Hunting for Dinosaurs

I've kept a journal since I was 8 years old. One of the first entries I ever wrote was about how I wanted to become a scientist when I grew up, and find evidence of dinosaurs. Although my dreams of making groundbreaking scientific discoveries has long since passed, part of that dream did come true yesterday, in the best way possible.

Two of my friends, Jessica and Ashley, and I set out for the day to find Denali's dinosaur tracks, which were discovered in the park just 10 years ago -- a very recent discovery by many standards! The story goes that in 2005, a college class from Fairbanks was visiting the area and the professor was explaining that this part represented the Cantwell Formation, which should display evidence of dinosaurs from the late Cretaceous period, about 70 million years ago. Although nothing had ever been found, remarked the professor, we would expect to see things like plant imprints and dinosaur footprints around here.

"Like this?" asked one of the students, pointing to a footprint in rock they were standing next to. Just like that, the student discovered the first of thousands of dinosaur footprints since found in the park.

Wildflowers everywhere!

Adventures at the Top of the World

A steady snowfall of big, fat clumps of flakes descends from the gray, mid-afternoon sky, mixed with cold rain, and illuminated by an industrial floodlight on an adjacent building. The ground is muddy with puddles the size of small ponds outside. A faint aroma of gasoline and burning fuel wafts in through the slightly opened window pane, an ironic contrast to the soft touch of the Arctic ice crystals floating down from the heavens.

I am in Deadhorse, AK, sitting in a shipping container-turned-bedroom at an oil company work camp. I came here originally to visit someone for a few days, but that stay has turned into over a week, thanks to my flight getting canceled for foggy weather. I don't mind too much. It's been an interesting soul searching sort of experience here at the top of the world, I suppose.

Deadhorse: almost as far north as you can get in AK

Bipolar weather and end of training

I've been trying to update this blog for about 3 days now, but the internet is so slow it keeps failing to save or post. So here we go again -- fingers crossed. 

Looks almost like a painting!

Alaska video montage

I've only been home a week and a half, but already Alaska seems almost as distant in memory as it is in miles. I'll be totally honest, as great as it was to experience a "real" Alaska winter in one of the harshest environments on earth, it feels damn good to be able to just walk out my door barefoot now that I'm back in Florida. No more spending 10 minutes to put on enough layers to step outside. I've even started to get a tan again (currently in the form of sunburn, but hey).

It wasn't quite as hard to adjust to living in "civilization" again as I thought it would be. It's nice to see affordable prices in the stores once more, and have more choices in products. The harder part has been getting used to living at home after being on my own for so long. I miss that freedom already, but I keep telling myself it's only temporary. Because I know it is. Hopefully within the next month I'll be on my way to a new job, whatever it may be (fingers crossed that it will be in Alaska again).

I hate this period of limbo where I have no idea what I'm doing with my life. But in between job-searching and car-searching and freaking out about the future, I've managed to finish putting together my video montages of all 9 months in Alaska. Just watching them over again gives me the travel bug, so maybe it'll inspire you to get out on your own adventures as well. :)  Enjoy.

Through the Lens: Northern Lights

As if by magic, during my last weekend in Nome, the northern lights put on the most spectacular display I've seen to date. 

I was sound asleep late at night, but my roommate had been downtown watching one of the Iditarod mushers come in, when she noticed a smudge of green across the sky. I was awoken by her text, and immediately jumped out of bed to check the window. Sure enough, a ribbon of light was pulsing through the heavens above. I don't think I've ever gotten dressed and set up the camera so fast in my life!

Beam us up, Scotty!

Through the Lens: Iditarod

After over 9 months in Northwest Alaska, I have finally returned to the lower-48 and the warm, sunny state of Florida. Over the next few days, I'll try to finish posting photos and reflections from my last couple weeks in Nome, starting with the best of my Iditarod pics.

The crowd awaits the first musher, late Tuesday night

Winning musher Mitch Seavey arrives around 10:30pm

Aliy Zirkle arrives in 2nd place around 11pm 

The media mobs Mitch Seavey at the finish line

Jeff King arrives in 3rd place

Mitch Seavey and Aliy Zirkle less than an hour after arrival

One of the sled dogs

Martin Buser passing in front of my office building

Brent Sass looking epic

Jim Lanier's dogs need a little guidance getting to the finish ;)

John Baker heads down the home stretch

Lance Mackey looking exhausted

Dog close-ups

Final musher Christine Roalofs jogs out from the finish with her dogs

Shaking off some snow

Mush!

As you can imagine, it's been an absolutely insane week and I have so many stories and pictures to share but still no time! Iditarod week was a blast and ended with the most spectacular northern lights I've seen to date.  This week I have a ton of wrap-up work to do, plus I have to pack up my life again (it's amazing how settled-in one becomes in 9 months), and start heading home. 

I will try to post pictures later this week, but for now enjoy the GoPro video I took on my dog sledding trip this weekend. So much fun, and super glad I got to give it a go while I'm up here! 

Playing tourist

Iditarod Week in Nome kicked off today with the moving of the Burled Arch to Front Street, and a snow sculpting contest in the town square. Beautiful weather today too made for a good day to play tourist and take some photos around town. Enjoy!

