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.

Ice Fishing Pics.... and Video

Dad and I standing around the ice hole. This is probably taken around 3 or so. Sunsets last forever around here.
One of the modern gentleman.
The eagle grabbing a fish. What large talons. It's exhilarating to be so close to such a wild thing happening.

And here is a link to the video Andy posted on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjLd2hjJHko&feature=channel_page


Enjoy.... and seriously, once i get some time off I'll post all the pictures from other stuff with a run down of the past two weeks or so.

The Coldest Activity Known to Man

Ice Fishing. Oh, ice fishing. While Dad was up here we had to do it. We met Andy at a lake near work and tried our hand at this outlandish activity. Speaking of my Dad's visit, I will get an update on here with pics and stories and whatnot, but he took like 500 pictures, so it's hard to get down to the bread and butter. I digress...

So the whole time Dad was here it was colder than the depths of hell (I can convinced hell is actually a freezing cold place, but more on that later). Anywho, on the particular day we decided to go try our hand at ice fishing it was a balmy -10. Oddly, this was one of the warmer days while Dad was here. It's been stuck between -15 and -25 at my apartment for the past 10 days.

So we went out there, dressed to the hilt, with an ice auger we borrowed from a guy at work. I was thinking this whole auger drilling process would happen fairly quickly.... WRONG! It took over an hour to drill through the foot and a half of ice.

NOTE: I have been told since this trip to never drill in a pre existing hole. That would have been awesome to know beforehand!

So we broke through after quite a bit of work, then got to fishing. Andy was just getting off work as we started fishing. We caught probably 15-20 little fish. they were blackfish and landlocked chinook salmon. Small fellas, biggest one was probably 6 or 7 inches. I had the glory of catching both the smallest AND largest fish on the day. the smallest one was a little baby.

So onto the awesome part of the trip. For all you PETA lamos reading this (yea i just called you out) take solace in the fact that I did not harvest any little fishy for personal use. I did, however, feed the fish to the bald eagles perched in a nearby tree. It was awesome. Here are some pics Andy posted of one of the eagles, and one of the eagles swooping down and grabbing the fish I so kindly placed on the snow for him:


Ok just kidding. The pictures aren't uploading, so I'll have to get them up later.
Sorry!

So long story short, we caught some fish, fed some bald eagles, while simultaneously learning how cold your feet can truly feel.

When we got home I think it took both of us close to two hours before our feet were truly warm again.

I'm not sure when you can actually consider someone crazy, but Andy and I are hoping to head back out there this weekend.... so the verdict is still out.