Erratic Adventures

I am alone. And I'm out of water, dehydrated, and overheating, my heart pounding in my ears. I can only see about 10 feet around me in any direction, the alders are so thick. I can barely fit through the tangle of their trunks with my huge backpack, and I'm not tall enough to see above them to re-orient myself. I know I need to continue downhill, but unless I can get out of these alders, I'm going to tire myself out before I ever reach the creek. Up until this point I was having the time of my life, but now I'm seriously questioning whether I'll even make it out of this wilderness just a couple miles from the road. 

The journey begins

The adventure began at 8pm the night before. It was a late start for a backpacking trip, but because it's almost summer solstice, the sun doesn't really "set" until the wee hours of the morning, so it was totally doable to start the hike after one of our friends got off work. 

My Alaska 2015 Gear List

Packing RAAGGEE

Packing is probably the hardest part of any trip preparation -- especially when that trip is going to last 6 months and involve 4 seasons worth of weather conditions. What's more, when you're going to be flying with your gear, you'll likely have to figure out how to fit it into 2 checked bags (under 50lbs each) and 2 carry-ons. As many times as I've done this in the last 3 years, it's still a challenge, so I figured I would share my gear list here for others who may be interested in how one might go about accomplishing such a feat.

Ice Adventures

Yesterday a group of us decided to brave the sub-zero temperatures and enjoy our still snow-free weather and drive out to Dorothy Falls, a fun hiking location we'd been to over the summer. The falls are about 25 miles from Nome and a 2 mile hike from the road. We headed out at sunrise around noon, to make the most of the daylight. 

Before starting our hike though, we stopped at Salmon Lake to see how it was doing in the cold. We found it almost completely frozen over, the ice at least a foot and a half thick. I've never seen anything like it before. Some of the ice was totally clear, with bubbles frozen in place!

Frozen bubbles under the ice!

You could see all the way down to the bottom with air bubbles and leaves frozen in place. It was totally surreal.

S'no place like Nome for the Holidays...

Despite the mild melancholy of not being home for the holidays, so far December has been bit more exciting than November, which I will get to momentarily. 

To begin, there is still almost no snow; today the newspaper reported an all-time record low snowfall last month, as we received only 0.2 inches instead of the average 12.1 inches! Climate change in action, I tell you! In addition, the air temps averaged about 14 degrees F last month, as opposed to the usual 16 degrees.

Rained in at Kuzitrin

The week started out promising. By noon on Monday my supervisor and I were suited up in our flight gear and walking across the tarmac behind the Bering Air hangar for our first helicopter trip out to Kuzitrin and Imuruk Lakes. It was partly cloudy, but the ceiling was high with a vivid blue sky above. 

My view

When I saw the chopper we were flying in, I couldn't help but laugh -- it was smaller than the car we had driven to get here, with a big bubble window around the cockpit, giving the two front seats a wide view all around. As the photographer, I got copilot's seat.

First night in the backcountry

Made it back from my first two-day-one-night stay in the backcountry. Headed out again tomorrow morning so I will attempt to be brief with the highlights from my 530 photos I took. 

Into the Unknown

Super stylish flight suit

I don't even know where to start! Tomorrow at an ungodly hour of the morning, I'm taking my first trip into the Alaskan backcountry for the work assignment I've mentioned before to the village of Wales and Ikpek Lagoon.

Preparations swung into full gear today when our NPS media specialists arrived from Utah. We had a long meeting to go over flight procedures, gear allocation, filming and photography shoots in the village, and pretty much every logistical detail you can imagine.

Gear list

Nine months. Three seasons. Office work. Backcountry work. Backpacking. Flying. Snowshoeing. Snowmachining. Who knows what else. Point is, this trip is going to take a lot more gear than I'm used to traveling with. Here's the preliminary packing list I've come up with so far: