Recently

Here are a couple things I've been up to recently. In short, a tour of kenai fjords national park, checking out glaciers, lots of camping, and lots more fishing.  I'll just stick to the pictures!

Also, lots of impromptu baths in icy cold creeks.  My face should pretty much say it all!

The Good Good

The past week has been pretty much unreal. Think sunshine and 70 degrees pretty much every day. With the exception of today (sunny and 60), spring has definitely sprung. Leaves are starting to pop out and the daylight situation is pretty ridiculous. Lots of the local lakes are all ice free now, so of course I've been fishing a bunch.

After work on Friday, we went out to one of my favorite lakes (DeLong), and Sam and the Browns joined. Sam had his introduction to fly fishing. He did an awesome job and picked it up very quickly. I love having partners in crime.

Saturday I ran around like a mad man, just soaking up every ounce of sunshine I could. It's funny the difference a couple of months makes. Pretty much completely dark all the time to completely light. It's kind of confusing when it's light outside at 11 pm. I find myself forgetting to eat and generally do anything productive (e.g. household chores).

I just decided this post will be very random...I've been meaning to post some of these pictures for a while, and am finally getting around to doing so. Thanks midnight shifts! First is some more Redoubt goodness. Apparently we're headed for another eruption in the near future. Whatever. Here's a shot from the webcam near the peak tonight when I got into work:



The crazy thing here is if you look at the time stamps on the photos. The first one is some time around 10 pm. The next one is around 1130 pm. I guess that's what daylight and a full moon gets ya.

Here are some ash pictures when one of the eruptions sent ash into Anchorage. I was at work when the ash cloud moved into town and was leaving to head home right around the peak. It was basically like a dust storm. A dust storm that smelled like sulfur. The picture following showing the road while driving probably won't mean much to those of you who haven't been here yet, but usually at this point on the drive home you can see the big ole mountains on the east side of the city. Instead it just looks like a really humid summer Carolina day. Pretty crazy stuff though...so here they are: one with ash on the Subaru, one with ash on the snow, and one while driving.





Alright. So getting back on track...

Sunday provided an excellent opportunity for the first camping trip of the summer. HOpefully it was the first of many. The original plan was to head to this place called the Johnson Pass Trail and hike up into the mountains. Unfortunately, May still means about 2 - 3 feet of snow on the trail in the low elevations. So we scratched that idea and headed up to the Russian River. The Russian River is one of those places that is the epitome of what many people think of when they think of Alaska. This is the place where tons of footage of bears grabbing salmon jumping up water falls comes from. Since it's still so early in the year, we saw no bears or salmon. I am perfectly fine with the former, and can continue to wait another month for the latter.

Most of the campgrounds are still closed, but we camped at this place called Hidden Lake. It sits in the mountains just off the Kenai River where it dumps into Skilak Lake. The overlook has one of the most beautiful views I've ever seen. You can look across the Kenai River, see Skilak Lake, see some smaller mountains, and way on out there is the start of the Harding Ice Field. Unfortunately the point and shoot did essentially no justice, especially without soem kind of polarizing lense. Until I can get a cooler shot, I won't even do the diservice of posting a shot of this place.

Moving on...we set up camp, got a nice fire going, and generally enjoyed the beautiful evening. The mosquitos were out of freaking control. Think of everything you've heard about bugs in Alaska...it's true. Luckily Kim had brought some 100% deet along, and that worked pretty well as long as we applied it every couple of hours. Funny story, we didn't have a cooler, but did have some ingredients for gin and tonics. The best refrigeration? Partially ice covered Hidden Lake. We went old school style and left the gin and bottle of tonic water in the lake for a bit, and after about 2 hours enjoyed some ice cold refreshments. For some reason I thought that Dad would really enjoy both the fact that we utilized natural refrigeration and gin and tonics, so Dad, there ya go!

It was crazy trying to go to sleep when it's light outside until about midnight, and light outside again at about 4 am. We did see 4 or 5 stars around midnight, but even by then the moon was killing our chances.

