Folks on the island of Hawaii live in a dynamic environment.  Sometimes, though, that environment gets a little too dynamic for comfort.  They are living with the most active volcano in the world.  Since 1983, Kilauea and its associated vents and craters have been in a continuous state of eruption, piling new material onto the island and transforming the landscape.  The eruption has been docile by the standards of volcanology; a steady stream of slow moving lava flows periodically switching among any number of openings in the Earth.  At present, the main crater of Kilauea is in the 7th year of venting mostly gasses while some 20 miles east, lava is flowing from a peak known as Pu’u O’o.  For most of the last 30 years, the bulk of the lava has been sent southeast toward the sea.

In June of last year, a surge of lava from the Pu’u O’o Crater worked its way down the northeast flank taking a more inland route than ever before during the modern eruption.  The lava was making a bee-line for the town of Pahoa.  Pahoa is the nearest community to where I have been staying on the Big Island.  It’s the last town one passes through on State Highway 130 before heading off to the various subdivisions and shore accesses on the east end of the Big Island.

As the lava flow approached the edge of town, it not only threatened the community itself, but everyone was worried it would push across the only road in to and out of the east end of the island.  To prepare for this possibility, a road was hastily constructed east from Hawaii Volcanoes National Park in the summer of 2014.  Fortunately for Pahoa and everyone living east of there, the lava’s advance toward the town came to a halt before it swallowed the town’s garbage transfer station; the first of many buildings it would have engulfed.

The emergency road stands ready however, should the volcano send more new land toward Pahoa and State Highway 130.  Until then, it is closed to the public.  Both locals and the National Park Service don’t want the extra traffic.

Due to the nature of my job, however, I had an opportunity to drive this unique road.  A modest gravel path that hugs the undulations of recently cooled lava.  And I do mean recent.  Some of this rock was molten during the last Presidential election.

It was a really cool opportunity to stand on the newest piece of American real estate a few feet closer to California than just a couple years ago.  At present, there is no lava dumping into the sea anywhere on the island, so for now, this is as new as it gets.  But given the history of the islands and Kilauea especially, it won’t be long before the flows shift back toward the Pacific and the volcano’s construction resumes.  It may turn out that I was one of the few people to drive this road before the next surge of lava once again makes it impassible.

Fishing in Alaska can be a competitive sport thanks to the abundant wildlife that also enjoys fresh fish.  Take this little guy in Glacier Bay.  I’m casting off the dock when along comes a river otter with some sort of flatfish in its mouth.

He pops up on part of the dock and proceeds to chow down on his catch pausing to make sure my colleague and I are not getting too close to maybe muscle in on his dinner.  I saw a lot of sea otters in Glacier Bay, but this was a river otter.  The smaller size and monochromatic fur easily distinguish it from its cousin.

A few days later, it was the bald eagles in the estuary of the Chilkoot River outside of Haines.  These bold birds thought that when they saw a fish struggling near the surface, there was an easy meal to be had.  It seemed to take them until the last minute to notice that the fish they saw was already claimed by the human standing on the bank.  I had some very close fly-bys related to a nice Dolly Varden Trout I was keeping for supper.

There was a moment or two where I wasn’t sure the eagle would break off its attempt at the fish laying three feet from me; to the point where my brain had begun the fight or flight thought process.  Another half-second and maybe I would’ve been ducking.

The Chilkoot River was between salmon runs while I was there, so I suspect the eagles were getting hungry in anticipation of the arrival of thousands of Sockeyes in just a couple weeks.  By mid-July, they probably would have paid me no mind.  Like so much else in life, cool wildlife encounters sometimes come down to simple timing.

Glacier Bay National Park is a place I experienced on foot for a few hours last summer and it was a lot of fun.  A short hike with my fishing gear in tow yielded a rain-soaked afternoon of wilderness solitude.  But Glacier Bay is a water-oriented place and is best seen from some sort of watercraft.  You can cover far more area and see much more of the exotic wildlife the park has to offer.  So this time out, I availed myself of one of the guided boat tours available every day in summer.

