Mount Marathon

For the Fourh of July Joshua and I headed down to Seward to cover Mount Marathon -- an annual race up and down a mountain famed for it's mud, scree and steep chutes. (The top finishers always end up bloody.) Joshua filmed for Channel 2 and I shot photos for the Alaska Star. This meant hauling a hell of a lot of gear over slick mud and up melting snow. In addition to the clothes and food needed to spend the day on the side of a mountain, between us we had a huge broadcast camera, a Nikon D200 and a few lenses. Here's some of the better photos from the day.

Joshua

Women's race (one of Joshua's photos, he took a few stills when not filming with the broadcast camera)

This was my best photo

View of Seward from the side of the mountain

Eagle Riverite decked out in Fourth of July running clothes

One of Joshua's photos

More of Joshua

Joshua filming Cedar, the hometown gal who has won the race for the last several years

If you click on the photo and look close, you can see each individual water droplet

Bring on the snow

Is July too early/too late in the season to watch a Warren Miller film? I'm not sure, but now I'm definitely amped up for winter to come... and along with it snow (I guarantee, I'm one of only a handful of Alaskans who would make this statement right now). Joshua and I watched ColdFusion tonight (one of the better ones) and I was hootin' and hollerin' throughout... I'm not sure whether this was to Joshua's annoyance or entertainment. Either way, bring on the snow!

Mamas and their babies

Yesterday I went for a nice long run by the Eagle River Nature Center. As I was driving home, on a gorgeous, curvy, two-lane mountain road, I saw a bit of movement in the brush. Assuming moose, I slowed down. Out in front of me, darted a huge black bear. Two, dare I say it, adorable cubs trailed behind. All three bears dashed across the road and were gone in seconds. I was left with a profound sense of awe about this amazing place that I live. Yeah, I have to make a ton of noise, aka shout like a maniac, when I'm running by myself in the woods; but how cool that I can spend the day in the office, and then spend the early evening bear viewing and running in a glacier-carved valley... pretty darn cool.

And speaking of wildlife, the other day I went to back out of my drive way. As usual, I checked my rear view mirror to see if anybody was coming... there was something coming, but not a car or a bike rider. Nope, it was mama moose and two babies that were standing in plain view of my mirror. Not a bad way to start the day, if you ask me.

Slippery Salmon Olympics

A couple of weeks ago Eagle River -- the town where I'm editor of the community newspaper -- had its big summer festival, called Bear Paw. Everything about the festival is a little bit tongue and cheek, including a Running with the Bears event (instead of the running with the bulls in Spain) and the Slippery Salmon Olympics. I decided to inaugurate my first year at the event by participating in the Slippery Salmon Olympics, which requires contestants to run through an obstacle course while clutching a partially frozen salmon while balancing a tray and a cup filled with Coke. I competed with a co-worker at the Alaska Star, and as representatives of the paper, we were team Alaska Starfish. From that came the inspiration for hairdos. Good times!






Photos courtesy of Dan Shepard

Kotzebue wind turbines

Here's a few of the photos I took of the wind turbines in Kotzebue for a story I'm writing for the Alaska Journal of Commerce. (See details in the post below)

Land of the 24-hour sun

Last weekend I went back to Kotzebue -- a Native village of 3,000 above the Arctic Circle in the northwest corner of Alaska. It's hundreds of miles from roads and sits on the tip of a narrow peninsula in the Chukchi Sea.

I went up to show the tribal doctors the rough cut of the video about Della Keats -- the lady who started the tribal doctor program in Kotzebue. One of the professors at APU got a grant to edit together old video of Della Keats and contracted Joshua and I to do the work.

While I was in Kotzebue I visited the wind farm there and spent a couple of hours interviewing the general manager of the Kotzebue Electric Association. It was really interesting to learn about wind energy... it's advantages and shortfalls. I'm going to write an article for the Alaska Journal of Commerce about the town's wind farm. It should make for good reading.

Kotzebue has the look and feel of a typical Native village (or so I think, I haven't been to other Native villages, I've only seen photos and heard stories). Since there's really nothing else to do with broken down trunks and junk snow machines (that's the Alaskan term for snowmobile), they just sit and rust in people's yards. (Remember, everything in Kotzebue was brought by barge or plane... and to remove it would mean the same costly process) The houses are small and weathered. Grassy tundra or open water spread as far as the eye can see. People are friendly. The place has the charm and slow place that only small towns can pull off. Everybody knows everybody. And you can walk from one end of town to the other in 20 minutes.

Graveyard trucks.

Smoked salmon.

Snow machine left on the beach (right in town).

Somebody made their home from a Quonset Hut... very Alaskan.

The tanks where the fuel is stored once it comes in on the barge. Supplies are delivered once a year.
I enjoyed this sign in the lobby of the hotel... also very Alaskan.
Junked 4-wheeler, helicopter and boat... all in one yard.
The hotel where I stayed.
Another view of the hotel

Watch your speed.
Shovel and grass.
A church in town.
View from the plane on the way to Kotzebue.
Front Street. It's a gravel road that runs along the shore. We flew in and out of Nome (the place where the Iditarod ends) to get to Kotzebue.

A weekend in Seward

Keith came to visit Joshua and I in the middle of June. We drove down to Seward for the weekend... visited Exit Glacier, saw sea otters and sea lions, camped in the yard of Anabell's cabin, watched loads of halibut being wheeled off the dock and generally enjoyed the weekend.

Lake on the way to Seward

Sea lion who hung around the docks, getting big and fat from all the halibut leftovers. (The fishermen clean and fillet the halibut at a station on the docks).

Keith and Joshua

A sea otter

Alaska license plate
More of the sea lion
Take three of the sea lion
Joshua
Joshua and Anabell in Anabell's cabin
A corner of Exit Glacier. We hiked the moraine up the side of it for a ways.
View of the water from Seward
Boat in the harbor
A fisherman wheeling the bucket back to the boat for more fish.
A super nice lady and expert fish filleter, who makes part of her living filleting to fish that tourists catch when the hire a charter for the day.
Yum. Fresh-caught halibut.
Joshua "leaning" up against the van we borrowed from friends for the weekend.

Adventure race

At the beginning of June, my friend organized an all-day adventure race. Basically, we formed teams (Megan and I partnered up) and had eight hours to complete as many elements as possible. Each element was worth a certain amount of points. There was a paddling element, that included finding checkpoints placed along a river, and an orientateering element that also involved checkpoints. Also, reaching on or more of several specified locations in the Chugach Mountains -- peaks, lakes, ridges, etc. -- earned the team points (You had to take a photo to prove you were there). All transportation was by bike or foot.

Megan and I completed the orienteering course and reached one of the specified mountain ridges. We also picked up some bonus points for picking up trash. The effort earned us last place... but first place in the women's division (we were the only all female team = ). Despite the defeat, we had a super fun day and found some new hiking trails.

Group photo on the ridge that earned us points.

Pretty flower on the trail

We found a ropes course and decided to stop and play. Hmmm... maybe there's a reason we came in last = )

Megan taking a break on a big log

At the trailhead

Three of the five checkpoints along the orienteering course