We got up and got moving Monday morning to another fantastically beautiful day. Drove up to the Russian River area and hit the trail. We first hiked to the russian river falls, about a 2.3 mile hike. Next we doubled back for a bit and got on the Russian Lakes trailhead. We hiked about 4 or 5 miles on this trail to the end of the first lake. Here's the view looking north back towards the Kenai River:



We took a break here and enjoyed the view and day. It is pretty hard to explain how much you appreciate a day as beautiful as this once you've been through -20 and 8 nmonths of snow. Not to mention a serious lack of daylight for several months.

We kept commenting on how nice the day was, and how much we just really appreciated it. So we hiked back to the car and made our way back to Anchortown.

To say I was exhausted by the time we got home is a complete understatement. I've always been a huge fan of sleep, but I think I set some records today. i went to bed at 11 at the latest, woke up at 7 this morning, went back to sleep from 8 until 1. Got up to eat and get some groceries, and then slept again from about 4pm until 630 this evening. So here I am back on midnights and still completely wiped out.

The most beautiful part of it all? The smallest Madderson had an awesome time. I have never seen a living being go so hard for so long. In the span of this trip she:

- ran around Hidden Lake campground at will and made friends with the women camping nearby
- ate mosquitoes
- ate about 10 lbs of sticks
- threw up about 1 lb of stick in my car (easiest clean up yet!)

and if we hiked probably about 12 miles yesterday, she probably hiked about 30. From when we got home last night about 7pm until i left for work this evenings, she has barely moved.

A tired Boykin Spaniel is the best Boykin Spaniel!

Springggg Timeeee

Sung in a cabaret voice of course. Finally, this place resembles real life. Sunshine (sometimes), more decent temperatures, and no snow (at the lower elevations at least)! We're up to about 16 hours or more of daylight. At midnight you can see a bit of twilight to the north, and by 4 in the morning it starts to every so slowly get light again.

It's a crazy thing...trying to go to bed when it's still light outside. I welcome it, though. I find myself missing meals and staying up too late, because I'm running around fishing or taking Maddy on walks. Speaking of fishing, H2O is slowly deciding to exist in a liquid form again. It's crazy. I saw some rain the other day...pretty much for the first time since September. Lakes are slowly melting, and the rivers are pretty much all broken up. Now we just need some leaves...maybe this week (fingers crossed).

So I don't have a ton of sweet pictures to show that I personally took, but I do have some that Andy took on a recent adventure. This past Saturday we drove down to the Kenai River for some fishing. It was cold, and the fishing was slow, but it was great to be out.

It was not super cold, but with the wind blowing and wet hands, I seriously had the coldest hands ever in my entire life. In fact, my fingers are still tingling (just kidding Mom). So without further ado, here's the good stuff.




looking down river. very beautiful



looking toward the outlet of kenai lake and the bridge at cooper landing.



great picture here. just pondering life and how Cameron has the ability to warm his hands simply through thought. No kidding, he can make his hands warm up by just thinking about it.



we saw a ton of eagles that day. here is an immature with a mature eagle. they chilled in the tree pretty much all morning. i would say I probably saw 2 dozen eagles that day. pretty neat.



this is how i looked yesterday. Andy and Lisa put on a fundraising lunch for babies. The food was stinking delicious. This is my round of seconds. I "slayed" some cookies too. The sugar crash at about 3 pm was tough, but I powered through.

Thankfully I took a razor to my boy beard last night. Also notice the crackhead-like dry area around my face. Dry skin up here is seriously ridiculous. I think I'm slowly shedding now that its sort of warm out.

Alright, more to come soon(ish).

Redoubt Continued

19 eruptions thus far. Thankfully things have started to get a bit quieter though...until Saturday morning at about 6 am. Redoubt had a pretty intense eruption...one of the most powerful yet. The ash went about 50,000 ft. up, but this eruption lasted for over an hour.

I've got more images to share, especially for those who like satellite images and other assorted weather weenie things.

First... here is a video a guy took of one of the eruptions. It's a time lapse of 26 minutes I think? Gives you a great idea for how ridiculously powerful a volcano is:

http://vimeo.com/3892358

The video is of previous eruptions, whereas the rest of this stuff is from recent eruptions.

