Knob-hopping...

Yesterday was my first day back in the real bushy terrain since fly camp. Our drop off spot was in a swamp (pretty typical for around here), but it was a nice swamp, as far as swamps go.

The good swamp.

We've got a new pilot (Roben is on his 10 days off) and I don't think he really gets us. Yesterday for example: He was kind enough to try to land as far on the side of the swamp as possible, which was great, but I mean, we had to hike across about 3 or 4 swamps that day anyway (including the swamp we landed in) so it's not like my boots were gonna stay dry anyways. That swamp was mostly dry anyways, but the brush he landed in got caught in the door when I was trying to close it, so I had to manhandle the brush to close the door, and then had the same issue with the cargo door. The chopper has low skid gear (which is not ideal, considering what we're landing in), and I don't think he really gets why we thrash around in the bush all day. Especially on days like yesterday.

Snails getting in the way of the geology (through my handlens)

The bush was pretty thick that day. I couldn't see my trav partner about 10 feet in front of me. It was mostly spruce (horizontal spruce) but not a lot of buckbrush(thank goodness). We had pretty long traverse, about six kilometers, all through 100m knobs and swamps. "Knob-hopping" as my trav partner called it. It was actually not a bad day (all Stuhini pyroxene-porphyry and some fragmental/conglomerate-type rocks) until about 4:30 when the wind and rain started. Apparently there's this epic storm blowing in. We found out the hard way. In less than a half-hour I went from dry and geologizing to soaking wet hiding in a grove of trees waiting for the helicopter. I couldn't even be lured out by a beautiful bedded sandstone. The wind was so strong it was blowing the contacts around on my eyeballs. So needless to say, I don't really know what our pilot thinks of us, swimming through swamps and bush all day, getting picked up soaking wet. 

Biggest Cariboo Ever.

I did see the biggest cariboo I've seen yet though. It was HUGE. We were hiking down into a swampy-creek area, and this cariboo just stopped and stared as us. We put up our arms like antlers, and he started walking towards us... his antlers were just ridiculous. When we were getting picked up, we saw another huge one. Pretty neat. 

Bruise-Watch 2011: It's black now. I think it's probably the best bruise of the summer. It's only gonna get better too....