September 10, 2011
Patrick's Wild Alaska- Part III
This is the last of the Adventures Patrick and I had on his visit to Alaska. After I finished up my classes for the week we packed up my new car and hit the road, looking to see more of Wild Alaska. I have been spoiled over the years having a garage full of top of the line camping equipment ready to throw in the trunk. Without that at my disposal up here, we had to get a bit creative and do a little more traditional car camping. Luckily, I bought a car just big enough for the two of us to sleep in the back, which is great in Alaska because 1. It rains A LOT here and 2. while bears do break into cars, it is far less likely than a bear getting into a tent. When we started driving, it was of course, raining in Anchorage. Hoping for the best, we headed south on the Kenai Peninsula to Seward (home of Mt. Marathon and 4th of July festivities). Our first stop was the Exit Glacier and Harding Icefiend in Kenai National Park. My friend and former teammate Eric Packer took me here over the 4th so if you are an avid reader, you have read about this place before. The National park is interesting because the Exit Glacier is about the only part of it that is accessible by road. It basically encompasses all of the Harding Icefield (500 square miles of ice) and its associated glaciers, which cover most of the southern part of the Kenai Peninsula. The sun actually came out for a bit during our hike up to the icefield so we were able to get some good views and pick up a little much needed vitamin D!
On the way up, looking over the Exit Glacier
A couple of marmots were getting fat for winter and completely unfazed by humans.
At the top! Looking over all 500 square miles of ice, about 3000ft deep! The cloud did arrive by the time we got to the top so the light for a picture was less than ideal....
On our way back down, we had some excitement! A group on their way up stopped to tell us that there was bear down there so we should keep our eyes open. Typical to hiking in Alaska, this group was not scared of a bear as they were all packing some heat. With the number of cars in the parking lot when we arrived, I didn't even consider bringing my bear bell or bear spray so I began to get a little worried as all I had was my own 2 feet, 2 feet that are much slower than Patrick's. We continued down the trail making noise and being loud. As we rounded a switchback, the bushes started to shake, we had found bear. The bushes are dense in Alaska and big enough that you can't see what direction the bear is going, what color it is, how big it is, if it looks angry, nothing. Which is what makes it so frightening. Scared, we started making more noise and backed up a switchback hoping the bear would show itself. A couple from the Netherlands caught us so we decided that a pack of 4 was better than 2 and surely I could out run them if it came down to that. We slowly walked back down, whooping and calling. The bushes started moving again so we paused and made some calls. Finally, this little black bear walks out of the bushes. He was a cute little guy, minding his own business, munching berries on the side of the trail. He could have cared less that we were trying to pass or scared of him, he was just standing in the trail munching away. Eventually, he continued on his way up the mountain, following the berry bushes and we were able to pass. Unsure if he was just a small bear or a cub with a protective mama nearby, we continued to chatter loudly as descended the mountain. Luckily, we made it down without any trouble. We stopped in at the visitors center and viewed some of their good documentation of the glacial retreat that is ocurring. they have signs along the entrance road marking the year the glacier once extended to that point. It is amazing and shocking the amount the glacier had shrunk. Being geography and Environmental studies majors, we were both pleased about the information they had available as I figure most people come to Alaska and think, "wow, its cold here and there is 500 square miles of ice, certainly global climate change is a joke."
Our Friend!
Alaska is interesting because there are so few roads so camping is a little more urban than you would expect for a place as big and wild as Alaska. We camped on the beach in Seward below the infamous Mt. Marathon, but we were basically in someone's backyard.....During the night a bigger than big cruise ship pulled into port. When this happens, I think the population of the town about quadruples as hoards of tourists rush to all the attractions. We met some interesting people from North Carolina that when hearing about our areas of study in school asked us if we were doing that "Al Gore thing, that global warming stuff." They were also very critical of our life choices post-college and of Patrick's "long" hair. Must have been Palin followers, checking out her homeland.
