Work and Play

First order of business: I'm now officially a park ranger. Uniform arrived yesterday in all its oddly-proportioned glory. Apparently female park rangers are expected to have ginormous butts and 3-inch waists, according to the size trousers I received, but alas, it'll have to work over the summer. Go ahead, have your laughs. :)

Fellow park ranger and I, ready to serve America

On to other news: we've had the strangest (and best!) weather in Nome this week, with temperatures sky rocketing into the upper 80s over the weekend! I took advantage of the sun and spent Sunday birding around the area and taking photos of the fog rolling in off the Bering Sea.

Fog on the harbor

Despite the heat, sea ice blew in from the south and fastened itself to shore for a couple days. It was extremely eerie, and very strange to be hopping around out on the ice wearing short sleeves and sweating in the hot air!

Fog over Nome

Cool ice formations

A coworker caught me birding on the sly

Grey-cheeked thrush

I didn't see any "special" birds but I got a couple good pictures nonetheless. One of my favorite finds for the afternoon was a grey-cheeked thrush, which I had only heard before then. It was fun to finally see what it looked like!

Hoary Redpoll

Yellow Warbler

Spotted Seal

I also got out to explore a new part of the harbor I'd never been to before, and was delighted to find a spotted seal cruising around under the glassy surface! Once it saw us, it disappeared, but I got an adequate snapshot before it hightailed away.

Biking to Glacier Creek

One Monday it was even warmer and sunnier, so two of my roommates and I went out for a bike ride in the early afternoon. I didn't expect it to be more than a couple hours, but we ended up going 24 miles in 6 hours! All I can say is: OOOOWWWW. My legs have never been so sore in my life! Three days later, they still hurt.

Dorky self shot with the GoPro

Despite the difficulty of the ride, it was a blast. Lots of hills, and a lot of the road was washed out, so it made for some fun and challenging mountain biking and I ended up covered in mud and dust.  We took a couple breaks along the way to play in the streams and nap on the tundra.

Underwater in the stream

It's been a busy week, and work and play continue to keep me occupied. I'll try to post more updates soon. 

Bipolar weather and end of training

I've been trying to update this blog for about 3 days now, but the internet is so slow it keeps failing to save or post. So here we go again -- fingers crossed. 

Looks almost like a painting!

First, I wanted to get the pictures up from the snow we had about a week and a half ago. I mentioned in my last post, but in case you missed it, we had a light snow storm last Friday. 

Snow falling on Newton Peak

My coworkers milling around in the frost

Summer tried to come... didn't quite make it.

Just as quickly as the snow came, it melted away again with a few gloriously warm days of sun this past week. I had training off and on -- I was exempt from B3 aviation because apparently my certification I got last summer is good for 3 years, but I still got to do Operational Leadership (risk management), bear safety, and shotgun training.

Shotgun training

Shotgun training was super fun. We practiced with the park's .12 gauge Remington 870s, using slugs and buckshot, the same ones we take into the field for bears. I haven't gone shooting in over a year, but I was pretty proud of my aim! Didn't even really get a bruise from the kick of the shotgun afterwards.

Ginormous mosquito -- summer's back!

Mew gull

Near the end of the week, we had an afternoon of birding with a biologist from AK Fish & Game. Needless to say, I was quite excited about this session. We birded around Nome for about 2 1/2 hours,  and I saw a bunch of new species I probably wouldn't have identified on my own, including Cackling Geese (they look exactly like Canada Geese), parasitic jaegers, and a Pacific golden-plover.

Melanistic parasitic jaeger!

Regular plumage parasitic jaeger

Rock ptarmigan molting into summer plumage

Whale!

During the birding trip, one of my coworkers spotted a whale offshore. We screeched to a halt on the side of the road and watched for a long time as the whale periodically surfaced to spout and roll in the calm surf. We couldn't figure out what kind it is -- possibly a bowhead? Maybe a grey whale? Still haven't figured it out. 

Still haven't identified it...

Bonfire (in the 10pm sunlight!)

That night, in celebration of finishing our two weeks of training, we returned to the beach to have a little bonfire, enjoy the last of our good weather, and the bright midnight sun.

On Tuesday I begin my summer of "real" work as an interpretive ranger. My schedule will be Tuesday-Saturday all summer, with Sunday and Monday as my weekend days. Next week I have a full schedule of assisting with a Tundra Tots program, giving a ranger talk at the visitor center, giving two Junior Ranger programs on Friday, and staffing our table at a craft fair on Saturday.

This week is also the beginning of Nome's Folk Fest, which celebrates the summer solstice, so there will be a lot going on outside of work, including the summer parade, lots of live music, and other events and festivities bringing the town together. Should be a fun week!

Edit: Forgot to mention my Recipe of the Week for week 2 here was dairy-free rice pudding. I had a bunch of rice to use up, so I made it into pudding with almond milk, sugar, and cinnamon. It tasted like rice pudding, but the texture was more like just sticky, creamy rice. Overall, not too bad and a good way to use up rice that's been in the fridge too long.

Springtime in Northwest Alaska

This week has kept me busy with training at work, but on Thursday we got to get out on the road system for a little excursion and to deliver a 55 gallon barrel of aviation fuel to the airstrip at the end. It was cold and foggy in town, but as soon as we crossed over the mountains, it was beautiful and sunny, although the spring landscape remains pretty brown.

Coming down out of the mountains

Golden-crowned sparrow

 Besides some birds and moose and Arctic ground squirrels, we didn't see any other wildlife, but the views were beautiful as always.

Grand Central Valley

NatGeo moose chase shot

Towards the end of the road we stopped on a bridge and one of my coworkers spotted 5 moose standing on the opposite bank. One was chasing the others around, and the moose calves were following, galloping awkwardly around on their long legs.

