Alaska Diary

Better late than never..

2008-07-06T18:57:00.006-08:00

It's been a while. I coudl try to argue that we've been too busy doing stuff to find the time to write it up here. Maybe that's a good thing. Or maybe we should be more disciplined like Dea and always post a regular pic and brief run-down on what's been going on..

Either way, here's a run down on the highlights since the end of March (a few pics to be added still):

Nick and Larissa dropping by en route form Europe to NZ. We had a great paddle around Glacier Island out of Valdez, and saw a lot of super cool wildlife - whales breaching nearby, lolling sea lions and sea otters and - much to Lisa's great excitement - puffins. They were flying across the bow as we motored out and then swam by us as we paddled. Really neat.We then had a nice tour up from Valdez to Fairbanks via the unpaved Denali highway, and the park. No bears, but plenty other animals on the trip: whales, sea otters, seals, sea lions, caribou, porcupines, squirrels, Arctic ground squirrel, moose, Mountain goats, Dall sheep. And of course, puffins. Great to see you Buckey and Lah-reesa, and to share a little of this place with you.

Down in Anchorage, Lise got a nice new little camera. Ostensibly for blogging purposes; the irony being that I haven' tbeen aking pictures now as she does, but it was me who used to blog of my pics. Plenty of nice pics so far, just give us a while to get sorted out with the blogging.

We met Ali and Anna, two cycle tourists from Adealide, South Australia at Lake Eklutna near Anchorage (while heading down to pick up Nick and Larissa). These guys have taken a couple of years off work and are off to bike from Prudhoe Bay to Ushuaia - the top to bottom route down the Americas. Check it out here: www.fuegoproject.com . They stayed a few days with us after riding Anchorage to Fairbanks, and then again after they got back from Prudhoe. Really nice people. It was like having flatmates who have the beers and dinner ready for us at the end of the day. And very refreshing to have around people who've made the decision to take two years off work to travel and explore this world and to open themsleves up to whatever they experience on the way. In some ways, a nice reminder of home, as this seems much more the kiwi or aussie thing to do. Good luck guys, and we hope to see you again in Tassie or NZ.

Hiking the Pinnell Mountain Trail with Pat Cotter, Jeremy Harbeck and Anna and Ali. 27 miles over two days, after watching the midnight sun on the solstice, 21 June. The trailhead is up high on the Steese Highway, and with refraction effects, it looks like the sun doesn't set at all for the week or so around the solstice. A great trip inclusing: friendly marmots, mosquito head-nets, caribou herds, beautiful open views over the tundra, afternoon storm, clear night camping, mammutus clouds, thunder, lightning, speed hiking to the shelters, side-hillling around Table Mountain ( succesfully avoiding finding ourselves on the regioanl high poing with hiking poles in an electroical storm, but passing right by a bear den!) and finally dinner at the Silver Gulch brewery. Phew. Awesome trip.

Pat and Adia's little baby Torin is growing in size and more adorable. He's more and more like a little person every time we see them, even though behind his back he's sometimes referred to as the 'screamasaurus'. Slightly further ahead is little Chloe Roberts. It was was really neat to see Andy, Anna and Chloe as well as Anna's parents, at a BBQ at our place to see off Anna and Alister. After enduring the winter, we're now enjoying our lovely big home. It has a deck which is a suntrap in the evening, and the perfect palce for Lise to grow her garden. With good sun and shade, and plenty of water running off the roof, it's also elevated so the moose shouldn't be able to plunder it. So far we've enjoyed some lettuce and sweet peas.

Malcolm Ingham staged maybe Fairbanks' first oreinteering event up at Birch Hill before he left. About a dozen of us ran, walked and ambled with baby and dogs around the course that Malcolm desinged and he and Ed set out. Thanks Malcolm! It was really nice having Malcolm in our research group for a few months and to spend time with him in and out of work. We had a great game of golf one night after work with Pat Cotter. A huge sandhill Crane swooped right over us at one point, although we didn't tick off any of the other animals on the score card check-list.

We also hosted Malcolm's student Keleigh Jones, from Wellington, who was up here for field work and to do a sea ice field class. As well as our research on electrical properties of seaice, Malcolm and I are writing a chapter for the book that will come out of the field course too.

I had my final fieldwork trip to Barrow. No polar bear sightings, which means that I'll in all likelihood I'll leave here having seen all the well-known Alaskan animals in the wild except a polar bear and a wolverine.

I've been trying to get excited about the climbing around here. I've bolted some new routes close to Fairbanks, have a few still in mind, and have reduced to a handful the climbs I haven't done at Grapefruit. It was very exciting to find a superb route gathering dust down near Cantwell (sustained climbing at about 5.12 /25 for 20 metres on slightly overhanging limestone...) and getting kid-in-candy-store excited when I checked the geological maps for the area and found other such limestone crops exist. And a new area that we finally braved the hike into, and started developing. Not enough time to explore these places though with long drives/ hikes, sigh..

Lisa did a multi-day hiking trip into the Delta ranges with UAF Outdoor Adventures, than was cut short by pouring rain every day. She's been satrting to relax into her summer now. After the crazy school year with almost no breaks, she got 3 months off. After 3 1/2 weeks teaching at a summer science camp, she's now a lady of leasure. It's actaully been great for me too as Lise has so far hauled some water, booked our tickets home, and is organizing our one week side trip through Utah and looking into shipping our stuff home.

We're due back late October, after a week in the Moab area which we're really looking forward to. Lisa finally let the school district know that she won't be teaching next year. What followed was a howl of protest from parents who'd already specially requested her for their kids. In some cases they didn't know Lise, but had heard really great things about the 'teacher from New Zeealand'. I thought she did an incredible job throughout her first year teaching, and she was certianyl very well received from those whose opinions matter the most: parents and kids.
Most of us probably have one or two teachers who we really remember fondly. On average, than means Ms. Phelan will be that teacher for about 3 Alaskan 4th graders. I'll bet it was more than that.

Today we had a little paddle on the Chena river through town, and we finally saw a beaver in the water. Quite a show of nose-out-of-water swimming and tail-slapping. Lise had been wanting to see one for a while, so that was cool!

A good kind of dog day in Spring

2008-03-29T19:22:00.010-08:00

We finally got out into white spring - with a trip to Castner Glacier, 150 miles south of town on the Richardson Highway to Valdez. Malcolm Ingham joined us on the promise of a gentle ski as he'd just arrived form New Zealand and hadn't been on xc skis for 25 years. He did superbly well even as my enthusiasm ramped up a little with the terrain and we climbed up and explored along the moraine. Malcolm is Geophysicist at Victoria University of Wellington, NZ. He's a former professor of mine, now colleague and is visiting our sea ice group for the next three months.

We followed the tracks left by Dea, Ben, Ted, Trevah, Dan and his pooch Skye last week to arrive at the cool ice cave. After opting against trying to emulate their ski jumps, we scrambled up the ski hill to explore further along the moraine before skiing back, down and out in mid afternoon.

It was so nice to get down to the mountains. I think partly inspired by Skye's tracks all over the place from last weekend, I went off out and back and then down and up the ski hill. Exactly what my dog Ben used to do years ago - his, and my kind of dog day. Much enjoyed and needed.
(Google 'dog days' to learn the ancient Roman origin of the name for hot summer days!)

Lise and Malcolm skiing in.

Lise and Malcolm checking out the ice cave in a large piece of ice left behind as the glacier retreated up-valley.

Interesting layers in the ice with trapped stones, soil and leaves. Probably a few animals in there too.

Lise and Malcolm skiing out after navigating the ski slope next to the ice cave.

No ordinary venue, like Iceland..

2008-03-08T13:10:00.011-09:00

International Polar Year involvements again gave me the opportunity for international polar travel – this time to Akureyri, Iceland. Halldor Johannsson coordinated support from the Northern Research Forum, University of Akureyri and Arctic Portal to support an Executive Committee meeting for the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists.

APECS is all about providing networking, information and opportunities for emerging polar researchers. APECS President, Kriss Rokken Iversen from Norway, likened our Executive Committee work to fieldwork in international science politics and management. I’ve met and worked with some amazing, inspirational people, been exposed to many facets of Arctic research and experienced some unique places first hand.

Outside of very fruitful work sessions and meetings, highlights included: swimming laps in an outside pool (heated by geothermal hot water) while it snowed; eating hardfiskur, herring, the best trout I’ve ever had and hakarl (putrid shark) with Brenniven chasers at Halldor’s home; dining at the world-class Frederik V restaurant; learning about Iceland’s current situation and history from Halldor and Ragnar Baldursson, Icelandic diplomat and represetnative on the Arctic Council; a blustery soak at the Blue Lagoon en route to flying out; and, above all, the people we met and wonderful hospitality of Halldor and Fanna.

Iceland has a fascinating landscape and history of discovery, occupation, natural disaster, plague, foreign rule and now status as a world-leading economy. Modern Iceland has an enviable combination of a very high standard of living, no unemployment, essentially no crime, abundant tasty fish and lamb, thriving local fashion and music scenes, and friendly multi-lingual people. Iceland's disproportiate succes at Miss Universe pageants is at least partly explained by Viking settlers taking their pick from Scottish and Irish villages on the way over..

Independent only since 1944, Icelanders fled in the mid 20th century due to the harsh lifestyle and grim prospects. Not so now, as Icelanders are gaining a reputation for ther savvy harnessing of natural resources in the form of hydro- and geothermal power and abundant hot water for heating. Iceland is energy self-sufficient, and ‘exports energy’ in the form of Alumnin(i)um which would otherwise use a lot of some other country’s energy to produce.

Iceland’s most famous export is arguably the guttural growling, squealing, yelping and dynamic range of the singing free spirit Bjork. I’ve loved her music for years, so it was cool (but no doubt clichéd for the locals) to hear her album Post playing in the airport, and to look her up in the phone book. The Icelanders use a patronymic naming system and no family names. Bjork Gudmunsdottir literally means Bjork-the-daughter-of Gudmun, and women don't change thier name on marriage. Even in a country of only 300,000 people, this can easily lead to lots of people with the same name! So phone book listings are alphabetical by first name then last name, middle name, occupation, address.

Halldor was a wonderful host, ensuring a very fruitful meeting and memorable experience in Akureyri and Iceland. We’re all very optimistic now about the future of APECS after IPY. It was really great to work again with Dave Carlson, Jen, Jose, Hugues, Kriss, Narelle and Peter – top people all of them. I think we'll all be recommending Iceland as a destination too! In the end it was no joke that if we needed anything at all in Iceland, all it needed was Halldor to make a call - takk fyrir, Halldor.

Yukon Quest!

2008-02-10T10:54:00.000-09:00

The Yukon Quest is a 1000 mile mushing race between Fairbanks and White Horse, Canada. Real Alaskans (being those who live in Fairbanks, not Los Anchorage) know this as the world's toughest sled dog race, especially compared with that spring time jaunt called the Iditarod ;-)

The race alternates directions, with even years starting in Fairbanks. It was a brisk day down on the river, but we prevailed on a tasty breakfast at Dea and Ben's place, a warming walk down the slough, some great company and all manner of furs and down. The race start was shrouded in ice fog. We stayed out a bit down the trail in the sun.

Highlights included the all siberian husky teams with no need for dog-coats, Lance Mackey (hometown hero who last year became the first person to win the the Quest and Iditarod in the same year), seeing so many excited pooches, and being out having fun in the cold with so many friends. Taco King for lunch on the way home was enlivened with Brian's valentines plans...

Number 6 here is Phil Joy. His girlfriend Kumi is a friend of friends and will be support crew and dog handler. Good luck!

Lance Mackey gets a hometown send off.

Alex Michael Pringle!

2008-01-29T12:48:00.000-09:00

Congratulations to Simone and Gareth for the late 2007 arrival of wee Alex! I talked with Gareth just before I flew out of Auckland and he told me Simone had gone into labor but to keep quiet because he wanted to call Mum and Dad only later on.

What a little cutie! We're really looking forward to seeing little Alex this December. Although it was a pity to not be around when he arrived, it was really great to see Gareth and Simone a week before hand. Probably nicer then than afterwards, as we know they would have wanted some time to themselves, just the three of them. Well.. and some very happy Grandparents!

Skiing at 40 below

2008-01-28T17:08:00.000-09:00

Yousers, that's cold! 40 below is the point where the Celcius and Fahrenfeit scales give you the same thing. Which for most people is 'stay inside, are you kidding me?'

But it was Heike's birthday and I needed some fresh air and a blow out, so I tagged along with Heike and Ben. it was the coldest any of us had skied in I think. But we were well rugged-up and Heike's new reliable Subie got us out and back no problems. (Apart from when she nearly drive it into the bridge leaving the hot springs...)

We skied up the N. Fork of the Chena River only a mile from Chena Hotsprings. We had a soak out there when we were done, meeting up with Pat Cotter who'd been out checking his Beaver traps (nada).

