Three Donuts Full

 It's the last work day of the year and I am three donuts full.  This past week or so has been a sugar frenzy.  I went home for Christmas for the first time in a few years and I ate a lot of pie and cookies.  I also got to see my family and remember why I love it there so much.  Even though they didn't have any snow to speak of and I totally forgot I even had a camera for the first several days.

 Dad showed Sis and I his current dreams for the land and we soaked it all in while getting rained on.  Very weird weather.

 You can easily tell where he has mowed down the understory and where he hasn't.  I think this is one of the fairways.....

 These are the first nine holes, I think.....sometimes I get them mixed up.  And I failed to get a picture of the new bridge my nephew helped build because I was trying to get this shot. 

 There was also the (now) traditional assembling of the gingerbread house with my niece.  I got to drive the icing this year.  At least she didn't ask for any giraffes on the roof this time.  But as usual, she was pretty specific about what went where.

 And they will be eating sugar for a while.....

 Wait, who is the kid and who is the adult again?  I always feel like I am 12 when I do this.  It's a ton of fun and every year is different.  This year the kit had a tree that you had to cut into four sections and then glue (icing) back together to decorate.  I tried to break the tree pieces apart, but chickened out and asked Sis to cut them with a knife.  Then it was her fault when they broke into a million pieces.....sorry about that.

I improvised a support stand for the remaining uncut tree and we decorated away.  And had tons of candy leftover when the decorating was proclaimed to be done.  I'm already looking forward to next year....when I will have more time to plot....instead of knitting presents on the plane and after the drive....lookout world, I'm getting my life back!

Light

See that distant light over there?  That's what I felt like after meeting with my advisor this week.  I expected the worst.....and it wasn't bad.  The view from campus just got a little better.

Gobble Gobble

 I did a little traveling for Thanksgiving this year, back to POW Island.  After the five millionth time I was asked, I think I determined that I haven't been there in 3.5 years. 

Despite not leaving the state for the holiday, I managed to spend as much time getting to the island as it takes to get to another island.....a tropical warm island.....called Hawaii.

I flew into Klawock this trip instead of arriving in Hollis.  It was a different perspective and a hillarious expeditious ending to a very slow journey.  I mostly spent the long weekend inside, and even had one 24 hour period where I didn't show my face outside.  It was delightful.  And then the phones and internet went down, so it was very peaceful thesis writing. I particularly enjoyed a couple encounters in stores - people recognized me but couldn't really figure out who I was.  I did meet up with some old friends and made a couple new friends (yes, I'm counting the cats).

True to SE travel fun, I took the ferry over to Ketchikan the day before my flight north.  I stayed at a very nice hotel and took the tram down the hill to town near dusk.  The bookstore has moved - hillariously only a block or so.  I was very nerdy and found out with my iphone. 

The next time it's super cold in Anchorage I may just brave this journey again.....or maybe just to Sitka, that's only two stops instead of four.

Winter Arrival

There was really no way to miss the arrival of winter this year.  It was pretty sudden and started right before Halloween.  Usually when it starts snowing I get really excited and then dissappointed when it melts the next day.  So this year I didn't get very excited.  And it hasn't melted.  It has only gotten deeper.  Except for the last couple days when it has been cold and windy.  I haven't taken the dogs ski-joring since last weekend, but plan to bravely hook up to two dogs before Sunday night.

I finally broke down and bought new taller boots.  I have had my old trusty Sorrels since high school and I felt like this might be the year to buy some taller winter boots.  I have looked at the Joan of the Arctic for a couple years.  Super glad I bought these as I used them the next day for a search in town.  The snow was up to Tatonka's belly!  He had a great time and my toes were toasty warm with snow sometimes over the top of my boots.  Hello Winter!

Windshield vs Bug

I didn't coin the phrase 'sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug' but let me just say that it fits the grad school experience very well.  I've taken to keeping a list of blog posts I want to write, mostly based on the pictures on my camera, because I can't blog when I want to.  I'm in year three of this journey and have almost perfected the art of saying 'no' to all social invitations that come my way.  The good thing about this is people eventually quit asking and that frees up some time.  The bad - I'm afraid they won't start again after graduation! 