This is a MODIS image (satellite), true color, taken today. You can really see the ash down on the southern Kenai Peninsula. I always like satellite images of this place, because it gives you such a good idea of how huge the state really is! For example, it takes about 5 hours to drive to Homer. Homer being the city/town most affected by this particular ashfall. I think it's funny that Homer is a big destination for people from Anchorage...but it's so far away. It's like driving to DC from Raleigh.



Moving on...here's some web cam images from Homer Saturday morning. Crazy stuff. The first image is around 630 am, right when it's starting to get light out these days. Next image is from 7:20 am. You can tell something's not quite right, because it looks sort of "orange-ish" outside. This is the approaching ash cloud. Next, at 7:40 am, essentially pitch black night outside. Mmmm ashfall. Good stuff!







I have been meaning to upload some pictures I took here around town when we had some ashfall. I also collected some ash samples (as requested), so those should be reaching the inquirees soon enough.

I'll stop here, so I can get back to work (yay for midnight shifts). Otherwise, things are going alright these days. We've had some beautiful days, with a whole lot of daylight. Up to about 14 hours a day now. When i drove in to work tonight, at 9:45, it was still twilight outside. Wierd stuff. Oh yea I forgot the bonus webcam sunrise image of redoubt the other morning. pretty spectacular if you ask me.

Redoubt finally does its deal

Redoubt finally decided to start erupting. I think it was about a week ago now...man it's been one of the longest weeks of my life. I feel like all I've done is work since that day...which I basically have!

So, first off, no need to be concerned. I'm awaiting the inevitable phone call from my mom when she gets out of the mountains this weekend and gets some cell phone coverage. Funny things... you know...moms. We did have some ashfall in Anchorage yesterday. It smelled like sulfur, and was basically like a dust storm. Lots of crap getting in your eyes, and just enough particulate matter to make you question whether you should really be breathing the crap or not.

Otherwise, no harm no foul. So without further ado, here are some pictures and assorted images related to the volcano. I mean, that's why you're here anyways, right?

This is a satellite image (true color) taken the day after the first round of explosions. You can see the ash deposits along the Susitna Valley and along the Alaska Range. Anchorage is located in the lower center of photograph, on the tip of the little peninsula.

Pyroclastic lightning due to one of the eruptions two nights ago. This photograph was taken from about 50 miles away from the volcano. This is hardcore. I like it.
A picture of the lava dome the day before the explosion. Look at all that snow just waiting to be melted and start a flood
This picture was taken from Homer during one of the explosions. Pretty much every explosion has been obscured by clouds (much to everyone's dismay). Finally, a decent shot of the plume.
Pretty neat image taken from a satellite positioned over Asia. This eruption went up to above 60,000 feet. Pretty cool to see.
Here's another satellite image of one of the eruptions where the ash got wrapped into a low pressure system. I believe this one is from this past Friday.

This is the Drift River Valley, which drains the glacier/snow from the summit of Redoubt. With pretty much every eruption there's a little flash flood in this valley. Fortunately, no one really lives here. Unfortunately, there's an oil refinery at the outlet of the valley that drains into cook inlet. I think something like 60,000 barrels of oil are currently stored there. There are dikes that have thus far protected the refinery from creating an environmental disaster.
This is taken from the north side of Redoubt, in the Crescent River Valley. These mountains are actually snow covered... they're just coated in ash!
And finally...this is what the ash cloud looked like moving over Homer last Friday. Pretty freaky looking.

Before anyone asks.... I have not yet seen Pierce Brosnan. It would be pretty sweet if he did drive by in that Jeep with the tires on fire though.

Updates have been requested

Sorry for falling off the blogging bandwagon once again. Not that things have been uninteresting, though. Let's see...since my last update Mt.Redoubt has pansied out and decided it will likely not erupt anytime soon. We'll see, I guess. Back in January a friend of mine's sister, and her friend, moved out to Anchorage. It's been great having them around. You know...some people who know the value of Bojangles. They've been doing the majority of the picture taking, so I think all of the following pics were taken by them.

So besides heading home for 10 days at the end of February, quite a few activities have taken place. There's been some ice fishing, downhill skiing at Alyeska (Girdwood), a quick trip down to the Kenai, watching the ceremonial start of the Iditarod, and a snowshoeing adventure.

