== TATC installation, BC Canada, Sep. 2007 ==

TATC installation, BC Canada, Sep. 2007

This is an email sent by Max Kaufman summarizing the trip:

The long awaited installation of the TATC GPS site in Tatshenshini-Alsek Provincial Park has been completed. Situated near the Windy-Craggy Mine airstrip, and adjacent to Tats Lake, in the Tats Creek valley, the site TATC sits on a large glacial erratic boulder.

Tom Fournier, a PhD student of Jeff's, with interests in volcano geodesy, was my field companion and assistant. I am grateful for his help and patience. Lord knows he'd need a lot of it on this trip...

We flew with Alpine Aviation based out of Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. Our very capable pilot carried us and all our gear into the site in 4 loads shuttled from a seldom used airstrip at Mule Creek on the Haines Road in NW BC Canada. We flew in a medium sized bush plane (Maule M-7) with large tires and an unexpectedly large load capacity given its size. The whole cargo bay opens up for easy loading and unloading.

Mon, Sept 17th
On the day we flew in, the weather did not look good all morning. Clouds began to dissipate after noon. I wasn't sure if we'd have time to make all the trips before dark. I was unsure whether to postpone to another day or not. Our pilot seized the moment and decided to come pick us up. He arrived about 3 pm and we averaged about one round-trip an hour until 7pm. He had just enough time to get back to Whitehorse before sunset. He said if he didn't push his clients a little beyond their comfort zone, he'd never get any work done.

We set up camp and hauled all the gear to the proposed site that evening. The distance from the airstrip to the boulder was approx 400m. We were pleased to have brought a dolly or hand truck with 2 wheels to aid in the transport of heavy items to the site. Luckily there is a gravel road which passes next to the boulder: we didn't have to carry everything through the bushes. One time I was able to haul 4 big batteries at once on this cart.
We kept our camp separated from our food storage area, separated from our cooking area, separated from our working area so as not to tempt the bears.

Tues Sept 18th
On the next day, we built the entire site, assuming we would get picked up the following morning. The GPS monument is a concrete braced steel rod with a SCIGN mount on top. The 7 foot long rod is epoxied into a 3 ft deep drill-hole in the boulder. The rod is supported by an 8 inch diameter, 42 inch tall concrete pillar, which itself is strengthened by four 1/2 inch rebar rods also epoxied into 5/8 inch holes in the boulder. I used three and a half 60 lb bags of concrete mix for the antenna monument. Tom and I used the remainder of the 8 bags of concrete mix to anchor the base of the solar panel tower. We transported the tower in two 5 foot sections and spliced it back together on site. Only way to fit it in the plane.

We finished the site late that night after dark as a misty light rain began. Our nice sunny workday had degraded slowly as a front moved ashore from a distant storm in the Bering Sea.

Wed Sept 19th
It rained all day on Wednesday and our pilot was not able to pick us up. We had excellent communications thanks to our GI satellite phone. Tom and I got some good rest and visited the site again in the afternoon to take care of some loose ends and minor details (such as re-programming the receiver). We moved all the equipment back to the airstrip and put a tarp over it. We walked around the area and visited a storage site of about 20 large stacks of wooden drill core trays which held some high grade sulfide ore samples. In the 1990s there was a large mining exploration camp here and everything but these crates had been burned and buried when they got forced to close by the BC government.

Thurs Sept 20th
We had more time to kill on Thursday since our pilot did not come to get us until after 1 pm. We took a stroll to the end of the airstrip and saw two groups of grizzly bears feeding on berries on the far bank of the creek. We also got an excellent close look at a large male bear napping on a mound near the drill core crates. He was a magnificent well rounded out animal (photo sent).

On his first trip in our pilot said all hell broke loose in the bushes as he approached the runway. Bears scattered, crashing through the willows, as he descended to the lower end of the runway. He brought us the 4 remaining 12 volt batteries we didn't have room for on our fly-in day. I moved those to the site and wired them into the battery box while he flew Tom back to the Haines road airstrip and the truck. We loaded the rest of the gear into the plane and made it back to the road just in time as our weather window closed down behind us and cloud levels dropped to obscure the passes. The Tatshenshini valley is a beautiful wilderness and a pleasure to fly across.