I originally planned to tackle one of my glacier posts today, from my thesis fieldwork this summer.  But then I had my regular Wednesday meeting with my advisor and I went from windshield to bug in nothing flat.  A fellow grad student described this process to me on Monday - how grad student's emotional low state center around their meetings with their advisors/committees/etc. - the line peaks again a few days later he assured me. I probably should insert a graph here to demonstrate what I mean, but I can't stand to make any more graphs right now.  I will grudingly admit the meetings aren't as bad as they used to be.  Maybe that's because I'm getting better?  Probably not.  Maybe he lowered his expectations.... either way, I'm sure I'll never know.

I think it would be okay except for feeling like I am trying to hit a moving target.  My expectations have changed - at least one beating per month.  Today was more beating than confidence building.  Apparently I am only about halfway done with my Results.  Yay. I think I would have put that percentage more in the 70-80 range.  Last week after I retrieved my last datalogger successfully from a glacier by getting permission to land a helicopter in a state park I was almost a hero.  As disturbing as this vacilation is, more disturbing to me is the lack of retention of anything I say.  Coupled with the assumption that I am somehow doing nothing despite what feels like constant contrary evidence presented is enough to drive most people crazy.  At least I don't doubt his expertise - it could always be worse, right?

Many former and fellow grad students assure me this cycle is normal.  I never have wanted to not be normal more. 

Harding Icefield

 I added some field work to my thesis this summer, mostly in the form of monthly summer trips to the Harding Icefield, near Seward.  I made a total of five trips, the first one at the end of May.  The trail (loosely followed on the first trip as it was almost completely under snow) follows the edge of Exit Glacier to the Icefield.

 It's a very popular trip in the summer and later trips we encountered many tourists on the trail.  It's a steep climb up to the ice from nearly sea level at the visitor center.  Many don't make it beyond a view of the Exit Glacier.  Many come unprepared.  This hut is near the highest point of the trail, it's really more of an emergency shelter than anything else.  When we arrived on our first trip in May, it was half filled with snow.

So we camped just downslope from the hut, with a great view of the valley below.  This was my first use of my new single wall tent.  It proved itself to be very spacious, possibly better with three people than two on cold trips.

The May trip was mostly very sunny and I was grateful for my decision to include a full brim hat, lightweight gloves, and 100 SPF sunscreen.  Not sure what I would have done if I had forgotten sunglasses!

This trip was mostly for a fellow grad student studying ice algae.  We had a lot of extra gear to haul up on this trip and were glad to have sleds.  We set up transects for her study, which I hoped to also use later.  Our sherpas departed the group when we reached the hut.  We were able to ski from there with the sleds and all the gear.

We camped near the transects - in the midst of them really.  Later trips the camp was set up between the transects and the cache.  After we could see the immensity of the icefield we were grateful for changing the study site to the nearer Japanese glacier from the original plan of Skilak glacier, visible here in the distance.

There is no way to express in photos how immense this place is.  Because it was so clear, we could see the weather forming far away.  It often dissipated before reaching us.

The lighting was amazing.  This time of the year there is plenty of daylight so work can continue past 10pm.

Any questions why I live in Alaska?  

 Skiing towards one of the study plots.  You can see for such a long distance it is amazing how far away people can be and you can still see them.

We carried a satellite phone on all our trips. We tried to use it once to alert our ride in Seward that we were going to be done a day early on one of our July trips.  That's when we discovered what poor coverage the phone had.  It's hard to not find hillarity in everything after days of non-stop sunshine surrounded by snow.

After the first trip in May, the trail was more melted out at each trip.  It was interesting to watch the changes.  This is Exit glacier in August.

Our trip in August was among the worst for weather.  We had very heavy packs and non-stop rain on the hike.  It took us longer than usual to get to the glacier, and we were freezing when we got there.  The whiteout conditions were common after the early July trip.  We called the slush the 'Glacier Swamp' and had no idea what to make of it.  We camped on the last patch of snow on the edge of the swamp.  We had to cross it to get to the cache, but opted to retreat the following morning.

 The September trip was even less fruitful and neither of us got any samples.  This is the view of the valley from part way up the trail.  It was a beautiful autumn hike.

September view of Exit glacier from the trail.  It wasn't quite a whiteout on the icefield - at least not all the time.  We didn't bring our skis on this trip.  There was fresh snow over the bare ice on the bulge up the icefield.  It was slow traveling with probing every step and the crevasses, while small, were time consuming to walk around and disturbing to locate.

