early morning trick-or-treater

Prospect Heights stroll

Due to my all-consuming fear of getting lost, I have limited our hikes around Anchorage to the well-defined trails, somewhat to Bruce's frustration. Last weekend we walked out from the Prospect Heights trailhead. As they say, Anchorage truly is only 20 minutes from Alaska. I am always amazed by the fact that we can take a quick drive and be in the Chugach State Park. The park feels vast and wild, even with everyone and their neighbor populating the trails.

I don't think that any place will ever really feel too crowded after several years of exploring Colorado's Front Range wilderness. I remember how the 3 hour commute back into the city after a long weekend used to destroy any sense of relaxation or escape that our backcountry trip had managed to generate in my busy mind. After our hike last Saturday, we drove home to Los Anchorage admiring the glowing Alaska Range on the horizon, while Denali floated above the downtown skyline.

poem by Joan Kane, award winning Anchorage poet

Pure/Pour/A Priori
full moon’s rays spill
a skeleton path on water
tell me the spell
you held me under
simpler to undo
than the first split steps
I took towards you.
Wrath and swell
of the silt-black sea
heavy and mute
with the weight
of so much ice melting
returns agency
to me, and ease.
Eyes travel,
trace along the shape
of pure coincidence;
sere white falls hued
through night air,
valuable, and silvers
on the waves.
Shafts of light
unravel, reeling
towards shore: shine
relearns its shadow image
and I relearn more.
I can scarcely scrape
and scratch my eyes
across the moon’s rough
surface. To conjure
this drag and chase down
the fixed spines of time
and the firm arrival
at some great vein
of truth appears
difficult. My own
divinations, though, draw
me down the coast
and raise my eyes high
despite the bone-bright
glance of the naked
skeleton path on the water.
— By Joan Kane

Mount Eklutna Hunt

Looking across the Inlet to the Lake Clark Wilderness

Sunday offered a chance to hunt with Eric, a friend of the clerk now occupying Meghan's former clerkship in Kodiak. Eric and his Setter Birch took me up Mount Eklutna to try our hand at grouse and ptarmigan hunting. I was pleased to join a seasoned professional - with a working dog no less - for my first Alaskan foray. After a stop at Fred Meyer to purchase my hunting license ($35) and a sandwich ($5), we drove to the trail head and began our hike up Mount Eklutna (priceless).

Eric and Birch with the day's first quarry

We climbed a steep slope to reach Eklutna's wide western ridge and, as small flakes started fly, we thought we would be hunting a white bird amid falling snow. We continued to angle across the peak's high shoulder over soft subalpine vegetation. Low lying thickets of black crowberries dyed the white fur on Birch's legs purple. The snow let up and Birch soon found a bird. Walking towards the bird and Birch, we were still a good distance off. The lone ptarmigan's only chance was to take wing before Eric had a chance to get within range. The bird froze, however, allowing Eric to get within firing range and Birch flushed him. After a single shot we had a bird in the bag. We soon spotted a pure white covey of about dozen birds fly from a nearby saddle. Several birds dropped out of the covey and Eric and I split up to maximize our chances. Like the first quarry I was able to stalk a lone male and harvest him with one shot.

A bird in the hand...

Makin' Friends

Last week I volunteered to help the Friends of the Chugach National Forest Avalanche Information Center orchestrate a season-opening fundraiser. "The Friends Group" is a volunteer organization that supports the area's relatively new avalanche info center. Ironically backcountry users in the Chugach, North America's snowiest range, have only recently had the benefit of an avalanche forecasting organization -- something that is well established in places like Colorado's Front Range and Utah's Wasatch. I joined the Friends Group back in May anticipating the use of the center's many webcams and weather stations during the upcoming winter. The fundraiser featured a sideshow presentation by world renown ski mountaineer Andrew McLean. Featured in 2007's ski film Steep, Andrew delivered an inspiring and lighthearted presentation on his first forays into big mountain skiing. The Bear Tooth Theater's movie-screen size projector proved a fitting venue for his spectacular pictures of Denali and Sultana. Aside from sipping a pint of beer it almost felt like the entire sold out crowd was climbing each ridge with Andrew and his buddies. Needless to say, the fundraiser was a success and the following night I joined the other volunteers for a dinner with Andrew. We feasted on caribou, dall sheep and elk. Andrew's next trip? A November exploration of Antarctica.

out and about

Sunday afternoon we took a stroll along the boardwalk at Potter Marsh. We saw mallard ducks, a juvenile great blue heron (although its northern range includes Prince William Sound, Anchorage is uncommon ground for the GBH) , a glaucous gull, a northern harrier hawk and trumpeter swans with nearly adult-sized cygnets.

Bruce practices an interpretive wildlife presentation.

Inspecting whitewash, Bruce hypothesizes that a large raptor landed on the rail and lingered, looking for prey in the marsh grass below.