A totally different kind of outing to last weekend, that's for sure. Crazy temperature swings up here in the winter. At 20 F (-5 C), its really comfortable, and you can stop and chat, enjoying the views, sun and company. At -40 C we really dressed warm, fired up the chemical hand and foot warmers, and kept moving except for stops to swings feet and hands to force the blood back into them, and the occasional photo and a few quick words. I've never worn so much, moved for two hours and not sweated.

It was an exceptionally clear, crisp day. The hint of a breeze took out breath away down valley on the way back out - for some of which we had the sun on our faces, and boy was that nice! Pretty neat to be out on the Yukon Quest dog trail too. We could follow the trail markers, although they'll need to do some work in a few stream crossings. We had to navigate some open water at one point - crazy give the temperature. It was only a few inches deep too, so we weren't in any danger although you'd not want your dogs getting cold wet feet out there.

Warm White Mountains mission

2008-01-28T17:07:00.001-09:00

Thi weekend was an Alaska all-time high at around 32 F (0 C) at the airport. Out in the White Mountains, Fairbanksans nearby outdoor playground, it was a little colder but still a great and very welcome respite from 'normal' January weather.

A crew of us skied out and back to Lee's cabin as a day trip, and others carried on through to Eleazhar's Cabin to make a night of it. The clear skies and sunny afternoon saw the parking lot full - of skiers' Subarus, dog mushers' trucks with kennel trailers, and snow machiners' huge RVs with trailers for parking lot parties between days of powder-hounding petrol burning.

Ted's video of a dog team passing us on the trail. Turns out the musher is one of the shuttle bus drivers on campus. Bit of a novelty that his team is jingle-jangling bells. Very Christmas-like but at least you aren't surprised by them.

Kiwi Christmas

2008-01-13T14:03:00.000-09:00

It was so wonderful to catch up with so many people and so much sunshine over our flying trip home. We were pretty slack with photos this time - it was busy enough as it was! - but there are a few snaps below.

For the most part we were based with Lisa's parents, Jan and Butch, who were marvellous hosts, as usual, despite the chaos of running heir supermarket over the silly season. With trips to Christchurch, New Plymouth, Kapiti Coast, Masterton and the Waikato, we did get around a bit, and managed to catch up with a lot of special people and places.

It was really nice that I got to see Dad's side of the family in Christchurch the week before Christmas (thanks Alister and Sue!), and Mum's side of the family on Chirstmas Day (thanks John and Kerry!). Big thanks too to Sam and Emily for letting us use their car.

The quick rundown of other highlights for me: Nick and Larissa pick-me-up and swimming in Oriental Bay within an hour of touching down; backyard cricket at Sawyer Park and retaining the Tui Cup (sweet); a few fabulous days up the Kapiti Coast at Simone's Dad's beach house catching up with Gareth, Simone, Mum, Mike and whanau (thanks so much Mike!) and our one night away together for fish'n'chips on the beach and a morning stroll and swim; hanging out and climbing with Chris at Baring Head, Whanganui Bay and Wharepapa; catching up with Marcos and Serge; the fabulous hospitality of the Phelan, Pringle, Roseveare and Banks families as well as all our friends - thank you all!

Already, it really does seem like the half a world away that it is. A fabulous trip though, and a wonderful reminder of New Zealand life and outlook, and so great to se so many friends and family. Even if all the contrasts are a bit hard to get used to right now back up in Fairbanks.

Our 'big news' is that we settled on a wedding venue for the end of December, Lisa found a dress she really likes. See a later post for Gareth and Simone's big news - little Alex arrived the day I flew out!

WeTube

2007-11-26T21:13:00.001-09:00

No, not a catheter. I've finally got into the YouTube game, so can share a couple of little movies even if they are from last year.

First, last year's Turkey Day Relay. This year would have made much better footage, but I was skiing. Filmed with our little digital camera and edited with the the basic iMovie on our mac.

And here's one from earlier in '06. Me and Frank exploring some boulders north of town. It could have been much snappier, but hey, it was my first crack at movie editing, and took waaaaay too much time!

Liser and Treva's Birthday Bash

2007-11-24T10:58:00.000-09:00

Lise turned over another leaf yesterday, and rang it in with friends, style and fun. Full from another great thankgiving dinner at Adam and Bridget's cabin, we had a slow start then rolled up to Birch Hill for the Turkey Day Relay. Joined by the great Scottish sport Helena Buurman, we were 'Not the New Zealand National team'. That way the race announcer, and running and ski coach, John Estle couldn't repeat his favourite little joke, "here comes Lisa Phelan from the NZ national team".. We all did better than our previous efforts and really enjoyed the warm weather, even if the course was melting out a little due to freaky warm snap lately.

We followed that with a great 'games night' at our place for Lisa and Trevor, her birthday-twin. It was a really fun night with a great bunch of friends. The birthday kids were in great form during the classic kiwi 'chocolate game' and pictionary. This could be a battle of the blogs with Lena, Dea, Ed and Trevor, so here are our best snaps:

Treva and Liser.

Treva, Liser, and Layner ;-)

The good old chocolate game - fun for more than just 6 year old New Zealand kids!

Pat, Eder, Adier, Dea, Ann and Mytack.

Ann and friendly pooch Mytack.

Anna and Chloe on the Sky Chair. And Anna's stout swinging safely within reach on the left.

Situation in Pakistan

2007-11-06T13:13:00.001-09:00

A break from the Alaska stories.

Today I heard news about Aasim Akhtar who I went to school with at United World College. I've been following the situation in Pakistan only loosely on NPR (radio), but I now feel it much closer. I wasn't super close to Aasim and hadn't previously heard about his campaigning for human rights in Pakistan, but we were all relatively close at UWC, and Aasim was very good friends with Jason Lees, the New Zealander one year below me. And this news certainly impacted me. (more)

During recent protests as Gen. Pervez Musharaf delayed elections, police assumed state of emergency powers and arrested 500 protesters in 24 hours. Apparently only his wife Asha (below) refusing to take no for an answer stopped Aasim being one of those, but they are now in hiding. Can you imagine the reality of this?

After college, when most of us UWC grads found a nice job and comfortable living, Aasim returned to Pakistan and started PRM (Peoples' Rights Movement), organizing poor and homeless/ landless farmers for basic human rights. Not the most popular guy with the government.

In Aasim's case, this is not a case of cracking down on 'Islamic terrorism' - the excuse Musharaf has put forward to delay elections - but rather suppressing protests for democracy and human rights.

Even national cricket star-turned politician Imran Khan has fled house arrest and is also in hiding. "They are using sheer force against lawyers, human rights organizations, political activists and all genuine opposition leaders are in jail," Khan wrote in the e-mail statement. "The police have ransacked my house and ill treated my family members." (ref)

I'm kind of at a lose for words or even a well-defined reaction to this beyond disgust at Musharaf's regime. It is both half a world away, and close to home. At UWC we were exhorted to think globally, act locally; to stand up for rights, to try to be the difference. Of course that can happen at many levels, but how many of us are doing that like Aasim is - beyond the adolescent idealism, bourgeois benevolence, and self-assuaging tokenism - on the real front lines?

Aasim wants to stay in Pakistan and continue his work and passion. I really feel for him and his family and friends trying to help him now. Aasim and Asha, your bravery is truly impressive. If I had one to call on, I'd ask him to bless you and look out for you. I feel that I can't do much more than wish and hope for your physical safety, and that you're able to continue successfully your fight for human rights without grave loss of your own.

Polish polish

2007-10-03T10:01:00.002-08:00

The irregular schedule of the Condor flights flying directly from Frankfurt to Alaska gave me a day free. It was an easy choice to visit my very good friend Pawel in Warsaw. Pawel and I were classmates at the United World College in New Mexico. I arrived 6 days before Pawel and Agata’s wedding – so the timing was close but not quite perfect. They were really wonderful hosts – you’d hardly have known it was so close before the wedding apart from the dance lesson Monday night.

I didn’t have a well-formed idea of what Warsaw would be like, but it surprised me. A huge building boom is underway, fueled by EU support for infrastrucure development. Very modern ‘urban suburbs’ like the one Pawel and Agata live in seemed to be multiplying and spreading out into what was pastural land around the city. From their place, the subway was a 5 minute stroll past a high-end wine store and a roadside market. Downtown apartments are now comparable in price to those in Brussels. The ramping house prices, and labor shortage are a bit of a worry for Pav as they try to finish construction on their new house.

We went up the iconic, monumental communist palace, now called the ‘Palace of Culture and Science’ with great views of the sprawling city of green-belts, high rises, and industry, straddling the Wisla River. Warsaw is an old city, with the cathedral dating from the mid 1300s. But like much of the old town area, it was devastated in WWII. In the decade after the war, in which 6 million of their countrymen were killed, Poles flocked to Warsaw to literally and symbolically rebuild their capital and country. Its now near the end of a similar period of rebuilding post-communism – led by young professionals like Pawel and Agata who work in banking and consulting. Pav reminded me that things are still very different out in the country side though, and noted that the regulatory environment, infrastructure and development are a bit out of synch still. Nevertheless, and although I was there only for a day and two nights, Warsaw certainly struck me as a place of optimism, opportunity and promise. Above all it was just great to spend time with Pawel and Agata and to get a better feel for their life in Poland.

APECS , shaping the future of polar research

2007-10-03T10:01:00.001-08:00

In late September, I attended a workshop in Sweden for the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS). This group has grown out of the International Polar Year 2007 - 2009 (IPY), which is an international effort to focus global scientific resources and attention on the polar regions and people.

Participants, varying from senior undergraduates to young Professors were drawn from essentially two different backgrounds: IPY Education and Outreach groups from around the world, and an early APECS incarnation which was largely focused on early-career issues. The process of combing to form a single organization and agreeing on its structure, positioning, mandate, objectives and potential funding sources was challenging and absorbing. However we do now have those things, and are working towards several flag-ship activities in the next two years including career-development workshops at major science conferences, and an International IPY conference planned for Edmonton, Canada, May 2009.

This process was greatly expedited by discussions with and guidance from half a dozen key senior scientists and science planners/ administrators. Personally, it was a fantastic opportunity to learn from and work with a group of young, motivated scientists as well as these mentors. I’m now on the five-person interim executive which will establish the group under the coordination of Jen Baeseman at the Arctic Region Council of the US (ARCUS) also housed in Fairbanks. It was actually quite an exciting feeling to have made what we all agreed was pretty significant progress at the workshop. The obvious challenge is to maintain that forward momentum with us scattered back to our day jobs!

I didn’t actually get much of a chance to see Sweden at all. We met at Sanga Saby conference center about 40 km from Stockholm, but after a late arrival and taxi ride on Wednesday night, I only got half a day in the city on Sunday. Just long enough to get in some ‘city time’, see a few sights around the central city islands, and see Germany bet Brazil 2-0 in a great final of the womens’ soccer world cup. The 10 hour time difference was a challenge late in the evenings, but at least made it easy to take a couple of early morning runs.

Jan and Butch in Alaska

2007-10-03T09:57:00.000-08:00

Lisa’s parents, Jan and Butch, dropped in en route to the rugby world cup in France. It was a short but really nice visit and, thankfully, the weather and animals played their parts pretty well. Our whirlwind highlights tour from Seward to Fairbanks meant lots of driving, giving us plenty of time to catch-up.

Lise and I zoomed the 360 miles down to Anchorage after work Thursday night, arriving just after Jan and Butch touched down. On Friday we made a day trip to Seward with a 5-hour boat tour or Resurrection Bay. Straight after launch we spotted a sea otter lolling and rolling around in the swell. (Sea otters eat 25% of the body weight a day - beat that!) Later on the boat stopped for 20 minutes to watch and photo a pod of Orcas (killer whales). We also saw Steller Sea Lions and some birds, but unfortunately for Lise, no elusive puffins. A slightly choppy crossing at the mouth of the bay, which opens into the Gulf of Alaska, we cruised passed the Bear Glacier and booted back to port. A really nice meal of crab and local seafood rounded out the day.

Saturday dawned a beautiful, crisp, clear autumn day for the long drive up to Denali Park. With only a few little clouds under the main peak, we got a fantastic view of Denali on the drive up. It was past the official ‘end of the but we were able to drive the first 32 miles of the park road. Unfortunately, no bears, moose or caribou made themselves visible but we did see some young snow shoe hares with ears and legs already white for the winter, and a flock of half-white ptarmigan hoping that if they stayed still we couldn’t see them. Daft little things. Dinner at a greasy spoon in Healy was sweetened with a shimmering green Aurora in the clear night sky.

We had the very comfy ‘Touch of Wilderness’ bed and breakfast all to ourselves, and from the second storey at breakfast, we were treated to a wolf wandering through the back yard with his own morning snack – a fox or rabbit maybe.

