Hello (2013), Goodbye (2012)!

2012, what a year. A week before the 2012 New Year, I had only JUST seen snow on the ground for the first time in my life, and now I live in the arctic and trudge through it every day to work. A year ago this month, I was in Honduras, exploring Mayan ruins and snorkeling through the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef system for school. Just 2 months later I found myself in Iceland, doing volunteer work, hiking across lava fields, waterfalls, and glaciers. Two months after that, I graduated with two Bachelors of Arts degrees, high honors, and a bunch of awards. And after turning down 5 job offers, a month later I landed in bush Alaska where I now sit tooting my own horn because, hell, that was quite a year and it deserves a little shout-out! 

Perhaps I'll write a more reflective post on it later, once I have had more time to reflect. But for now I'm struggling just to keep my head above the flood of backlogged of photos and stories I keep accumulating from my winter adventures. 

After an unnaturally cold November, we went through an unnaturally warm December that brought with it many days of snow and cloudy weather. But at least the temperature was in the 20s and 30s, which felt like summer compared to the -25 degrees we experienced earlier. And of course, warmer weather and more snow means more of my favorite thing as of late: Sledding! 

Wheee!!

Sometimes it also means a face-full of snow...

Hello!

The weather over Christmas weekend was great. Warm, sunny, and snowy. Even got snow on Dec. 25th, making the dream of a "White Christmas" come true. My housemate and our friends spent pretty much every daylight hour snowshoeing and sledding outside of town.

After Christmas, the storms began. Real, honest-to-goodness tundra storms with 35mph blowing snow and whiteout conditions. Radio weather advisories warned not to go outside but as soon as it was light enough, out we went!

Snow blowing across the road -- blew the sea ice away!

Whiteout at the top of the mountain

It's hard to imagine a whiteout if you've never experienced it. Basically as we were hiking, it became literally impossible to differentiate the ground from the air, from up or down, left or right. Everything was just glowing white. You would put your foot out in front of you, and might encounter nothing, or plow right into a snowbank. It was probably one of the most disorienting experiences of my life; yet on the verge of panic the brightness makes the blindness seem somehow less confining.

My coworker trying to see the top of the mountain

Two things made the whiteout bearable: 1) we were on a mountain; even if you couldn't see where you were going, you could more or less feel the incline of the ground and make out some rocks every now and again, and 2) the weather improved as we made it to the top. By the time we reached the peak, although it was still blowing at about 30mph, we could see the pass below us and the mountains across from us.

Muskox huddling in the snow

Once we made it to the bottom, we spotted the local herd of muskox lounging on one of the hills. I hadn't seen them since the summer, so it was nice to know they're still around. 

Made it almost to the top, where the bare rocks begin

On New Years weekend, we braved the roads a little further and hiked up a higher mountain about 15 miles out of town. Still super windy, but much better conditions for hiking the steep peak (much steeper than it looks in the picture).

Taking a break at the top

And then came New Years. It didn't seem like as special a day as I feel like it normally would. It came with some sense of relief, some sense of stress, some sense of numbness, but mostly felt rather anticlimactic and not necessarily in a bad way. I shelled out $12 and went to go see The Hobbit in Nome's one and only little movie theatre (which you pay for and get in through a Subway restaurant), managed to stay awake until midnight, and walked downtown to watch the fireworks on the snowy beach amidst a slew of happily drunken Nomeites.

The fireworks

Boom.

Happy New Year!

January 1, 2013 dawned cold, gray, and windy, but my housemate and I drove out of town a little ways to snowshoe on the tundra for a while as the sun peeked through the clouds.

January 1, 2013

What does this year hold in store? Will it be just as much of a roller coaster as 2012? I can only hope so. Even with all the bad stuff and good stuff that happened, with some friends lost and new friends made, with weaknesses faced and inner strength found, I hope 2013 can be just as good, if not the beginning of new and even more wonderful things.

December photos

So much for coming up with some deep, thought-provoking, reflective Christmas post like I'd planned to do last week. But I have no complaints -- I've been having too much fun and staying too busy to philosophize lately. And besides, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll let the photos do most of the talking. :)

View of the low mid-day sun

Snow is infinitely beautiful!

Most of my activity lately has involved snowshoeing to the tops of various little mountains and hills, and then sledding/sliding down. We still don't have as much snow as normal for this time of year, but it's all still so new to me that I don't really care.

The sky is almost always pink this time of year

Not to mention, with only 4 hours of daylight, the world is full of the most beautiful colors I have ever seen in nature! No more greens and yellows and browns, but whites, pinks, purples, deep reds, pale blues, and soft oranges. It seriously feels like I'm living on a different planet sometimes.

Nice waxing gibbous

Pink sky over Nome faraway

Almost full moon, rising over a weird rock

Balancing on the rock!

Some friends sledding

Sledding is my favorite thing right now. I'll try to post more pictures of it soon, but it is such a thrill! On Christmas Eve, three of us hiked up a little mountain and sledded down about 5 times in a row. It was so exhausting, but ridiculously fun.