I love sea animals and always have thanks to my frequent visits to Cape Cod so the two us set out to the Sea Life Center. This is an aquarium and research center that appeared to do quite a bit in the area. When my dad traveled for work when Charlie and I were little, he often brought us back a present from where ever he was. I got a book and stuffed animal puffin, Polly Puffin, that I loved and still remember quite well. As a result, I really wanted to see a Puffin in real life. In order to see them in their natural habitat you have to get away from the town via boat which was much too expensive for us so I had to settled for the Puffin exhibit they had at the center. They are really neat bird with distinct markings and can dive down into the water up to about 600 ft to catch fish. We could watch them doing this at the exhibit so that was really neat. 
September 7, 2011
Patrick's Wild Alaska-Part II
After the epic week up on the glacier, we enjoyed a few days in Anchorage. School started for me while I was on the glacier so I had to catch up on schoolwork and attend a few days of class before we could embark on any further adventures. For those that didn't know already, I am taking classes at APU in the education department in hopes of getting my teaching certificate. This fall I am just taking two classes to keep my brain alive and running. As part of all the classes required for the certificate, we are required to spend a good number of hours in an elementary classroom both observing and teaching so my blog posts will undoubtedly feature stories from the classroom in the coming weeks.
Back to Pat and Anchorage. On our one "off" day from training, it was actually sunny so we had to get out of the house. We did a little hike up Flattop mountain which is a real tourist destination and provides excellent views as well as people watching. Although it is only about a 45 minute hike, it gets you well above tree line and requires some rock scrambling so as you can imagine there are some "city folk" that get themselves into a tizzy on the trail and Patrick and I enjoyed a few laughs as well as some good views from the top.
On the way up....you can see Mt. McKinley sticking up vaguely in the background. It's the one thats just a bit bigger than all the other ones.
The top-looking over into the Glen Alps valley
A not so flattering picture from the other side of the top, looking over the city of Anchorage
Next, we checked out the sand dunes. We packed and picnic and walked out to play in the sand and enjoy the view over the Turnigan Arm, or Turnigan mudflats during low tide. Patrick also learned a valuable lesson, it's not a good idea to drink a large coffee, eat lunch, and then roll down the sand dunes. While he tried to blame it on Starbuck's coffee, I think we all know it was his bad decision making!
Costco is a big part of every Alaskan's life, they love it! So naturally, we had to make a trip there (us college and pseudo-college kids like it too). Vermont is not home to many stores such as Costco so they all marvel at the experience.
I also learned that Patrick loves airplanes so while on our way to get frozen yogurt at the airport (another strange Alaskan pastime) we got sidetracked by the Aviation Museum. For a small museum, they had an impressive collection of planes, mostly focusing on small planes flown to the bush of Alaska, but they also had exhibits on the role Alaska played during WWII, which is often overlooked or unknown about. This was our first of what turned out to be many museum trips and lots of learning!
This is a strange style of truck that is commonly seen around the airport and apparently is used to move around small float planes.
Lake Hood is the lake next to the Ted Stevens International Airport where people can buy a shack, hangar, or just a dock for their planes. Owning a plane is not uncommon up here and almost all have the ability to have wheels or floats so many are just stored like a boat, tied up to the dock. It is very cool to see so we spent some time driving around the lake. The security is much less than what we are used to at airports and while we were so captivated watching all the planes, I found myself driving on the runway and not realizing until we were stopped by a gate preventing the planes from going onto the road....no one seemed to care though!
Patrick wishing he was still a little boy!
A Huey helicopter used durning war. Boys love big machines!
We also checked out Point Waranzof, the favorite for local high school kids to bring their dates......But I failed to take a picture there. We hit up the Sunday Market of local Alaskan goods as well. We tried the birch syrup, but being accustomed to maple and, ok I will say it, Vermont Maple Syrup, birch was rather gross. Not something I will be dressing my pancakes with here. So despite the sub-par weather and a few hours needed for school work, we were able to hit up all the classic Anchorage sights.
September 5, 2011
The Last Glacier Camp
I was so fortunate to have Patrick fly out to visit me for a couple weeks!