I won't chronicle everything, but it's been nice to be able to have some company and get outdoors more. The daylight situation is pretty fantastic these days. We're up to almost 12 hours of daylight, so things are back to normal I'd say. It doesn't even get completely dark until near 9pm. It's still been kind of chilly, but 30 degrees and sunny here is pretty darn nice!

So here are some pics taken during various activities. I will try my best to get back to blogging more over the next couple of months. Right now I'm just wishing Spring/Summer (whatever you call it here) to come along. Anyone who knows me decently well can easily assume i'm going just about half crazy to be able to start fishing!


Here Holly and I are at the Iditarod ceremonial start enjoying a reindeer dog. No joke, these things were delicious...but I paid dearly in indigestion later!




This was taken back in January on the quick afternoon trip down the Kenai. This is maybe 3 in the afternoon...thankfully the sun situation is pretty awesome right now. I even managed to get a sunburn/windburn the other day after snowshoeing. Thank God for sunlight reflection off the snow. I was told when I was back home that I "wasn't as pale" as everyone had expected. So I've got that going for me, which is nice.




Last, here we have a shot looking down and across Turnagain Arm from the ski resort Alyeska. The conditions were fantastic. I think in the future when summoned for trips to Wintergreen, I will participate solely as moral support. It's tough to think about skiing on fake icy snow again once you can have great powder and untouched groomed trails all day!

The Upside to Situational Awareness

Staring at the Redbout webcam is not without its benefits. Beautiful sunsets. It seems like the past couple of days the sun lowers in just the right place to light up the steam plume in a beautiful way.

Here is what it looks like right now:



I heard a rumor about 65 degrees back in the old north state today. and then a chance of snow tonight and tomorrow. sure... the weather's crazy there, but thats the best of both worlds. We're stuck just above zero. The joke's over at some point, right?

The Waiting Game

I officially would like to call Mt.Redoubt out. Erupt already, or go back dormant. I'm getting tired of looking at your seismic activity and webcam views non stop at work. We are as ready as we're gonna be. Take any longer and you're just going to be the volcano who cried wolf. You've been on the national news, you've been on the international news...oh I get it, you're selfish. Just come on!

For the record, here is what work mainly involves these days: using an excellent page developed by none other than Mr.Sam Shea, which shows some webigrams (seismic activity) and some webcams. One webcam is pointed at the mountain from across Cook Inlet. The other one is situated just north of mountain on an opposing peak... I think it's like 7 or 8 miles away. Here is what it looks like currently:






And sure, it's really neat stuff...but I feel like we've all been in queue for the past week waiting for this thing to go! All I ask is that it keeps the ash away from the city. I have no desire to walk around in a dusk mask like the residents of China did during the Avian Flu outbreak or whatever it was. I equally have no desire to find out how harmful ash can actually be. But man, the view will be spectacular!

Alaska goes hardcore

This week is shaping up to be quite interesting. It started on Saturday morning with a 6.1 magnitude earthquake. This is by far the strongest I've experienced since I have been here. We had a 5.4 or something back when Mom was here... but since my apt is on the east side of town on more stable ground, it wasn't much to talk about. I texted Mom at the airport to see if she noticed it and her reply was "Is that what it was? A really big lady walked by me and I thought the airport was poorly constructed to allow the floor the shake like that." This is the exact thing she texted by the way.

So this one was much more intense...it first started with a nice little jolt and the building at work was making funny noises. Then the good part started and went on for maybe 15-20 seconds. It was odd for sure. I think earthquakes freak me out more than any other natural phenomena. If there's one thing you can usually count on, it is the fact that the ground is steady. Not so, friends!

Then I come into work yesterday (Sunday) and am informed that one of the volcanoes south of Anchorage is acting up. This particular volcano is Mt. Redoubt. It last erupted in 1989/1990 for several months. There's some crazy pictures on google images if you look it up of the eruption. I would be laying if I didn't say I hope this thing explodes. Fortunately no one is really around the area of concern for the volcano, so Pierce Brosnan will be riding around in his Jeep with the wheels melting for no reason. Here's a pic of the last explosion:


Thats some cool stuff. So I'm being responsible and stocking up on some extra air filters and what not. Doesn't matter if everyone gets off work because of ashfall and stuff.... we'll still have to work!

