Exploring Nugget Pass, and the Flyover that Wasn't

Let me begin by saying I have a lot of respect for the government. We give it a lot of flack, but now, technically as a government employee, I do have a lot of appreciation for how our country runs. 

With that said, it's amazing that it runs at all sometimes. Pretty much the only thing holding me back from really getting into my job at this point is paperwork and authorizations. Because of that, I haven't been able to do much this week so today I was sent out with one of the interpretive rangers to scout out a trail for the weekend ranger hike, and to take some more photos. I definitely can't complain -- I'd rather be out on the trail than behind a desk any day!

American Golden Plovers flying

Our destination was called Nugget Pass, a series of mountains and ridges about 45 minutes north of Nome on another long dirt road.  It was a dark, cloudy day, but the mosquitoes weren't too bad in the morning, so we parked along the roadside and began picking our way across the tundra to the base of one of the mountains.

American Golden Plover

Along the way we saw tons of birds. American golden plovers, golden-crowned sparrows, white-crowned sparrows, hoary redpolls, and several northern wheatears.

Male northern wheatear

The hike was pretty easy up to the base of the mountain, but the ascent was a bit harder. Not only were the mosquitoes worse up higher, but the steep grade, combined with slippery shards of rock made for some moderately challenging terrain.

View of Salmon Lake

Fortunately, when we reached the first peak, the view was more than worth it. Overlooking part of Salmon Lake, some of the mountains were still capped with dark clouds, and sunlight filtered in to glint off the late-spring snow and meandering rivers below.

Rivers, with road in upper right corner

We hiked up two more peaks before turning to head back, since we had an afternoon plane to catch for our flyover tour of the preserve.

Grizzly bear scat!

One our way back, we found some eerie evidence of the grizzly bear activity in the area, including scat and mounds of dirt pulled up around lemming holes in the tundra. We also found some old wolf scat as well. It was a good reminder of where we really are.

Dwarf fireweed carpets the tundra

Anyone know what this is? I have a guess...

Golden-crowned sparrow

We made it back to town just in time for a quick lunch and then the 8 members of our staff carpooled to the airport for our long awaited flyover tour. As it turned out, we were flying Era Alaska -- yes, the airline featured in Discovery Channel's Flying Wild Alaska series.

We waited in their tiny terminal for what seemed like an eternity. The check-in process was about as easy as it gets -- all I had to do was give my name and weight (including my backpack) -- but there was some kind of government paperwork issue with our booking that ended up taking a while.

Eventually we got the okay, and headed out onto the tarmac with the pilot; our ride was a little 9 passenger prop jet, but apparently something wasn't right. As it turned out, they had given us the wrong plane! We were supposed to have a plane with a high or a parasol wing so we could take aerial photography of the preserve, but ours had a low wing, pretty much blocking our view of anything down below. I would have been okay with it, but since taking pictures is kind of part of our job, our supervisor made the executive decision to reschedule the flight.

Our plane (photo by Ranger Katie)

I'm not gonna lie: I was a little bummed out we couldn't go, but I'm glad our supervisor made that choice since we will only be able to do this once.

So, we're rescheduling for next week or the week after, hopefully in a plane with the correct wing configuration. At the very least, I got a good hike in today, and got to sit in a very small airplane for about 5 minutes. Tomorrow is a holiday, 4th of July, with another ridiculous parade and street games in Downtown Nome. Pictures are sure to follow.

Lichen hikin'

This weekend the bunkhouse has gotten pretty crowded with the temporary addition of a group of lichen researchers stopping here on their way to the preserve. Last night, one of them agreed to take a couple of us out into the mountains to teach us about our local lichen varieties.

I guess it shouldn't have been a surprise, but I was nonetheless impressed by the diversity of lichens growing on the tundra. Although I'll never remember all the names, there were nearly a dozen different types we encountered within just a couple hours of exploring the slopes. Two or three reindeer lichens, dog hide lichens, several different crustose lichens, many foliose and fruticose varieties carpeted the landscape. 