Moosages

Osprey

Also at this bridge was a relative rarity for the Nome area -- an osprey! Although they have been known to be in this area on occasion, this pair was building a nest on the bridge.

Yellow Warbler taking off

Bird migration is in full swing, and the tundra was alive with the songs of white-crowned and golden-crowned sparrows, plovers, and sandpipers. Also sighted lots of swans and ducks in the ponds along the roadside.

Sea Ice is all but gone

Back in town, the sea ice is still hanging around to the west, but for the most part it's beginning to melt and float away. It looks kind of strange right now because you can still see it frozen into the substrate underwater and chunks of ice float near the shore.

Sea ice underwater (taken with GoPro)

Red-throated Loon

Nothing much else to report for now. Yesterday it snowed again (pictures to come!). I also got to help out with a junior ranger program in preparation for leading my own in a couple weeks. 

Next week I have B3 Aviation training again, Operational Leadership, and Shotgun Training, and hopefully more opportunities to get outside. 

My first few days

Somehow, although totally sleep deprived, I managed to go on a hike up Anvil Mountain on Saturday after I arrived in Nome. Around 8pm a bunch of us piled in a friend's truck and drove up to the local peak so we could all catch up again and enjoy the late night sun shining high in the sky.

GoProing in the truck bed

Although the snow has melted for the most part, the landscape has yet to green up for summer and sea ice still lingers in Norton Sound. It seems as if the earth is still waking up from its long winter slumber.

Hiking up the ridgeline

Muskox herd

There were tons of muskox out and about, enjoying the warm weather as much as we were. They weren't in the least bit concerned with our presence, so I was able to get pretty close for some good pictures with the new park camera (Nikon D7000!!!).

Photographing the muskox

Stream crossing

With the late season snow melt, the tundra was soggy and streams were flowing fast and cold. Nonetheless, a few of the first tundra wildflowers are starting to pop up through the brown rocks and grasses. We spent some time climbing and bouldering and wandering around, before heading back around 11pm, still in the broad daylight.

American Golden Plovers

Birds are migrating through in full force. In the first couple days, I've observed red-throated loons, arctic terns, American golden-plovers, glaucous gulls, mew gulls, fox sparrows, lapland longspurs, white-crowned sparrows, Canada geese, Sandhill cranes, and a bunch of others I've yet to identify.

Birders up to their chests in a pond??

Just as entertaining as the birds are all the birders who have also flocked into town. I started my running routine on Sunday and nearly laughed out loud when I jogged past this group that had just put on waders and were squatting chest-deep in a pond with their ginormous cameras, trying to get pictures of a loon floating in the distance. I managed to snap this picture stealthily as I ran by! Just too funny to pass up. 

Yesterday I also started on my goal of cooking one new recipe a week. This week's experiment was honey cashew chicken and white rice. I meant to take a photo of it to post, but it was so good that I ended up just eating it. I'll post the recipe later. 

Today the weather was cold and rainy, but we had our first day of training, which went well. I went running again after work, which was also cold and rainy also, and no fun at all. Tomorrow is more training, but I'm giving a presentation so it should be fun. 

The last bit of unrelated news is that the internet at the bunkhouse has been downgraded to something horrible, so maybe don't expect as many pictures posted until the end of summer. It's pretty much as slow as dial-up and all but useless, but hopefully I'll find some ways to work around it. 

At any rate, that's all for now folks. It's good to be back, but as always I wish all of my friends and family were here to enjoy the adventure with me. 'Til next time!

Begin Chapter Two

The view out my window, winter and today

After 23 hour of flights, a couple hours of sleep, and one lost bag (yet to be found -- I may be wearing this same shirt for a while..), I've made it to Nome for a second summer of arctic adventure. It's a perfect day, 55 degrees, dry and sunny. Way better than when I got here last year in mid-June when it was 40 degrees and rained for a week straight.

It's odd coming back. It almost feels like I never left, except for the fact that instead of the white blizzardscape I flew out of in March, it's now back to its brown springtime muddiness that I remember from last year. The hills are still patchy with snow and sea ice floats in masses offshore, but for the most part it feels like a different world. If it weren't for the extreme change in weather, I would hardly believe I've been gone 2 months.

Strangely enough, I had almost the same conversation experience on my flight today as I had with a couple last year. This time however, it was a man who looked to be in his 40s. He said something about icebergs as we took off from Anchorage and got pretty excited when I pointed out a moose, so I figured he probably wasn't from around here.

As we descended in to Nome, I found out he was yet another newbie gold prospector, yet another unsuspecting victim of the Bering Sea Gold craze. Instead of coming to GPAA camp however like my seat row buddies last year, he was from Texas coming up here on a lark to see if anyone would hire him to dive for gold. At least he was dive certified, but from talking to him I could see he didn't know much else about dredging in Nome and is probably quite unprepared. I told him a few places to start for information about the town and mining, but otherwise I kept most of what I know to myself.

After the usual chaotic scramble for the baggage claim in Nome's minuscule terminal, it became clear that only one of my two checked bags had made it in. My Kelty backpack, which I had stuffed with most of my clothes, my jacket, and some camping gear, was evidently eaten by American Airlines somewhere along the way.

We waited and waited and waited while the TSA agents tried to figure out what to do and how to use the baggage tracking program on their computer systems (perhaps this doesn't happen often here?), they took down my information, a description of the bag, and told me to call tonight after the last flight gets in. That doesn't instill me with much confidence, but okay.

And so here I am, feeling like a loopy zombie in my sleep-deprived stupor, back in Nome Sweet Home. The good news is, I have my same room back, there are new coworkers to meet, the weather is great, and I have a lot to keep me busy. Once I get some sleep and my bag back, I'll be golden!