On his first day, I dragged him out for a 3.5 hour rollerski around Anchorage in the rain. We saw a handful of moose and unlike Sadie and I, Patrick was not scared and would ski right past them tapping them on the bum with his pole while Sadie and I would take our skis off and take a scenic loop around the creature. It was a good Alaskan rollerski for sure.
August camp provided some new twists. As a result of very low snow and an earthquake that happened during girls camp, a bunch of new crevases opened up all over the glacier.......
so we were required to ride down to the trails and back up in the back of the Pisten Bully. This was great for the one working that the sun sorta peaked out for, but was really rough when it was blowing and raining or snowing.
Patrick and me soaking up every bit of Vitamin D we can
A beautiful sunset from up on the glacier!
For our first week, he joined the APU team as well as a few athletes from Sun Valley for our last glacier camp. I will be honest, I was starting to think Alaska was pretty sweet as my previous 2 glacier camps were full of sunshine and awesome skiing, but I was reminded that Alaska is crazy. We had some bad weather for this camp. We maybe saw the sun for half a day up there and the rest of the time it was blowing snow like crazy. It was full on winter up there. Now, I can't complain too much because I was still skiing in August which is really awesome and I was enjoying time with Patrick, but it did take an extra bit of motivation to get out the door everyday when you would wake up to wind and snow pounding against the building. I was able to reach my goal of training hours for the week, making it a decent week overall and I certainly gained some toughness out there. Here are a few pictures from the week, and yes, I did enhance them on my computer so it does look a little sunnier than it was, plus we only took pictures when the sun was trying to peek out.....
Fresh snow surrounding the building
August 15, 2011
Hope
Well the summer is dwindling down here in AK, both because we start school next Monday and because the weather is cooling off. So with that in mind we decided to hit the road this weekend. Hope was our destination. It's a small, actually tiny, town across the Cook Inlet from Anchorage where mining was once a way of life there. Now it survives on tourists money. Needless to say, there is some very fantastic scenery.
Sadie and I had to do an overdistance workout on Saturday so we decided to run on a trail that follows the coastline. Scared as we are, we had our bear bells out, but were shamed into putting it away as the boys made endless fun of us. As we began down the trail however, we passed about 10 piles of bear poop in the first 1/2 mile of trail, and they all looked fresh. So, we got the bell back out and began conversing about anything and everything we could think of (luckily, that's not a hard task for either of us). We made it a ways out this trail, but the trail became very overgrown and our fear of bears in combination with the millions of spiderwebs we were plowing through led us to turn around and start heading back. We met a nice Russian couple on the way back that asked us if we had reach the end of the trail. We explained that our fears had gotten to us so we turned around. He took one look at us and said "bears? you guys are so loud, you won't see a thing." We laughed and kept on our way. Less than a mile from the finish, we heard something in the bushes so we stopped and started yelling, it was most definitely a bear. It seemed to be running away, as it should, so we stopped yelling for a moment, but then it began to run again, this time it sounded like it was running towards us. So again we put our hands up and yelled some more. The bushes were thick so it was hard to tell how big, what type, which direction it was going or anything making it all the more spooky. Unsure of which direction was the safest, Sadie convinced me we should head backwards to her boyfriend you was hiking just a little ways behind us. We slowly walked down the trail, yelling and hollering until we reached Jo. Then all of us set forth again, hoping that we did a sufficient job in scaring the bear away. We kept up some hollering and made it through without any encounters. Sadie and I were very pleased to have survived our first bear incident. I was thinking that I had kept my cool and didn't get too scared, however, the evening all I did was dream about bear attacks so clearly my fear lives on.
After that nice adventure, Sadie and I decided to get some culture so we checked out "downtown" Hope. There was some square dancing going on in the Social Hall and many people fishing in the stream. We went to the museum and learned a thing or two about the gold rush there. Both of us came to the realization that Alaskans are all a little crazy because they have descended from people that decided it would be a great idea to move from the lower 48, probably the eastern half, all the way to Alaska. Growing up, we were taught the hardship people took crossing the country on the Oregon Trail, but that seems an easy task compared to those that ventured up here.
