Friday, December 24, 2010

Winter Solstice

Happy belated solstice everyone! As you probably know, this day is significant as the shortest day of the year. I guarantee you the further north you live the more significant this day is for you. Here in Fairbanks it is more important than Christmas for many. Right as most folks start to feel completely nuts from lack of enough sun, the sun starts coming back.Fortunately we are roughly 100 miles south of the Arctic Circle which means we don't experience total darkness on solstice. We do, however, only get about 3.5 hours of sunlight. It rises around 11:00am and sets around 2:30pm. While not seeing the sun for much more than a lunch break for a few months might drive more folks than normal to heavy drinking it has some plus sides too. When the sun comes up it stays at a low angle in the sky, going from sunrise straight into sunset... beautiful! The pictures in this post were taken on my way home last weekend at 2:30pm. Also, on either side of the solstice the length of time the sun is in the sky changes by about 6.5 minutes per day which means every ten days we gain an hour of daylight (or lose that much as we approach the solstice).
The other upside of such short sun exposure, besides a zero chance of sunburns, is that with the longer darkness we have a better chance of seeing the aurora borealis and get to enjoy extended starry nights. With all that said, I'm sure glad we have made it over the solstice hump. Welcome back sun!


Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Sunset Over the Tanana River

2:30pm sunset. -20F. Clear skys. Aurora last night.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

NAEC Calendar

I rarely do much with the photos I take besides share them with friends and post the occasional one on this blog. A few months back I got a wild hair and decided to do something different by entering a few of my Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) photos into a photo competition that the Northern Alaska Environmental Center (NAEC) was having to gather photos for a 2011 calendar celebrating the 50th anniversary of ANWR. Much to my surprise they liked a few of my photos and used the one above as the cover for the calender. You can go to NAEC's web site to check it out. I warn you though. If you decide to purchase a calendar you will be supporting one of those environmental organizations that fights to keep your water clean and wild places wild so make sure you can stomach that.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

The Settling in of Winter

Winter is slowly but surely settling in around us. The leaves changed colors and dropped to the ground a little over a month ago. Then a few weeks back we received our first snow. It was not much but it was enough to set the mood for another snowy winter. Fortunately it stayed cold enough to keep the snow around without going through much of a freeze-thaw cycle. We've had a few snows since then which has allowed one of our cross-country ski areas to open up (the area is pampered like a golf course so they only need a hand full of inches to be able to pack the snow for skiing). And the rivers have started to freeze over. The transitions of the rivers from liquid to solid in fall then from solid to liquid in spring are always fun to watch. None of the rivers are frozen enough to go ice skating or skiing on yet, there are still some open spots here and there, but all the rivers have enough ice on them that no one will be putting their boat in the water until spring. Many of the small ponds in the area are completely frozen over and are being used for ice skating. Yet again, another great fall.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

End of the 2010 Guiding Season in the Arctic

(Agiak Lake in Gates of the Arctic)

Well, it's been another great year of guiding in the arctic. This year the company that Becky and I primarily work for, Arctic Wild, compiled all the best photos the guides took on trips and made a real nifty slide show for folks to enjoy. You can see it by going to Arctic Wild's blog at:
If you look in the lower left corner of the photos you can usually see who took the photo. Some of mine are included in the Agiak Lake, Kobuk Sand Dunes, Beaver Creek, Archimedes Ridge and Yukon River trips. Enjoy the show.

P.S. When you hear some of the oil drill mongering conservatives talking about the Arctic being a useless waste land that needs to be developed to be of value keep these photos in mind. The Arctic is a vibrant ecosystem with a diversity of year round mammals and seasonally sensitive nesting migratory birds that rely on it for survival. It's a place of beauty and value to it's inhabitants.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Annual Outdoor Slide Show

For the past 4 falls Becky and I have hosted an outdoor slide show sometime around Solstice. This year was no different. It's pretty simple. The theme?...... the Great Outdoors. Specifically, pictures of trips people took over the summer. The location?..... outside of course around a fire. For a screen we tie a white sheet and wait for it to get dark.
This year we had folks share pictures from a backpack on the Chilkoot Trail, a raft trip on the Kongakut River, a canoe trip on the Alatna River and and a climbing trip in the Bugaboos of British Columbia. Dave closed by sharing a very cool video he made of a trip to Antarctica. We have too much fun sometimes.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Migration

Sandhill Cranes and Canada Geese passing through Fairbanks on their way south.