Angry Bird sculpture won 3rd place

Pineapple sculptors

Everyone hard at work

Awesome muskox sculpture 

The Burled Arch is in place!

Hard to believe this street is going to be packed in a couple days

The winning sculpture

Lounging in the snofa

Pretty icicles in the sunlight

Scary icicles on our roof

Shishmaref

This week I spent 2 days in Shishmaref, the village I visited last November just before Thanksgiving. The purpose of my trip was essentially the same: to talk to local youth about Serpentine Hot Springs and get their perspectives on the area, but this time the experience was far more successful and fulfilling.

On my way there, I was once again the only one on the flight. There was a seat open in the back, but the rest of the plane was packed with cargo -- boxes of milk, orange juice, canned goods, and produce. The pilot asked if I wanted to ride copilot instead: Heck yes!! He even ran inside and got me a headset, and we spent the entire flight talking cameras and aviation. He was pretty excited I had a GoPro and a good Nikon.  

Trying out the GoPro

Off and away!

Off to Shishmaref for a couple days tomorrow! High of -5 for the week, lows in the -30s. Bring it on!

A day in a village

The sky is just beginning to get light as I walk into the terminal for Bering Air to check in for my morning flight to the village of Deering. I'm only going for the day, to help out a park ranger from the region and speak to the high school class, but as always, I'm prepared as best I can for the unexpected. My pack is stuffed with classroom materials, extra warm clothes, my camera, a few survival essentials, and a satellite phone for emergencies. It seems a strange combination of things to pack, but necessary, I suppose. 

It turns out I'm the only one on the flight besides the pilot, so we walk out together across the windy tarmac to the little 9-seater Navajo charter plane and I settle in for the 45 minute ride. 

Sunrise from the morning flight

Through the Lens: Winter

Cemetery

Boat frozen into the harbor

Frosty

More of the cemetery

Nome sweet home

Color in a white land

More frostiness

Ups and Downs

This has been a week of ups and downs in more ways than one. The day after my birthday was the worst. It started out quite well -- we spent the snowy day snowshoeing up King Mountain and sledding back down.  

I got the most epic GoPro shots yet, but alas, I will never see those shots. 

Mush!

Instead of watching the Superbowl on Sunday, I found myself at a dog sled race, driving a snowmachine. A friend from town was helping out with the Nome Kennel Club Dog Sled Race, and offered to let my roommate and I borrow his snowmachine to go out on the trail and take photos.

GoPro: Hiking to a Dredge

It's finally here: My GoPro HD Hero2! Took it out for a practice run yesterday to snowshoe to one of the gold dredges just outside of town. Took some getting used to, and I still need to work on stabilization and composing my shots better, but it's not too bad, all things considered. 

It was about -8 degrees when we left, but got increasingly windier as we got closer to the dredge and dropped to about -20 with windchill. I was feeling pretty close to mild hypothermia in the dredge so I stopped filming once I couldn't press the buttons on the camera anymore (we did make it to the top of the dredge though!). Managed to get a couple more shots on the way back through a ground blizzard, which looked pretty spectacular in the sunlight!

Let There Be Light!

Today it was BRIGHT out! Like, real actual normal sunlight, not that sunset bogus we've had for the last 3 months. Okay, so maybe that's a little harsh, but I am impossibly happy to see how high the sun is in the sky (which still isn't that high). I wasn't even that annoyed when I realized it it was hitting me in the eye through the window when I got back to the bunkhouse. It's amazing how different everything looks and feels; it's a cloudless day and the world just seams brighter with the sun reflecting off the snow and the white mountains contrasting sharply with the vivid blue sky. Too bad it's freezing cold as death outside.

Life in the Bush

I have been intermittently aware over the last few months that I've failed to thoroughly described to you what it is really like to live in the Alaskan bush. Maybe you've gotten some idea if you've read enough of my posts, or if you remember some of my initial deer-in-the-headlights reactions when I first moved here 7 months ago.

But every so often, I am reminded that what has become daily routine and "normal" life for me was a totally foreign concept last year and still is for 99% of my friends and family.

The "beach"

January on the Tundra

January has been an interesting month so far. Work has been moderately busy with various publication-related projects, but otherwise relatively uneventful. The last couple weekends have been warm enough to bring on winter storms and thus great snowshoeing opportunities. 

Battling the blowing snow

Hello (2013), Goodbye (2012)!

2012, what a year. A week before the 2012 New Year, I had only JUST seen snow on the ground for the first time in my life, and now I live in the arctic and trudge through it every day to work. A year ago this month, I was in Honduras, exploring Mayan ruins and snorkeling through the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef system for school. Just 2 months later I found myself in Iceland, doing volunteer work, hiking across lava fields, waterfalls, and glaciers. Two months after that, I graduated with two Bachelors of Arts degrees, high honors, and a bunch of awards. And after turning down 5 job offers, a month later I landed in bush Alaska where I now sit tooting my own horn because, hell, that was quite a year and it deserves a little shout-out! 

December photos

So much for coming up with some deep, thought-provoking, reflective Christmas post like I'd planned to do last week. But I have no complaints -- I've been having too much fun and staying too busy to philosophize lately. And besides, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll let the photos do most of the talking. :)