Eagle and Symphony Lakes

Steve writes:
The motley crew of our friend Steph, Ranger and Georgie (Ben's dogs), Eve, and I hiked about 12 miles to and from Eagle and Symphony Lakes.



















Ranger (left) is clearly camera shy, enraptured with Symphony. Georgie (right) has smelly breath.



Georgie, imitating Simba stands nobly on Tank Rock. Another sleeping picture of me. Great.

The water on this hike is significant. Eagle Lake (right) is glacier-fed, while Symphony (left) comes from snow melt. What makes this so monumental is the color of the water, only steps away from each other, is completely different.

Following the river from Eagle Lake, the water took an unusual turn this year. Normally, the slit settles to the bottom of the riverbed, but this year's odd weather changed the water to a milky turquoise.


















Finally before our weary, smelly conclusion, blueberries.

oh, and...

minutes feel like hours, years pass in the blink of an eye...

We've filled our time here with visits and travel and, true to the cliches, summer seems to have flown by in an instant. By the time we leave, we will have been here for virtually all of Southcentral Alaska's extremely short growing season. I described how quickly things grow in an earlier post, and the changing foliage has continued to provide us with a very concrete ruler with which to measure time's passage.

When we studied to lead our first hikes, we were primarily pointing out the early bloomers - chiming bells (pictured at right), wild geranium and prickly rose. They're each softly colored - pale blue, purple and pink, respectively - so the thickets were a pastel Monet. As those three began to fade, the showy neon pink fireweed began to dominate roadsides and pathsides and... everywhere else. Where fireweed isn't, cow parsnip is, but its clusters of white flowers have already begun to disappear have been gradually replaced by deep purple monkshood and larkspur, and by a range of intensely red berries. A few paler flowers - tall jacob's ladder and (my favorite) harebells - have also bloomed in the past month, but they're far less common than the deeper-hued late bloomers. Dark reds and purples, I've learned, are Alaska's version of the yellow and orange I grew up with: the first signs of Autumn.

The salmon haven't made it to our stream yet (they're late this year), but they're running in most of the near-by bodies of water. Which means that fishing season has begun. We've been told to watch for the lunch-hour fishers in downtown Anchorage, and I'm certain that most people here would rather talk about fishing than about Sarah Palin (thank goodness). Two staff members have brought just-caught-and-smoked fish to work to share, and our trail crew coordinator gave me 3 one-pound fillets that he caught on a trip this pask weekend. I've been thrilled to witness such on-going reliance on, and respect for, the land.

Steve's parents and my parents each came to visit for a week, and both trips were just brilliant -
thanks, Moms and Dads!

Earthquakes of Weeks Past

From Steve:

As Eve noted, Geology has been on our minds. As most of K-8 Washington State knows, Geology is the study of big things like volcanoes and earthquakes, small things like rocks and minerals, slow things like glaciers and erosion, and fast things floods and landslides. This summer seems to have been brought to us by pressure and friction, due to all of the earthquakes we have felt.

Recently Eve and I have been privvy to relevant and local Geology thanks to Alaska and Union College. Through their field course, they visit relevant geological sites as well as organizations who seek to communicate geologic activity to the public. For a more complete and fantastic description, check out their blog.

We visited the Alaska Volcano Observatory, which was closely monitoring Redoubt's activity. The precision and data analysis were unbelievable and the graduate students at work there inspiring. Visit this link, if only for the pictures. The public data access is pretty darn cool.

We also visited the NOAA Tsunami Warning Center, the single force established to protect all of North America. The center is monitored 24 hours a day, each day of the year. Behold the power of science, math, and technology . . .

Yes, the red phone goes to Batman.

All this came to pass weeks ago, but we were reminded of the experience because the man pictured above at the control center came into the nature center today. The most exciting part is that he asked me a question I could legitimately answer. Empowerment!

long time no post

We'd planned a "there have been four earthquakes this week!" follow-up to my last post, but somehow it never happened. Instead, a ton of other stuff happened. My parents arrived last Thursday and we made a whirlwind loop through Whittier, Cordova, Valdez, Chitina, McCarthy/Kennicott and, finally, back into the Mat-Su valley. My dad had taken 300 pictures by day two so, needless to say, there'll be a lenghty pictures-only post when he uploads all the photos.


View Larger Map
Google maps doesn't seem to know about the Cordova ("B") to Valdez ("C") ferry, so that portion of our route remains blank.

been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

I have this* stuck in my head a lot lately. For more, here's Steve...

*Just the first few seconds.

The view from Mt. Harp (left) and a moose on our Nature Center-to-cabin shortcut (below).


Above the clouds!

It's a zoo out there.

As I mentioned earlier in the blog, we saw a large number of (large) animals on our drive up. We saw a moose-a-day for the first ten days we were here, and the would-be dumpster diving black bear I described in a previous post. The wildlife sightings have since dropped off considerably, primarily a result of the dense foliage that now creates an obscuring green wall along both sides Eagle River Road. We haven't seen a moose in two weeks.

But we have been starting to see some less common animals.
On Monday I returned to Mt. Baldy (see Tellyouwhhhut, below). As I neared the top, I noticed what I thought was a juvenile bald eagle circling some prey on the mountainside below. I stopped my walk to watch as it disappeared around a ledge and circled back in my direction. It took three or four circles for me to recognize that the bird was, in fact, circling me. I snapped a picture and high-tailed it out of the area. It turns out that the bird was an adult golden eagle (which have similar coloring to juvenile bald eagles) and that it was likely guarding a nest.