On a separate note, the cold has returned. We've gotten back to seasonal temps (highs in the 20s, lows in the low teens). Unfortunately though we haven't had hardly any snow since Christmas Day. I think we've had a whopping .7 inches since the nice storm when Dad got here. the good news is it looks like we might be in for a decent snow through the end of the week. Of course with this good news comes the fact that it's supposed to get really cold again by the weekend. I could do without -25 again... so we'll see how bad it really ends up getting.

Since i have no radically awesome photos to share again, I will post one of what Anc is looking like today:




Nice and sunny the past couple of days. Like I said back in November or December... I do NOT take it for granted any more!

Crazy Weather

The weather, in its stereotypically selfish ways, seems to be unconcerned with what "normal" is.  Since being locked in the deep freeze for the first part of January.... we residents in Alaska have so gratefully sent the cold air down south to NC and beyond.  This past week I was on a string of midnights, and the weather was just nuts.  In something like 3 days we went from below zero to 50 degrees.  50 degrees, in January, in Alaska?  Oddly enough, this is the warmest it's been since I moved here!

I've hit some personal milestones throughout the temperature swing adventure.  First zero felt "a little warm".  While walking up to launch a balloon one day I actually unzipped my jacket because I was sweating.  Then came the freezing mark.  Might as well have been the first warm spring day.  Then 50 happened.  I told the guys at work I was tempted to launch the next weather balloon in only a speedo.

*Note: for those of you unfamiliar with how I actually do things, this is not a joke at all.  If I thought I could get away with it without getting fired, I honestly would have been up to it

With the warm weather came some crazy weather though.  First, it started raining.... pretty much the first rain I've seen since leaving NC.  Unfortunately, the ground was still very very cold, so everything just became a complete icy disaster.  It took my near an hour to get home one morning, and I don't know how I didn't end up in a ditch... or someone's rear bumper.  It was like someone drove a zamboni around the entire city.  I've never seen anything like it.

With the rain and ice came a lot of wind.  I launched a couple weather balloons in 40+ mph wind.  If you've never seen a short guy try to handle a wildly flopping 10-ft. diameter balloon filled with helium in 40 mph winds, I suggest you look it up on youtube (I wish I had a video).  I basically just got taken for a ride with the balloon pulling me around the launch area... which was coated with about 2 or 3 inches of straight ice. 

Something else that is pretty funny to me was that school got cancelled.  That's right, the hardest of the hardcore (supposedly) cancelled school for 3 days.  I guess the funny part is that it took rain to cancel school.... forget the 55 inches of snow we've had so far this year.  It's completely understandable, because getting around was tough, but I think I share a sinister satisfaction in the situation that all Southerners will share with me.

Otherwise things have been pretty low key around here since Dad left.  We've lost all of our snow, so snow sports arent really happening right now.  I have a couple days off later this week so may end up going to chase some grouse and arctic hare again.  Daylight is increasing at about 5 minutes a day... and the difference in unbelievable already.  I also started taking Vitamin D supplements, because I was starting to feel like a vampire when I saw the sun.

So there's a quick update from my end.  I hope yall enjoy the cold weather down south and here's to a snowstorm in NC finally materializing (although I've had like a thousand inches of snow this year anyway, sooo. soooo.)

Dad's Visit - Finally!

I apologize, for it has taken me much too long to post all this stuff on the blog. Dad flew out here on Christmas Day.  His trip got started off with an interesting set of circumstances. Namely, when I went to crank the car to pick him up from the airport my battery died! Awesome, so in the midst of some of the heaviest snow we've had all winter, I finally got a jump from a neighbor, and went to pick him up.  Come to find out, they lost his one checked bag....awesome!  He ended up getting his bag, we got a new car battery, and the nice Christmas snow finally ended.

