Equinox in Fairbanks

Last weekend I went to Fairbanks with my friend, Greg, for the Equinox Marathon. We did the relay. I ran the third and last leg of the race ... perfect because it was all down hill and I got to cross the finish line!

While the race was great - super fun and a beautiful course - perhaps the best part of the weekend was just having time to chill. We stayed with Greg's friends, John and Tina, who were fabulous hosts. We spent the weekend sitting in Tina's hot tub, making delicious food, talking about whatever and drinking coffee, tea, beer and wine (at separate times, of course). I came back more relaxed and calm than I've been in a while.

Also, it was a great time of year to make the six hour drive (each way) to and from Fairbanks. Reds, oranges and yellows blanketed the tundra, mountains and trees, while peaks were cloaked in white from the season's first snow. September is definitely one of my favorite months in Alaska.

Our team for the Equinox marathon: Lisa, Greg and me.
John and Tina (who we stayed with) and their third team member in the relay
Me crossing the finish line
We were driving along and noticed this reflection on a perfectly still pond

The Nenana River ... we walked down to it while taking a break from driving

Me and Xela

Greg and Xela Xela
Greg eating some blueberries we found Greg

Denali

Amy's articles

Here's the links to a few of the stories I wrote up for last week's edition of the Alaska Star. The first link takes you to my next installment of Outside the Ordinary. It's about my day of packrafting on Crow Pass. The second is a commentary I wrote that laments - to a degree - that I'm missing out on this year's windfall permanent fund dividend ($3,269 for each Alaska resident). The third is a little blurb about how Sarah Palin hysteria crossed paths with the Star.

Lightweight rafts open up backcountry possibilities

Singing the dividend blues

Alaska Star newspaper sold on eBay
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Kotzebue: tundra colors, moose meat, jelly fish

I just got back from my third and final trip to Kotzebue (northwest corner of Alaska, above the Arctic Circle) for a video project Joshua and I are working on. The oranges, yellows and reds splashed across the tundra were B-E-A-beauitful! It's hunting season now, which means camouflage is in style ... at least in the tiny Kotzebue airport where rugged-looking Alaskans checked guns and moose meat. Below is a picture of some kids I befriended. They were playing with the jelly fish strewn along Kotzebue's rocky beach ... using sticks to prod them and pick them up.

Me a ramblin'

I spent the better part of today lost in dreamland -- letting my mind take me to faraway places and people that are still close in my heart. (While, of course, still ploughing through all that needs to get done before this week's edition of the Alaska Star is shipped to the printer). It's amazing and daunting how full life is -- how much potential it holds, yet how much we hold ourselves back from that potential.

I received a letter of rejection from Lonely Planet this evening. After I sent my resume and some clips in to the guidebook company last spring, I received a response that asked me to complete a lengthy writing sample. A month ago I turned in that writing sample, and tonight I learned that my "writing is not as authoritative, engaging and evocative" as they're looking for in new writers. For a little while I felt deflated -- I mean I've never been rejected based on my writing before -- and then I realized I ought not to let my self-worth be based on other's opinions -- for good or bad. I've always written because, like being in the outdoors, that's what I love. Period. End of story.

Sweet dreams,

Amy

Packrafting Crow Pass

Last weekend Brad, one of Alaska's packrafting gurus, took me out to show me how to packraft. We climbed up over Crow Pass from Girdwood and packrafted out the Eagle River to the Eagle River Nature Center -- a 26 mile trip total. It was a great day!

I wrote up a first-person account about the trip; it'll come out Thurs. as my next Outside the Ordinary column.

Packrafts were developed several years ago by an Alaskan. It's been a well-know, well-explored niche activity in Alaska for a while, but it's just starting to catch on Outside (our term for any place not in Alaska). Basically packrafts weigh 4 to 10 pounds and can be carried in a backpack, along with a lightweight, breakdown paddle.

Packrafts open up the backcountry in a whole new way -- all of the sudden you can combine walking trips with river trips, mountain traverses with white water adventures. Try it once, and you'll never look at a map in quite the same way.

Check back next week for the play-by-play of our adventure, aka my article.

The hut on top of Crow Pass

Bear tracks

Raven Glacier on top of Crow Pass

Fall colors and water falls

A very cool bridge crossing

Brad, stopping to take in the view, as we descend toward Eagle River

Getting the raft ready to launch

Me on the river

Check out those class I rapids ; ) It was a really peaceful float out. The views of the huge cliff faces descending off of craggy Chugach Peaks, splashed in fall colors were... well, spectacular!

Sarah Palin pandemonium

OK, I realize I've been pretty mum about our governor, turned VP candidate, Sarah Palin. Some of it has to do with not having the time to post much of anything on this blog -- a lot of it has to do with being so inundated by Palin-everything, that it's the last thing I want to write about at the end of the day. But, since I have followed her career from the time she was a gubernatorial candidate, running against Republican incumbent Frank Murkowski -- talked to her on the phone for an article I wrote about that race -- I have a pretty good sense of who she is and how she handles leadership. Rather than laying my opinions on the line -- that's not my style -- I invite any questions people have. Just post a comment, and I'll reply as quickly as possible. A good starting point for discussion is the editorial we ran in the Alaska Star the week after the big news (probably the biggest news to hit Alaska in a decade). The link is below. I look forward to hearing from you.

http://alaskastar.com/stories/090408/edi_20080904023.shtml