The next day, as Steve and I drove to Ben's yurt after a day at Eklutna Lake, Steve motioned towards a brown something we could see lumbering across the road up ahead. It seemed too big to be a dog and too hefty to be a moose. We slowed down and were thrilled to see* our first grizzly bear walking, then running clumsily, along the side of the road and eventually back into the woods. (*Note to my mom: from the car. We were in the car. Please don't worry.)
Getting to see a brown bear is a rarity around here - we're counting ourselves quite lucky.

Part three of our recent animalpalooza came yesterday evening as we were closing up the nature center for the day. Steve rushed back inside and excitedly called me out to the parking lot where he'd seen a porcupine a minute earlier. Sure enough, the porcupine was just hanging out, nibbling contentedly on something it was finding in the dirt of our overflow parking lot. Each time a car drove by, the porcupine (which, I now know, is quite different from a hedgehog) would show its disapproval by splaying a portion of its quills so that it appeared to be wearing a prickly tutu.
We watched for about 15 minutes until a neighbor pulled into the lot to his mailbox and the porcupine scurried off into the brush.


Two more resident volunteers arrived yesterday and Steve and I have gone from feeling like the young whipper-snapper volunteers to the old-farts of the crowd. The two new kids are both students and Molly, who has been here nearly two weeks, just graduated from college in May. One of the newest arrivals is from Everett.

steve writes

Far Trek

Alaska, the flannel frontier. These are the voyages of a well-packed Ford Focus. Her three-month mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new hikes and screw civilization. To coldly go where no man has gone before . . . without bug spray.

Captain's Log Star Date 0612.09
As you can observe, Eve has been working quite hard to keep all important people well-informed of our experiences , from romps with two-year-olds to explorations in new lands. In fact her diligence adn imagination have inspired me to put my fingers to the keyboard. While my professional and electronic writing ability pale in comparison to hers, I will humbly plod along with inspiration gained from our location and the books I read. Currently Anne of Green Gables occupies my free time, so be prepared for romantic musings and mischief while I try to hold my tongue.

Being a displaced Midwesterner, it is my duty to inform you of the weather. Coming most recently from Seattle though, it is also my duty to be accused of bringing the rain. Within our first week here the familiar accusation was thrust upon us, to which we responded with our well-practiced polite smile while secretly screaming in heart-wrenching agony. We have both been recipients of this accusation countless times in the arid lands of Eastern Washington, but we had not expected it in Alaska.

As I write the sun peeks through the clouds, hopefully beginning to burn them off for the weekend. Sunny skies are in my hopes to aid our friend Ben Schneider. His weekend he takes his entrepreneurial ambitions to market as a professional puzzler. Here he is working diligently as Leo naps upstairs, and here is one of his finished products.













Unlike Ben the puzzles are gorgeous. With a Sunday off, we plan to attract visitors to teh Anchorage market toward Ben's booth with some guitar and banjo music. If that fails, we will attempt to repel visitors away from other booths toward Ben's. In order to make the experience of greater authenticity, we have not practiced even once. All of this, however, necessitates a lovely day to bring the Alaskan's to market, but not so nice a day to take them to mountain trails.

Currently the day is fit for a decent hike, or a day at the info desk. The sun repeatedly breaks through the clouds and the air is cool with a slight breeze to blow the mosquitoes on by. Many of our days have been like this, but by no means the majority. A recent heat wave of near 80s and complete sun have melted most o f the remaining snow and Alaskans. As far as I can tell, no on e was moved to shave, but they sure complained a lick. Thus far there have been more sunny days than all of last summer. These days remain balanced by a steady set of clouds followed by cool evenings. We have not needed the camp stove for heat of late but keep a steady supply of wood on hand. What the coming days and weeks will hold is anyone's guess.

Homer, part the third.

Homer two: glacial bugaloo.

Homer, pictorially.

Grewingk Glacier











Homer Spit

Midnight.

I took this at midnight on Saturday. The sun sets at about 11:30 now and rises again before 4:30. During the 10 weeks we're here, it'll never get dark enough to see a star. Besides the sun, of course...


Steve and I just got back from a wonderful two-day trip to Homer, which is 5 hours south of here on the Kenai Peninsula. I'll post photos soon.

And the green grass grew all around.

I wish I'd taken more pictures when we first arrived so I could better document how rapidly the scenery has changed up here. When we first dipped into the so-called Anchorage Bowl, we could see that the area was further along seasonally than the other parts of the state we'd seen. Within days of arrival we could see that the snow was receding on nearby peaks (though they've since received a few new dustings). After just a few more days, we started to notice how quickly the plants were growing. A short-cut to our cabin was primarily brown when we arrived, dotted with the beginnings of many (then unidentifiable) spouts. We now have to wade through massive cow parsnip and a huge range of wildflowers that are knee-high at points. Many of our trails are lined with horsetail; in two weeks the plants have tripled in size.

The weather has been either 50 with drizzle, or sunny in the 70's - ideal growing conditions for plants... and insects, apparently. We've been warned about the late-season mosquitoes and have been preparing ourselves for the worst. Four days ago, quite abruptly, the number of bugs (and bits) skyrocketed, and I worried that it was still only a taste of the bugginess to come. The local volunteers eased my mind, though, when I overheard them moaning about how bad the bugs seemed to be this year.
We spent our days off exploring Lake Eklutna and hiking along a ridge (from Peak 3,980 - many around here are named for their altitudes) with Ben.














Steve has news that he asked me not to post, but... ask him about it. Here he is, playing "a different kind of pooh stick," as he put it.