Yukon River Sunset


Monday, September 6, 2010

Yukon River Trip

The day after getting back from the Beaver Creek canoe trip I turned around and led 11 Japanese clients on a 4 day trip on the Yukon River for Arctic Wild. This particular trip was a bit different from others I have done. First, all the clients spoke Japanese with only half speaking English (although they all spoke the international language of smiles and laughter). Second, with 11 clients and 2 guides (myself and Brad Snow) we took 5 foldable Alley canoes and a motor boat assist driven by Fred Anderson. The idea was to pack all the heavy gear like food, tents, chairs and such into the motor boat so the canoes were lighter and easier to maneuver. Fred would then disappear for a few hours, meet us for lunch then go down stream and scout for a suitable camp spot for the night. I had some doubts at first about having Fred's motor boat along but it ended up being a really clever way to operate with a canoe group that size. Plus Fred's knowledge of the stretch of river we were on was astounding. He had 30 years of experience working for Fish & Game and the National Park Service on this stretch of river.

(Photo taken by moon light)

From Circle we flew about 60 miles upstream to a gravel bar in the middle of the river close to the mouth of the Charlie River. The east side of the river had tall black cliffs topped with aspen trees towering over us at our first nights camp. In contrast, the west side of the river was a never ending black spruce forest with very little topography. The contrast was stunning. The photo above was a timed exposure taken at our first camp with the full moon behind the clouds.We had all sorts of weather. When we departed Cirlce the sky's were cloudless. By the time we reached the river and set up camp clouds had moved in. The next morning we woke up to a light rain. That's all good though. It's far better to have rain early in the trip and end it sunny than to have it sunny early and end in the rain. You always want to end on a positive note, right? Right! We put on our rain gear, broke down camp and hit the river. We had about 15 miles to float until we reached the historical Slaven's Roadhouse. The roadhouse was built as a stopover for people traveling the river in the 1930's and is now maintained by the National Park Service as a public use cabin. Contrary to having 'roadhouse' in it's name, there is no road access. The roadhouse ended up being a real benefit. The rain was still coming down and all our stuff was wet. This gave us the opportunity to dry out before heading down river the next day.... and what a day the next day was.When we woke the rain was still coming down, but lightly. We carried out our regular chores of breakfast and breaking down camp and got on the river. Due to where we were when we got in our canoes we were oblivious to the challenge that laid ahead. Less than five minutes into the float, enough time to get to the middle of the wide river, the wind hit us hard. So hard that most of us could not turn our canoe bows downstream. As soon as I realized we were not in a temporary blast of wind I looked back at the rest of the canoes to find them scattered all about. No one could safely control their boats. We managed to all get to one side of the river and recollect. To make the situation safer and easier to handle Brad and I decided to raft all the canoes together and float as one mass unit. It turned out that it also made the morning more social. We managed to take a lemon and make some pretty sweet lemonade.The lemonade got even sweeter when by lunch the wind had died down and by camp that night there were just enough clouds in the sky to make for a stunning sunset. One of the prettiest and longest sunsets I've seen in years. I must say, it was a great way to end another season of guiding. Keeping pace with ending on a good note so you always want to go back.








Friday, August 27, 2010

Beaver Creek through the White Mtns.