Lise had Monday off and showed her folks the Museum, galleries, sights and surrounds of Fairbanks. We had a lovely potluck dinner with Pat and Adia, and Bobby and Morgan hosted by our friends Fred and Kay. Too small for dinner, our place is also a bit small for accommodations too, and as it turned out nowhere near as unusual in character and characters as the Goldhill Lookout B&B.

So, a short but full and wonderful visit. No puffins and no bears but pretty much everything else. Jan and Butch - we hope you enjoy France and the AB’s finally lift the cup again. Thanks for the party mix, Dominion crosswords, chocolate licorice, ‘blackout’ tops and most of all, thanks for being able to make it all the way up here. Good tears at the airport.

Andy's Equinox

2007-09-19T17:34:00.000-08:00

Lise and I got through our first marathon last weekend. Not a bad first one too - the beautiful , mostly off road Equinox Marathon is demanding but rewarding. I snuck in just under 4 hours and Lise in 4:40. A far more interesting story is that of our close friend Andy Roberts. The three of us ran as a relay team last year and all went solo this year. As you can see from the article below, from the local 'Fairbanks Daily News Miner', Andy's was a really noteworthy and inspirational achievement. In the last 18 months, he's been diagnosed with- and determinedly fought cancer, started a family with Anna, started a new job, organized and participated in a large sea ice field camp in the Arctic Ocean, and dedicated plenty of time and energy to the cancer support community up here. Andy was the reason that we have been involved in the cancer relays that many of you have generously given to. Thanks again for your support of such a worthy cause.

Me and Andy after the run - stoked but struggling to stand!

Equinox runners and walkers raising money for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society

By Dermot Cole
Staff Writer
Published September 15, 2007

Andrew Roberts, who plans to run the Equinox Marathon today, is doing so out of gratitude and a desire to help others.

Though he hopes to reach the finish line in about four hours, for him, even just reaching the starting line after what he’s been through has to be considered one of life’s victories.

“I feel like the luckiest man alive,” he said.

He is part of the Fairbanks contingent of runners and walkers competing for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training. Together, they have raised about $100,000 to fight cancer and honor the memory of Susan Butcher and others.

Roberts, 36, is a meteorologist and a post-doctoral fellow at the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center and the International Arctic Research Center at UAF. He is working on a new high resolution computer model of the Arctic being developed by a group of U.S. institutions.

He is also a survivor of blood cancer.

He and his wife, Anna, moved to Fairbanks from Australia three years ago to begin a research fellowship. About a year later he noticed a small painless lump on his neck that grew by the day.

Several weeks of medical tests produced a diagnosis that he was suffering from lymphoma, an blood cancer related to leukemia.

Chemotherapy and radiation therapy followed. He didn’t smoke, he was healthy and there was no family history of the disease. In other words, he had no clue why the disease struck.

The chemical treatments involved a strong cocktail of drugs administered intravenously every two or three weeks.

“The drugs halt progression of cancer cells, but they also limit production of healthy cells, causing substantial side effects,” he said.

One of those is increased susceptibility to infection and weakness. He became anemic and sometimes fainted simply because he stood up. Exhaustion became a normal part of his life.

One of the things he learned along the way, he said, was that a positive attitude is important in fighting a life-threatening disease.

“The real trick with cancer, I discovered, was to never let it get your mind,” he said.

“Each day during therapy I would go for a walk, regardless of how slowly, sometimes with my wife by my side to make sure I didn’t fall over.”

As he took each step, he repeated words that became a personal mantra: “This cancer has chosen the wrong body and I am going to beat it.”

Roberts said that with the help of medical research, the doctors and nurses at the Fairbanks Cancer Treatment Center and “my wonderful wife,” he has made enormous strides back to a healthy life.

Eighteen months after ending treatment he is still cancer-free and regaining his strength.

Roberts was a long-distance runner in Australia and he has put in more than 300 miles training for the Equinox.

When he was sick, friends hosted a community spaghetti feed for his family and he wants to respond by raising as much money as he can for the Team in Training.

One of the side effects of chemotherapy was a reduction in fertility. Because the Roberts wanted children, they made an rush trip to a male fertility clinic in Seattle before the chemical injections began. They had a child conceived by in vitro fertilization in Melbourne, Australia.

About four weeks ago, Anna gave birth to Chloe at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital.

“Chloe is our pride and joy and we call her our little survivor,” Roberts said. “She’s the greatest thing to come from our recent challenge.”

Pringle at Prindle

2007-09-14T18:40:00.001-08:00

The last weekend before the marathon I finally got out to Mt. Prindle with Pierre. Prindle is a 5300 ft Peak surrounded by huge open valleys, boggy tundra and the only multi-pitch climbing in the interior. The ridges are dotted with granite tors with names like the Wind Chimes, Chessmen and Stegasourus. But our destination was the 1000+ft granite flanks of a huge protruding granite pluton.

After a one and a half hour drive, a packing accident at the trail head (one dead beer, one wet sleeping bag) , and a 2 1/4 hour fast hike, we settled on a tent site. Uh-oh, its actually getting properly dark at night now! Saturday, we hiked American Creek drainage around to the main wall. This creek once had an alpine glacier and was one of the only glaciated areas in interior Alaska during the last ice age. No glacier now but this huge valley was resplendent in its fall colors, with plenty of wild mountain sheep and blueberries. And one big old grizzly.

A sighting not an encounter. We were up valley, across the creek and up wind. Pierre spotted him about 500 m away as he stood up, sniffing the wind. We stopped. He ambled clumsily to the river. We scanned for cubs. He stalled in the water. I fingered the bear spray and felt the 4 hour hike to the car. Then he bolted across the valley before, thank god, hanging a right and punching up a gear down valley. Certainly much more graceful at speed than doddling. Pretty impressive really.

After that we skirted the valley a little higher up, and turned the corner to the main wall. Right then it started to drizzle. With the tent up, the weather holding, and the gear sorted, we stashed the food and got into it.

Pierre had been out there with Laura and Jason earlier in the summer so I claimed first leading rights. 'Short Stack' 5.8 (200 ft) was a nice long pitch up a steepening ramp to a stack of pancake-like flakes, some more secure than others. The gear wasn't great, and the rock surface a bit skittery with lichen and crumply cracks, but overall a nice long pitch in a spectacular setting. This is probably the entry level pitch at Prindle.

We then rocked around the back and set our sights on 'Klondike' 5.10 (200 ft). This is touted as the only sport climb at Prindle, but with gear advised. In the end, it was 7 bolts, one backed up with a small cam, and 4 other cams in 55 m. Fantastic, varied climbing down low mostly on good-sized holds and then tettering up the tapering dike higher up. From an achor of one bolt and a couple of cams, I wandered upwards and soon spotted a bolt high and left. This lead us into the 'X' routes, the right arm of which we followed to the top. 55 more meters with one bolt, one cam and about 30 m of semi-rotten 5.5 climbing. The only good gear was the belay at the top. After a walkoff and tottering down the talus field in rock shoes, the drizzle had picked up and we called it for dinner. De-hy pasta with tuna, then a couple of Elephant beers and a box of shortbread up under the overhang. Kwal-i-tay.

Well, it rained on and off all night so we bailed at 10am and hiked up the creek to the 4000 ft tors and on up to the summit of Prindle. Great views until the weather rolled in from the west. In the end, it just added another element to the trip and reminded us it really was an alpine environment. By 3:30pm we were back at the car, completely soaked (except for Pierre and his fancy one zillion swiss franc jacket) and into the cookies.

Definitely worth a return trip or two next summer, but I'll try the Faith Creek access. That's supposed to be faster, though less spectacular. Let's see what this 'rest weekend' did for us. Pierre and I, and Lisa and Andy and doing the Marathon tomorrow...

Rocksploration

2007-09-04T16:28:00.000-08:00

We're closing in on the real end of summer, but I've been out on several rock finding missions. And I found enough things to be excited about the arrival of the next climbing season (as if the end of winter won't be enough..)

Lise and I had a really nice overnight camping trip this last weekend - Labor Day weekend up here, and Father's Day weekend at home. Happy Father's Day Bob and Butch! Anyway, we camped out on top of Wickersham Dome about an hour north of town. The marmots left us alone overnight and we spent the day cleaning and climbing rocks (you know who) and sleeping in the sun.

Bouldering with Lise out on Wickersham Dome. Weathered granite ( I think?) blocks in a beautiful setting.

Arc de Trompe, at Narnia. No typo in the name, the idea for which came from a Pixies album; the climbing is super tricky. Easily the tallest, hardest lines found so far on Fairbanks limestone. The arch itself is about 20 ft high, the overlap roof is about 2 feet deep, and the tallest lines about 50 ft tall. Tom Ellis and I put in a couple of anchor bolts for the central lines and spent some time cleaning. But on top of the hilly 1 hr bushwhack, that left us too tired to send. Routes here will likely be (left to right) 5.9 / 5.11+ / 5.12+ / 5.12 / 5.11+/ 5.13+. There are a couple other big outcrops at Narnia, and they have much better rock quality and features than the main Grapefruit hill. Choice.

Mike Ruckhaus at the base of the 40+ ft overhanging arete/ groove we found behind Crackland. The rock was loose, needed a well-organized top rope anchor, but the climbing was really nice and sustained at about 5.10.

Hopefully one of two last burns for this season, but the schedule is looking pretty full with the marathon, Lisa's parents visiting and a workshop to attend. And, a climbing trip planned this weekend. ;-)

Running and reining-in the pooches

2007-08-19T13:29:00.000-08:00

Lisa's first week at school was extra busy as we're had our first taste of dog-sitting. The kids arrive in her classroom tomorrow (argh!) but hopefully they are slightly lower intensity than Texas Ted Wu's pooches, Ty and Lucey. They're GREAT dogs if a little mischievous, and we've enjoyed having them around and taking them out for walks - especially when we can take them off the leash and relax a little! I feel like much manlier driving Ted's pickup with a couple of ddogs too ;-)

Ty showing Lisa some love. Lucey's seen it all before.

Lucey, Dan and Ty hangin' in the Chena Ridge crib, yo.

Otherwise, training for the Equinox marathon, chugging along at work, fitting in a bit of exploring and a new route at the local climbing area, and enjoying very nice late-summer weather.

Moutain madness: Equinox marathon course. The vertical gain from start to top is about 600m. Typical times are about 30 min slower than a road marathon.

A month now before Lise's parents arrive en-route to the rugby world cup in France. We're really looking forward to seeing them and spending a few days tripping around the highlights between Anchorage, Seward, Denali Park and Fairbanks.

Valdez Sea kayaking

2007-08-06T12:08:00.002-08:00

With Lisa's new job starting soon, we took our last chance for a summery weekend away together. After work Friday, we drove the 360 miles from Fairbanks to Valdez, half of which I hadn't been down before, but Lise had during the Fireweed 400 bike race. We 'rambo-camped' on the side of the road just before Valdez. As well as saving money, I had the entertainment of a very realistic dream of waking up to find the car jacked up over the tent and the wheels stolen. wtf?

In Valdez, we rented a double sea kayak and took a water taxi out to Sawmill Bay, just beyond the Valdez Narrows, which separate Port Valdez from Valdez arm and the rest of Prince William Sound. The folks at Pangaea Kayaks were really great.

The tide timings were perfect, and we worked our way along the coast towards Shoup Bay, seeing a lot of jumping fish, a bald eagle or two and plenty of sea birds. It was certainly a different gig to Able Tasman in NZ - cold rain, cold water and definitely no swimming! Lise was rugged right up, but wet and a little uncomfortable fot a while (she may use stronger terms..). Not super relaxing in that regard, but great to be out there together taking in the animals and environment and just hanging out. Right at Shoup Bay we saw three sea otters lolling around and checking us out as we paddled closer. Very cool!

Shoup bay was a real highlight. The upper bay was formed by a side-arm of Shoup glacier which, although receding, still calves into the bay, feeding it with bergy bits and very cold water. The upper bay is offset from the lower bay, which is open to the sound, and this results in high tidal flows through the narrow channel connecting them. We arrived right on high tide, rode in on a nice little flow for about 200m, and were spat out past another sea otter towards a noisy rookery of kitty-wakes. These birds were being studied by a group from Earthwatch and Fish and Game, as apparently they act as a good indicator of the overall health of the Valdez area ecosystem. We joined the research crew and a few other paddlers in the 'campground' of small sites nestled between alders. With dead salmon lying about the lower bay think: bear country!

We cooked up and stashed all tasty and aromatic things in our bear barrel away from the tent before crashing out. The next morning's entertainment came from my overactive brain turning the kitty-wakes squaks into a loud-hailer announcement of their being a bear in camp and for everyone to meet at the researcher's shack. It took Lise a while to convince me it was just my hyperactive imagination again!

