Better late than never..

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!