The rest of the trip was seriously the best weather we've had since I've been here, although with the clear skies came some seriously cold temperatures.  Scuttlebutt is that the alaska cold has been on the news some on the lower 48, so maybe yall have heard about it?  Either way, work was interesting through the cold snap.  Lots of media interviews, lots of principals calling to ask what the temperature was, to figure out if they could have recess.  So, how cold you may ask?  Well, with the exception of about 30 minutes, the NWS office was below zero for something like 7 or 8 days.

It was one of the coldest cold snaps in the city's history.  Like I said, at my apartment it was between 15 and 25 below for about a week.  That kind of cold results in some interesting observation, but that's not what this post is about!

So the first day dad was here we just ran some errands and stuff...since i was coming off a loooong string of midnight shifts I was pretty out of it.

The next morning we went up to this place called Glen Alps to watch the sunrise.  Glen Alps is a little state park area on the hillside (read mountains to any carolina folk) that overlooks the city.  With the sunrise and clear weather you can see pretty much forever.  You can see volcanoes, the Alaska Range, the Talkeetna mountains, Cook Inlet, Kenai Peninsula, and the city of Anchorage laid out before you.  Here's a pic of dad and I before the sunrise, and a look over the city:

The next day we drove down to the Kenai Peninsula.  It was awesome to take that drive this time of year, and I hadn't driven that far since I was down there back in October.  Winter was in full effect down there too, and it was pretty cold when we stopped at the Russian River.

This picture was on the Kenai River at the Russian River Ferry.  It was -11, but with the fog it felt like -1 million.  Even though it's been much colder since, that's the coldest I've ever been in my life.  I was so cold I couldn't think... it was like my brain was rejecting standing there to take a picture.  The river was essentially a slushy.  It's crazy seeing a moving river that wants to freeze so bad, but can't, because the current is so strong.  The fish that are in that river are hardcore.  I hope to meet them this spring and summer.

Moving on, the next day we drove north toward Talkeetna, and beyond, to get a better close-up view of Denali.  It was pretty chilly up there, somewhere around -30.  The wind was blowing like crazy, and the wind chill was below -50.  We got to this overlook at the Chulitna River, and hiked up this little knoll to get a clear view.  I started laughing at the fact that I was crying, and every time I would blink, the tears would freeze my eyes shut.  So every 15 seconds I had to clear the ice off my eyes so I could see.  Dad's face during all of this had a look that I had never seen.  It was like he was internally questioning how ridiculous we were for doing this.  The view was definitely worth it though.  We agreed it is very difficult to comprehend the sheer mass of the mountain.  This is the mountain from about 50 miles away:



The thing that's so crazy is the bottomlands at the base of the mountain is only at about 700' above sea level. The peak is over 20,000 ft. high. The mountains surrounding the immediate peak of Denali appear like babies, but they are themselves 11 to 12 thousand ft peaks. It really is difficult to really comprehend.

Unfortunately I had to work a couple days while Dad was here, so the events were pretty low key after this day. We went up to Glen Alps a few more times. Once during the day to see some brighter views of the city, and once at night in hopes to see some Aurora. No northern lights were seen, but the view was once again beautiful, and we saw some shooting stars.

We ate some delicious food on New Years. Crazy thing about that... the city has an outside party that night. It was like -10 out. I could hardly walk the 4 blocks from the restaurant to the car, forget being outside for a few hours. Those people either really love New Years, or they were sipping on the good(bad) stuff.

Of course, the ice fishing trip has been previously chronicled. So that was about the visit. I was sad to see the old man go, but that's life. I did recently buy a ticket back home at the end of February, so that is my event to look forward to now. I've always been that way. I need something to be excited about at all times. I fully intend to eat nothing but Indian food, Bojangles, Chik-fil-A, and burritos the entire time I'm back. I hope to gain sufficient weight to carry me through the remainder of the winter.

Here is a picture Dad took that I really like.... I'll end this post here. Hope everyone is having a good week!



PS - to Tom and Cameron. The down jacket is the real deal once it gets down below zero. Before that it's a sauna... but the way the weather has been the past 3 weeks, if it werent for that jacket I would either be frozen and dead somewhere, or simply weeping inside with cabin fever. So thanks again brothers.