Monday, May 12, 2008
Snow surveys 2008
Had an awesome time in 2006 doing the April end of winter Snow surveys and so this year I got a chance to come back up and participate again. Just like last time there was some amazing sites to see. To kick it off, here's a picture of me before heading out snowmachining the first time in my giant Sorel boots. Kind of reminds me of this picture of Kanye and Daft Punk from back in the winter.
I think the oddest thing I did this trip was surveying off a cliff. Here's a view from the top:
Once again there were lots of caribou around. We were surrounded on one day. Here they are near the newly christened butt mountain.
A kind of cool rack out near Slope Mountain:
And some other ones in the neighborhood of the Imnavait basin:
Not all the time was spent snowmachining. Here's a look at the lack of snow in a katabatic valley in ANWR.
But, not much time was spent in the helicopter. Here's how degraded conditions were shortly after we dropped the helicopter near an Alyeska gate due to weather and then ended up parking it there overnight since conditions didn't improve.
Ken and I had a pretty good run in with a couple bears, too. Just after we got to one of our sites these guys popped over the edge of the hill. The interaction was totally textbook though. The wind was blowing the wrong way and when they saw us they couldn't figure out what we might be so they kept standing up on two legs and coming closer. I pulled out a large actionpacker lid and waved it over my head and eventually they figured out we were pretty big and not to be messed with. So, since we were in their way they did a semi-circle around us. Pretty cool.
When they came to our snowmachine tracks they totally booked it on out of there:
So that was totally rad. Kind of a good way to start off the last part of the trip. I think that's it for now. Maybe now that I'm caught up it'll be easier to stay that way. Daily updates on the house etc. of course. Also, getting a helicopter weather day when you're all caught up rules.
I think the oddest thing I did this trip was surveying off a cliff. Here's a view from the top:
Once again there were lots of caribou around. We were surrounded on one day. Here they are near the newly christened butt mountain.
A kind of cool rack out near Slope Mountain:
And some other ones in the neighborhood of the Imnavait basin:
Not all the time was spent snowmachining. Here's a look at the lack of snow in a katabatic valley in ANWR.
But, not much time was spent in the helicopter. Here's how degraded conditions were shortly after we dropped the helicopter near an Alyeska gate due to weather and then ended up parking it there overnight since conditions didn't improve.
Ken and I had a pretty good run in with a couple bears, too. Just after we got to one of our sites these guys popped over the edge of the hill. The interaction was totally textbook though. The wind was blowing the wrong way and when they saw us they couldn't figure out what we might be so they kept standing up on two legs and coming closer. I pulled out a large actionpacker lid and waved it over my head and eventually they figured out we were pretty big and not to be messed with. So, since we were in their way they did a semi-circle around us. Pretty cool.
When they came to our snowmachine tracks they totally booked it on out of there:
So that was totally rad. Kind of a good way to start off the last part of the trip. I think that's it for now. Maybe now that I'm caught up it'll be easier to stay that way. Daily updates on the house etc. of course. Also, getting a helicopter weather day when you're all caught up rules.