This is what happens when you hike for an hour in -7 degrees

More pictures and updates to come, hopefully before New Years.

Winter Solstice

It's incredible how much more the "winter solstice" means when you only have 3 hours and 56 minutes of daylight. I don't really mind the darkness too much, but yesterday I was filled with an overwhelming feeling of hope and relief, knowing that this was as short as the days would get, and hereafter I would have only longer days to look forward to (even if it will only be 4 hours and 10 minutes of sunlight by New Years!). 

As a fun way to celebrate the shortest day of the year, members of the Alaska region National Parks all agreed to go outside at noon in their respective National Park units and snap a picture of the sun, and post them online. 

Pre-sunrise pastel colors

So just before 12pm, I crossed the street from the office and stood out on the sea wall to watch the first sunrise of winter, camera at hand. It was about 14 degrees out (balmy compared to earlier this week!) but a hard 20mph wind made it feel about -4. Besides the howling of the wind, it was all but silent with the sea frozen solid.

The sun at "high" noon

The sun didn't officially rise until about 12:04, but right at noon I snapped a picture of its position just peeking over the horizon. From here, it would climb a few degrees up into the sky before dipping back down again a little further west at 3:57pm.

Above is the picture I posted on our park Facebook page, and as other Alaska national parks began sharing each others' photos, it ended up going surprisingly viral -- like, almost 290% viral! To put that into perspective, most of our posts only go about 10% viral, or up to 50% if we're lucky. Basically this is a measure of how many times people "share" and "like" the picture on Facebook. It was pretty satisfying and exciting to be able to share this moment with so many people, and great to see all the Alaska national parks cross-promoting so well, despite the vast distances and differences between our parks in the state.

Sunrise and the coastline

Snow blowing across the beach in little wisps

The classic "Welcome to Nome" sign

As of today, I can say I've been in Alaska exactly 6 months and 2 days; I've nearly seen all 4 seasons here (I arrived on the last day of spring!) and I've seen the longest and the shortest days of the year to the extreme. What a life so far!

Attempt at holiday decorating

It's finally starting to feel like Christmas. My housemate and I bought some lights and garland, and set up our little house cactuses as a "Christmas tree" under which to put our presents from home. It won't be the same, being away from home for the holiday, but I guess there's a first time for everything, right?

And really, just like living in the dark for 20 hours a day, or standing outside in -25 degrees, or being isolated in a dysfunctional bush town for 9 months, it's doable if you keep it in perspective (or have good friends and family to put things back into perspective when you lose it). :)

More winter photos and snowshoeing

This week I've gotten out to explore a couple times since we still don't have enough snow to close off all the roads, so I thought I'd post some pictures.

Yep. That's a negative-20.

Heading west out of town

These signs are on all the roads out of town

Fox (?) tracks found while snowshoeing

On a -17 degree day, frozen rivers were steaming!

Sunset over the outskirts of town

Less-frozen parts of the sea ice were steaming

On Friday I got to go with one of the rangers to the elementary school to help out with a program. Originally the plan was to take the kids snowshoeing since most children here have never done it before (go figure!), if it was warm enough. In Nome, "warm enough" is defined as -20 degrees or above. Ha! Well, Friday turned out to be one of the coldest days of the week so we brought the snowshoes just in case but assumed we would be staying inside. I didn't even bother to put on my snow gear.

However, when we arrived, the temperature had risen to about -17, deemed safe to go outdoors. The kids all had their snow gear and were stoked to get outside, so after a briefing on snowshoe etiquette, we got them prepped and braved the cold, ourselves, to take them out to a nearby field.

5th Graders trying out their snowshoes for the first time

Two lessons learned: 1) It takes about a half hour to get sixteen 10-year-olds in snowshoes, and 2) always be prepared!  I ended up standing out in the tundra in -17 degrees just wearing my hiking shoes, jeans, and a coat for about 45 minutes. Both my legs were completely numb on the walk back and it took me the entire rest of the day and night to finally feel warm again.

A really great group of kids!

The kids absolutely loved it though, and they were a great group. It was very interesting to see what it's like to be a kid out here; there was a very broad spectrum of abilities, experience, and personalities in the class, but they were all quite smart and had a lot of local knowledge. Hopefully we'll be able to take them  out again in the spring when it warms up above 0 again! :)

Ice Adventures

Yesterday a group of us decided to brave the sub-zero temperatures and enjoy our still snow-free weather and drive out to Dorothy Falls, a fun hiking location we'd been to over the summer. The falls are about 25 miles from Nome and a 2 mile hike from the road. We headed out at sunrise around noon, to make the most of the daylight. 

Before starting our hike though, we stopped at Salmon Lake to see how it was doing in the cold. We found it almost completely frozen over, the ice at least a foot and a half thick. I've never seen anything like it before. Some of the ice was totally clear, with bubbles frozen in place!

Frozen bubbles under the ice!

You could see all the way down to the bottom with air bubbles and leaves frozen in place. It was totally surreal.