The mountains

Before heading back, we stopped at Anvil Rock, a prominent overlook outside of Nome.  It had spectacular views of town, the mountains beyond, and sea.

Nome on the coast, mining operations in the foreground

This orange crustose lichen is one of my favorites -- it only grows in nitrogen-rich environments, particularly where bird feces are common. It sounds kind of gross, but it's actually a good way to find bird nests and roosts in the mountains because the orange stands out so well and there is likely to be a lot of bird activity in the vicinity.

View under Anvil Rock

Anvil Rock (approx. 9pm)

Monk's Hood wildflower

The Cold War missile detectors

Getting windblown on top of Anvil Rock

Wind turbines on the tundra

Abandoned gold dredge

Flower whose name I can't remember

Common Butterwort

The Common Butterwort was another favorite of mine -- it's carnivorous! This unassuming looking flower has sticky leaves at the bottom and traps small gnats and insects for nutrients.

Musk ox butts

On our way back down the mountain, we came upon a trio of muskoxen. They were utterly uninterested, but adorable nonetheless.

Muskox doesn't give a hoot

Just pics

Not much to report on, so here are some pictures I've taken in the last couple days:

Old gold dredger 

Red-necked phalarope swimming in Horse Tail reeds

Second day of salmon season -- busy beach!

Big sky

Grayscale

Sea glass in the rough

Days are getting shorter! It almost looks like sunset!

The daily grind

The breaking news yesterday was that there was a polar bear about 10 miles east, on the beach of Cape Nome. Although it was too far for us to go out and see, everyone was pretty excited about it; the report said it was spotted trotting along the beach and then got scared off and started swimming away, and has not been seen since.

The rest of yesterday wasn't quite that exciting, but interesting nonetheless. I was assigned a sort of practice job to re-write some technical project descriptions into short summaries to post on the website, and then spent most of the afternoon watching training videos of lectures about the archaeology and natural history of BELA.

After work, although I was pretty tired of lectures I was up for one more after dinner -- a team of scientists  from the Korean Polar Research Institute was speaking at the University of Alaska campus in Nome, so I accompanied some of my coworkers to go hear their talk. It was pretty interesting stuff; they apparently have research stations all over the arctic and two in the antarctic, and here just outside of Council they are studying permafrost in the tundra.

The talk was basically about how the arctic is warming faster than the rest of the globe and the ground here contains more CO2 than the atmosphere -- and that CO2 is being released into the air as the permafrost melts. Scary stuff. We also found out that the Korean research vessel will be coming to port in Nome next month and we may have an opportunity to go tour it!

Today has been about the same -- finished up the writing assignment this morning, and I got briefed on my schedule for next month. Let me tell you: it's going to be one hell of a month. I'm scheduled for B3 aviation training on the 11th, followed by a trip to Shishmaref (a small Inupiat village about 120 miles north of Nome), then a few day trip with an NPS media specialist (I think?) to the village of Wales to interview the reindeer herder and see that part of the preserve, and then couple days after, a week in Serpentine.

Needless to say, I am stoked to be spending almost an entire month getting dropped off in obscure places in the backcountry. Along with the excitement however, comes the harsh reality that, A) I need to learn a lot about the camera ASAP, and B) I only have one chance to get the shots, since I'll only get to visit these places once and for a very limited amount of time. (It's funny -- the camera issue is making me more nervous than the living-in-the-tundra-with-bears issue!).  I feel so inadequate. I know I'll be able to do it, but it's going to be so much harder than if I actually had previous DSLR experience.

At any rate, it's going to be the adventure of a lifetime. I still can't believe that I'm not only getting to see some of the most remote and unique places in the world, but I'm getting paid to do it! A month ago I never would have even imagined I'd be doing this right now. So I've gotta say, the daily grind isn't so bad here.

Road to Council

When I first heard we were taking a staff trip to "Council," I wasn't sure what that meant. Like, tribal council? No, as it turns out, Council is a small fishing village about 73 miles east northeast of Nome, and our 7-person staff was taking a day trip out there for photos and for us to become better acquainted with the area. 

