Head over to my new website

I'm now at www.trailmixedmedia.com

Over the last few weeks I've been working on creating a public version of this blog, and it's finally ready to go live! I'll probably still keep this one around, but for now most of my new posts will be on the new site at www.trailmixedmedia.com. Let me know what you think of it! (Also DEFINITELY let me know if you have problems viewing it on your screen or browser -- I have tested it in a couple browsers, but I want to make sure it looks okay on different screen resolutions as well!)

It'll be pretty much the same, except for the layout overhaul, and with a heavier emphasis on cross-utilizing other social media outlets. As I am working towards a career in environmental media, this is a big step in not only betting marketing myself and my skills, but also a good practicing ground for learning the best ways to use different media for various purposes. 

On the new site, you can expect to see some outdoor gear reviews over the summer, maybe some video blogging, and most certainly regular posts about my new season in Alaska! Hope you like it, and thanks for all your support!

Discover Denali

By now, most of my close friends and family know that I'm heading back to Alaska this summer, and certainly you do, if you're reading this blog. But I have been surprised to find out how many people have either never heard of Denali, or don't know what it is. Now, I fully realize that my idolization of the park is completely due to my NPS geekery, and I didn't know that much about Denali before I joined the park service either, but that being said, I feel it is now my duty to enlighten you to its splendor and to the reason why it is undeniably awesome.

Map modified from NPS AK Region map

First, you should know where it is. See map above. It's kind of in the middle of the state, but the entrance is on the north side, closer to Fairbanks. Most of its 6 million acres are designated or eligible wilderness, meaning that the land is mostly untouched and undeveloped, is accessible only on foot or by non-motorized vehicles, and with back country permits. That is to say, it's pretty wild.

Trekking Alaska's Trekking back to Alaska!

For the last 6 months, I've been fending off the trepidation that this past summer might have been my last in Alaska for a while. Thank goodness for good fortune, good friends, good family, and good thoughts: I will in fact be returning to the Last Frontier this summer for another season with the National Park Service!

And this time, it's a big one. Ever heard of Denali National Park and Preserve? You know, that 6 million acre park in the heart of Alaska, home to Mt. McKinley (North America's tallest peak), epic scenery, cool archaeological sites, and a ton of wicked awesome wildlife? Yeah, that's the one. :)

I know it's going to be an entirely different challenge than anything I've ever faced before, but I've never been so sure of anything I wanted to do in my life. I will be leading programs for bigger groups than I've ever led, living in a different part of Alaska that I've never seen, and on a team of a much bigger staff than I've ever worked with. Not to mention, one of my favorite coworkers from Sitka also got hired there, so I'm additionally happy that I will already know someone there.

Every season with the park service I've learned so much, and I am sure this will be no exception. I just hope I can use what I've learned to make this experience the best it can be.

So, sit tight, and keep a look out for the first photos from interior Alaska in about 7 weeks. Until then, I might put up a few posts about Denali just to make you as excited as I am about this.

The Power of Kindness and a Very Small Instrument

In Nome, I learned to swing dance. In Sitka, I learned to play the ukulele. I guess I like to take up completely irrelevant skills whenever I go to a new place. I think it's becoming my new thing. In both cases though, these opportunities were afforded to me by incredibly generous people in incredibly serendipitous situations, so I wanted to take some time to pay my respects to my ukulele guru from this summer.

Her name is Jeannie and she's a little fireball of energy. With her signature buzz-cut hair, baggy overalls she wears all the time and contagious smile, she's hard to miss. And indeed, she has made a lasting impression on me and the entire town of Sitka.

Summer 2014 Film Montage

I've had terrible writer's block lately. I mean seriously, I've started and stopped about half a dozen posts since my last one, and just can't seem to find the words to say what I want to say. So instead, I ventured into my other creative outlet, and finished editing together my film montage of footage from this summer. I hope you like it.

Huge shout-out to Charlie Jones for letting me use her music in the background!

Independence Day in Alaska

Fourth of July is a big day in Nome. As a federal holiday, our office was closed so we all got the day off and spent it enjoying the town festivities. Just like the Midnight Sun Festival a few weeks ago, yesterday featured a parade downtown -- only this one was quite a bit longer and even more patriotic, and the whole town gathered afterwards for street games. 

'Merica all the way

"Staying Afloat" float

I don't know what this is.

A convoy of practically every four-wheeler in town

I don't know what this is either, but I want it. 

