June 1: Arrived!

Sage and I arrived intact. Roy picked us up from the airport, with two coolers of frozen food and a large duffel bag (each within 4 ounces of 50 pounds). As always, I didn’t get out of town for hours, having gotten propane, 9 cans of gas, the food supplies stowed in the freezer, mail and groceries to bring down the beach, and arrangement for the ranger to be picked up from Northern Air Cargo.

Although it was rainy when we arrived, it cleared steadily into a gorgeous sunny day with a strong southwest wind. My favorite wind.

I’m always afraid that I’ll overshoot the cabin when I first get here, without all the stuff and the stairs to mark it. But the top of the outhouse peeked over the cliff to help me. An eagle, mature with a white head and black body, flew overhead as Sage and I climbed out of the truck. It has been a wet and late spring. Standing water everywhere and the tundra is still brown, though the grass is coming up where the cabins burned down two years ago. But it does make me cautious about stepping off the pallets we use for boardwalks. The cliffs are muddy. Scrambling up the cliff made me question the wisdom of wearing the gardening clogs, however convenient they are for the airport security part of the trip.

I didn’t do the closing up myself last year, having been called home early for a family emergency. But the crew that was left behind did a fine job. It wasn’t exactly as I would have done it, but everything was intact. One of the boards had fallen off the window of my cabin, but no harm there.
This photo shows my cabin (in need of a paint job) after I opened it. If you look closely, you can see the antenna for the Internet on the corner of the mudroom and the red generator under the clothesline.

When I first arrive, there’s so much to do it’s hard to figure out which to do first. Luckily, the days are long and even though I didn’t get to the cabin till after 2, I got the place opened up, the boards off the windows (carrying the plywood to the pile for use at the end of the season, I was reminded of earlier lessons about carrying plywood in a strong breeze), and the blankets out on the line. I would change the sheets before I could sleep (I always leave the old sheets on because I fully expect at least some furry visitors during the winter and I can clean up after them by sweeping the sheets off the bunk, shaking it out and washing them. This year, I took the foam pad outside for a few hours as well). This year, mouse droppings were everywhere. The counters were covered, so I had to use paper towel to assemble my grilled turkey and provolone sandwich. As much as I wanted to start brushing them out, I decided that the inside work could wait – I had to get the stairs down the 30’ cliff before I could reasonably get the truckload of supplies up it.

I got the stairs down, tying the line to the bottom steps and the truck (eventually remembering to give enough slack so that the pull isn’t straight down through the cliff; rather at a gentler angle, easing it over the cliff). It was about 80% successful. Although the steps themselves are level in the two important dimensions –parallel to the beach and top of the cliff – and stable, the entire ladder is not exactly parallel to face of the cliff, having gone a little cockeyed due to not having been guided by a person at the top with a line or (thanks to my impatience) even tied off at the top as they were pulled over. So they stand not flat against the cliff, but at something closer to a 30 degree angle to it. And they seem to lean rather noticeably toward town, as though reclining. But they’re stable and will do until the crew arrives to help straighten them.

They were tested immediately with many trips up and down, bringing the propane, gas, groceries, and assorted other items left in the truck at the end of last year up the cliff and back to the cabin.

Then I was able to turn to the inside of the cabin. I took the solar panels out and hooked them up to the battery, reinstalled the antenna for the Internet, got the propane, gas, barbeque (and its propane), generator, expensive and destructive tools back outside (they come into the cabin for the winter, hoping to put more barriers between them and mischief – and not wanting to contribute to the vandalism of neighbors’ cabins by the easy availability of our saws and crowbars), reconnected the stove and the heater, thinking again how much easier it is now that I know that propane runs slowly. The reason it takes so long for the heater to start isn’t because there’s something wrong with the heater, it’s because propane is slow.

The night before I left Seattle offered time only for a short nap (packing always takes longer than I expect and almost every minute I have before it’s time to leave for the plane) and I was tired. Even though it was still light with plenty yet to do, and the sunset was probably going to be glorious, I called it a night and went to bed.