Friday, June 29, 2007

June 29, 2007 - Barrow, Alaska: Where The Polar Bears Roam

As we landed at the Barrow airport, the flight attendent said "welcome to beautiful Barrow, Alaska!" and I smiled and kind of snickered...

What to say about Barrow Alaska...

You couldn't ever EVER pay me enough to live there. I should end my thoughts there. But was the trip fun? Of course! But my question is, WHY would ANYONE ever PAY to go to Barrow, AK? Please, save your money. If you want to go north, go to Greenland, where it's pretty (from what I hear). Or Norway. Somewhere nice, don't spend another $800 per person to go from Fairbanks to see Barrow AK. It ranged from 30-40 degrees, with a solid 20 kt wind with gusts to 28 kts. That my friends gives a windchill of 16-29 degrees on JUNE 29TH.

So now that my first paragraph was depressing, it really was a fun short trip, and I'm really happy that I got to go. But like I said, you will never ever see me residing in Barrow. The village is so poor and rundown, cloudy, foggy, cold, and windy. ALL THE TIME. Pretty much.

No polar bears. They had a problem with one just last week coming into the village. So it's definitely not too late in the summer to see them, even though the sea ice is now open. There are still icy lagoons everywhere.

Robbie and I worked for 4 hours on the ASOS station in Barrow. We had to replace the visibility sensor and box. Otherwise, we spent some time in the Weather Service Office. When we got back from the field today, Mike and the new guy, Terri, were about to launch the 0z weather balloon. Mike let me let it go -wahoo! I almost made the radiosonde crash into a building. Whoops. (I couldn't help it really, it was so windy!) It was pretty close but all went well and the balloon got up to 8mb. So that was exciting. The big weather nerd was content.

Some pictures for entertainment purposes:

Check out a topographic map of the North Slope and you'll see holes of water everywhere.

Me at the whale bones. I have another normal picture of this. (I'm also holding an ice cream cone in my left hand..)

A random shot of the village of Barrow

$9.00 for a gallon of milk!

Palm trees made out of whale teeth. (baline)


Robbie touching the Arctic Ocean

Our ASOS station - we fixed the gadget on the left

The weather office in Barrow

Weather balloon is ready for launch!

Hello from waaaaaay up north!

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