Digital Dayz

 Niwt recently had a birthday. He likes to go for hikes on his birthday.  It makes him smile.  He also likes to remind us of all the digital days.  Every single one since we have met.  It's just his thing.  He's really excited for 11/11/11.  And depressed that it will be such a long time before the next one.  

We took the dogs with us, all three of them.  It was their first snow of the season.  Of course now we have it on the ground, and on the trucks......  It's a winter wonderland. But it's always a novelty the first day (or more) of the season.  

And sometimes the lighting really makes the hike worth it.  This is only part way up the steepest part too.

 Don't fall off the rocks!  See my new gloves?  I like em a heck of a lot.  Maybe my new favorites.

The Alaska Range came out to say hello.

 Dr Dre is leaving us today.  He is a super fun dog and we will miss him a lot around here. 

 Among my favorite views in the universe - a happy dog in snow! My happy dog playing in the snow.

 It's hard to not feel very small in a place so large.  But no one is an island where there are dogs to play with. 

I can't get over the lighting.  I remember the alpenglow the first time I saw it over a decade ago in the Park.  It was so powerful that it made Alaska my number one choice when I wanted to relocate from Portland.  It hasn't changed it's impact on me.

Autumn OTZ

 There's really nothing like a crisp autumn day to go outside and do some fieldwork.  Last week Pika and I headed up to Kotzebue for a late season field project.  For once I was working in snow that was not on a glacier.  How novel.

 The fun part of being in a 'town' instead of a remote village is that equipment comes from down the street instead of off a barge or plane.  It also means there can be novel ways of getting small equipment to the jobsite, like using bigger equipment......

 Pika and I were almost done jarring dirt when the afternoon jet took off overhead.  That meant that we had some time until the evening jet.  After we had all the samples packed up and checked in at the airport we had a walk around town.  We have been through here a couple times this summer and already seen the majority of the changes around town (they paved 1st Avenue!!).  The view never changes though; I still feel like I am standing on the edge of the earth when I look out towards the ocean here.  You can hardly tell the sky from the water most of the time.

 The view from the flight home is nothing like the small plane from Bornite a few weeks previous, but it is impressive.  The evening jet goes up to Nome before heading down to Anchorage, so we caught part of the flight in the twilight.

And there I am, partly decked out in safety gear.  The excavator was gone, so we didn't need hardhats anymore and we were done digging holes so we didn't need safety glasses anymore.  But my vest has better pockets than my jacket, so I opted to leave it on while we were taking our final field measurements. 

Bornite

The problem with doing fieldwork in Alaska in the fall is that you still get up super early to catch a 6am flight, but usually it's still dark outside when you land.  Unless you are lucky (?) enough to fly to Kotzebue this summer where there was construction on the runway and planes couldn't land in the dark. 

 

After waiting in Anchorage for over an hour, we got to wait in Kotzebue.  The weather was our major tour director, as it has been for me for the last two summers. 

 

I think this is the smallest mining camp I have stayed at yet.  They were in their final week of the season and trying to shut camp down when we showed up.

 

It's a little wet out here in places.  To me that just means it is warming up enough during the day the keep the water from freezing solid.

Did I mention it was a historic mining camp?  There were lots of interesting things around to guess about.

Did I mention it snowed every day?  Huge flakes too.  Mostly they melted during the day, but we were deffinately on the edge of the season.

 

Waiting for clear enough weather for the plane to come from Kotzebue.  It eventually got called off and we got a ride to Kobuk.  A very bumpy ride.

I think there might be some quilters in Kobuk.  This is at the airport......I guess I really should call it a landing strip? 

Most of my fearless field crew.  One of these people had their dog sitter bail on them while we were out here.  Guess who said they would take their dog...for a month....while they were away....

 

On the flight back our geographer / geologist nerdy sides really came out.  We each took an average of a hundred photos on the flight back.  It's only an hour and we were in the clouds and napping for part of it.

What can I say, I'm a sucker for patterned ground......

And who doesn't think snow and rivers are cool?  There is no elevation difference that I could tell from the air, so why is there snow only on part of the ground?  One of life's greatest mysteries....