 I'm a rope access technician working with GRA at the Big Bar landslide. Since arriving here about a month and a half ago, we've been performing slope stabilization and rock scaling and rock manipulation down at the river to make calmer channels for the salmon to spawn up the rapids. When I first arrived here it was pretty overwhelming to see the scale of the cliff and the scale of the rapids that the salmon have to get up. It's a lot bigger than it seems on TV. So a day in the life of a rock scaler. We have a voted 20 minute heli ride from Willowette here. Once we arrive we do a thorough safety meeting and some pre-job planning. We ensure our safety by inspecting all of our rope access equipment and anchors. Finally we descend down the 300 foot rock wall. Alright let's go save some salmon! And then we spend about 10 hours moving rocks with different tools. Some are powered by compressed air and some are powered by hydraulic fluid which gives us a mechanical advantage when moving larger boulders and rocks. So some of the rocks we're taking off are about the size of a car. Some can take about a week to get down with a lot of different tools and some come off fairly easily. The channels we've made by manipulating the rock and the water we've created many safe pathways for the fish to swim up much more easily. It's really good to clear a channel and immediately they start swimming up in between your boots or even your hands. It's the most rewarding work I've ever done for sure. It's been extremely rewarding on a day to day basis seeing the progress we've been making and very fulfilling to know that you're helping a species that a lot of people depend on and cherish. Doing this type of work has definitely given me a bigger respect especially for salmon to see how they can get up some of these turbulent waters. It's when I'm down there at the river watching the salmon by the masses trying their hardest to get up the river. It's super inspiring the tenacity and the ambition that the salmon have. Their willpower is like an inspiration to all of us to just keep trying.