The good ship St. Phillip didn’t even push off from the dock before the first few humpback whales were spotted, thus setting the tone for a spectacular day.  Eleven hours and many, many photographs later, I had a solid, first-hand appreciation for one of the most fabulous places on the entire planet. The symphony of land and water and life does not care that it impresses you, but it does.  The most incredible thing about a wilderness like Glacier Bay is its indifference to your presence.  A brown bear beach-combing for a meal pays no attention to the metal craft floating a hundred meters offshore despite the clicking shutters and grumbling engine.  The massive wall of ice doesn’t care who is watching when it sloughs a hundred tons of itself into the ocean.  The frozen peaks are unconcerned that the clouds have given way and exposed them to human eyes for the first time in a week.  This is a place where the dominance of natural forces is obvious to anyone who visits.

I watched a brown bear overturn large boulders as if they were made of cork.

I felt the great thunder of ice plunging down a 200 foot frozen escarpment.

Sea lions jockeyed for position on a marble exposure jutting from the bay.

A mountain goat and her kid rest on a patch of grass high above the cold waters.

More sea otters in one photograph than lived in the entire bay 30 years ago

Then there is breath-taking vista after breath-taking vista, including some rare glimpses of Mt. Fairweather; highest peak in the park.  The name is a bit ironic since frequent clouds, fog and rain shroud the entire south end of the St. Elias Range on most days.

For my first adventure of this year’s Alaska trip, I took advantage of some downtime during an 80-degree heatwave in Juneau to return to Mendenhall Glacier.  Just like last time, it was a fantastic and challenging day hike.  But what a difference a year makes when it comes to the sights at the glacier itself.

The spectacular ice cave I explored last summer had melted away completely.

The melting ice freed an entire ridge from a frosty tomb for the first time in centuries.  These two pictures don’t come from the exact same spot, but I identified a few reference points on the crest of the newly exposed ridge.

These mountain glaciers are dynamic environments and it’s amazing to see this change in person.  This vantage will be completely different again next summer for anyone who gets to hike in.

This place will see more activity for much of the summer as I am returning to Southeast Alaska for another go-round for work.

But first I gotta get there.  I’m in the middle of three day road trip to Bellingham, Washington where the collection vehicle will catch a boat to Juneau.  It’s been an awesome drive, traveling about half the length of I-90, America’s longest interstate highway.

Today was very unique because a few miles into Montana, we spotted a funnel cloud jutting from a large thunderstorm a few miles from the highway.  I was riding shotgun and was able to snap some pics when the terrain allowed.

I’ve never spotted a tornado before.  Which is a good thing, I suppose, but I always thought it’d be cool to see one in the distance while traveling out West where the visibility is long and there are no people in the way.

This little funnel was short lived, as was the intensity of the storm that produced it, and I never saw it reach the ground, making it technically not a tornado.  The weather resources I was monitoring never gave out any alerts about the storm before it waned.  The area was extremely rural so it couldn’t have been a threat to more than a couple of ranches.  I wonder if the National Weather Service even knew about this one.

I’m debating whether or not to acknowledge the title of this post.  Is the reader going to recognize the homage to the album that briefly united Robert Plant and Jimmy Page or will the reader think I’m a dummy who misremembered the album title?

At any rate, I post this from a very wintery Clarksville, Tennessee, where I’m at the front end of a new project.  Once the weather breaks, I will spend the rest of this month circumnavigating Nashville, one county at a time.  It’s a remarkable change from the mountains and wide open deserts of New Mexico.  After so much time out west, it’s nice to see lots of trees and streams with water in them.

I had to deal with some sketchy travel conditions along the way but made it in one piece.  Some folks just don’t get it though, when the roads are snowy and the bridges are icy.  You are not as good a driver as you think you are.  If you must travel, do yourselves a favor and take it easy when the roads look like this.

I have been to Tennessee before, but only passing through.  So this is effectively new country for me.  A fun part of my job is exploring new areas and what they have to offer.  I know I’m looking forward to the barbeque and whiskey.

In a departure from the popular images of salmon, whales and cute mammals, today I will present some other interesting life I’ve encountered.

I’ll start with this beauty.

It’s a Staghorn Sculpin.  I’ve caught a handful of these over the last two months.  Though they look weird, they are perfectly harmless; no spines or teeth.  The name comes from the unique shape at the point of the gill plate.

On another day, my lure blundered into a dense school of baitfish, snagging one in the process.

I’m not 100 percent certain, but I believe it is a species of smelt.

Jellies are an extremely common form of life in the world’s oceans.  When the waves are calm and the lighting is good, I have frequently seen them from the decks of ferries and drifting by from the shore.

