WeTube

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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..

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

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

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

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