Day two, we paddled up closer to the glacier, checked out some seals, and rode an exciting little wave train out the channel to the lower bay. I wouldn't have run it by myself in a single, but felt comfortable in our double kayak, especially with Lisa's river experience. Fun! The paddle back to Valdez took in some cool cliffs, more wildlife and really thick fog crossing the shallow river flat towards the end. As we were back early than we'd first thought, with the misty wet weather and not much to do in Valdez the next morning, we decided to drive on home. We took a short stop at Worthington Glacier to get a picture for my friend Chris Worthington. Sorry to say Chris, it is receding despite the substantial snow fall in this area. By midnight we were home in bed, with the tent drying out, bear barrel clean and only the squirrels to dream about.

More pics here: valdez-sea-kayaking

Bike race, fishing and Dawson City Music

2007-07-30T10:30:00.000-08:00

While Dan was in Italy, I explored the state of Alaska and the Yukon Territory of Canada. I am rather shonky at keeping up-to-date with this blog thing, hence three entries in one. Moreover, I will seek to put more pictures than words, since this may propel me into writing more often!

I signed up to race the Fireweed 400 with two friends, Stacia and Heike. The race took place in early July in south central Alaska, and saw each of us riding around 135 miles (or 215km) through glacier filled scenery and over a mountain pass. Spectacular! We were first in our category, taking 27 hours,...which wasn't hard given that we're the first all-female team to enter the event! See New Zealand Endurance Sport Magazine in mid-September for an article by me, and some photos of the event.

Heike and I at a speedy transition!

My cheery self riding my first 65 km

Our rides with funky mist covered mountains in the background.

Road cycling at its best, with views like this

To carry on the theme of summer sleep deprivation I headed to the Chitina River with friends Pat and Heike to dipnet for salmon through the night. My dad was rather appalled that instead of rod and reeling for fish, we would stick a GINORMOUS net into the water and pull out salmon! It's very un-classy and more like grocery shopping than sport fishing. Still, I manage to have some "skill" (or luck) and caught around 15 salmon and a big king! Between the three of us we landed around 36 salmon, and now our freezers are filled with these tasty delights. This is rather quintessentially Alaskan, and the next stop on the semi-subsistence food trail is berry picking, then moose hunting. Guess which one of those two I'm up for? (They're sweet and their capture involves no blood).

That's me with the white hat and big net at 3am trying to call the fishies!

This is my King Salmon! The delirious look is a mix of pleasure and sleep deprivation

Me and my creek on the drive to Fairbanks

I headed to the Dawson City Music Festival at the end of July with a group of ten friends. It was an *amazing* trip involving a scenic eight-hour drive through Alaska and across the border to Canada. I saw a running herd of caribou, passed through the town of Chicken, Alaska, and saw fireweed covered hills.

The festival itself was fantastic, with a vast array of contemporary Canadian music played in an old church, a palace like the one in the Muppet Show (with those big fancy archways all the important people sit in on the third floor) and a biergarten. The midnight sun has everyone energised, so we spent our mornings at running races and training, and the evenings in late night dancing and drinking cider. This is a trend I have to continue, given my fifth place in the race!

Ed and I taking some time out from dancing to pose

This is the view we earned from our 7.5km uphill running race. In the foreground you can see our friend Dan's dog Sky, Dawson City below, and the clear waters of the Klondike river merging with the mighty Yukon. (Thanks to Ted for the pilfered photos!)

Italian summer

2007-07-26T14:53:00.001-08:00

Lucky for me, a big geoscience conference was held in Perugia, Italy in July. I had some new results to present and made some good new connections with the European cryospheric community. I also got to stay in beautiful nearby Assisi, and met up with Lisa's good friend Kate Wilson now at GNS in Lower Hutt.

View of Assisi from Hotel Giotto

After the conference, I rendezvoused with my good friend Frank Olive from Fairbanks, who'd put 3000 km on his bike from his sister's house in Budapest - taking the long way round, via Austria, Switzerland, France, Monaco and the Italian Riviera. We met in Arco where we hiked in the 30 C sun so that we could climb in the shade. There is so much fantastic limestone around Arco, it's just unbelievable. And hard to photograph when you're either climbing or belaying!

While in Arco we met up for dinner with Marghi and Giorgio, Lisa's Italian sister and brother from her high-school year in Italy. They both travelled about an hour from different directions with a friend to go out with us for Tex-Mex, Italian style. It was so great to see them again, and we had a really nice evening.

Me in Campiglio, and Frank with a rope, a rack and a bike on his back.

Then after 4 days, we packed up the bike and took a bus up the Brenta Dolomites. This is where Lisa had spent that high school year, and where we'd stayed with her host family on our 2005 trip (see very first blog). Frank and I also stayed with la famiglia Valentini, this time for a couple of nights in between a trip up into the mountains. These guys are incredibly generous hosts and went out of their way to arrange things for us. Giorgio gathered hard to find route information, hooked us up with his friends in Rifugio Tuckett, spent a long day climbing and hiking with us the day before a 10 km running race, and generally included us in what was going on. The language barrier wasn't too bad with Giorgio and I trying to met on some common ground.

Castetletto Inferiore from Rif. Tuckett; on the summit.
Frank on the crux of 'Rapunzolo'; Rif. Tuckett.

The Arco crash-course in climbing fitness paid off and we enjoyed some really nice climbing high in the mountains. We spent one day climbing on the Castelletto Inferiore right by Rif. Tuckett and then a second day at Corna Rossa with Giorgio. The climbing was fantastic. The routes we climbed were Rapunzolo (5+, 7p), Kirka(5+, 3p), Mazun(6c, 4p), Big Daniel (6a, 3p) [we had to climb that once we saw the name], and Via Carabinieri (6a, 8p). We onsighted the lot, the highlights being Mazun, and the top 4 pitches of Carabinieri. Without Giorgio, it would have been a very different experience: the route information is not widely distributed, at least one reason for which is that the local guides put up routes and then work guiding on them.

Hiking to Rif. Tuckett; view of, and looking down Via Carabinieri.
Giorgio; farewell dinner; Frank, and me thinking about the crux ahead.

Back in San Antonio di Mavignola, it was the Festa d'Estate - summer festival - and our long day out was followed by a long night out. It was really nice to meet up with some of the people I met last time - friends of Lisa's and the Valentinis, Violine and Enrico, and Teresa and Renzo.

On Sunday, we watched Giorgio's race, lay in the sun eating polenta at the Alpin festa, took in some local cragging, enjoyed a wonderful farewell dinner from Bice's kitchen and then bused through to Milan on Monday. The floor of Malpensa airport is cheap but not that comfy.

It was a great trip, made possible through work, but made so enjoyable be meeting up with Frank and through the fabulous generosity and hospitality of the Valentini family -grazie mille! It was a real pity thought that we couldn't work it for Lisa to come too. There was a Lisa-sized hole in all of us up in Mavignola.

Grazie di nuova, ciao, ciao. ciao. ciao, ciao, ciao.

More pictures from the trip here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/danielpringle75/Italia2007/

Fairbanks Relay for life

2007-06-01T08:04:00.000-08:00

Click picture to go to our page

This weekend Lisa and I are again participating in the Fairbanks 'Relay for Life' to raise awareness and funds for Cancer research. Most of our 'Team Spiritus' from last year is turning out again.

For us, the fundraising hurdle is tougher than the physical challenge. We don't like email solicitations either, but in this case we think the cause is worth it. We would really appreciate any contribution you can make, small or large

Donations can be made for some time after the the event too.

1. You can make a secure online donation here: Dan&Lisa donation page

2. You can slip me some cash and I'll pass it on.

3. You can pledge via email and we can sort it out later.

For those of you in town, you can drop in tonight-tomorrow (1-2 June) to the West Valley High School track to participate or donate. A luminaria ceremony will be held at 10pm tonight to honor survivors and remember those lost. Candles will be lit and all names read over the PA system.

thanks and best wishes,

Dan & Lisa

Summer floating

2007-05-28T22:36:00.000-08:00

This may not look like a tan to you...but it's amazing how one's sense of perspective changes!

It's hard to believe that summer is really here...I mean it's certainly long overdue, but it's with a certain sense of disbelief that we march forth in making summer plans! This long weekend (Memorial Day) Dan and I made plans to head out and canoe the upper section of the local Chena River. The weather was perfect with a breeze strong enough to keep the pesky mosquitoes at bay, and the river was mellow and tranquil...for the most part. There were plenty of log piles in the river, and enough sweepers to keep us thinking. It was a little difficult for me to get used to being two in a boat with a paddle on just one side: I felt a little off-balance with just half a paddle! I realise that most canoers go on "float" trips rather than paddle trips, but the thought of just floating down a river for hours on end didn't appeal to either of us.

Note the absence of a keg

In addition to plenty of other boaters and fisherpeople we saw a gorgeous bald eagle, beaver dams, and a moose leg (sans moose!!). It really is a local hotspot for recreation, and in particular for boaters. Dan and I opted out of the keg in the middle of the boat, and were some of only a few who did!

With summer being much awaited, we are looking forward to getting out and about. I will be working at a summer camp for the month of June before becoming a lady of leisure for July - cycle race, running events, music festival in Canada etc...and perhaps some cabin painting. Dan will be working until a conference and climbing trip calls him to northern Italia in July and then before you know it summer will be winding down. We hope for another trip to southcentral Alaska before August hits, and the school year begins.

The long nights add a certain sense of buoyancy and exhaustion all at once...I find myself once again in awe of the people who live this rather unbalanced lifestyle year in and year out. Rather like paddling with just half a paddle...

A wee excursion in rural Alaska

2007-05-28T21:55:00.000-08:00

View of the Aleutian Chain from my prop plane!

In early May I was fortunate enough to receive a scholarship to visit St. Paul Island: population: 500; location: middle of the Bering Sea. My mission was to visit a school in rural Alaska to observe and to teach, in addition to understanding a little more about life off the road system.

St. Paul Island: "Downtown"

I quickly became known as "New Lady" and was asked who I was visiting and why I was on the island each time I met someone new. This had me in giggles numerous times, and the locals too. The island is reknown for its amazing wildlife, and in particular the huge population of fur seals that inhabit the island throughout summer. This drew many people here in the late 1800s for seal clubbings by the tens of thousands for fancy fur coats in the USA and Russia. There are thousands of beautiful birds on the island in summer too, nesting on the high sea cliffs. Unfortunately I didn't get to see any seals or puffins (my big goal!) but it wasn't for lack of trying - I went for many walks and did manage to see lots of foxes. They were very cute! It was delightful to be near the sea again, even though there was a lot a sea ice on board...

Nesting murres, auklets and red-faced cormorants amidst the icicles!

My experience at the school was really interesting. I loved being in a school from primary school to secondary school - it was so delightful to see the students bonding together. Class sizes are small, as there were only 100 students in the school. Teachers in rural Alaska are highly sought after as turnover is high; of the 10 teachers at that school, three were leaving this year. The Pribilof Islands (of which St. Paul is one) have the world's highest population of Aleut people, and this was certainly evident within the school. The vast majority of teachers in rural Alaska are white, and not Alaska Native. There is an ongoing struggle in education, in which there is a sense of fracture from students' day-to-day life and their time in school. Alcoholism is also prevalent within these communities and the more I read about the history of Alaska I can see why...it is certainly a place for the hardy to live and master and especially historically. With the colonisation of local peoples by Russia in the 1800s, then later purchase of land by America, the native groups lost their sense of identity twice over. I came away from my trip with many musings, questions and a quest to learn more about Alaskan history. With so many different languages, Alaska Native groups and cultural practices within 600,000 people and spread over a state two-thirds the size of the rest of the USA, it is quite unfathomable that one education system will suffice for all...

The Russian Orthodox church stands high on the hill

Flight-seeing whale-watching Barrow Style!

2007-04-15T23:57:00.000-08:00

April 15. Up in Barrow for a week for fieldwork. This is longer than usual because we're involved in a few projects at the moment. The International Polar Year (IPY) is starting up, and our group is part of a enwly-funded project to examine the seaonal ice zone aroudn Alaska. Rather than the perenial Arctic ice pack, the seasonal ice zone refers to areas which tend to be ice covered in the fall/ winter and ice-free in the summer. This includes a lot of the coast around Alaska. As with any self-respecting contemporary science project, this one has a suitable acronym: SIZONet (Seasonal Ice Zone Observing Network).

Today, as part of this project we flew in a Bell 212 Helicopter about 50 km North of Barrow, out over the sea ice. We set down on some 3m thick multi-year ice and cored and measured depth-profiles either side of a pressure ridge that separated older multi-year ice from some of this season's first year ice. The MY ice is blue, hard and fresh, and the FY ice saline and more plastic/ softer. Just as well the drill died while coring the softer, thinner FY ice!The thickness of the ice that Oceanographer Mark Johnson is standing on is about the height of the coring barrel. We soon had power drill problems and used the manual head to turn the corer into the ice by hand. This pic shows the bottom section of the 1.25 m long FY ice core we extracted. The faint coloration at the bottom is actually algae. This thin greeny-brown layer spread over millions of square kilometers, underlies the Arctic food web. The algae get into the thin brine layers than form as the sea water freezes: the salts can't be incorporated into the H20 crystal structure of ice and end up in briney inclusions, pockets and tubes.
Here one of the pilots, Scott, is talking shotguns with me (red), Mark and the other pilot, Anders. We saw no bears or tracks, but did see a bowhead whale breaching to breathe in a lead (open water in the middle of the ice pack), which was actually pretty cool! The lower whaling crews are now cutting trails throug the ice off of Barrow so they can access their wahling camps at the edge of the large lead that runs about 10 miles offshore. This lead is close to the underwater Barrow chanel through which the bowheads migrate both in the fall and in the spring.