A quick check in. It's been a busy last few weeks. Lots of canoe tripping. Lots of photos. Lots of photo sorting needs to be done to be able to share the visuals to their fullest. The images below are from an eight day Beaver Creek canoe trip I did last week with two clients. What a great time. The Autumn colors where in full swing with noticeable changes occurring on the daily basis. By the end of the trip the boreal forest was in it's full festive attire. Where are the people in these photos? They where beside me enjoying the same view. Or... Hell, I don't know. They just did not seem to make it in front of the scenery in these two photos.
Yes, there are stories....... and more exploring. I'll save for later.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Kobuk Sand Dunes

Alaska, as legend has it, is chock-full of amazing places. One of those amazing places, believe it or not, is a large complex of sand dunes north of the arctic circle. Yep. It's true. I first heard about the Kobuk Sand Dunes roughly ten years ago. Ever since then I've have had an itch to travel there and see what they are all about. It was everything I expected... a bunch of sand. But it was more than just a bunch of sand. It was close to 25 square miles of sand in the middle of a boreal forest, the Sahara of the arctic. It was hot sand on bare feet in a place underlain by permafrost. It was a climax of contrast. It was more than my imagination ever expected.Four of us flew into the Kobuk Dunes for a two day base camp before moving on to Agiak Lake in the middle of Gates of the Arctic (more on that later). Two days gave us time to wonder around the dunes and get a good sense of what they had to offer. While endless miles of sand may seem sterile and lifeless at first, they proved to be quite the contrary. During our time there we saw three wolves which is a pretty good number considering wolves are classic evaders of humans when they know of our presence. Wolf tracks were everywhere telling us there were far more wolves than we were seeing. On one occasion we walked down the dune to our camp then twenty minutes later walked back up the dune to find fresh wolf tracks in our 20 minute old shoe prints. Our shoe prints were in view of camp but we never saw the wolf that left them.Most of the dunes are without plants or have very few hearty plants loosely scattered about. One of the greatest contrast in this area is the transition from dune to forest. It's sharp! The west side of the dunes where we were camped is bordered by Kavet Creek. On one side of the creek you have nothing but sand, on the other side nothing but spruce forest. And flowing right down between the two is a beautiful little clear creek full of small grayling.What an extraordinary place. From the dunes we slung our backpacks over our shoulders and hiked off of the sand and 1.5 miles through the forest to the Kobuk River where we were picked up by a float plane. The clients had a great time everywhere we went except for this 1.5 mile hike through the woods to the river, which they termed "the hike from hell". It was a challenging hike through brush, tussock, bog and such but without hiking it they would have never really known the true arctic. Our pilot picked us up around noon on the Kobuk River and had us on the shores of Agiak Lake in Gates of the Arctic in time for dinner in the middle of the Brooks Range.






Friday, July 23, 2010

Black & White

I wanted to share some of the black and white photos I've been playing with lately.
Over Fairbanks.
Charlie
Black spruce and clouds. Nolan in the foreground. Leo in the back ground. Sally Michael's kids at Steve and Lauren's wedding.




Thursday, July 22, 2010

The Upper Delta River

Becky and I just got back from a three day canoe trip on the Upper Delta River which cuts through the Alaska Range. We were joined by our good friends Garret and Brenda. I'm not even going to try and describe stunningly beautiful it was.We only had to get out and drag the canoes through shallows a few times to go from one lake to the other.
Tangle Lakes
The start of the river is about a mile around the corner. At this camp we stayed up until 2am one morning watching four moose graze on the vegetation on the bottom of the lake. Head under water for a few seconds. Head out with grass. Head back under. Come up with more grass.... It was very entertaining. One of the cows had two calves that would swim out behind her while she walked on the bottom.

Ahhhhhh.........





Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Archimedes Ridge Backpack

Wow. Where have we been for the last few months? There is allot to tell but I'm going to keep it fairly short. It's been a busy start to summer. Becky ventured into the Prudhoe Bay oil fields for work looking for Spectacled Eiders for most of the month of June. She has stories galore but I would butcher the retelling so I'll stick with what I know, my own stories. While Beck was out of town I left Fairbanks to guide a seven day backpack trip in northwest Alaska. Our destination was a thirty mile long ridge running between the Utukok and Kokolik Rivers. Our goal was to place ourselves in the middle of the Western Arctic caribou calving grounds. A few things to note here. The Western Arctic caribou herd is about 400,000 strong at last census. That's a shit load of caribou. Also, we are not the only ones that know about these calving grounds. The resident predators (aka, bears and wolves) also are very familiar with and fond of the calving grounds this time of year.
The group was fairly small, just myself and two other guys. Group sizes this small can be really easy or really difficult, depending on the group dynamics. Fortunately both people were laid back, easy to get along with and great conversationalist.
Our first day found us following the classic hurry up and wait program to get to our destination. Pick up, drop off, wait for plane, ride in plane, land in Kotzebue, wait for smaller plane, load, leave, fly over stunning land scape, land on gravel bar of Utukok river, unload, plane leaves, silence..... Our trip begins. The feeling you get as you see the plane slip off into the distance, out of ear shot, is liberating. There is no more planing or preparation. All you have left to do is explore the landscape.

