Heckman Lake

As I write this I am sitting on a dock overlooking Heckman Lake; it’s 9:00 PM and Ella is sound asleep in our cabin. We arrived yesterday via float plane, which was an awesome and exciting way to travel. We flew out with Southeast Aviation with a pilot who spends April-October in Ketchikan flying people around SE Alaska, and the rest of his time in Seattle. If you haven’t ever flown in a float plane, I highly suggest it… Ella loved it, Anna loved it and I loved it. We took off on very choppy water in high winds, which had me very worried about turbulence. However, as soon as we were 20 feet off the water, it was a solid flight with absolutely no turbulence. We flew NE and within 10 minutes we were over total wilderness. The town, cruise ships, and comforts of front country living were behind us. (Speaking of “front country” comforts, I should add that the guy at Southeast Aviation told us we could bring up to 1300 pounds of stuff, and I think we just about brought that much. When he saw how much we were bringing for 3 days, he looked quite shocked… we blamed it on Ella… she does have a lot of toys.) After about a 20 minute flight we landed on Heckman Lake and docked right in front of our cabin where we unloaded our stuff and watched the pilot take off. With the plane out of earshot the most striking aspect (other than the beauty of this place) was the total quiet. We spent our first night unpacking and prepping the cabin to our liking, made burritos, drank a bottle of wine, and went to bed.


Our first day brought our first challenge. The only way to get anywhere on Heckman Lake from our cabin is by boat. Therefore we rented an outboard motor, which I have no idea how to run. Fortunately our pilot could read a Gumby from a mile away and spent about 15 minutes explaining to me how to put the motor on the boat and how to start the sucker. Unfortunately though I couldn’t get the motor to start, and spent about 15 minutes pulling the cord and swearing to holy hell while the 3 of us drifted farther and farther away from the dock… thank goodness I had the foresight to bring the oars, and spent another 20 minutes trying to row us back to the dock in a rather strong head wind. Fortunately, after a rapid succession of pulls on that damn cord the motor finally turned over and we were on our way… after I crashed the boat into the dock… but that’s another story.


With the engine running we made our way up Heckman Lake to where the lake empties into a rather large creek. There is a 6 mile hike from the outlet to where it dumps into the ocean, and we planned on hiking about 2 miles down that trail to another lake. There is another cabin at that end of the lake, which was being habited by a nice couple from Seattle who flew their own plane here. We spent about a half hour chatting with them.


Now this was officially the first time I’ve ever really hiked in bear country. I’ve been places where there are some bears, but there’s a difference between these places and “bear country.” In these other places I’ve never had to carry bear spray, avoid carrying food, nor did I have to yell “HEY BEAR” every so often so as to not startle the crap out of an unsuspecting bear… which would then be insulted and attack my ass. Anna has hiked in bear country and found it both ridiculous and silly that I insisted on carrying bear spray (one for her and one for me) and yelling “HEY BEAR” every few minutes. She especially disliked the “HEY BEAR” part because I kept startling Ella and ruining the natural beauty of the place… which I have to admit was very beautiful. She in fact kept calling me a “dork” and telling me to stop yelling “HEY BEAR,” which I responded with… “tough, all my research said to carry bear spray, don’t carry food, and make sure you don’t startle a bear.” Therefore I felt validated in my “HEY BEARS.”


So, as we were ambling along I was looking at the river and was looking at muddy spots for bear prints when Anna asked me what was next to me on the trail… and lo and behold right next to my feet (in Tevas) was a steaming, fresh LARGE bear dropping. I am not joking this was a huge pile of shit, and it was fresh… so fresh it still stank. At which point Anna looked at me, and yelled “HEY BEAR!” at the top of her lungs


After that we hiked for about 2 miles and saw 4 more bear droppings, equally as fresh, along the trail. The worst of it being that we had to bushwhack through berry patches… trust me, the bears could hear “HEY BEAR” for miles around. Luckily we did not interrupt any bears along the way… well none that stuck around for us to come around the bend, and after a nice (and nerve wracking) 2 miles we turned around and headed back to our boat.
We spent the rest of the day swimming, playing with Ella, eating and drinking another bottle of wine. And, now I sit here as the last remnants of the sun fade to the west, and can hear fish rising on the lake, and am about to go to bed. Goodnight!

Getting ready to take off

Taking off over Ketchikan

Approaching Heckman Lake

Getting ready to "fish"

Trail to Jordan Lake

SE Heckman Cabin