Fort Yukon, AK

A trip for work took me back to one of my first villages in Alaska - Fort Yukon.

Fort Yukon lies on the Arctic Circle in the Yukon Flats. It recorded the highest ever temperature in Alaska of 100 degrees F on June 27, 1915.

On the way, we got an awesome view of Denali from the air

I was in charge of putting in the new weather station from scratch.. including digging a ditch for wiring.

Remote villages means an awesome airplane ride! We took a Piper Navajo 6-seater to and from Fairbanks.

I love flying over the open unestablished land. It's fun to picture yourself down at ground level, knowing that from the sky things look so dramatically different.
On the way back, we took the scenic route through the White Mountains, and I got to see aerially where I had been biking all last winter. It looks way scarier and way more in the middle of nowhere from an airplane than on ground!

'Til next time, Fort Yukon.

Red Dog, Alaska

I had the privilege to go out to Red Dog in the Northwestern Brooks Range with Oceana to take down her coastal radar at the port. We were supposed to go over winter solstice (funny time to go above the Arctic Circle) but the trip was pushed back a couple of weeks.. and ended up landing on my two year anniversary as an Alaskan resident. Not a bad way to spend it. :-)
Upon entering the mudroom, I spotted a Steelers hard hat!!!! WOOO!! Steelers fans are everywhere, I am convinced. Unfortunately the hat did not fit my head, otherwise I would have walked around with it on!! Haha.
We had incredible weather. Well.. it was a little chilly, but it would be a lot colder if there were 20 kt winds blowing out of the north. We stayed down at the port, about 55 miles west of the mine, where about 20 people are living this time of year. Everyone was very welcoming to us. The frozen landscape is like a sea of glass.

Looking out into the Chukchi Sea......

The sun just began to rise in this part of the world, recently. They were gaining over 10 mins of sunlight per day, with about two hours of the sun above the horizon.
In the two photos above, are Oceana and Evans, whom was a huge help to us in taking down and packing up the instrumentation.
I did not get many photos of the road between Red Dog Mine and Red Dog Port due to low lighting, but above is one coming from the sea back into the mountains. The flat terrain rolled into the beautiful Brooks Range.

Our Grand Caravan airplane used for the charter.

Gorgeous.

Trivia tidbit: So I asked why Red Dog Mine is called Red Dog Mine. The man who found the place was a bush pilot and he always flew with his reddish Husky, named Red. Hence, the name Red Dog came about. Pretty cute, huh?

Shooting the Breeze at Gelvin's Cabin on the Charley River

As the summer seemed to be closing in on a very uneventful note (as far as travels go), something miraculous happened and I was invited on two (and potentially three) trips non-work related basically within a week to new places. And you know that I could not say no to any of them.I got to go out to Yukon-Charley NP for a week out seriously in the middle of nowhere for 8 days. I stayed at/near Gelvin's cabin working as Ben's assistant/bear guard (ha!). We were supposed to see a bunch of hunters, because last year at this time there were 40 people who flew into there.. but NO ONE and I mean, NO ONE flew in until the 8th day, the day I was leaving. So much for seeing people. But because there was literally 8 days of free time (other than cutting wood), I got a ton of relax time which was apparently very much needed, as I went from totally unmotivated before the trip to totally re-motivated and feeling revitalized after. It was time to read a couple of books and just gather thoughts and sleep and rest an extensive amount. I think that personal time is something that gets neglected for a lot of people...... or maybe it's just me, I don't know. But being forced to stay in a general area and only having access via foot through tussocks galore and through big trees may have been just what I needed after a slightly unplanned summer in AK.

I shot my first living animal.. a grouse that we cooked up for dinner. Something about cooking food that you yourself caught was satisfying. No processing.. just clean, gut out, and cook. I made Ben do all the dirty work though. Shooting I can do (thanks to growing up with rubber band guns?), but this time I decided to let someone else do the not-so-fun part.