Spring a leak..

2007-04-08T18:13:00.000-08:00

Spring is slowly but surely upon us. The surest sign is the dri-drip-dripping of melting snow on the roof. Most is gone too except the patch on top of the flat section above the attic window - too bad this feeds a continual dripping onto the roof right next to our pillows!

We're definitely into 'brown spring' now though, and due to the low snow year we should be through that quickly. Turns out that March was the coldest since 1959 and within a whisker of edging that for the coldest on record - which the Februay-March combo was. 111 consecutive days with daily lows below 0 F (-18 C).

Easter stunk up on us and caught us by surprise, which was mostly, I think becuase there are no public holidays at Easter, so you don't have a 'what are you doing for Easter' vibe going on. It was nice today to visit friends and eat some homemade, and very tasty hot cross buns. You don't see them at all up here, which is odd given the American propensity to sell and eat as much food as possible associated with any and all holidays/ special occasions. Kay's homemade ones were really great though.

Yesterday I did my first ever triathlon. An odd one it was too: 9 km ski, 5 km run and 1 km pool swim. It was a low key event organised by the local masters swim group, which a friend tipped me off to. Too bad the skate skiing was closer to ice skating with the daytime melt and nighttime freeze, and I slipped over a couple of times trying to catch the guy in front of me. I was a little afraid of the swim though. Skate skiing is very tricep/back intensive, and how much so was immediately clear with my first swim stroke - ouff! Its kind of strange too - because you obviously don't know where others are up to in the 40-lap swim. It was nice to be in race mode for the first time in ages. With no competetive sport I miss that - the attention to managing your effort for best personal performance. In the end, I was second into the pool and finshed up third. Not quite up there with Lisa's 1st out of two in a ski event at last year's learn-to-ski day, but fun to open up the throttle for a bit anyway :-)

April holds a trip to Barrow for me (13th - 20th), and later, the start of Lisa's trip to the Pribilof Islands (29th - May 5) - and then May 13 is her big graduation date. As this is an American graduation, she'll be expecting appropriate gifts - gradiation ring, cars, holidays in Hawai'i, property. That kind of thing ;-)

March Madness

2007-03-26T23:04:00.000-08:00

Well its hardly college basketball, but March certainly brings on the madness: surely spring should be here already, surely? Why is it still -20 C outside?! To stave off the is it summer yet blues, we've hit the Alaska range the last three weekends.

First, Lise and I ventured south with our friend and my climbing buddy Frank. South to Panorama Peak, just south of the Denali Park area - about 2.5 hours from here. After surviving a super strong northerly wind with a wind-chill of probably - 50 C we got onto the south-facing gully - out of the wind and into the sun - ah!

It was Lisa's first time climbing snow in crampons but she's a fast learner and very methodical. We topped out the gully to a col with a great view of the Alaska range including Denali off to the West. The summit of Panorama will have to wait.

Lisa and Frank en route, Panorama Pk snow gully. Denali is making clouds on the horizon.

The next weekend I went into the 'Deltas' the Eastern margin of the Alaska range, east of the Richardson Highway, again with Frank, and a couple of other guys from the University-based Alaska Alpine Club. This was the same trip as last year - to climb Mt. McCallum. Frank and I again summitted on Saturday after the ski in, and we all went up Sunday morning. it was nice to be up there with Frank - he's a great guy and will be leaving town this summer, and after 10 years up here, he might seek out greener pastures.

Then last Saturday, Lise, Frank and I went ice climbing with friends Dragos and Carrie. After a wee tiki tour looking for some new ice fall off the Parks Highway, again not far from the Park/ Healy, but after the Nenana River looked a little too open to safely cross, we settled for Fox creek. Only 5 minutes up the road, and 10 minutes up a frozen creek we found enough ice to keep up busy for a few hours. We set up 2 top ropes and all climbed slightly different variations of plastic wet ice, brittle cold ice and funky little chandeliery stalactites until we'd got our fill. Lise knew her time was up when she got 'retard arm' - a common affliction whereby your (usually left) arm won't swing the axe in straight and instead rolls inwards and you just can't get the pick in. This nicely bookended her climbing session which begun with the 'screaming-barfies'. (Stupid/ special names for everything, huh?) You can find out how this feels by putting your hands in an ice bucket in a walk-in freezer for about 10 minutes and then letting the blood return. (Hint: the name says it all!)

Fat Fox Creek ice! Lisa and Dragos (top) defying the screaming-barfies and retard-arm.

Anyways, despite my best to make it sound like a suffer-fest, it was really a nice day out out and a lot of fun with nice peeps. I never thought I say this, but 0 F ( -18 C) is really not that cold if you're dressed right and moving. Just don't stop.

(Cheers, too, to the State Trooper who lit up his flashers as I sped along at 75 mph on the 65 mph highway, but then carried on going. ..exhale..)

Claiming of the Shrew

2007-02-21T22:29:00.000-09:00

Actually, I think he was a vole, but the wee fella's hidden his last cashew nut in Lisa's boots. We borrowed little weight-triggered live traps from Pat and Adia, and I set them with one of Voley's favourites - breakfast cereal - and set them in the cupboard under the sink.
This morning I found him all curled up and chilled beyond hibernation in one of the traps. Poor little guy, his was just doing his own thing. For scale, the trap is about 3 inches (7.5 cm ) across.

Here's Pat and Adia at what was the first hockey game that Lise or I had been too.

The UAF Nanooks lost to Michigan State 5-2. It was a fun night out though. Perhaps the varsity soccer team should adopt the home-crowd tactic of chanting " You Suck! You Suck!" at the opposition keeper when the home team scores. Classic hockey fans.

Tolovana II - The cold strikes back

2007-02-13T22:24:00.001-09:00

A little late this post, but here we go.. Tolovana Hot Springs is a favourite winter/spring weekend trip for outdoorsy Fairbanksans. I did it a year ago when Lise has soaking up rays and sipping on Chardonnay in Breaker Bay, and loved it. A few days after getting back from Vancouver, we were on the road.

The 105 mile drive on hilly, icy, bumpy roads is just long enough that you unfortunately need to pee at what must be the most exposed and windy pull-out in all of the interior. Lise and I chose to snow-shoe the 11 miles each way rather than (x-country) ski as some of the hills are a little sketchy especially in the twilight with full backpacks. A week after a slid, skidded, and face-planted down the steep first downhill last year, a poor chap went one better by breaking his femur. Thankfully the Japanese travelers he was with were able to drag him up the hill, plonk him into a car and drive him in town. So snow shoes it was. And while some of our group skied ahead, and Tim zipped through on his snow machine, we plodded along in 30 below. Once moving and in the absence of any wind to speak of it was actually quite comfortable and enjoyable.

Guy Dubuis on his skis.

We spent a neat two nights in the rental cabins rading books, eating chocolate and working our way through the keg. Occasionally we'd dash out to the hot spring in the evenings too. Two dogs and 12 people is a lot to fit in one cabin during the day, but thankfully four of us slept in another smaller cabin and it was quite comfy. At those temps, cutting the wood for the stove is easy - the spruce is so brittle that its almost a no-contest chopping kindling.

Sunday morning dawned, at about 10:30, and we staged our staggered start to hopefully all arive at the cars at about the same time. The cars! I hope the little red subie will start after two nights out in - 35 C ! Normally we plug in the car overnight if its below about -10C, to power heating pads for the battery, engine block and oil pan, so I was pretty nervous on the way out. At some point I had enough of the snow shoe plotting so decided to open up the throttle and try to get some endorphins pumping. The Dukes of Hazard narrator would at this point make some forboding comment about the idiocy of this option: You see, I failed to think too much about generating so much body heat that I'd need to strip down to no hat, only polypro gloves, and a single icebreaker layer unzipped. That would be fine if it weren't 35 below, and although I didn't know it at the time, it would be 2 full weeks before I got full feeling back in several fingers, and that followed only after losing a good layer or two of skin of all fingers and my ear lobes. Live and learn.

Guy's best Gandalf impersonation!

Lisa on arrival at the cars.

Anyway, my car anxiety proved to be well founded. Feeling justified in this conern provided little comfort as, over the next hour we tried to start our car and one other. Jeremy's car finally fired up after jumping the battery, and using a long-handled shovel to slid a burning pile of bbq brickettes under the oil pan. At those temperatures, the oil is just so viscous that the engine can't turn over. Not wanting to melt the bank's investment, we ultimately ended up splitting our gear and selfs into the other cars and abandonning the subie for another night alone.

Operation car-recovery was staged the next day. I picked up a new battery and borrowed a 1000 W generator and a fuel-powered 'space heater' (ie. hot air cannon for heating construction sites) and Lise and I got a (2.5 hour) ride out with Jeremy. After about 45 minutes of blowing hot air under the car and a new battery, she finally fired up to much relief! (The varsity back four have never seen me as dark as I was before then.) We stopped at the Hill Top for the fries that I couldn't bring myself to eat the previous evening and got back into town in one piece.

Car resuscitation.

Moral of the story: we are tiny warm units in a very big, very cold, very unforgiving environment. And next time, take a baking tray to go between a camp stove and the oil pan, or better yet, take someone else's car ;)

More trip photos at: Heike's picasa pages

Cabin-fever Christmas and Van-Kiwi New Year

2007-01-14T14:36:00.000-09:00

It was really great that some of you guys are better than me at sending xmas presents with enough time to actually arrive on time! Thanks for your emails, cards and pressies. It was great to call home and talk to some of you too. All the best for a Happy New Year!

We had a (finally, thankfully) relaxing xmas morning at home, went for a walk in the snow and midday light before hosting a mid-afternoon xmas dinner in our cabin. Thankfully our friend Adia was on hand to provide the appropriate finishing touches including xmas tree, wreath, cookies and a delicious chocolate yule-time log - thanks Mrs. Christmas!

We also re-established that Trivial Pursuits is not the best game to bring everyone together and have fun: 'Your team got so much easier questions than we did' etc.. Our bad there!

We spent a wonderful week in Vancouver over New Year's. More to come on that from Lise..

California driveby

2007-01-14T14:04:00.000-09:00

Long time, no update. December was silly season for sure, as Lise worked through to Dec 23 at the Elementary School she's training in. She was very happy to turn in her last assignment too! Many of the kids gave her xmas presents. It's easy to be judgemental about how commercial the 'Holiday Season' is in the US, but when it comes to kids and parents making and buying personalized gifts for student teacher in their class, you can see how the opportunity to manufacture that commercialism: it really is nice to give and receive those kinds of gifts!

I had a conference in San Francisco mid-December, and was crazy-busy before and during that. I firstd flew into LA and spent a weekend in LA visiting my good friends from Cornell, Alex, Steve and Etienne who are now at CalTech and JPL in Pasadena. Alex was a great host, from picking me up at LAX with a thermos of coffee to talking the talk (and greasing the palm of) the bouncer at the Red Buddha bar in Hollywood so Steve could get in with no ID. Whistletop tour included Santa Monica boardwalk (including punters in open-air poser gym and street rappers hawking their CD's), Saturday night out at a couple of bars in Hollywood (actually more low-key and Wellyington-like that I anticipated) and checking out the Norton Simon fine art Gallery in Pasadena (thousand-year-old buddhas to Van Gogh originals).

The conference was very busy but successful and beneficial. It was a great chance to catch up on friends at other institutes and enjoy some of SF's nice restaurants and late-night shopping. (Photo on left is looking down Powell St, one of the cable-car routes.) One conference highlight was being one of about 700 who attended an hour-long address by Al Gore. I haven't seen his movie or read his book, but know of them. He was certainly a very polished but relaxed presenter with a great sense of humour, and is clearly passionate and seeks to be well-informed about the environment. The obvious thing to wonder is how the state of the world would have been different if he'd bean elected President ahead of inglorious-George in 2000...

Otherwise, back in Squarebanks, the snow was still playing hard to get and we'd been limited to a few sessions only on the ski trails at school.

First white sights of winter

2006-10-25T21:55:00.000-08:00

Winter has arrived now, sneaking in a little later than expected but here for sure now. It dumped snow on Saturday night and as the ground was already frozen, that snow will probably be the last to melt in April.

Driving has been a bit treacherous, with loose powder on ice, but hopefully the worst has passed. In the winter its so cold and dry that the friction is quite good on the dry snow. At least when they spray gravel and salt around the place. The 15 minute zip to work has been taking 25, and we've passed several cars and pick ups that had sliden off the road. So far so good, but the car is now again stocked with windchild scraper, extension cord for plugging in the engine heaters, tow rope, gravel, sleeping bag and blanket and a bag of spare warm clothes. Fingers crossed there will be no need for that!

One great thing about the snow is that it makes the tracks of all the animals visible. We've had a little moose in the lower drive way after apparently having crossed right around our front deck. A hare has been out there too; they're nice and white now. Some of the mystery the other tracks was resolved a couple of nights ago. I heard rummaging in the pantry at 1am and expected that a squirrel had gotten in through the boarding somewhere. Steeled for whatever it was, I flung upon then door and was greeted by an ermine, standing up next to the rubbish, and looking back at me with his head cocked. So cute! Lisa was less enamored with him, especially after he ran back up inside the wall and poked and then up behind the head board of the bed in the loft! He's since nibbled the peanut butter off a mouse trap. Our landlord Holland has said you need bloody meat in a trap - he'll hook us up on Saturday he says. Kind of sad to go after them, they're cute and just looking for some place warm, but they eat the insulation too. (And apparently they make for quite nice little purses or key chain accessories.) He was standing up just like this little guy on the left.

Last Sunday's plans were to go ice climbing, but the wrong weather mix in recent weeks meant no ice was 'in'. Instead, we went to a 'harvest meal' at the house of our friends Pat and Adia. The harvested contributions included cranberries and blueberries (disguised in various cakes), halibut nuggets, moose meatballs and moose liver pate! We then all set about carving up our pumpkins in preparation for Halloween. Our one is the silhouetted bat. Spooky, huh - woooo..

Well, that's about it for now. We've both been pretty busy with work and classes etc. It would be nice to get outside more during the week, but hopefully a little more snow will see us on the trails at lunch time and after work. Ciao.

Summertime citrus deficit

2006-09-09T10:16:00.000-08:00

Somehow, I never quite got out to Grapefruit Rocks enough this summer. The separated shoulder didn't help, of course. The pick of the days up there was when Frank, Adam and I made it up to falcon rock one night after work in early June. We climbed until 11pm and could have stayed longer. As it was, I was wiped out the next day after an extended day of fieldwork following the am flight to Barrow. Ouff.

Good skiing and climbing buddies Adam and Frank; me trying to trust the crust on 'Larry's Project'; Adam milking a rest and busting though on 'Overhang Direct'.

Each time I get out there, its a little better than I think it will be. Frank did too good a job of lowering my expectations! Its about one hour from our place when there's no traffic, plus a 5-30 minute hike to the different outcrops.

Lise and I spent a great sunday morning out there two weeks ago. We'd been invited to lunch with the 4th grade teachers from U. Park Elementary (Lisa's placement school), so we did a morning mission, leaving home before 7 am and getting in about 5 pitches each before making it back to town at 1 pm.

And so as the fall rolls on, it seems like only yesterday that I first went out there with Frank and Tom. The seasonal changes are so pronounced that it makes it seem like the seasons come and go so quickly. Everyone is already writing off Fall and talking about skiing, which will probably be only about a month away. The squirrels outside are all stashing nuts for the winter. The Equinox run is next weekend. Hopefully there's stil time for a bit more climbing before the skis and tights come out though!

Chickaloon Climbing Trip, Labor Day

2006-09-05T18:50:00.000-08:00

We again took advantage of a long weekend to make a trip south, this time to go climbing at a place called Chickaloon, about 90 miles north of Anchorage on the Glen Highway. Tom was paving in Denali, so I picked him up on the way through on Thursday night. We got in late and ended up sleeping in a pull-out right under the crag. 18 wheeler diesels are loud.

A great field of boulders lies 2 minutes off the road, halfway to the crag (Weiner Lake aka Wookie Wall). After a quick tour of the best bouldering lines we rolled up to the crag. As we finished a short warm up we were joined by a few locals, including main developer Paul Turecki. We spent a chilled-out afternoon up there climbing and chatting with those guys. Tom had two routes in mind from a previous trip, and wasn't about to let sleep deprivation and weeks of non-stop paving slow him down. After a couple red bulls and a mid afternoon under-the-route nap he sent 'Illuminati 5.13a' fourth shot. I spent some time working out the bottom of the "must-do local classic" next to it, and we called it good, retiring to the free camping spot on the river behind the real slice of Americana that is the Chickaloon bar.

Lisa and Lalida got in about midnight. It had already started raining and didn't let up until about midday Saturday. By that time we'd rolled down to the greasy spoon in Jonestown for a real breakfast of king-sized pancakes, hashbrowns and eggs. The overhanging headwall protected many of the Weiner Lake routes and we spent the afternoon climbing. Late in the evening I went to my happy place after fighting to onsight a superb 100 ft 5.11 (22/23).

Camping on the river, Tom, Rob and Lupin, Lalida and Lise; view from Purinton Creek crag; Tom up at the Wookie Wall; Lalida at Purinton.

On Saturday night we had a few beers and a late pasta dinner with local climber, all around good guy and Tom's friend, Carl, and road-tripping Rob and his beautiful Siberian Husky 'Lupin' on their way home to Canada after a summer of fishing off the Kenai. Sunday morning we all climbed a mile up the road at Purinton Creek. Tom and I took off back to Weiner and Lalida gave Lise some crack-climbing coaching. They rocked back to Weiner in time to hear me screaming my way up my project - pAAH!! Tom put on the real show though, when he sent the local 5.13c (30) test piece, second day. Very impressive. The ladies drove home early Monday, and I managed to link up 'Breaking the Chains' 5.12b second go, which Tom repeated, to cap off a very successful and enjoyable 4 days climbing.

What a place! This is surely the best sport climbing spot in Alaska: a huge cliff of compact rhyolite, maybe 1 km long, 100 m tall and gently overhanging at the base; free camping on the river, spectacular scenery, and plenty of well bolted routes in the 5.11 - 5.13+ range. Too bad its not closer to Fairbanks, but next summer I'll be back!

Looking across Weiner Lake from the crag; walk in through the fall colours.

Fall is in full effect now. The colours in the beautiful Matanuska Valley were great.Driving the Parks was equally spectacular; this has to be one of the most enjoyable 300 miles to drive anywhere. Tom's stories and music help too though! The final treat was that Denali was out. Absolutely enormous.

Kenai Peninsula Trip

2006-08-16T17:03:00.000-08:00

Our schedules finally lined up enough to enjoy a trip to the Alaskan riviera, just in time before it freezes over ;) We took a week off and travelled to Homer, at the base of the Kenai peninsula near Anchorage. It was really great to stop in Anchorage each way, and stay with our friends Jeremy and Laurelyn, and their two cute kids Brooks and Kai. After entertaining these two, we travelled through to Whittier - via the cool one way tunnel.

Kai and Brooks at home in Anchorage; Lisa in a cove out of Whitier; glacier on the Whitier side of the tunnel.

We then travelled throughand via the Sterling Highway down the center of the Kenai. This is a major 'combat fishing' zone: that's actaully the term used when these guys pack the banks of the Russian and Kenai Rivers to haul in the migrating Salmon. The bears then line up to haul in the fishermen! We spent a night at Ninikchik, with its cute old village harking back to the days of Russian settlement and control of Alaska. The tides were super-low, and the clammers out digging up their quarry the next morning.

Lisa expressing herself Japanese styles on Bishop Beach, Homer; Redoubt Volcano from Ninilchik; Grewingk Glacier, Kachemak Bay N.P.; unidentified Alaskan wildflower, Grewingk beach.

Then on to Homer, a quaint fishing/tourism town famous for the halibut - delicious deep sea flounder-like fish that can grow to more than 150 kg - fished out of the surrounding Kachemak Bay. We skipped the chartered fishing, and took a 24 hour kayak rental in Kachemak Bay National Park, a 30 minute water taxi ride across the bay.

And what a great 24 hours, thanks to meeting some super friendly locals camping on the same beach that we were dropped at. Lee had biked around NZ in the late 70's, and his daughter Chrissy had also been out to visit an aunt living in Milton. Lise and I met up with them after first getting in the short hike up to the very picturesque Grewingk Glacier Lake.

Paddling in Halibut Cove; black bear yearlings; with (L to R) Geneva, Vicky, Lee, Chrissie at 'The Saltry'; low tide in Halibut Cove.

The 8+ metre tides added an extra dimension to the paddling. We rode a white water 'river' into Halibut Lagoon: the narrow channel into this wide lagoon has quite a flow at mid-tide. After a little exploration, we found the others at the main dock, hanging out and waiting for the tide to turn and make leaving the lagoon possible. On the paddle out we saw porpoises and an otter, and were convinved to follow the others to a restaurant in nearby Halibut Cove. Lee, the local book shop owner, proved a great tour guide and filled us in on the local geology and birdlife. W even spotted two black bear yearlings, and paddled to within about 30 metres of them - very cool! The Saltry was a fabulous restaurant - beautifully situated and decorated - and it was really nice to share a delicious meal with great company. The kayak portage and paddle home back to the campsite burned off at least the dessert and beer!

It poured overnight, and we spent the last day drying out, having a diner brunch, visiting Lee's bookstore, and driving back to Anchorage. Saturday morning, Jeremy flew out for more fieldwork, and the rest of us checked out some running salmon. During the long haul back to Fairbanks, I could almost feel the land wrapping in behind us as we drove further into the interior. No doubt, it was great to have been back by the sea, and to have had a relaxing break exploring the 'tourist' Alaska. But the trip was really made by all the friendly, relaxed, generous people we met the whole way - catching up with friends, and making new ones.

Purdue Summer School

2006-08-16T17:01:00.000-08:00

aka 'nerd camp', ha ha. onto this one soon.

Hatcher Pass, Independence Day

2006-07-06T07:47:00.000-08:00

With Independence Day falling on a Tuesday, we seized the opportunity of a four-day weekend to get out of town. We made the trek down to Hatcher Pass, an alpine area about 100 miles north of Anchorage with friends Frank, Lalida and Tom. The 6.5 hour drive was a little rough - particulalry the bumpy but beautiful unsealed 'short cut' that we inadvertently took - but we were rewarded with great scenery, unusally good weather, good granite bouldering and cragging and plenty of wildlife.

Lise and Lalida up on a taus field; black bear ambling along water pipe; curious ground squirrel; typical low-lying Hatcher Pass scenery.

The roadside pullout/parking lot/campground had about 6 Subarus, 3 Toyota trucks, 12 people and 6 dogs - fairly standard ratios there! Lots more folks came in on the 4th for day hikes and strolling around the alpine meadows and valleys. Although we had appropropriately driven up past Indepenence State Mine on the way in, there wasn't too much ado on the 4th of July apart from Tom doing his best to help Lisa along with the correct pronunciation of Palmer (Pahl-merr not Pahr-mah!). The beer lovin' trad climbin' locals let off bottle rockets, but we only heard them - the whole visual effect of fireworks is kind of lost when its easily bright enough to still be climbing at midnight!

Tom, Lise and Lalida lounging roadside; Tom cleaning a new line; Sarah, Tom and Garvie; Frank, Lalida and Tom hiking out from the boulder field.

The climbing was great fun, notwithstanding the finger damage sharp granite can do. We met up with ex-Fairbanksan Sarah Mosco, now living nearby, and she joined us on the boulders one day. With incredible potential for bouldering as well as trad climbing on good rock, its a crying shame that this isn't closer than a 13 hour round-trip from Fairbanks!

Denali Bike Ride

2006-06-22T09:47:00.000-08:00

A week before summer solstice, we traveled to Denali (National Park & Preserve) to bike the access road with three friends from UAF, Martin, Sveta, and Tanja. Two of Martin's friends on holiday from Austria met us down there. The access road is 85 miles (135 km) long, from park HQ to Wonder Lake, which is often used as a photographic mirror for Mt. McKinley.

Most all Alaskans refer to Mt. McKinley by its Athabascan name, Denali, which means 'the great one'. At 20,320 ft, or over 6000m it's the tallest peak in North America, and one of the '7 summits'. It was shrouded in clouds on this trip, but Martin had previously flown us around it last April on a perfectly clear night giving us incredible views of the mountain and the entire Alaska Range.

The bus ride out to Wonder Lake took 6 hours due to the bumpy road with two way bus traffic, and the frequent stops to view wildlife and to cater for the bathroom needs of a largely aging tourist demographic. We spotted 2 grizzly mothers with cubs, but far from the bus; Martin, Tanja and Sveta were treated to one ambling up to within a meter of their bus before taking two steps into the bushes and disappearing from sight - two steps!

The ride out was,an adventure. It was long (13 hours on the go, 12 in the saddle) and on bumpy, hilly dirt roads the whole way. A thunderstorm cooled things down to about 10 C (50 F) and provided a good couple of hours of rain (and the surfacing of Mr. Happy).