It can also put you a bit on edge at first if you are not sure you have everything. Did I pack the stove? fuel? what about food? is there enough?... It doesn't matter though. You have what you have and make due with it. I've always had everything but the thought still crops up. With the plane gone we threw our packs on our backs and headed for the ridge. To get to the ridge we had to traverse a few tussock fields, cross a few streams and gain roughly 800 vertical feet but it was well worth it. Once on the ridge we had the grandest view of the surrounding area for the next 6 days. Along the way we saw a few thousand caribou, long tailed jaegers, rough legged hawks and seven brown bears. Six of the bears were far off, down in the valley below, hunting for caribou calves but one bear.... one bear was close up on the ridge above us. I about pooed myself when I saw it at two hundred yards ahead of us in the direction we were walking. It was a large guy with an incredibly beautiful thick bronze coat. Once it was obvious that he was not to concerned with us we were able to relax and watch him for a bit. After a while we walked down and around the bear and continued on our way with the bear lazily laying down and watching us as we carried on. A few days went by as our packs got lighter but some how seemed heavier, our feet got sorer and our sense of wilderness and solitude got stronger. On our next to last day we descend the ridge down to the Kokolik River, our final destination.
For the entire backpack we encountered maybe 10 mosquitoes. That's the definition of a good trip in the arctic, very few mosquitoes. Once we got down to the Kokolik we figured out where all the mosquitoes had gone. BAMB! We were in the thick of it. Hard to escape from. Our time camping on the river kept us either in our tents or spraying ourselves down with the toxic wonder chemical known as Deet (I've seen it melt car dashboards but it keeps the bugs away). Our final adventure was getting picked up by Dirk of Coyote Air and flying back to civilization. What a flight. We were able to fly our the path we just hiked and examine the terrain and caribou herds from the air. Along the way he had us open the plane door (while we were airborne) and drop food off to a camper below. Good times were had by all.





Monday, April 26, 2010

Delta Clearwater Canoe 2010

Three weeks ago the Tanana River was covered with ice. Thick ice. Fortunately for the boating community in interior Alaska our spring has been abnormally warm causing the rivers to break up earlier than normal. Last month there was dog sledding on the rivers. This month boating. I bet that's a crazy thought to some of you lower 48ers. It sure is to me.Over the past few years Beck and I have gotten to know a group of boaters, mostly canoers, that like to make an early season pilgrimage to the Delta-Clearwater River about two hours south east of Fairbanks. After all it's traditionally the first river to flow clear of ice in the area. The first half of the trip is on the Delta-Clearwater, the second half on the Tanana River.
The trip can be done in one long day but the whole point of going down there is to be on the river and socialize with good folks so we take it slow and keep the paddles out of the water when we can until we get to camp. This year we pulled over on the Tanana to set up camp on a large sandy/grassy field where we had spectacular views of the Alaska Range off in the distance. The moon rose slowly while the sun set slowly. It felt as if the sunset took hours as we roasted hot dogs over the camp fire and laughed until we could stand no longer and had to crawl into our tents. The next morning we woke to a beautiful still day and another 4 hours of paddling to make it to the take out. We stopped for a short hike along the way to a bluff where we saw the first signs of flowers coming out of the ground. Oh right. I almost forgot. On the first half of the float, the day before, we saw three different moose sightings, a lynx (really really cool), and too many migrating birds to count including a group of over 30 trumpeter swans we startled into flying right in front of us. Once again good times were had by all.