Everyone fascinated by the ice

So now I can say I've walked on a lake. It was quite slippery, and although fun to slide around on, it was still a little nerve-wracking, since you could hear even the thickest parts of the ice popping and cracking under your feet.

The frozen lake

Made for some beautiful photo ops

More cool cracks and ice

We got to the Dorothy Falls trail head (or lack thereof) around 2pm and bundled up in tons of layers and face masks. It was about -5 degrees plus about a 30mph wind so I estimated it to be close to -20 degrees with windchill. In other words, the coldest I've ever been! Fortunately my clothes were plenty warm once we got moving: I was wearing 2 pairs of socks, snow boots, thermal long johns, snow pants, a wool base layer shirt, fleece vest, North Face parka, balaclava face mask, knit scarf, winter hat, and gloves.

The river was frozen over so the group decided to hike the whole way on the ice. It was kind of fun at first but when I started realizing how many different kinds of ice (and levels of slippery-ness, meltedness, overflow, etc) that there were, I became pretty uncomfortable with it.

I had no idea what "overflow" was until I slipped in it for the first time and found myself sitting in cold, slushy ice that immediately froze my glove to my hand. OW! Overflow is kind of when liquid water comes over the solid ice and turns into cold slush, extremely slippery and kind of rubbery to step on. Well, I ripped my frozen glove off my hand and fortunately had an extra pair in my backpack -- in the few minutes it took me to change my gloves with numb hands, the wet pair had frozen solid. (note to self: invest in better gloves!).

After that, two of us decided to hike the rest of the way up the ridge, off the ice while the other 4 continued up the river. In the end, we all made it to the falls around the same time so it worked out well.

Friend's pic of the frozen waterfall

It was pretty amazing -- although frozen solid, you could still hear water flowing and bubbling somewhere around it (also randomly found a Geocache next to it!).

On the way back, we all decided to stay together on the ice since it was getting dark. Eventually I got used to the slipping and sliding, and although it was very slow going 2 miles like that, it became pretty fun. We even had some roll-up sleds that we used to slide down the frozen flow slopes!

Penguin-waddling down the river with my roll-up sled

We made it back just as the sun was setting around 4pm. I think all but one person had wiped out multiple times during the trip and we were all covered in ice and snow; the bottom hem of my pants was frozen with ice about a half inch thick.

Overall it was a great adventure and more new experiences all around.

S'no place like Nome for the Holidays...

Despite the mild melancholy of not being home for the holidays, so far December has been bit more exciting than November, which I will get to momentarily. 

To begin, there is still almost no snow; today the newspaper reported an all-time record low snowfall last month, as we received only 0.2 inches instead of the average 12.1 inches! Climate change in action, I tell you! In addition, the air temps averaged about 14 degrees F last month, as opposed to the usual 16 degrees.

And this month so far? We've been in the negatives almost every day this week (one day got down to about -12 with windchill).

Sea Ice is here to stay

Last weekend my coworker/housemate and I bundled up for a walk down to the beach, which now overlooks a layer of chunky ice over the sea. Some people are beginning to walk out on it, but I'm going to wait until it's a few feet thick before I take my chances.

Sunlit sea ice

I'm still amazed by the aesthetics of the ice. It's such a new experience every time I go out, and this time it was beautifully lit by the low afternoon sun, sometimes reflecting a cool blue, other times warm golds and yellows.

Thin sheet of ice?

This piece was strange -- somehow a paper-thin sheet of ice managed to hold fast to its base. It was absolutely beautiful, but I'm still confused as to why it existed and didn't somehow break off in the process of its formation.

Sunlit ice: the "real" gold of Nome :)

Snow on Newton Peak

This week I got to try out something completely new: snowshoeing! The rangers are looking at leading snowshoe hikes for local school groups, so we've been practicing to learn how to do it ourselves and scout out good places to go out (seeing as how we've had almost no snow). So, braving the icy roads, I drove us up to Newton Peak, our local hiking spot from the summer, which actually had a good few inches of snow packed down with hoarfrost.

Hoarfrost up close

(From what I understand, hoarfrost is kind of a harder layer of frost that comes in various forms, and is super sparkly.)

Wearing my (borrowed) NPS parka and snowshoes

Well, we hiked partway up and then decided to put on the snowshoes where it started getting deeper. It was a little strange to get used to at first, but surprisingly easier than I anticipated. It felt kind of like wearing gigantic flip-flops and you have to step a little wider, but it significantly increased my balance and reduced the amount of time I spent sinking into the snow. Super fun!

Frozen hair!

I should also note that it was -7 degrees. After pausing to take pictures, my coworker started laughing at me: "your hair is frozen!" Sure enough, a lock of my hair that had escaped my hood had apparently accumulated enough moisture from my breath to freeze solid with icy crystals. 

The Kigs mountain range

Cool photo taken by my coworker!

We spent around an hour and a half snowshoeing and made it about 3/4 of the way up the peak before we had to turn around to make it back before sunset a little after 4pm.  All I can say is, I'm addicted to snowshoeing now! I could seriously do that every day and be perfectly happy. Fortunately we're going out again tomorrow, so I can't wait.