Sadie and I on the trail
Looking across to Anchorage and pondering why I drove 2 hours around the Cook Inlet when I could have swam
Sadie's first fish!
It was a great weekend to get out of town and see some sights. Now we are back to intensity week here in town before heading back to the glacier next week.
Sadie and I had to do an overdistance workout on Saturday so we decided to run on a trail that follows the coastline. Scared as we are, we had our bear bells out, but were shamed into putting it away as the boys made endless fun of us. As we began down the trail however, we passed about 10 piles of bear poop in the first 1/2 mile of trail, and they all looked fresh. So, we got the bell back out and began conversing about anything and everything we could think of (luckily, that's not a hard task for either of us). We made it a ways out this trail, but the trail became very overgrown and our fear of bears in combination with the millions of spiderwebs we were plowing through led us to turn around and start heading back. We met a nice Russian couple on the way back that asked us if we had reach the end of the trail. We explained that our fears had gotten to us so we turned around. He took one look at us and said "bears? you guys are so loud, you won't see a thing." We laughed and kept on our way. Less than a mile from the finish, we heard something in the bushes so we stopped and started yelling, it was most definitely a bear. It seemed to be running away, as it should, so we stopped yelling for a moment, but then it began to run again, this time it sounded like it was running towards us. So again we put our hands up and yelled some more. The bushes were thick so it was hard to tell how big, what type, which direction it was going or anything making it all the more spooky. Unsure of which direction was the safest, Sadie convinced me we should head backwards to her boyfriend you was hiking just a little ways behind us. We slowly walked down the trail, yelling and hollering until we reached Jo. Then all of us set forth again, hoping that we did a sufficient job in scaring the bear away. We kept up some hollering and made it through without any encounters. Sadie and I were very pleased to have survived our first bear incident. I was thinking that I had kept my cool and didn't get too scared, however, the evening all I did was dream about bear attacks so clearly my fear lives on.
After that nice adventure, Sadie and I decided to get some culture so we checked out "downtown" Hope. There was some square dancing going on in the Social Hall and many people fishing in the stream. We went to the museum and learned a thing or two about the gold rush there. Both of us came to the realization that Alaskans are all a little crazy because they have descended from people that decided it would be a great idea to move from the lower 48, probably the eastern half, all the way to Alaska. Growing up, we were taught the hardship people took crossing the country on the Oregon Trail, but that seems an easy task compared to those that ventured up here.
Sadie and I on the trail
Looking across to Anchorage and pondering why I drove 2 hours around the Cook Inlet when I could have swam
Sadie's first fish!
It was a great weekend to get out of town and see some sights. Now we are back to intensity week here in town before heading back to the glacier next week.
August 9, 2011
August 7, 2011
Glacier 2-Girls Only
7 days, 25 hours of skiing, 15 girls, and just 1 small building on top of a glacier.....sounds a bit daunting
I won't lie, I was skeptical about the 2nd week of Girls Camp, that's a lot of girl in a small space, add in some serious fatigue and tired bodies and you've got a recipe for disaster. Turns out this week was the best week I've had this summer, for sure! Girls Camp was AWESOME. The first few days provided some nasty weather, but as the week went out the sun came out and we skied a lot. When we weren't skiing, we cooked some gourmet meals, watched lots of chick flicks, played some fun games, and did some singing, dancing, and guitar playing. Everyone was just exstatic about the success of the camp and the power of training with that many girls. I believe everyone, myself included, was reminded of the power of a team. We are all in the process of brainstorming what it means to have that many fast girls together, what we can accomplish, what we need to do to keep the momentum rolling and how we help to motivate the rest of North America to train and push themselves in a team environment. I believe this camp will most certainly be happening again and after the plethora of pictures that have been going around on the internet there will be way more girls pushing to get an invite to this camp. So with that, some pictures from the week on the glacier!
Nothing like spending hours following someone better....
and getting followed.