Letting a bus through early on; Lise with Dall sheep horns at a info center; Mr. Happy; stunning countryside.

The views were incredible though, as was the wildlife. We saw a young moose amble up and diagonal across the road with a watchful eye on us, a coyote raiding gulls' nests, very many ptarmigans (AK state bird), ground squirrels, young hares and lake water birds. We were very lucky to see a large herd of caribou, and there were Dall sheep at the higher passes.

Dan and Tanja; Dall ram; two caribou on ridgeline; bear country!

Easing through the night. Tanja and Lise are enjoying our mid-point break at midnight. We woke u the Dall sheep asleep on the road side here at Polychrome pass.

Helped no end by Martin's seeingly inexhaustible supply of Lindt chocolate, we battled through the night to arrive at our pick up point (70 mile mark) at 5:30am. I was savaged by the sleep monster but somehow Lise and Tanja kept each other awake for a safe trip home.

Last Barrow Trip

2006-06-22T09:02:00.000-08:00

The last trip to Barrow was timed perfectly. Last measurements were made and our equipment extracted just before the onset of a lot of surface snow melt that would have complicated snow machine travel and access to our site as well as interfering with the measurements.

The landfast ice has been very consolidated and stayed in a long time this year. Usually wind and ocean currents would have broken this ice into smaller pieces by now, allowing it to more away from shore and opening up leads (open water in the ice pack) so important for whaling. It was a terrible spring whaling season - only 3 whales from a quota of 22 strikes and 20 landings. It was the talk of the town. They'll wait now for fall whaling - hunting from boats in more open water - and pray for enough whales to see them through the winter.

We took a reccie out to the ice rubble zone, where stresses crumble the ice up and older ice is sometimes caught up in the first-year ice just grown in the last winter. I love this picture of Hajo and Matt Druckenmiller up on a huge block.

The water is a melt pond - the sun has melted snow on the ice surface but the water can't drain through the ice. As the ice warms up closer to its bulk melting point (-1.8 C) the ice actually does become porous enough to allow drainage - and this change in 'permeability' of the ice is what my work looks at.

One evening we also went 'birding' aka bird spotting. Hajo got super excited when he thought he'd seen some puffins, but it turns out they were more likely spectacles eiders (as in the ducks that give their name to eider-down). We did see tundra - and trumpeteer- swans, phalaropes, loons, snipes, different types of jaegers, and the local favourite, Steller's eider. Too bad we didn't see any snowy owls though.

We had a warm spell too - so now I've experienced -56 F and + 54 F up here (-49 to +12 C).

The on-ice equipment worked well this year, and preliminary results from the measurements with Malcolm Ingham from VUW look promising too. So all up, a good field year. I'll probably be back up in November.

May Update

2006-06-01T16:46:00.000-08:00

Well, it's all turned from white to brown to super-green in May. The leaves took about 2 days to go from buds to being fully leafed out. What have we been up to now that there's no skiing and trips outside with the sole purpose of reporting terribly cold temperatures?
Highlights have included:

Lisa finshing 1st semester classes and starting education classes proper, and
getting a great hair cut from a crazy Colombian her told her she should grow it long at the front to cover her face when she's old (wtf?)
attended the wedding of good friends Frank and Lalida (and witnessing just how bright it is at 3am when you're hammered and just want it to be dark so you can sleep..)
making a day hike in Denali Park and seeing moose, ground squirrel, squirrels and Dall sheep
Dan managing to go climbing a couple of times (closely followed by ice and ibuprofen)
doing the 'two-way torture test', a two person race where we each ran a 1/2 marathon in a different direction of an up and down loop. Aptly named.
getting involved in a big Cancer fundraiser - thanks a lot for all of you who've contributed!
hosting a BBQ up at our place.
two young grizzly bears rolling into town and hanging out at the golf course (!) one has been shot for getting into someone's yard.

Lisa has been running a lot actually, and is really looking forward to the Equinox Marathon in September. Dan's looking forward to one last trip to Barrow to tie up this season's fieldwork. with such big changes between seasons squuzed into the same 12 months, everything seems to change and happen so quickly. Summer is now on us, and we hope to really enjoy it.

Barrow in April

2006-04-23T21:43:00.000-08:00

I'm now back up in Barrow for fieldwork, this time with Hajo Eicken (my boss), and Malcolm Ingham from Victoria University of Wellington. Malcolm is a physics professor at VUW who uses electro-magnetic methods to study the earth's subsurface. In Barrow, we're testing a new method to measure the connectivity of the brine inclusions in sea ice. If successful, this will enable us to make fully-automated measurements of the state of the ice in places like the McMurdo Sound runway in Antarctica.

Back in January, when Pat Cotter and I installed our wireless mass balance site, we also installed two strings of electrodes for Malcolm's experiments. The ice has since grown thicker - growing past the electrodes previously hanging down into the water. Each string has 19 electrodes spaced 10 cm apart. In the measurements, we inject an electrical current between two electrodes, one in each string, and then measure the voltage drop between two other electrodes. With 19 electrodes in each string, there are very many different possible combinations. We don't use all of them, just enough to get a clear image of the electrical resistivity of the ice between the two strings. This profile is related to the salt content of the ice, and how well-connected the salty brine inclusions are.

So far, so good: we've made one successful set of measurements, we've only seen prints but no bears, and Malcolm has had his first blast driving a snow machine. We'll also make measurements later in the season, when these measurements should be sensitive to rapid changes expected with warming above -5 C.
Here's Malcolm making measurements with field support officer Scott Oyagak looking on (and for bears!)

Hajo (left) cutting an ice core for salinity measurements to compare with the electrical measurements.

Ice climbing at Dragonfly Creek

2006-04-05T21:53:00.000-08:00

I must say that climbing ice has never really appealed to me, nor has mountaineering, due to the whole cold and seemingly dangerous thing. But as they say...when in Rome!

I joined up with the university's Outdoor Adventures group to take part in a day long trip down to Denali Park to climb a frozen waterfall - Dragonfly. While not touted as an amazing piece of climbing, it is excellent for beginners. There were two pitches and it was in great condition, 'plastic' so they say. Thankful I didn't have to deal with learning how to put on a harness and tie ropes, I just had to get used to spikes on my appendages.

I climbed six routes that afternoon and *loved* it. It required some finesse but not quite like rock climbing, and allowed me a good chance to see just how 'bomber' those picks and crampons are! As the day progressed I had the chance to place an ice screw and climbed one axed, it was excellent. I look forward to more climbing next fall and winter!

Special thanks to Dan for lending me his stunning Cactus gloves and to Petey for my own :)!

Colorado Creek Cabin Trip

2006-04-01T13:02:00.000-09:00

Here are some pics from our trip into Colorado Creek Cabin in the White Mountains near Fairbanks. Our group included a 6-dog mushing team, a ski-jorer (she skied with some help from her dog pulling her along via a harness) and three of us on skis. Incredible northern lights, which my poor quality, hand-held long (10 second) exposure shots do no justice. I'll leave at this at the moment, so Lisa can write this one up...

I had heard plenty about cabin trips into the nearby White Mountains since I visited last time, and I was eager to get out there! We were invited along to a weekend long trip on a gradually uphill ski into the hut, and thus gentle descent out. It was a 50km round trip ski that took us around 10 hours all up, with temperatures around -20C and a windchill. It was *cold* and we kept moving. Thankfully we arrived to a warm cabin and some warm soup that the mushers had prepared for us, and we could check out our surrounds, chop logs for firewood and relax. Being so cold and clear it was a spectacular night for the aurora to show her splendour. This is one of the real bonuses to having an out house...throughout the evening people rugged up to do their business and hollered in reporting the aurora's movements. First striking green and dancing like a rainbow over head, and then a hour later, a massive array of green 'curtains' (it really does look like curtains in the breeze) with a strong line of dancing pink beneath, covering most of the sky. It's pretty rare to see such a colourful display even here, so I was delighted. The cold day and wind were worth it. Dan diligently lay down in the snow to get these photos, using his chest in lieu of a tripod...circumstances considering, they're excellent shots.

A great meal and evening of yarns ensued, as we learned about dog mushing, this activity that possesses so many Alaskans. Being out in the big spaces like this, with miles and miles of land ahead, and being able to explore that space with dogs who happily and hastily run through the woods, is what draws a lot of people to it. I went mushing over spring break and the sense of a team and solitude all at once is quite remarkable. The dogs slept outside in little nests they made for themselves, awake and ready to run again at dawn.

An amazing first cabin trip!

McGinnis - First Alaskan Peak

2006-04-01T12:44:00.000-09:00

A week before I turned the ripe old age of 31, I got down to the Alaska Range and climbed my first Alaskan Peak - the modest McGinnis Peak. The trip was run through the Alaska Alpine Club and led by my good mate Frank. When we left Fiarbanks at a lesurely 7am it was bloody cold (-30 C) but down past Delta Junction it was warmer and as clear a day as you could imagine. In fact we saw no trace of a cloud in two days. We skied in 7 miles (11 km) up a creek and Glacier for about 5 hours and set up camp at the base of the scenic Rainbow Ridge.

Frank, me and Tom from the Czech Republic took off and climbing McGinnis in the twilight - a two hour round trip up a ridge left of the big bowl in the picture below (that peak is not McGinnis). It was about 75 minutes up a reasonably steep ridge involving some steep sections of front pointing. It felt great but I was knackered after the ski in. Enthusiasm and thoughts of Lisa spewing on the coast to coast but keeping on keeping on, help me to the top. A modest achievement but a fantastic view and great feeling. We climbed back down first under moonlight and then with head lamps, carefully picking our way down some sections face into the slope.

The caffeinated power gels and suagry snacks that had fuelled the ascent kept me awake far too long through the night. After about 4 hours sleep I was up at 6:30am to cook breakfast, or at least to get cold fumbling around with brittle matches and lighters which were too cold to light. The whole group of 12 then climbed the same route. It was much easier the second time around, even after little sleep, partly because steps were cut into the steep sections, but also because it wasn't into the unknown and dark!

The ski out was bloody hairy - a big pack on and down crazy hard-packed and windblown sustrugi snow on the glacier. Looking back, one of the 2 big full face plants must have been when I sprung my ac shoulder joint. The creek section was smoother sailing though, and we were back at Delta having a beer and burger by about 6pm. A great trip, and hopefuly the first of many such missions. Big ups to Frank for lending me so much gear and for leading the trip.

White Spring

2006-03-06T16:05:00.001-09:00

Following the Fairbanks winter first comes 'white spring', then 'brown spring' (when everything melts) and finally 'green spring'. March 1 has come and gone - the northern hemisphere equivalent of 1 September - but there are certainly no daffodils or lambs in sight! However it is warming up, and the daylight hours are increasing about 5 minutes a day. White spring is the time to get out and enjoy the Alaskan wilderness with less concern about either horrific cold or bears!

We took part in a little ski tour last Sunday. We drive about 90 km from town and skied an out and back trail along the North Chena river for about 4 hours, including stops. Here we are during lunch break.
Accouting for Frank behind the camera, there were 4/6 beards. Lisa is sporting a new hat - won the previous day at the UAF trails day. She rocked up for some extra skate-skiing lessons, the 2 km classic ski race at the end of the day. Hey, first out of two is still first, especially when you win a hat, t-shirt, drink bottle, and $10 gift voucher!

So this little trip was really neat. I'm so glad that Lise and I have both picked up xc skiing quickly enough, and indeed enjoy it enough, to make these kinds of trips possible and fun. Skiing gives you access to these pretty remote places with minimal disturbance. When you stopped to pause in that vast wilderness, you could really get a sense for the enormity of the open spaces up here. Just snow sloughing off branches, and a few birds chirping to break the silence. Plenty of tracks about the place too, from moose wading through metre-deep snow to squirrels only punching through the crust about half a centimetre. Plenty more trips to come I hope!

For Gareth and Simone

2006-03-02T23:19:00.000-09:00

Lisa and I are really very sorry that we can't be there today to join with you all in celebrating and sharing this occasion with Gareth and Simone. I'm sure I can trust the likes of Jase, Trev, Hutch and Dad to tell plenty of stories, so I'll shoot straight from the heart.

Gareth - I have always admired, and in fact envied, what I see as two distinct aspects of what makes you special. You've always been very comfortable meeting, mingling, and usually sharing a beer with people from all walks of life in all kinds of situations, in a natural and relaxed way. Its that ease that makes you such a natural and so good at your job - and a guy who's well known and well liked in the community.

But I'm sure that most all of you here this evening agree with me when I say that for those close to you, you're much more than the easy casual friend you are to so many people. While you make new contacts easily, you keep old friends very well: because you're straight up, loyal, giving and caring and stand by them. These attributes are golden.