Walking the interpretive trail along Bird Creek southeast of town.

Remnants of fireweed catch the light.

The boys head for the trail.

frosty morning

Last Saturday's sunrise at about 8:50

(frosty fungus photos for Mom)

home improvements

New curtains for our bedroom and two new birdfeeders!

We have been visited by black-capped chickadees and red-breasted nuthatches, although our 2000 Sibley guide says that they don't occur this far north...perhaps the changing climate has expanded their range? I love hearing the birds in the yard-their singing reminds me of being home on the farm.

hockey hooligans

Last week some friends invited Bruce and me to a UAA Seawolves hockey game. Our friends are University of Michigan Law alumni, so our tickets were in the Spirit Section, and we had great front-row seats. One of the MI fans brought a trumpet and everyone, other than Bruce and me, knew the cheers...we were silently rooting for the Seawolves, to no avail. Saturday night we went with our friend Jeff to an Alaska Aces game, which was a lot of fun-I think that we are becoming hockey fans...

I miss the sea...

From Weymouth

by Will Eaves

What made you wake me so early
And with a look of mischief say,
A start this fine’s surely a sign
The sea is calling us today?
The train was blue, the water green:
A tinted postcard sent in May.

I’m sure I must have held your hand
In backstreets crammed with grockle shops
And pubs and reeling fishermen.
The smell I couldn’t place was hops.
I rode in state along the beach,
Beside the ride that never stops.

I missed a few easy lessons.
The teacher smiled, as if to say
It’s fine—it would have been a crime
To hear the call and disobey.
What did you do? The train was blue.
We had tea at a beach café

And well-thumbed fish-paste sandwiches—
That gritty complement to hours
Spent toeing desperately the line
Around two limpet-cladded towers
The sea and I besieged, the moat
I’m sure I must have said was ours.

What made me want to go early
And with a look of mischief say,
But I’m hungry? You wrote in haste:
His Highness made the donkeys bray.
The train was blue, the water green.
Yours, waiting by the beach café.

Weather Season

It looks like Weather Season is ready to rip

Ah yes, now I remember what the rest of the Alaskan year feels like. For a while there I was getting fairly comfortable in the Last Frontier, what with the 12 hours of sunshine each day. Well leave it to the Alaska Regional Headquarters of the National Weather Service to provide a backhand slap of reality. October marks the beginning of what I like to call weather season, which lasts from about October through April. You can tell it's weather season because the Alaska weather map on the NWS webpage begins to light up like a Christmas tree. Each color represents a different weather watch or warning. The mainland gets the exciting colors like red, orange and yellow, while the surrounding waters get deeper shades of blue with increased severity of the warning. I would like to see a time lapse of the colors on the map changing throughout the year. Today we got our first real weather advisory of the season - a high wind watch. Some areas of Anchorage are forecasted to feel 85 mph winds. The advisory suggests that people "secure all loose objects that could be blown or damaged by the wind." Meghan and I will batten down the hatches tonight, who knows maybe a power outage will precipitate a three day weekend. On second thought that could also mean a lot of rapidly thawing fish in the freezer.

Alaska Hunter (almost)

Meghan really liked the ptarmigan patch awarded to each participant

Last Spring Meghan's mom and dad dropped off a 12 gauge and a rifle during their visit to Kodiak. Meghan's family harvests about five deer each Fall from their wooded and hilly 90 acres in southwest Wisconsin. Sometimes Meghan's Mom is known to "bring home the venison" when the boys come back empty-handed. So, eager to provide Meghan a healthy alternative to the increasingly synthetic proteins found in supermarkets (aka chicken and beef), I completed an Alaska hunter safety course on Saturday. Provided by the state's Department of Fish and Game and delivered by an all-volunteer crew, the course was a great introduction to Alaskan hunting. For instance Bob, one of the instructors who sits on the much maligned (depending on which side of the fence you're on) Alaska Big Game Board, shared years of helpful know-how on the state's rules and regulations.

Looks like I'll be asking for some cammo this Christmas

During the course we handled several different firearms including an old Winchester lever action rifle (as seen in True Grit). We then walked a field course to identify several different species of game and discussed whether it was safe, and legal to take a shot. After a short "written" (50 multiple choice questions) exam, we picked up rifles and took the marksmanship qualification exam at the range. From three positions, standing, kneeling and sitting we aimed to place four shots within a 4" target. I successfully completed the course and look forward to putting my new knowledge to use.

The "P" stands for Pass

yard traffic

More of our favorite Kodiakans visited last weekend-Dirk and Jennifer came through town on Friday. Dirk snapped these shots Saturday afternoon. They headed back to the island with Halloween costumes and the possibility of a new car.

first frost

Photo by Don Paulson

Winter is coming...Canada Geese are flying south.

This morning a pink sunrise illuminates Denali and Mt. Foraker, rising

across the Inlet from my window.