Philip and I's archaeological survey of Afognak Lake coincided with a cold snap. The first winter weather of the year. On the first night the temperatures dropped down in the 20s and Philip's water filter froze solid. Every day we saw snow showers. We'd see them in the distance coming down the lake from the north. And at times it snowed really hard.
The first morning on the lake was really cold. Water drips from my paddle froze on the deck of the kayak, and dribbled down the kayak blade getting my gloves wet. My hands got really cold! I switched to using my canoe paddle instead because it did not drip in the boat nearly as much as the kayak paddle. But the conditions did warm up, and paddling hard warmed us up too.
Afognak Lake is pretty big and it took us all day to survey both sides of the lake. As the crow flies it is 6 miles long, but with all the islets, coves and peninsulas to navigate I bet we kayaked much more than 6 miles each way.
On the second day we paddled down the river to the sea and then on to Afognak Village. More snow and ice on the water. Patrick
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| Running the Afognak River in inflatable sea kayaks |
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| The Afognak River was a tad bit low for our trip |
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| Those are snow showers in the distance headed our way! |
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