This has been a week of ups and downs in more ways than one. The day after my birthday was the worst. It started out quite well -- we spent the snowy day snowshoeing up King Mountain and sledding back down.
I got the most epic GoPro shots yet, but alas, I will never see those shots. Somewhere in the last mile or so of the hike back as it was getting darker, windier, and snowier, the GoPro must have fallen out of my pocket. I got back to the car and reached in my jacket to pull it out, but all I found was a pocket full of snow. I snowshoed back as far as I could following our footprints, but the further I got, the more I lost the trail under the blowing snowdrifts. It was nowhere to be found, and for all I know, could have been buried in the time it took me to realize it was gone. I wanted to cry -- I still do, just recounting the tale! It was my own fault for losing track of it, and I feel absolutely horrible after having spent so much time to get it, spending nearly a week's paycheck to buy it, and then losing it just a few weeks later. Of course, I knew that could happen with it and I'll just have to live with the guilt, but it doesn't make the blow to my pride (or bank account!) any softer. I am still in mourning.
I guess the good thing is, of all the ups and downs this week, that was the worst thing that happened. The rest of the week we had winter training at work, which involved everything from winter safety and survival, to environmental interpretation talks, to talks with park researchers. I gave a presentation as well, on our social media strategies, which was a lot of fun.
In addition to a schedule packed full of training session, I also found out that I'm going on a kind of spur-of-the-moment trip out to the village of Deering next week. This is one of the smaller villages, but the high school students are taking a trip to Serpentine Hot Springs this spring so they're sending me there to talk with them about the hot springs and hopefully get some materials (photos, videos, quotes) to use in my visitor guide project. It'll be an overnight trip, and then next week I'm taking another overnighter in Shishmaref to work with their high school students as well on the same topic. It's pretty exciting, but also somewhat stressful!
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Another "low" point in the week occurred temperature-wise! Last night and this morning the air temps lingered at about -30 degrees! Brrr....
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| Nome "National Forest" |
At any rate, I expect this week to be a little crazy with traveling and preparing for Iditarod. Can't believe I only have 5 weeks left here!
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| Snowmachining a couple weeks ago |
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