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Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Winter Grilling
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Monday, December 7, 2009
Stary Night
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Thursday, December 3, 2009
The Chicken Coop Cam
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After endless amounts of fan mail requesting an update on the ladies of Cripple Creek I finally decided to divulge what our laying hens have been up to. In short they are staying warm, laying lots o' eggs and doing great! They have allot of time during the day to socialize in the coop while the outdoor run is closed off to them until the snow melts. At present count we have 16 birds, 4 are the old girls, 12 are this years chicks. Out of that we have been getting between 8-14 eggs per day. Quiche anyone?
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Another Denali Sunset
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Denali Sunset
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Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Winter Settles In
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Sunday, November 1, 2009
Our Last Summer Walk
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Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Bubbles
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Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Fall Canoe in the Hot Sun
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Friday, October 2, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Summer to Fall
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Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Water
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Kongakut River June 2009
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Thursday, July 9, 2009
Joe Creek Backpack
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A long day of flying can be very exhausting so we only hiked two miles and set up camp. A light rain set in shortly after dinner.
June 14: Woke up to light rain but thought nothing of it. Had breakfast, broke camp, and started hiking up the drainage to the pass. A few miles into the hike we came to a mandatory creek crossing. Folks were wet from walking in the rain for a few hours so we stopped for lunch so folks could rest, get refueled and warm up. That was a convenient reason to stop. The real reason I wanted to stop was because I wanted to buy time to figure out our options. In my head I was thinking, "How the hell are we going to cross this thing safely?" The water was knee deep, fast and as cold as it gets without freezing. Since we had time built into the trip for layovers we went ahead and set up camp early to wait out the rain and let people warm up in their sleeping bags. An hour later the rain stopped and the sun came out. An hour after that we could see a noticeable difference in the water level as it dropped.
June 15: We woke up to a beautiful sunny morning, cool and calm. Over night the creek went from a knee deep raging torrent to a shoe lace deep mellow meander. After breakfast we crossed to the other side by using one rock as midstream stepping stone. No wet boots. From there we followed the almost canyon like narrow drainage up to the pass for several miles. Along the way we crossed the creek over 30 times, fortunately without needing to take our boots off. After several hours of climbing we reached the high point of our hike and broke for lunch. The rest of the day was spent walking down the new drainage.
June 16: There were a few caribou around camp last night but not the herds of thousands this area is famous for. During breakfast most of the group caught a quick glimpse of a wolverine which is very rare to see.... vicious little buggers. Around lunch we noticed a group of 100+ caribou. Naturally we dropped our packs, pulled out our cameras and watched the herd move around for 30 minutes. Right as we started to put our packs back on I noticed a large brown spot moving around on the creek bed. We could not make out what it was but I assumed it was a grizzly bear due to its size and movement. A closer look through the binoculars showed it was a muskox. I almost wet myself with excitement until the person beside me said, "look, I see 9 more!"... That's when it was no longer an almost. We dropped our packs again and watched the muskoxen for another 45 minutes. June 17-18: As we moved down the drainage to the Kongakut over the next few days the herds of caribou got larger and larger until, at one point, there were easily several thousand in the valley around us. During this time we also started to notice tiny day old calves wobbling through the tundra.
June 19: This was our last day backpacking and our largest river crossing of the trip. We made it to the Kongakut around lunch, skies were clear but it was a bit windy and temperatures were around 55F. For the crossing we took our boots off and put on our river crossing shoes. There were 4 braids to the river, each about thigh deep and moving fairly swift. Did I mention it was ice cold. I don't mean ice cold as in just cold and uncomfortable, I mean ice cold as in this water was coming from ice fields and glaciers less than 24 hours ago. One little slip into this water would quickly make a person hypodermic. The crossing went well. On the other side I noticed a person far off in the distance, the first person we saw since getting dropped off by Kirk 8 days ago. To make a really long story short, it ended up being my wife, Becky. She ended up doing a base camp trip with a photographer in the area. It was not preplanned that we would run into each other. Complete surprise! She doubled back to warn our group about a grizzly sitting on a caribou kill. Good thing too, she saved our bacon on that one. Ask her sometime to tell you the story.
June 20: Backpack clients flew out around noon on the same flights the new rafting clients came in on. Old trip ends, new trip begins. On to the Kongakut from here. More on that soon.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Ester Quakes
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Thursday, May 28, 2009
Spring has Sprung
Friday, May 8, 2009
Winter Turns to Spring
Thursday, May 7, 2009
My Peeps Are In The House
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Alaska Range Cabin Trip
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Friday, March 27, 2009
Open North American Sled Dog Race
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Thursday, March 12, 2009
50 Years of Statehood
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January 3, 1959 President Eisenhower signed the official declaration making Alaska the 49th state. With a little elementary math it's easy to figure out that means this year Alaska celebrated it's 50th anniversary. And what better way to celebrate 50 years than an extravagant display of fireworks. Becky and I have the good fortune of having a friend that works for the Geophysical Institute. That may not seem like much on the surface, but that friend has keys, and those keys were able to get us on top of the tallest building on the UAF campus which was right beside the firework launch location. Ahhh... what a good friend and what a great firework display.
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Ice Art
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Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Race Hard Play Hard
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Friday, February 13, 2009
Hot Spring Heaven
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Peru 2008
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