Just to add to our bear-filled experience this day, another large grizzly tried to cross the road in front of us, between Blanchard and Million Dollar Falls. I had to hit the brakes and by the time we stopped, the bear was staring at us from the opposite lane right outside my window. His lips were flush with color from his run up the road embankment.

We picked up one campaign GPS setup West of Kluane Lake and drove well into the night, through rain showers, across the border, and camped in Tetlin Wildlife Refuge. The latest stupid question at the border is, "Have you ever been arrested?"

Fri 21 Sept.
Tom and I picked up the 3 campaign GPS sites at Gardiner, Northway and Tok which we'd set out on the way down. He and I reorganized our loads in Tok and went our separate ways. He headed to Anchorage in his car and would set up BUZZ and MACL on the way. I did more campaign GPS work in the Tok area all day. I found out (too late) that for some unexplained reason (power related?) the receiver at Northway only logged a partial day's file. I had to go all the way back there and set up the site again! I also deployed 2 sites on the Taylor Hwy (E175 and M175)(in snow showers) and two sites on the Tok Cutoff where Tom had been already (H34_ and MEN_) By the time I got to Mentasta Lake it was dark and starry and the dew was freezing on the damp ground. I made the drive back to Fairbanks overnight, with a couple of well timed naps along the way, and rolled into Fairbanks about 6:30 in the morning. Eager to get back and resume progress on the house-building project.

SPECS Some specifications on the GPS site TATC and its power system.
Receiver: Trimble 5700 0220283933
Antenna: Zephyr geodetic 12338061
Height from boulder surface to base of antenna: 1.3 m or 52 inches Solar panels: 4 panels at 55 watts each
Maximum observed charging current from solar panels:
Solar pair 1: 3.75 amps
Solar pair 2: 3.5 amps
Two banks of 5 batteries each: 100 Amp hour 12v Concorde Sun-Extender
Last observed voltage bank 1: 13.1 v
Last observed voltage bank 2: 12.8 v
Battery back up: 15 volt set of 5 Air Alkaline cells (new)

Regards,

Max Kaufman UAF

Side note and a little historical background info:

Finding an air charter company to take us in there proved to be quite difficult. That is, if you follow all the rules (which we did).

The first company I called, based in Haines Junction, didn't have any planes available until Oct. I had to look to Whitehorse for charter pilots. When I finally found a willing pilot with the correct size of plane, it turns out he did not have a permit to land in the park and would not be granted one due to some previous infraction in the park. This was his punishment by the BC Parks authority. This opened a can of worms and I heard threats of a lawsuit....first nations pilot...lost business opportunity...yada yada yada.

I had to make up a new purchase order with another company. I was all set to fly with Great River Air and had spoken to the pilot many times. I left Fairbanks assuming the final insurance issues would be settled while Tom and I were underway to Canada. Big mistake! The university canceled the deal with Great River Air due to some conflict with his insurance company over who pays first if we crash and burn. Well this didn't help Tom and I at all. We were waiting on the airstrip in perfect weather, with all our gear piled into 3 loads....and the pilot never showed up. We couldn't reach him by phone, so finally checked my voice-mail. There was a message from the day before which made everything clear. We were not to board that plane: the deal had been killed by UAF administrators. We were all dressed up with no place to go.

By the end of the next day, and through the efforts of people in the GI business office to make things right, we had a purchase order cut for Alpine Aviation and the proper insurance paperwork filled out and faxed across. Tom and I spent a few days in Haines Junction to pass the time. We did some more GPS campaign work back towards Kluane Lake and spent the rest of the time reading books and sipping Kokanee by an outdoor wood stove in the covered picnic area. Yukon Territory camp grounds are the best in North America.

Ironically we flew, in the end, with a company whose services I had earlier declined because I thought their plane was too small and it would take 5 trips to get our stuff into the park rather than 3. Funny how a strange and disappointing series of events end up bringing you back around to the place you should have been to begin with. Its as if the universe self corrects to achieve a pre-conceived plan...