One of the most interesting things to me was seeing the Discovery Channel there, filming Bering Sea Gold! The guy in the picture above is one of the gold miners featured on the show, and during the Nome 4th of July program he got up and donated $20,000 from Discovery Channel to a town project. Huge media stunt, but I guess it was good in that it's doing a little something to benefit the town.

The film crew was everywhere

So I guess in a few months when the next season airs, look for me in the background in the 4th of July episode! I'll probably be in there looking cold and ridiculous somewhere. :)

The iconic Iditarod sign

Bicycle race

After the parade and the short program with presentations by local scouting groups, the National and Alaskan anthems, and the Discovery donation, the street games kicked off with bicycle races for all ages, followed by foot races, 3-legged races, and the other classic small-town festivities.

I didn't stay for all of it, but instead joined my housemates and a couple of our acquaintances from town to go salmon fishing at the mouth of the Nome River. Since I still don't have a fishing license, I just watched, and walked the beach, enjoying the afternoon sun that had finally burned off the lingering cloud cover. It was the warmest it's been since I've been here, but unfortunately the temps dropped back down again today with a dark drizzly sky. Our group caught 3 pink salmon total, and brought them back to eat later.

Overall it was a great day, and a fun mid-week break -- and probably one of the most interesting Independence Days I'll ever have!

Exploring Nugget Pass, and the Flyover that Wasn't

Let me begin by saying I have a lot of respect for the government. We give it a lot of flack, but now, technically as a government employee, I do have a lot of appreciation for how our country runs. 

With that said, it's amazing that it runs at all sometimes. Pretty much the only thing holding me back from really getting into my job at this point is paperwork and authorizations. Because of that, I haven't been able to do much this week so today I was sent out with one of the interpretive rangers to scout out a trail for the weekend ranger hike, and to take some more photos. I definitely can't complain -- I'd rather be out on the trail than behind a desk any day!

American Golden Plovers flying

Our destination was called Nugget Pass, a series of mountains and ridges about 45 minutes north of Nome on another long dirt road.  It was a dark, cloudy day, but the mosquitoes weren't too bad in the morning, so we parked along the roadside and began picking our way across the tundra to the base of one of the mountains.

American Golden Plover

Along the way we saw tons of birds. American golden plovers, golden-crowned sparrows, white-crowned sparrows, hoary redpolls, and several northern wheatears.

Male northern wheatear

The hike was pretty easy up to the base of the mountain, but the ascent was a bit harder. Not only were the mosquitoes worse up higher, but the steep grade, combined with slippery shards of rock made for some moderately challenging terrain.

View of Salmon Lake

Fortunately, when we reached the first peak, the view was more than worth it. Overlooking part of Salmon Lake, some of the mountains were still capped with dark clouds, and sunlight filtered in to glint off the late-spring snow and meandering rivers below.

Rivers, with road in upper right corner

We hiked up two more peaks before turning to head back, since we had an afternoon plane to catch for our flyover tour of the preserve.

Grizzly bear scat!

One our way back, we found some eerie evidence of the grizzly bear activity in the area, including scat and mounds of dirt pulled up around lemming holes in the tundra. We also found some old wolf scat as well. It was a good reminder of where we really are.

Dwarf fireweed carpets the tundra

Anyone know what this is? I have a guess...

Golden-crowned sparrow

We made it back to town just in time for a quick lunch and then the 8 members of our staff carpooled to the airport for our long awaited flyover tour. As it turned out, we were flying Era Alaska -- yes, the airline featured in Discovery Channel's Flying Wild Alaska series.

We waited in their tiny terminal for what seemed like an eternity. The check-in process was about as easy as it gets -- all I had to do was give my name and weight (including my backpack) -- but there was some kind of government paperwork issue with our booking that ended up taking a while.

Eventually we got the okay, and headed out onto the tarmac with the pilot; our ride was a little 9 passenger prop jet, but apparently something wasn't right. As it turned out, they had given us the wrong plane! We were supposed to have a plane with a high or a parasol wing so we could take aerial photography of the preserve, but ours had a low wing, pretty much blocking our view of anything down below. I would have been okay with it, but since taking pictures is kind of part of our job, our supervisor made the executive decision to reschedule the flight.

Our plane (photo by Ranger Katie)

I'm not gonna lie: I was a little bummed out we couldn't go, but I'm glad our supervisor made that choice since we will only be able to do this once.

