Brandy still nursing Lemon and Lime in 2002.
Looking down on Kambalnoye lake during this good weather.
(Click on any Image to see a higher resolution version)
This is the forth cloudless day here which is not the norm. It has a
feeling that it could become an unheard of dry summer. But my short-wave
radio is talking about several big cyclones in the north Pacific, one
about to hit Japan, so perhaps our good weather will end soon.
The day I last wrote an entry to this website, I flew back to Petropavlovsk
to clear some things through customs and try to also get permission to
fly this year. A supply helicopter came at 9:45 PM and on the way to the
city, he stopped at a wonderful hot spring for no other reason than for
myself, one ranger and the flying crew to have a swim. This hot spring,
at the base of a spectacular volcano, is an old oxbow in a river that
has been cut off from the flow and is now a winding lake through huge
twisted stemmed stone birch trees that have the shape of old oaks with
their big branches hang over the water. The temperature of the water slowly
varies as you swim along its course, any temperature you want. A bit cool
in one place but as you go it will start to get very hot and you can go
into that hotness as far as you want, then veer around it into cooler
water again. You can do this for 1/2 mile. We started at 10:00 PM and
swam for about 45 minutes and then flew on into Petropavlovsk landing
at dark.
Everything happened as planned and I got back four days later with my
plane. Maureen had a great time with Biscuit while I was gone and enjoyed
her solitude.
Since then I have been monitoring the river for salmon and bears from
the air. There are several runs of salmon that come up Kambalnoye River
to spawn in the lake each year. This year they are earlier than we have
ever seen before and it is a big run of sockeye. They are about to swim
into the lake if going under three huge snowdrifts doesn't stop them.
Drifts linger sometimes into summer, but again, we have not seen them
so big over the stream, and last so long that the salmon have to go under
so much snow to get to the lake. There are about forty bears eating salmon
as several thousand fish make their way upstream. The drifts are in the
last three kilometers.
This is supposed to be a big year for pink salmon, it being an even numbered
year. That means that they should be spawning in Char Creek come the middle
of August. This is Brandy and Biscuit's place to fish, but they only get
to enjoy the ease of catching there, every second year. It is exciting
to see the cycle of things and also how the cycles might be broken, now
that we are so familiar with the area.
- Charlie