McCarthy Trip, Part 2: Strelhna Lake (on the McCarthy Road)

Plants: Nagoonberry, Labrador tea, Red Bear berry, black spruce, mosses, cinquefoil, bedstraw, sedges
Animals: Grey jays, evidence of bears

We made a quick stop at Chitna, and then began our journey down the McCarthy road towards McCarthy. We passed over the Copper River (home of the best eating fish in the universe….hey, don’t look at me, they said it!) and went down the very “exciting” McCarthy Road. This road was the rail bed for the now defunct Copper River and Northwestern Railroad, which ran between Cordova and the copper mines at Kennicott. Driving down this road, which is a winding pothole ravaged bed of packed gravel that runs along the edges of hills at times, you’d wonder “how in the world could they get a train to not go a-tumbling off the side?”
We took a lunch break at the beginning of a trail to “Strelhna Lake”. As we began to eat our turkey sandwiches provided by our good classmate, Wendy (she got all of our food supplies and planned the menus of every meal, I wish my classmates in my past academic experiences were as useful as she), some grey jays flew in to investigate us. Dr. Julie called these birds “camp robbers” and gave examples of what happens when you let your food out of sight with these guys around. These birds didn’t seem to be afraid of us, one of them flew very close to my head, and another landed on our van. It was going for an open sandwich someone left on the seat. How bold!
So we finished our lunch, and Dr. Julie called for a short trek down the Strelhna Lake trail. So we donned on mosquito nets, put on some bug repellent, and went on down the narrow and wet trail. The trail itself is rather muddy, and if you aren’t wearing boots you’d have to divert into the moss mat, which is what we did. The black spruce here didn’t make too much shade, and it started to rain a little. I think Giggy identified a Nagoonberry. We never made it to the lake, although I think I did spot a body of water reflecting light through the trees. Just before we turned back, Wendy found bear feces, and Dr. Julie found a bear print.