If you click on the map you can see where we were at Gelvin's. We hiked up to the rapids one night and up to the old B-24 plane crash site another day.And this is the airstrip looking north.. what an airstrip huh?We saw probably 20 or so caribou during the week.. these two were outside the cabin window.Boredom and a need to feel useful prompted me to build this stand for sawing wood.All the days mesh together but I think on day 4 we decided to hike over to some rapids downstream. The hiking was not easy.. it was very rare to have solid ground. It was mostly tussock walking.Looking north down on the Charley River.

Ben suggested skirting the river for the hike back thinking it would be easier. It wasn't! The tussocks were easier to walk on than this sketchy talus.. at least for me. I guess it's debatable depending who you are.OROk, the tussocks were not always THIS bad. If they were, I might take the talus. ;)

After inspecting the sand for bear prints and only finding caribou and wolf prints, I decided to set up the tent alongside the river.

A couple of days later we hiked up to a crash site from winter solstice 1944 of a B-24 where 5 men died and one survived. Going up to the B-24 and seeing shards of airplane pieces scattered among the tundra was a humbling experience. Here is a news article about the airplane crash. Here is also a much easier to read magazine article about the crash. The man who survived wandered for 86 days in the wilderness, stopping at trappers' cabins along the way until he got to safety. What is more amazing is that the man who survived got out of the plane in -60 degree temperatures, and was not even wearing a pair of gloves or mittens.

I felt a little intrusive taking a picture with the airplane but did anyway figuring I might not make it back to this piece of history.5 small flags honor those who died in the crash.40 degree rain and wind helped to make a decision to go back to the cabin after the airplane visit rather than continuing on up the mountain.

Back to the toilet...
Back to the water...And back to flawless land...Here is a short clip of some caribou trying to figure out what we were. It felt like we were in the middle of 15 of them.

If you would like to experience the landing and taking off of a super cub, here's your chance!

Remote and Abandoned in the Wood River Valley

Just 30 roadless miles east of the Parks Highway lies an abandoned lodge that once flourished with fly-in tourists and vacationers. Martin talked about flying me out this way for months now.. so we finally did it with my sister Patty in stow! The weather was looking a little sketchy for flying, since winds were fairly high through the range, but Martin having flown for the majority of his life, was not concerned. It was up to us whether our stomachs could make it, and both Patty's and mine could. (barely.) We got quite the view of moose from above, a rollercoaster-like flight (updrafts and the like), and a random little adventure.
Where's the moose? Do you see them? We saw at least 15.... they lost their novelty after a short time. :)
I was pretty pumped by the time we got into the mountains. The flight down into the mountains was a lot of flatness through the Tanana Flats (imagine that.)
Patty loves more than anyone I know, to do jumping pictures. Though I can't take the credit for the idea, I'm glad that it makes a lot of extra smiles looking back at the pictures.

We got to the formerly known as Alaska Wilderness Lodge and peeked around a little. In this photo Patty took below, I was talking about how I'd like to move into this sunroom. The view's a little bit better than my cabin. ;)After exploring the abandoned lodge and cabins area, playing a round of ping pong on a dusty table, and taking some jumping pictures, we hiked down to a nearby lake. At the lake, we found a canoe sitting there.......moments later, my joking comment about taking the canoe out for a spin turned into reality (this is how most random things unintentionally start). Sitting in the middle of the lake, we scanned for bears and wolves, but none to be seen. There were tracks around but no wildlife. That is ok - I can do without bear encounters. I got over wanting to see them after the first summer I was up here after finding some of the best bike trails along salmon running streams. That is another big gold star on why I love winter.. the bears are sleeping.

A photo with the Piper Martin took us up in.Martin caught Patty saying earlier how she always wanted to be a pilot growing up, and he let her steer. Personally, I was partially frightened of my sister flying our airplane, but she did a fantastic job keeping us level.

Our little adventure could not last forever as we had to attend to things back in town, but had what I think was one of the most fun trips I've done in recent times. It was not "epic" by any means, it wasn't tens of miles of hiking or biking and pushing the limits, but it was really random and fun and getting to show my sister this part of Alaska is something that made the trip one of my favorites. There is something about getting out in remote land that can't be explained in words, and I know how lucky I am to experience it. The gross part is, the more of it you see, the more you want it. I haven't figured out if that is a good thing or a bad thing. But sharing it man, that is the really cool part.

Back home in the 'Banks.