So I think you've done well, Simone, but Gareth, or course, has done equally well in finding you. You are bright, bubbly, loving and have had an incredible impact on Gareth. Lisa and I are look forward to spending more time with you in the years to come. I can't wait to see the wedding pictures, I'm sure you must both look great, and be beaming.

So all the way from Alaska, Lisa and I wish would like to propose another toast - I'm sure none of you mind another drink! - To many fun-filled years together that are rich in experience and happiness; to Gareth and Simone!

Fieldwork in Barrow

2006-02-01T19:15:00.000-09:00

Barrow is the northern most town in the US. Fifty years ago Barrow was a sleepy town whose inhabitants were largely native Inupiaq people leading a still quite subsistent lifestyle. The area was opened up after the discovery of Arctic oil in the 1960's and the cold war brought a strong Navy presence. The Navy Arctic Research Laboratory (NARL) has now closed, but logistic support for the increasing number of scientists who come to Barrow to study high-lattitude processes, particularly those related to climate change, is now a large industry here.

View South-west from the top of the Bank building in Barrow in late January.

Our work on sea ice is supported by the Barrow Arctic Science consortium (BASC). Pat Cotter and I were up earlier in the season than is usual for our group, and were greated by - 35 C temperatures and about 5 hours of workable daylight.

As part of the developmental phase of the Arctic Ocean Observing System (AOOS) we were installing a collection of instruments called a 'mass balance site'. Instruments included thermistor strings to measure the temperature profile through the sea ice as well as the water below and snow and air above, and 'hydraprobes' for measuring the salinity (salt content) of the ice.

The centre piece is a 5 m (16 ft) mast. The top has a T-section on which are mounted air temperature and humidity sensors and a sonic 'pinger' which by mesuring the distance to the snow below allows us to measure the snow depth. At the bottom of the mast underwater, are two accoustic sounders (range finders), one looking up and one llking down, which allow us to measure the ice thickness as well as the water depth. All of these instruments are connected to a battery-powered data logger, allowing us to make these measurements through the growth and melt season of the ice off Barrow.

Here is our field support / bear guard Scott Oyagak, and Pat Cotter at our site.

As an improvement on previous mass balance sites, this site is equiped with a radio system to transmit the data back to a computer at BASC, which will then be transmitted to our computers back at Fairbanks, and posted on the web in near-real time. You can see the antenna in the picture above.

Jsut before we arrived there was an ivu - an ice shore event in which offshore winds drove the consolidated ice up onto the beach where it crumbled and rode up over itself making mounds up to 50 feet (16 m) high on the road near the bank building. We were lucky to have local scientist and director of BASC Richard Glenn describe many aspects of the ivu. Richard is half Inupiaq and has a unique combination of local and wetern scientific knowledge of the ice conditions and behaviour. I'm certainly not the first kiwi up here. We also met Richard's wife, whose concern in preserving their Inupiaq language led her to New Zealand in the hope of learning about Kohanga Reo and other Maori language initiatives, and Barrow has hosted Maori delegations up here.

Lisa brings cold snap to Fairbanks.

2006-01-28T10:30:00.000-09:00

Lise arrived in town January 12, and on time - an unexpected surprise from Alaska Airlines! She was also bang on time for the cold snap jokingly predicted by all and sundry, and of course by the immutable Murphy's Law. In fact this January has been about the 5th coldest in the last 35 years. People are scoffing at 'global warming', and the newspapers have been trying to differentiate between short scale local weather and long term, large scale trends in climate.

None of this stopped Lise, who seemed determined to carry on with her summer running schedule as much as possible! She dragged me out skiing and walking on the first weekend when it was only -30 C. Motorists actually pulled over to photograph her during her lunchtime run yesterday in -45 C !

Here's Lise at Creamer's field migratory bird area wondering why she'd flown north for the winter. The new Marmot jacket, and NZ leather/wool hat from my Dad are proving very popular!

Lise has taken to nordic skiing really quickly and we both enjoy getting out on the groomed trails and the mutli-use trails in the woods out of town.

White mascara is super fashionable in Alaska

Here we are basking in the short period of winter light having just jumped aside to let some ski-jorers through with their dogs. How 'bout those eye lashes! If I'm looking worse for wear here you should have seen me 35 minutes later, trying to keep up with her on the ski back out. It had just dumped a lot of snow so ski technique was less important that aerobic fitness as we basically jogged with skis on, and my snack-machine fitness plan was definitely shown up!

Its so great to be together again in the same place. Over the last 5 years, we've spent about 1 year apart; we're really looking forward to the next three years together in this exotic place called Alaska. We're already had to deal with squirrels in the roofing, a partially frozen water line under the sink, and changing a car tire in -25 C. There will be more challenges ahead for sure, but also a great many special opportunities.

Christmas & Tolovana Trip

2005-12-30T08:37:00.000-09:00

Christmas was a little strange again this year. In some ways the being away from friends and family back in new Zealand was no different to other times of the year, and was probably not worse because it just didn't feel like Christmas. A White Christmas is some kind of ideal that we've been fed even in the Southern Hemisphere - and its cool alright - but the seasonal triggers just aren't there: no progressive build up from cut grass in the spring, the start of the cricket season, first chilly days at the beach, the Wellington November winds, slowly increasing temperatures and promise of those two weeks spanning Christmas and New Years where the whole country seems to just shift down a gear. Without those associations, which tie one Christmas with those nostalgic ones of years gone by - when the summers were always longer and hotter - there is undeniably something missing at a time of tradition.

I split the day between a midday ski with a bunch of friends and the afternoon and evening with Anna and Andy Roberts, who I'd been staying with I first arrived. We had a little antipodean bonding, all being so far from home, and the phone/skype lines were busy. Andy was being really knocked around by his chemo drugs; but it was really nice to spend time with these guys who have been so good to me in such trying times and become good friends. It was neat to open my gifts from home on Christmas Day with Lisa on the phone. Her arrival in two weeks will be a second Christmas

On Boxing Day I took off with the Christmas day skiing crowd for a three day trip to Tolovana Hot Springs. It was a 2 hour drive and 3.5 hour ski to get into the cabin. The drop into the valley was bloody steep for my skis and inexperience, but the slog up hill was rewarded with spectacular views of the Alaska range and painted sky to the south, and massive hoar frost crystals twinkling all around.

At the cabins we rented at the private hot springs, we fired up the stoves, ate well, and lounged in the tub. On Tuesday we skied about to somewhat justify more indulgences. Trivial pursuits went to the wire and fun was had by all.

Left to right: Lars, Phil, Ed, (Dart), Andy, Ellie, Anthony, and Leslie enjoying a dinner of salmon (in foil), lentil salad and couscous, night two in the cabin.

Here's the view looking west on the ski out on Wednesday. Lars, up on an abandoned water tank, is looking south towards Denali which was prominent on the horizon in such good, clear conditions. With about 4 hours each way, this was about as long as is comfortable with the current daylight conditions. We stopped at the HillTop truck stop for fries and hot chocolate/coffee and were back in town by 7pm.

A great trip with great people, that, I suppose layed a little ground work for this time next year really feeling more 'like Christmas'.

Thanksgiving

2005-11-26T14:26:00.000-09:00

Thanksgiving is an American holiday involving excessive consumption of food with family and friends, giving thanks, and reflective recriminations about the poor treatment of the Native Amercans. The event was reestablished by Lincoln to commemorate and thank the contribution of the Native Americans to the early pilgrims. Nowadays at least, it is recalled with post-colonial guilt that this was repayed with mass slaughter and land confiscation. For a Kiwi it feels like Christmas and Waitangi Day in New Zealand rolled into one, minus the presents.

I had thanksgiving dinner at the cabin of my friend Adam. Further to traditional Turkey, cranberry sauce, beans, sweet potatoes and stuffing, we had salmon quiche, salads, and even rice and dahl provided by some Indian (as in Hyderabad) friends. With 3 Indians, a German, a Canadian and me out of 11 it was a pretty diverse bunch, and a very enjoyable evening. Adam's big atlas provided the starting point for lots of conversation.

From the left, here are Holly, Jay, Lisa (from Alaska), Adam and Praveen.

And here from the left are Frank and Lalida, Rakesh, and Bridge. The red tanks bottom left are for water not fuel!

Adam and Frank (see Interior Ice blog) are good friends I met at the climbing wall. This Thursday we ate, drank and talked nonsense; as opposed to most Thursdays when we go to the climbing wall, and lay about on the mats talking nonsense. Somehow Adam's girlfriend Elena eluded the camera. Praveen, Rakesh and Bridge are classmates of her. The university is such a small place though - I knew Praveen and Bridge from playing indoor cricket with the Indian engineering contingent at the UAF Student Recreation Center.

Freed somewhat from the Native American question as a foreigner, I like thanksgiving: its a chance to get together, reflect on and acknowledge who and what you are thankful for in your life, and to eat good food with your friends.

Our Chena Ridge Cabin

2005-11-19T16:04:00.000-09:00

Update: After giving Lise the hard sell, we are going to move into this cabin! It's owned by a friend of my friend Jeremy who took me out there with our friend Anna as Lisa's representative (for the woman's view of the access drive and interior conditions). much to my reflief Anna loved it, and I am sure that Lisa will too.

It's about 9km from campus and has great views out to the south, sitting about 10 C degrees warmer than town and above the ice fog that forms in Tanana Valley in the winter. Plenty, OK not plenty, but room enough for visitors looking for the real Alaskan experience (bears not included).

Above is Jeremy in the living area. Post renovations, there wil be a couch where the work bench is.

And here, between Holland (US Marshall Sands to you) and me, is the newly installed bathroom. Plenty of cabins up here have no running water - to avoid pipe-freezing probelms - but this palce is luxuriously appointed with a 5000 litre tank, flush toilet and shower.

First Ascent

2005-11-02T18:26:00.000-09:00

Dad recently sent me this old picture that I don't remember seeing before. That's me and him and Ben, our wonderful labrador, at the top of Mt. Holdsworth in the Wairarapa, May 1987. Dad's got ahold of Ben because he was spooked by explosives being used in the installation of a repeater station nearby.

That was my first ascent of anything bigger than a good sized tree. I daren't say I imagined then that I would be in Alaska 18 years later. I wonder where I'll be in 18 more years? And if on seeing pictures from now I will also wonder if I really looked like that!

Interior ice

2005-10-31T14:03:00.000-09:00

Interior ice is what grows inside your window if the insulation is bad. But it's also the collective term for ice that is good enough to climb in the Alaskan 'interior'; the best ice climbing is down near the coast at Valdez where its a bit warmer and wetter.

I sampled a little interior ice of the second kind on Sunday with my friend Frank. We left Fairbanks at 5am, and arrived at the trail head on the Glen highway at 8:30am. After some setting up gear and me worrying about the cold (it was -14 C) we took off up Boulder Creek. After one and a half hours of stumbling up snow covered river bed - being careful not to break through the sometimes thin ice cover of the steram - we found some ice that was 'in'.

We climbed two water seeps, one was a slab and the other was more like a pinnacle with some cool-looking chandalier icicles (top picture), that finished up a little snow gully. Frank led and I toproped and seconded.

15 hours round trip is a long day out! But it was great weather, company and fun, and especially great to be out exploring and enjoying the Alaskan wilds so soon after getting up here.

Frank abseiling off the first route, and leading the second formation.

Fly my pretties

2005-10-29T18:25:00.000-08:00

Just before I left Lisa got me the Fly my pretties CD recorded live at Bats theatre in Wellington. Fronted by Barnaby Weir from the Black Seeds, Fly My Pretties is a mixture of Wellington musicians with some chilled-out really beautiful songs from Barnaby and guests. And some more rollicking ones too. Barnaby Weir writes some absolutely awesomely great songs, and I like his lyrics because they tend to be about real-life happenings and people. Genuine, often touching and frequently pretty uplifting and thankful.

Funnily enough, this album has songs on family, love, giving thanks to friends, and leaving Wellington for overseas. Many are striking a chord right now.

Daylight savings up here tomorrow, but we're losing 6 minutes of daylight a day at the moment so it won't be long until the hour of light we gain in the morning is lost again!

Setting up!

2005-10-27T17:59:00.000-08:00

Well I have been back up here in Fairbanks for a week now, and finally got around to setting this up. We'll see how it goes, but I thought it might be a good way for me and Lise to drop stuff on to let friends and family know what we are up to up here in big Alaska.

I have been staying with friends Andy and Anna Roberts. Despite being Austrlian :p they are really great and decent people, who we met up here last year. It's been neat running into friends up here. It feels a bit like i didn't leave. Or, as I arrived at the same time last year, maybe it feels like I've somehow pressed 'reset'! Weird having just gone through something similar settling in back in NZ after the time up here and trip to Europe.

Anyway, its so far so good. Ice climbing this weekend, so maybe a few good pictures to add, though hopefully nothing too dramatic to report.

Here's a pic from our time in Italy, in the area where we got engaged.
ciao.