Monday, March 29, 2010

Grand (Adventures in the) Canyon

Well, it all started like this. A few months ago our long time friend from Haines, Tricky (aka David Ricky) emailed that he had a Grand Canyon permit and needed some boaters. For a rafter the Grand Canyon is akin to the Holy Grail. How could we say no? We jumped on the opportunity like a fat kid on a Twinkie. When we left Fairbanks on February 21st the temperatures were still hovering around zero degrees and the sun was gone by 5pm. Landing in Phoenix, AZ 12 hours later we stepped into 70 degree weather and sunshine.
Our trip started out of Flagstaff so we loaded up the rental car along with Garrett and Brenda and drove two hours north to meet the rest of the group. With Phoenix being so warm and sunny it seemed out of place to arrive in Flagstaff with several feet of snow on the ground. But that's what happened. With a few days in Flagstaff we gathered our wits and picked up much needed last minute provisions like beer and sun screen. We were told that once we started the trip the weather would change to warm and sunny again.The morning of our departure Moenkopi (our outfitter) loaded up our bags and drove us two hours north to Lee's Ferry where we would start our on-the-water portion of the trip. 17 days of exploration and adventure lay ahead of us. Out of the 8 of us on the trip, not a one of us had seen the Colorado River as it runs through the Grand Canyon. 9am, February 25th we met with the Park Service Ranger and got permission to launch. What happened next can't really be summed up is this tiny amount of space. I'll give you the highlights as a teaser.Regardless of what we did we were normally laughing while doing it. Needless to say, we had a fun loving group of good folks.
Most days we took short side hikes and longer day length hikes on layover days. Hiking potential was limitless, only bound by our imagination and sense of safety.
With roughly 225 river miles covered we ran something like 190 rapids (more or less). Five or six of them were pretty big and hair raising but for most part the majority of the rapids were just good clean roughty fun.Viewing and admiring the landscape was an ongoing event too. What's around the next corner? "Wow! Did you see that waterfall back there?" "What about that arch?" "Yep. I was so tied up admiring the waterfall I must have missed the arch but did you see the sheep on the cliff side?"
Wow and all its synonyms were used through out each and every day.The Colorado River ran either brown or your typical dark blue river water color. It depends on what the damn is releasing and if rain or snow melt is washing muddy water down side creeks. Out of the many hidden gems along the way Havasu was probably one of my favorites. The water in this side canyon is a surreal pastel baby blue color engulfed in tall dark orange canyon walls will miles of hiking to be done.
As we started our trip, Rico the shuttle driver left us with some sage advice he credited to Brady (owner of Moenkopi) who tells folks that "If you're not having fun, you are fucking up!" It is safe to say we did not fuck up once on this trip.



Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Stay Tuned!

Stay Tuned. Becky and I got back last week from a 17 day Grand Canyon trip with six other friends. We've been busy cleaning up gear, getting back into our regular routine in Fairbanks and finding time in the few moments in between to look over photos we took. Check back shortly to see more pictures and read a few stories. This photo is of a great group of folks from Maine we kept running into along the river. We happened to catch up with them at the scouting point for one of the largest rapids on the river, Lava Falls. They had just scouted the rapid from above and were loading into their rafts as we arrived so I grabbed my camera and headed for a clean shot of the rapid. They went for a wild ride but all eights of their boats got through unscathed. Our turn was next......

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Random

I'm not into writing anything particular this evening. Just wanted to put some random photos out there that I've taken recently to share with folks.Not much snow has fallen this winter but due to a lack of wind allot of frost has been able to accumulate on the top side of branches. It's a pretty cool visual looking up from the base of a birch tree. Dark branches outlined with the white of frost backed by a rich blue sky....Full moon night at the house. House?... Cabin?... what ever you want to call it. It's our cozy little home in the woods.For some reason this door knob on an old dilapidated shed fascinated me. It exuded character and projected a mysterious history which put all kinds of stories in my head. I mentioned frost collecting on branches this winter. This is a great example where the frost accumulated on a young tree making it heavy enough to bend to the ground.