Copper River Delta and Outer Coast

We finished our 4,200 km survey of Prince William Sound two days ago, and then we heard our proposal to do the Copper River Delta was funded as an add-on to this project, so we have been flying an extra couple of days on the enormous feature that is the delta. Many river channels, braided and anastomosing, sand dunes and mud flats galore, and marsh of all kinds - freshwater marsh, saltwater marsh, marsh that used to be salt but was uplifted 6 ft. in the 1964 earthquake so it's now trying to be fresh.



We used a helicopter one day and a fixed-wing (Cessna 206) today. These are pictures of Kalen and me setting up the plane this morning...





And a few hours later when our pilot (Dave, of Cordova Air) landed us on a beautiful beach on Kanak Island.



We went pretty far south and turned around to collect imagery all the way north along the outer coast. Two days ago there were gale force winds out there. Today the ceiling was only 100-300 feet off the ground, so we couldn't get as far down the coast as we would have liked.

At the southern end of Kayak Island is Cape St. Elias, one of the most spectacular sights of this trip.





We flew northward along the outer coast all the way past the delta to get imagery of the offshore beaches and barrier spits south of the delta, like this beautiful stretch of Strawberry Island with the Chugach Mountains in the distance.



One of the most unique things I've seen in all this shoreline is this flock of eagles, about 200 of them, all flying around and nesting on this tiny island in the southern Copper River delta where it joins the sea. I met an eagle biologist from Yakima, Washington on this trip and told him about it. He thinks it's because of eulachon spawning in the sandy nearshore. Eulachon are a type of forage fish, similar to herring and sand lance that spawn in the sandy interidal zone. We have recently used our ShoreZone data to model habitat suitability for forage fish spawning, and that was one of the reasons the Prince William Sound survey was funded. Small world, funny how things come around.



And have you ever seen sand dunes with snow on them?

Whittier

We got in and out of Whittier as fast as we could. You can see how the weather was...





Our two remaining fuel drums I had placed at the Whittier gravel strip got taken and used, so we had to send a charter boat out to retrieve one I had placed on Esther Island the week before. This barrel did quite a bit of traveling before it ended up in the helicopter. For a $200 drum of fuel, it ended up being about a $1400 refuel!



The Mustang suit... hey at least I'm visible (and warm)...



Our crew, in the rain but fueled up and still smilin'

Rain, fog, rain, wind, rain

That's Cordova this week. Did I mention it was also a little bit cold and windy? I got a Mustang survival suit recently, so I am warmer and more comfortable sitting in the open door of the helicopter this trip. It's bright yellow and despite being an XS is quite bulky because of the flotation... pictures of me in that lovely outfit will follow shortly so you can all have a good laugh.

These are pictures of Kalen and me setting up the helicopter at the Orca Lodge, in the rain, at 4 am each day. With no coffee. (Because we have to fly for 3 hours straight each time, and we don't set down to pee.)









Our survey progress is good despite the weather and the short tide windows. We are limited to 2 hours of imaging each day, when we are used to 3-4. This survey we had to pick up shoreline on both sides of the Sound, so we've done a lot of flying. Some days we are in the helicopter for 5 hours! We are seeing a lot of beautiful country, glaciers, sheer cliffs, snow-covered peaks, mountain goats, whales, eagles, otters, and tons of waterfalls.

At Knowles Bay, we spotted this mama brown bear with her two enormous cubs.



These spectacular sea cliffs are along an exposed section of coast called "Red Head" outside of Port Fidalgo.