Low tide is a wonderful time to observe a plethora of interesting creatures.  This image of a small crab also has a bunch of snails and a limpet.

Only once have I been at a location where tidal pools contained sea stars.  Naturally, I needed to take a closer look.  At this spot, nearly ever surface of every rock was covered with mussels and barnacles.

My time in Alaska is drawing to a close.  With all the work complete, I am back in Ketchikan getting things ready to ship out.  The streams around here are full of chum salmon right now, so am going to see what I can do about that in the time I have left.

I’m spending the week on Prince of Wales Island this week and using a place in Craig on the island’s west shore as a base of operations.  Today there’s a familiar boat parked in the harbor here in town.

I’ll let you know if I run into any Hillstrands.

I woke up a few minutes before 3 a.m. last night and my hotel room in Juneau was bumping around.  In my grogginess, it took a few seconds to realize it was an earthquake.  First one I’ve ever experienced.  Couldn’t have been much longer than 30 seconds in duration.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usb000rx5i#summary

It was a 5.9 about one hundred miles to my west, which places it along the main fault between the North American & Pacific Plates.  This is a transform plate boundary, same as exists in California.  The ocean floor is moving north relative to North America in southeast Alaska.

Nothing’s damaged or broken except the internet.  The work phone is getting through, but barely.  I can’t even send a text on my own phone right now.  But I’m probably a few millimeters closer to western California now! 😉

Another day, another river joining the ocean in a tidal estuary.  This one is the is the Chilkoot River and it’s the river to the east of Haines.  Haines sits on the eastern shore of a long peninsula that separates two long fjords fed by glacial-charged rivers.  Back in the paddle-power days, Haines served as a shortcut between the two river mouths, a two mile portage over level terrain being preferable to a 30 mile paddle.  These days, Haines is the quiet alternative to tourist-heavy Skagway as a place to transition from the Marine Highway to the more conventional highway.

On this day, I selected the Chilkoot, to the east, over the Chilkat, to the west, because it had a lake just a mile upstream.  I didn’t wind up fishing the lake, but it looked cool on a map.  Instead I followed the receding tide downstream throughout the morning and into early afternoon.

Tides are an interesting phenomenon for this Midwest boy.  I’m not used this dramatic, short-term change in water level.  At the heads of these long inlets and channels far from the open ocean, the tide can shift the water 20 feet or more up and down in just 12 hours.  At a shallow estuary like the one at the mouth of the Chilkat River, this can mean the shore at low tide is a mile away from the shore at high tide.  I stand at the water’s edge and three casts later, I can take another two steps forward.

The creatures that live here are used to the tides, though.  During their spawning runs, each rising tide brings another wave of salmon upstream into the river.  Each receding tide forces the stragglers to retreat from the shallowing water.  Predators of the salmon know this.  Everyone is familiar with photogenic congregations of eagles and bears at opportune places up and down the northwestern coast of the continent.

But the nature has a three-pronged attack in store for the salmon.  The bear comes from the land, the eagle comes from the sky, and from the water comes the harbor seal.

As I fished, I noticed one seal swimming around way downstream from me and it was pretty neat.  Then I saw it was actually two different seals.  I moved further downstream, following the receding tide, and two seals had become four.  Then it was more like 10.  By the time I had moved a quarter mile toward the ocean, I realized there were dozens of seals patrolling the mouth of the Chilkoot.

I had to wait more than once for a seal to move out of the way so I could cast.  At first when they surfaced near me, they bolted back underwater.  But as time passed, they were less threatened.  Instead they just wanted to make sure they knew where I was.  A seal would pop up within casting distance and it would boost it’s head higher in the water to see over the standing waves created by the current and get a clear view of me, then let the current float them away from me.  I can only describe that behavior as adorable.

Frustratingly, the seals were having much better luck fishing that I was.  Multiple times a seal would appear with a freshly caught salmon in its mouth.  As before, they would look to me to verify I was still a non-threat, but in doing so created the illusion that they were mocking me.  “Oh hey, is this what you’re looking for?  Yeah there’s a whole bunch down there.  And they’re delicious.”

I eventually caught this female Sockeye Salmon.  But the seals definitely out-fished me.
Talk about a unique experience.  Fishing along side a dozen seals with massive, cloud-draped, avalanche-scarred mountains above me.  Alaska is pretty awesome.