Spent many hours skiing with old teammates and catching up! Missing Dartmouth all the time
We had 3 cook crews and every group cooked twice. Without the boys there our meals tended to have less meat and more rabbit food.
The A Star is the helicopter that flys us up. It fits 4 in the back and 2 in the front.
Alpine Air is our faithful band of helicopters and pilots and Chandra (2006 Olympic Gold Medalist from Canada) provided us with live music throughout the week.
We have a serious drying room up at the glacier! Its pretty wet up there between the soft snow, occasional rain storm, and training a lot. When we come in we leave all our wet stuff here to prevent mildew problems in the building and to get a couple training sessions out of our clothes.
Lots of Rudy Projects!
Nothing quite like a team!!!
I won't lie, I was skeptical about the 2nd week of Girls Camp, that's a lot of girl in a small space, add in some serious fatigue and tired bodies and you've got a recipe for disaster. Turns out this week was the best week I've had this summer, for sure! Girls Camp was AWESOME. The first few days provided some nasty weather, but as the week went out the sun came out and we skied a lot. When we weren't skiing, we cooked some gourmet meals, watched lots of chick flicks, played some fun games, and did some singing, dancing, and guitar playing. Everyone was just exstatic about the success of the camp and the power of training with that many girls. I believe everyone, myself included, was reminded of the power of a team. We are all in the process of brainstorming what it means to have that many fast girls together, what we can accomplish, what we need to do to keep the momentum rolling and how we help to motivate the rest of North America to train and push themselves in a team environment. I believe this camp will most certainly be happening again and after the plethora of pictures that have been going around on the internet there will be way more girls pushing to get an invite to this camp. So with that, some pictures from the week on the glacier!
Nothing like spending hours following someone better....
and getting followed.
Spent many hours skiing with old teammates and catching up! Missing Dartmouth all the time
We had 3 cook crews and every group cooked twice. Without the boys there our meals tended to have less meat and more rabbit food.
The A Star is the helicopter that flys us up. It fits 4 in the back and 2 in the front.
Alpine Air is our faithful band of helicopters and pilots and Chandra (2006 Olympic Gold Medalist from Canada) provided us with live music throughout the week.
We have a serious drying room up at the glacier! Its pretty wet up there between the soft snow, occasional rain storm, and training a lot. When we come in we leave all our wet stuff here to prevent mildew problems in the building and to get a couple training sessions out of our clothes.
Lots of Rudy Projects!
Nothing quite like a team!!!
August 2, 2011
What to do with an afternoon off
During our first week of girls camp, we did manage to get some free time. I took advantage of some incredible sunshine and headed to a very small port town named Whittier with my visiting Dartmouth teammates Sophie and Ida and our local guide and Dartmouth teammate Eric. In order to get to Whittier you must travel through a railroad tunnel that is about 6 miles long and because it was built for trains, it is only about as wide as a train making it a one way tunnel. It is therefore only open for about 15 minutes every hour so timing is everything. We were a little behind schedule on your way to the tunnel so we had to do a little bit speeding and were lucky enough to just barely make it before they switched directions!
The tunnel
Everyone in Whittier lives in this building or a newer one that is close by. There is a couple ticky tacky tourist shops, a couple place to get fish n chip and ice cream and a bunch of fishing boats and thats about it. It is on the north west part of the Prince William Sound so there are barges that bring supplies up and then they are loaded on the train to bring further north.
Sophie spotted a seal
Me, Ida, Sophie!
A traditional Alaskan fishing boat
Eric and his ladies
Hey Char, look, it's your boat!
Dartmouth represent!
The tunnel
Everyone in Whittier lives in this building or a newer one that is close by. There is a couple ticky tacky tourist shops, a couple place to get fish n chip and ice cream and a bunch of fishing boats and thats about it. It is on the north west part of the Prince William Sound so there are barges that bring supplies up and then they are loaded on the train to bring further north.
Sophie spotted a seal
Me, Ida, Sophie!
A traditional Alaskan fishing boat
Eric and his ladies
Hey Char, look, it's your boat!
Dartmouth represent!
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