So, late Tuesday morning, we all piled into the big government-issued Suburban SUV and began a long day of bouncing down 146 miles roundtrip of dirt road. That's a lot of dirt road.

Possible Pacific loons in the back

Red-throated loon

Our first stop was at a bridge perhaps 10-20 miles outside of Nome where we did some birdwatching. There were a bunch of glaucous gulls, red-throated loons, and what looked to be Pacific loons, although I'm still not entirely sure. Also some some Eiders (Spectacled, I think?) and the usual little red-necked phalaropes in the water.

It was here that I had my first go at the NPS camera, a good Nikon D80 DSLR. It took me a while to remember what little I know about manual photography, but after a while it became a little easier. I still have a lot to learn as far as what settings to use in which situations, but hopefully I didn't look like as much of a newbie as I felt.

Train to Nowhere

We continued down the road watching the landscape become somewhat greener, more mountainous, and hilly, all 7 pairs of eyes trained on the tundra looking for grizzlies, moose, foxes, or any other cool wildlife we were likely to see. We didn't see anything though, besides the occasional ground squirrel, so at noon we stopped at this site called "Train to Nowhere," aptly named for the rusted train ruins left deteriorating along the side of the road.

Semipalmated Sandpiper

After lunch we continued along our way. The conversations in the car were quite hilarious. I learned two new terms: "i-newbie-aq," a play on the "Inupiaq" to mean someone who is new to local native culture, and my favorite, "termination dust," which is not the nuclear fallout it sounds like, but the first snowfall that terminates the mining season.

Golden eagle chicks

As we got closer to Council, we began driving through mountains and along cliffs. At one point, we stopped on the roadside to photograph a golden eagle nest with two chicks!  

My favorite wildlife spotting of the trip though, was the red fox one of the interns saw coming out of its den on the side of the road. We came to a screeching halt in the car and backed up slowly so as not to scare it off, but soon realized it wasn't in the least bit concerned.

In fact, it trotted around a bit, and eventually went back in one of its holes (it had about 3 in the hillside!), but we found it in the exact same place on our trip back. Beautiful animal, and I was super happy with the photos I got of it.

Council

Eventually we made it to Council. As it turns out though, there is a river between the road and the town so we didn't actually get to go into the town, just look at it from afar. But hey, there were TREES! Real, live trees. Conifers and deciduous species growing side by side along the river giving the landscape a deep green hue and filling the air with the tangy organic scent of leaves and bark. You don't really notice the smell of trees until you haven't been around them for a while.

Dilapidated house

The old buildings were pretty cool too. Many were abandoned, but the village is still used for the fishing season and the occasional traveler passing through.

And so we headed back, another 73 miles of dirt road. Still no grizzlies, but it was neat passing through old ghost towns, mining areas, fishing villages, and driving along the Iditarod trail. I definitely have a new respect for the Iditarod racers now; driving along a road was pretty easy, but I can't imagine doing that by sled in the middle of winter!

Arctic tern fishing

Finally we made it back to Nome at around 5pm, back to the flat, treeless tundra and the cold Bering Sea. I was pretty sleepy after the long car ride, but after dinner I joined a couple of my coworkers for a bike ride back down to the salmon fishing area I had been to the day before.

It was way more crowded this time -- seems word got out about the salmon down there, and unfortunately we didn't catch anything. Nonetheless, I enjoyed a chilly walk along the beach, collecting sea glass, and enjoying the sun, now that it had finally come out.

That was all yesterday. Today was much more mundane. Spent the day at the office, worked on my pictures, started some planning for the new visitor's guide, and then distributed posters of the ranger program schedule throughout town. The rest of the week should be pretty laid back and we're hopefully getting our preserve flyover tour in Monday. Fingers crossed!

Birding in the rain

The day started out lazily, with everyone in the bunkhouse sleeping in after our busy Saturday. I spent most of the day reading, writing, and finishing organizing my room. It's really hard to stay organized, because A) I will be moving downstairs in about a month and don't want to fully unpack, and B) there's nowhere to put anything. Nonetheless, it looks and feels a little more like home now.