So, we're rescheduling for next week or the week after, hopefully in a plane with the correct wing configuration. At the very least, I got a good hike in today, and got to sit in a very small airplane for about 5 minutes. Tomorrow is a holiday, 4th of July, with another ridiculous parade and street games in Downtown Nome. Pictures are sure to follow.

Lichen hikin'

This weekend the bunkhouse has gotten pretty crowded with the temporary addition of a group of lichen researchers stopping here on their way to the preserve. Last night, one of them agreed to take a couple of us out into the mountains to teach us about our local lichen varieties.

I guess it shouldn't have been a surprise, but I was nonetheless impressed by the diversity of lichens growing on the tundra. Although I'll never remember all the names, there were nearly a dozen different types we encountered within just a couple hours of exploring the slopes. Two or three reindeer lichens, dog hide lichens, several different crustose lichens, many foliose and fruticose varieties carpeted the landscape. 

The mountains

Before heading back, we stopped at Anvil Rock, a prominent overlook outside of Nome.  It had spectacular views of town, the mountains beyond, and sea.

Nome on the coast, mining operations in the foreground

This orange crustose lichen is one of my favorites -- it only grows in nitrogen-rich environments, particularly where bird feces are common. It sounds kind of gross, but it's actually a good way to find bird nests and roosts in the mountains because the orange stands out so well and there is likely to be a lot of bird activity in the vicinity.

View under Anvil Rock

Anvil Rock (approx. 9pm)

Monk's Hood wildflower

The Cold War missile detectors

Getting windblown on top of Anvil Rock

Wind turbines on the tundra

Abandoned gold dredge

Flower whose name I can't remember

Common Butterwort

The Common Butterwort was another favorite of mine -- it's carnivorous! This unassuming looking flower has sticky leaves at the bottom and traps small gnats and insects for nutrients.

Musk ox butts

On our way back down the mountain, we came upon a trio of muskoxen. They were utterly uninterested, but adorable nonetheless.

Muskox doesn't give a hoot

Just pics

Not much to report on, so here are some pictures I've taken in the last couple days:

Old gold dredger 

Red-necked phalarope swimming in Horse Tail reeds

Second day of salmon season -- busy beach!

Big sky

Grayscale

Sea glass in the rough

Days are getting shorter! It almost looks like sunset!

The daily grind

The breaking news yesterday was that there was a polar bear about 10 miles east, on the beach of Cape Nome. Although it was too far for us to go out and see, everyone was pretty excited about it; the report said it was spotted trotting along the beach and then got scared off and started swimming away, and has not been seen since.

The rest of yesterday wasn't quite that exciting, but interesting nonetheless. I was assigned a sort of practice job to re-write some technical project descriptions into short summaries to post on the website, and then spent most of the afternoon watching training videos of lectures about the archaeology and natural history of BELA.

After work, although I was pretty tired of lectures I was up for one more after dinner -- a team of scientists  from the Korean Polar Research Institute was speaking at the University of Alaska campus in Nome, so I accompanied some of my coworkers to go hear their talk. It was pretty interesting stuff; they apparently have research stations all over the arctic and two in the antarctic, and here just outside of Council they are studying permafrost in the tundra.

The talk was basically about how the arctic is warming faster than the rest of the globe and the ground here contains more CO2 than the atmosphere -- and that CO2 is being released into the air as the permafrost melts. Scary stuff. We also found out that the Korean research vessel will be coming to port in Nome next month and we may have an opportunity to go tour it!

Today has been about the same -- finished up the writing assignment this morning, and I got briefed on my schedule for next month. Let me tell you: it's going to be one hell of a month. I'm scheduled for B3 aviation training on the 11th, followed by a trip to Shishmaref (a small Inupiat village about 120 miles north of Nome), then a few day trip with an NPS media specialist (I think?) to the village of Wales to interview the reindeer herder and see that part of the preserve, and then couple days after, a week in Serpentine.

Needless to say, I am stoked to be spending almost an entire month getting dropped off in obscure places in the backcountry. Along with the excitement however, comes the harsh reality that, A) I need to learn a lot about the camera ASAP, and B) I only have one chance to get the shots, since I'll only get to visit these places once and for a very limited amount of time. (It's funny -- the camera issue is making me more nervous than the living-in-the-tundra-with-bears issue!).  I feel so inadequate. I know I'll be able to do it, but it's going to be so much harder than if I actually had previous DSLR experience.

At any rate, it's going to be the adventure of a lifetime. I still can't believe that I'm not only getting to see some of the most remote and unique places in the world, but I'm getting paid to do it! A month ago I never would have even imagined I'd be doing this right now. So I've gotta say, the daily grind isn't so bad here.

Road to Council

When I first heard we were taking a staff trip to "Council," I wasn't sure what that meant. Like, tribal council? No, as it turns out, Council is a small fishing village about 73 miles east northeast of Nome, and our 7-person staff was taking a day trip out there for photos and for us to become better acquainted with the area. 

So, late Tuesday morning, we all piled into the big government-issued Suburban SUV and began a long day of bouncing down 146 miles roundtrip of dirt road. That's a lot of dirt road.

Possible Pacific loons in the back

Red-throated loon

Our first stop was at a bridge perhaps 10-20 miles outside of Nome where we did some birdwatching. There were a bunch of glaucous gulls, red-throated loons, and what looked to be Pacific loons, although I'm still not entirely sure. Also some some Eiders (Spectacled, I think?) and the usual little red-necked phalaropes in the water.

It was here that I had my first go at the NPS camera, a good Nikon DSLR. It took me a while to remember what little I know about manual photography, but after a while it became a little easier. I still have a lot to learn as far as what settings to use in which situations, but hopefully I didn't look like as much of a newbie as I felt.

Train to Nowhere

We continued down the road watching the landscape become somewhat greener, more mountainous, and hilly, all 7 pairs of eyes trained on the tundra looking for grizzlies, moose, foxes, or any other cool wildlife we were likely to see. We didn't see anything though, besides the occasional ground squirrel, so at noon we stopped at this site called "Train to Nowhere," aptly named for the rusted train ruins left deteriorating along the side of the road.

Semipalmated Sandpiper

After lunch we continued along our way. The conversations in the car were quite hilarious. I learned two new terms: "i-newbie-aq," a play on the "Inupiaq" to mean someone who is new to local native culture, and my favorite, "termination dust," which is not the nuclear fallout it sounds like, but the first snowfall that terminates the mining season.

Golden eagle chicks

As we got closer to Council, we began driving through mountains and along cliffs. At one point, we stopped on the roadside to photograph a golden eagle nest with two chicks!  

My favorite wildlife spotting of the trip though, was the red fox one of the interns saw coming out of its den on the side of the road. We came to a screeching halt in the car and backed up slowly so as not to scare it off, but soon realized it wasn't in the least bit concerned.

In fact, it trotted around a bit, and eventually went back in one of its holes (it had about 3 in the hillside!), but we found it in the exact same place on our trip back. Beautiful animal, and I was super happy with the photos I got of it.

Council

Eventually we made it to Council. As it turns out though, there is a river between the road and the town so we didn't actually get to go into the town, just look at it from afar. But hey, there were TREES! Real, live trees. Conifers and deciduous species growing side by side along the river giving the landscape a deep green hue and filling the air with the tangy organic scent of leaves and bark. You don't really notice the smell of trees until you haven't been around them for a while.

Dilapidated house

The old buildings were pretty cool too. Many were abandoned, but the village is still used for the fishing season and the occasional traveler passing through.

And so we headed back, another 73 miles of dirt road. Still no grizzlies, but it was neat passing through old ghost towns, mining areas, fishing villages, and driving along the Iditarod trail. I definitely have a new respect for the Iditarod racers now; driving along a road was pretty easy, but I can't imagine doing that by sled in the middle of winter!

Arctic tern fishing

Finally we made it back to Nome at around 5pm, back to the flat, treeless tundra and the cold Bering Sea. I was pretty sleepy after the long car ride, but after dinner I joined a couple of my coworkers for a bike ride back down to the salmon fishing area I had been to the day before.

It was way more crowded this time -- seems word got out about the salmon down there, and unfortunately we didn't catch anything. Nonetheless, I enjoyed a chilly walk along the beach, collecting sea glass, and enjoying the sun, now that it had finally come out.

That was all yesterday. Today was much more mundane. Spent the day at the office, worked on my pictures, started some planning for the new visitor's guide, and then distributed posters of the ranger program schedule throughout town. The rest of the week should be pretty laid back and we're hopefully getting our preserve flyover tour in Monday. Fingers crossed!