Hole in the Wall

This narrow slot canyon carved into limestone cliffs was one of the most spectacular (and unnerving) sights of our survey. We flew into this slot, turned around on the opposite end, and flew back so we could capture both sides of the tide channel shoreline in our imagery.

Our last day in the field on North Prince of Wales was the worst fog I'd ever flown in. We had to fly very low and slow in order for our pilot to maintain a view of the ground. There were islands offshore we couldn't see or get to, so we just had to survey in pockets where we could keep moving.





That worked for a while, but it became too thick, and we had to set down near Cape Pole and wait it out.



We were on the ground here for almost two hours waiting for the fog to lift. A pod of whales was just offshore, and we couldn't see them through the fog, but we could hear them snorting and blowing and splashing. Surreal. The geology of this site happened to be very interesting... ancient sand dunes, now lithified, called eolianite.





Limpets and periwinkles make homes for themselves in the sedimentary limestone rock, which erodes more easily than volcanic or metamorphic rock.

We finally lifted off again, but by that time the tide window had closed, so we ended our survey just being happy to get off the ground. We flew to the Georgia Lee in Port Protection at the north end of the island, and refueled before Lewis took off back to Juneau.





We were all fairly exhausted when we said goodbye to Lewis, who has hais arm around me in this photo. Note the lovely blue sky!



Pulling the anchor and leaving Port Protection under clear skies and no fog.





We enjoyed sleep, food, and an afternoon transit back to Coffman Cove to anchor overnight. The next day was sunny, clear, and warm, and we cruised the Inside Passage to return to Ketchikan.