When in Nome

Once again, I have more to write about than I could possibly fit into a post, so instead I'll share some of the pictures I took during my very busy day yesterday.  

View of Nome from the hill

Started off the morning with a tundra hike with ranger Katie and one of the other temporary staff members, a teacher from Pennsylvania (coincidentally, the same part of PA where I worked last summer!). We drove up to a place called Newton Point just outside of Nome, and hiked up the slope.

Distant mountain range

It was rather cold, windy, and stark, but as we proceeded I began to realize that the real diversity of the landscape lies in the plethora of tundra flora covering the soft ground. Dozens of species of wildflower, low-growing willows, grasses, mosses, and lichens grew on top of each other.

One of the most exciting moments for me was coming upon a pair of Long-tailed Jaegers -- a bird I've always wanted to see before! They must have had ground nests somewhere nearby because they were dive bombing us until we moved on. 

An antler fragment on the hill

Snow! In June!

 Once we reached the ridge, it was even colder and windier, but the view was spectacular. Beyond a field of blue wildflowers stretched the Alaskan tundra, disappearing into the distant blue haze.

We were enjoying the view when suddenly I spotted a large brown object on the horizon. My heart sped up for a second as it began lumbering away, so I quickly pointed it out. We are deep in bear country here, and had been taking precautions the entire hike up, but I still wasn't sure what we would do if we actually saw a bear. Well, we all took a closer look, and then relaxed -- it was a herd of muskox!

I was super excited. They were all just laying down in the grass, doing whatever muskoxes do.

Rock formations, and Cold War missile detectors in the back

Moose scat

Some species of Avens I think

Unidentified cool flower

After our 2 hour hike, we hurried back to town, arriving just in time for the annual Midnight Sun parade. It was easily the strangest parade I've ever seen, but quite hilarious and nice to see people actually out and about.

Downtown Nome

Start of the parade

The Christine Rose is a gold dredger featured on the
Discovery Channel show

Thar be pirates in Nome

Advertising for the Polar Bear Swim later that day

String band float

Richard, a bank robbery character

After the parade, everyone meandered down the road to the local Wells Fargo, where a mock bank robbery was scheduled for high noon. All the children were incredibly excited; apparently this tradition has been going  on for something like 20 or 30 years.

Setting up for the robbery

Wyatt Earp reenactor

 Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the bank robbery because I couldn't see it that well, but they had some sort of little story about bad guys coming to town and Wyatt Earp killing them all. Lots of fake gunshots and smoke, and the kids loved it.

After a lunch break, I joined the NPS staff again for a trip down to East Beach for the annual Polar Bear Swim. It was somewhat far away, so they all hopped onto a four-wheeler and I followed on Katie's bike. By then, the weather had turned for the worse, and it was cold, rainy, and windy, but nonetheless a massive crowd was gathered at the edge of the sea when I arrived. I opted to stay dry and take pictures for everyone.

Some of my coworkers getting ready for the plunge

It was quite an event. After getting the crowd pumped up, a siren started and there was a mad dash for the sea and then an equally mad dash to get out of the sea. Up on the beach there were bonfires for everyone to warm up, and fundraisers selling towels and shirts to the freezing cold participants.

The kids loved it

Some people even stayed in to play...

... others got out as quickly as possible

After that, I biked back to the bunkhouse and got soaking wet in the heavy drizzle that was now coming down. I relaxed for a while and then in the evening joined the staff for a trip to Folk Fest at the local elementary school.

It was a lot smaller than I expected, but it was neat to see all the local artisans and craft-makers selling their wares, as well as listen to the local musicians (including "Eskimo Elvis" whose signature song was a monotone "ay-ay-ya-aye" and some really good string bands).

Well, sorry for such a long post, but it was a very long day and probably more excitement than I'll have for the rest of my time here! :) At any rate, tentative plans for today include exploring, possibly fishing, and possibly birding. Should be fun!