and I parked in a small bay east of the cabin. Jamie was to do a lot of the work here, so she gave me instructions on what she needed and I set about my work.


Nice cabin here


Talk about a room with a view! This is looking north down Partridge Lake. Head far enough that-a-way and you end up in Carcross, YT.

It was a good trip across although I'm hoping for a bit of improvement in the vis as the day goes on.

More to come

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We really didn't need to spend much time at Partridge. Everything was in order and we got our snow depths and samples in short order, so off we went for Lindeman. It was a short, 10 minute "S" turn to the lake and cabin, much of it back the way we had just come. The vis and weather in general had picked up nicely for us, so it was a very enjoyable run. Things wouldn't go so smoothly at Lindeman camp however.


Loading up again at Partridge


Lined up and ready to go, taking off from the direction we originally came from.


Spectacular scenery as we climb out through the valley!


Making the turn south at Lindeman for the cabin.


Set up for one of those rare perfect 3 point landings.


Beautiful spot here for sure! Someone though had turned the canoe right side up and it was rapidly filling with snow. That would turn to ice as soon as the sun got a bit stronger, so we overturned it again and lay it up near the cabin.


We had a good look around the cabin, as well as the surrounding area. More on that in a minute.


Looking back up the lake towards the north. Gorgeous location for a camp!


On the turn to final, I thought I noticed something bright red in the snow back in the swamp a bit. I pointed it out to Jamie to take note of where it was so we could go and investigate. After quickly checking the cabin, and seeing it had been broken into, I set about repairing the door while Jamie went and investigated the red spot in the snow. She returned a half hour later (snow was very deep and even with snowshoes, one sank pretty far in it) to report a wolf had been poached. There have been reported problems of poachers coming up from the Skagway area to illegally shoot animals then escaping back across the border. I suspected this might be the case here. She said there were several snowmobile tracks at the site. As soon as the cabin was repaired, I said we'd try to follow the tracks and see where they went. In the mean time I got on the HF to our base in Atlin and asked them to contact the USDF at Skagway and tell them we might possibly be coming down their way. They, in turn would alert Customs for us. More shortly.

[scottb]

Very nice Glenn! Looking forward to more

-Scott

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Thanks Scott

[pivo11]

Brilliant!  Love all this stuff. 

[Deleted]

Thanks Fritz. Appreciate it

[Deleted]

Good stuff Glenn. Boy! I wish I had an imagination like yours.
Take care, Carm.

[Deleted]

Yeah, well, be careful what you wish for. At our ages, an imagination can be a threat to life!!

Thanks Carm

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OK, back at it. We got weathered in at Lindeman for a day and a half, and by then I had a really bad head cold. I couldn't see, never mind clear my ears, so we sat for a couple of days while I attempted to recover enough to fly again. Turns out Jamie is a pretty good nurse maid .

We got out of Lindeman reasonably early on, heading for "Warm" Creek. I put "Warm" in quotations because this stream flows from a glacier. Unless there is a hot spring in the area I don't know about, this place is anything but "warm". We had some serious time to make up so we were really hustling. I did have to do some deviations around low clouds in a couple of the passes, but otherwise the trip to Warm Creek was pretty uneventful. From there, it was a hop, skip and a jump across to Taku Arm, which we found right off. We determined that the work at each cabin, barring anything untoward (such as poaching), took about an hour. We had to inspect the cabin, check the surrounding area for tracks (wildlife), take water and snow samples, and look for anything that didn't appear just right. Our trip to Skagit was cancelled due to the time passed before I could fly again. Our office at Atlin did contact the Skagit office of the US Fish & Game department just in case they came across anything. However, all tracks were wiped out in the storm we had to sit out a few days prior. After Taku, we were off again for Lost Lake. Now this one was a bit more "interesting". On the fly by, there were obvious signs of current and thin ice in the lake and both at the inflow and outflow areas. I didn't think an ice landing would be safe here. However, with the deep snow and the somewhat old, raised floodplain to the south of the cabin, I felt like I could put down there reasonably safely. There wasn't a whole lot of room to get out of there again, but we weren't too terribly heavy so I elected to give it a shot. Lost Lake cabin is one of the nicer ones around. We found all kinds of wildlife tracks around there including moose and there  seemed to be a pretty healthy ecosystem at this location. Again, about an hour later we blasted off (with a wee bit of "pucker factor" going due to the deep snow/lots of drag and the closeness of the trees), this time for Llewellyn Glacier. That too was a pretty routine flight and the lake was plenty big (and frozen!) enough to land on. Jamie and I had hoped we'd be done today, but by time we got up to Pike Lake, our next and final stop on this route, it was getting fairly dark. So, she set about collecting samples and whatnot while I prepared the airplane for another night in the cold. These short days and long post/pre-flights do cut into your work time for sure. We both finished our tasks at about the same time and headed into the cabin to fire up the woodstove and make ourselves comfortable for the night. We were hoping for an early departure the following morning back to Atlin.



Getting the airplane ready to depart from Lindeman



Low cloud in some of the passes was a bit of a pain, but not insurmountable



Arriving at Warm Creek. The cabin is in the trees to our left



On the way to Taku Arm. I always get a kick out of looking down and seeing the scenery pass by under the floats or skis. It gives me a strong sense of history.



Taku Arm. The cabin is set back in the trees a bit. You can see a bit of it above and slightly right of the tail.



Lost Lake Cabin was a challenge in that Lost Lake wasn't frozen all that well due to a pretty stiff current. I landed on the flood plain adjacent the cabin instead. I doubt you could do that without a whole lot of snow though.



The departure from Lost Lake Cabin was "fun." Those trees are a bit closer than they look, especially when you factor in the drag from the deep snow. I used the usual 20 degrees of flap when taking off from snow or ice, but did a soft field takeoff and climbed at about 65 indicated initially (best angle of climb speed) before leveling off a bit and getting rid of flaps and setting climb power. That stop was the only real challenge in terms of field length we have in this circuit.



Our next stop was Llewellyn Glacier. Nice little spot although with global warming doing a number on the glaciers, the cabin may have to be listed as "water" property instead of "waterFRONT" property before too many more years . It's a beautiful location however. One item that did go into our report on this site though is that the outhouse has to be moved back. It is way too close to the water and will be leaching contaminants into the lake. Jamie's samples may well confirm that.



Finally we made it to Pike Lake, our last stop for the day. Again, another beautiful lake and location (not sure there is anything other kind here!), especially with the alpenglow. I was busy removing the oil and battery from the aircraft while Jamie gathered her samples and whatnot.



And that's it for today. Tomorrow, fix the tree that fell on the cabin then back to Atlin. Possibly Monday we start back for Dease via Teslin Lake S., Tootsee Lake and Jennings Lake. See you then!

[scottb]

Nice additions Glenn I really enjoy these types of cabin runs . Are these cabins you have placed there, or existing scenery?

-Scott

[Deleted]

Thanks Scott. They are all RTMM cabins on this run. I will place my own where I feel I really want one but this trip is all RTMM.