In many ways July has been an incredibly uneventful month. With the exception of one squirrel, all of the nests are done for the season. As of late most of our work has consisted of camp maintenance, taking GPS locations of squirrel territories, and analyzing the vegetation around grid. The first two weeks of July were filled with rain so most of my evenings were spent indoors. I didn’t take my camera out very much at all, which is unfortunate since I encountered one of the most iconic animals that I have ever seen in the wild. When I first saw it climbing up into a tree I thought it was a grizzly bear cub, but when it looked down at me I immediately knew it was a mustelid. After it made its escape, I ran back to camp and looked through our field guides to confirm that the mustelid was indeed a wolverine. What a day to forget my camera.

Because camp is less busy in June and July, each of us gets to take 9 days vacation. Three of us (Matt, Kat and I) decided to take the week to go kayaking in Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska.

Thursday, July 12^th

Our first official day of vacation was on the 13^th, so we decided to head out on the evening of the twelfth. Southeast Alaska is well known for its rainy weather so we were well prepared for a week of solid rain. I brought tons of extra changes of clothes, and packed them each in Ziploc bags, which I then packed in dry-sacs. 

                We started heading down the Haines Highway at about 6pm. Even on the drive down to Haines we managed to see some wildlife:

We got into Haines at around 9:00, and set up camp 10 miles outside of town. Although it wasn’t raining hard, it drizzled all night and well into the morning

Friday, July 13^th

The Ferry to Juneau did not leave Haines until the next evening, leaving us all day to hang out in Haines. Friday was a fairly laid back day. We did some laundry, checked our emails, and bought some food and supplies for our trip. We got on the ferry at about 7pm, and got into Juneau around 11. The ferry ride was a lot of fun, but it was fairly overcast and windy. Once we got to Juneau, we took a shuttle to our motel and caught a few hours of sleep before our ferry at 7 the next morning.

Saturday, July 14th
Its a pity we didnt get a chance to see Juneau before we headed out the next morning. Juneau is the Capital of Alaska, but there are no roads that lead out of the town. All access to the town is either by air or water, yet their seems to be pretty good infrastructure. Ill have to go back and check it out next time I'm in Alaska. The next morning we woke up and rushed back to the ferry terminal to catch our next boat. After we ate our breakfast in the ferry cafeteria, we headed up to the solarium to snag a few beach chairs.

The weather wasn’t exactly tropical, but the sky had started to clear from the night before.If we could only have a few dry days like this we would have a pretty good trip.

When we reached to port in Gustavus, we almost immediately found a taxi to Bartlett Cove (where we were picking up our kayaks). Once we got to Bartlett, we almost immediately started our kayak orientation. They gave us some suggestions for routes, and

July 15th

Tour Boat:

Kayak:

July 16th

July 17th

July 18th:

July 19th:

July 20th: