Yay we're back! We didn't spend the entire time shouting for help from the mountain tops (one of my favorite ways to work here... to get out of the wind of course).


But it was pretty much all around fun. The weather was such a mixed bag. Been a while since I've spent quality time on the coast so the weather systems were moving through pretty quick, at least one a day until it settled on snow for Monday and Tuesday.


The trip itself was totally typical Nome. Our good friends at the Aurora started the trip by giving us an SUV instead of a truck and didn't have a reservation for Jessie in their computer... must have been the travel agents they said... except this happens like every trip. The first day continued down hill with three different versions of "Kiling me Softly" in the space of two hours. The original plus a countrified version and the soft jazz arrangement. Reminded me a bit of that dude on the oil fields rocking out to Celine Dion.

Once we got out into the field it was pretty fun (I can say since I was driving the four wheeler rather than being numbed on the back seat, an actionpacker lid) until this mid winter bear attack site.


Despite the carnage (precip bucket, precip alter shield, two broken air temperature sensors, the wind anemometer, and one sensor cable) only the wind speed was permanently broken.
I could never convince Jessie to drive the four-wheeler for all that long but she totally stuck it out on back seat duty. The tussocks are the crazy worst. Super bumps you know of like a foot or more drops out of the blue into the nether regions below the tussocks plus patterned ground and stuff and I think 5 miles an hour was bone jarring. For comparison, at the end of the trip going as quickly as I could across the tundra I only hit 2.2 mph hiking with a plane to catch back in Nome.

Pretty much one big roller coaster. When it wasn't bitter cold and snowing (in June!)

..it was pretty fun! After one night at the Quartz Creek cabin 65 miles north of Nome these crazy park service people showed up. Awfully mellow, that bunch (in the chemically enhance sennse of the word)... They really brought their B game with them though, this guy thought we were somebody else from his party so he got crazy chatty until it turned out we weren't the four 'highly motivated' ladies he was expecting for the bear count. We'd run back to town pretty much because I spaced out what day it was and thought I had a goldstreak in. Ended up doing a bit of... shopping... in town so the work day started at 4pm rather than 7am. So as we're all frantically packing to head out for the day and loading up the canoe and stuff he keeps wanting to know if we're leaving for good (but he's joking of course. Real crackup.). Pretty sweet day that was. Once we got going it was time for round two with the crazy canoe. Who knows maybe lake canoes are the only kind you can get in Nome but the only canoe we own is this red coleman with a monster keel rivaling the red baron. Last fall Anna and I nearly rolled it coming back across the Kougarok river at flood stage in the dark and it was the same deal with Jessie and I with the water about the same depth. This time we inched out into the current from the eddy and of course the current catches the keel broad side and commence the roll.. now. The low brace remains one of my favorite moves when canoeing. So of course I was like 'Not to worry Jessie, this river's just like that'.

It's not really a big river or anything but in this big bend here it's eddy central. The river width here is like two thirds eddy and one third rushing current so throw in a 3" keel and it's like firing up the roll-o-matic.

So, with that under our belts we headed out helicoptering on Saturday. Our poor repeaters got hammered pretty hard by the ice this winter and they all had broken anemometers and antennas. Here's the freezing cold Kigluaiks again.


Remember last year the pipe broken from the wind. And of course what trip isn't complete without a clinging to the station picture:


So pretty much sometimes the times were good and everything was flowing and the animals were out:


And other times it was like a cool picture waiting to happen but we were just at the wrong angle:


The final highlight was after Jessie left Sunday. I'd been waiting all weekend for some water level pressure transducers from an evil company in Seattle. They were supposed to be goldstreaked from Fairbanks but their ship date started slipping as soon as I paid for them and so when they didn't arrive Monday it was emergency time. Monday night I pulled an old one from the Snake site in Nome and drove back to Kougarok. Got in late to Kougarok and so decided to head out first thing in the morning. So, the day started at five-ish. The station stuff went fine, if I'd been clever and alert I would have only brought one wader to save on weight since the creek was narrow but I'm totally filing this move away for future reference (the yellow tape on one boot helps me with my lefts and rights):


That right there is what we in the biz call a time savings. After finishing, the grueling march back to the truck was boring up until about 20 yards from the truck. At this point I didn't care that the snow was really sticking and stuff but I was pretty glad I didn't see this treat in the brush until the end of the trip:


It may not be that impressive but it's the biggest bear dumpling I've seen in a while 12+ inches so who knows how big in centimeters. It wasn't steaming (phew!) but the snow isn't melting on it either. So, that included, pretty fun trip.

If you're dying for more Jessie's got some more cool pictures of the trip plus a few that I borrowed.