Starvation Gulch at UAF

It's a really, really big bonfire. Actually it was 4 really big bonfires, each one bigger than the first. They kind of surround the crowd in a semicircle. It gets incredibly hot on the inside and you spend most of your time brushing hot coals off of people when they land on their clothes/hair. I have no idea how nobody caught on fire during this event!



Strangely, it was a lot of fun to watch and it took about an hour for them all to burn down to coals. Students set up the pallets and scrap wood in the morning.  Its kind of a contest between students to build the most creative pallet stack and get the tallest flames. It's been a tradition at the University of Alaska for 87 years. The tradition stone made a brief appearance and was quickly stolen amidst a 'king-of-the-mountain' style brawl on a pick-up truck. It was a good time. Check out the pictures in flickr.

Some More Pictures to Check Out

So, my friend, colleague, and classmate, Jason has been taking some great aurora photos here in Fairbanks. I strongly urge you to check them out on his flickr site here. He's also a really good photographer, so you should check his non-aurora photos too. He drove up here from Arkansas and took a slightly different route than we did on the trip and has some great sets from the drive. Just wanted to share and provide some motivation to come visit this great place when it's a little colder, you know, because it's light out all summer.


One of many great Aurora photos from Jason (click to be re-directed to his page).

Elusive Denali

I finally got a picture of it to share. It's pretty lousy, but still awesome seeing as its about 150 miles away. I took this picture outside the Reichardt Building at UAF on the morning of September 13th. It's hard to catch because it's usually too hazy and sometimes too smokey, especially as the day goes on. There have only been three days so far that I could see it, and only one that I remembered to bring my camera.

Last Week

Last week was our first really hard week. Lots of homework due, lots of class planning and grading, additional non-homework classwork, then there's the time spent just trying to figure out what is going on. It was truly an 80 hour work-week, culminating in one 18 hour homework cram session on Thursday.

Then this morning we had our first hard frost. Most of the leaves have fallen, and autumn is on its way out. It's still getting into the 50's and 60's almost every day. We have been here 1 month and 1 day, and the weather has been absolutely perfect. It should be in the 40's now, but its not. And don't get me wrong, this isn't a fluke. It is actually climate change, and I find it funny because it's not really debated as much here as in the lower 48. The climate is changing at high latitudes really fast. Permafrost is melting, glaciers are disappearing and sea ice is shrinking, winters are getting milder, summers are getting hotter, coastal villages already have implemented relocation plans, etc.

It seems that in the lower 48, change is much slower and seems to come in a form of unpredictability. At high and low latitudes its just getting warmer. Here is what is really scary to me, others aren't going to take this seriously until what is happening up here happens to them. By that time the world is going to be in a lot more hurt then it seems now.

Four Oddities of Fairbanks (from an outsider)

(1) So the last week has been (apparently) unseasonably warm here in Fairbanks. That being said, the last two days we have woken up to 32 [deg F] temperatures. Even though the mornings are crisp, the daytime temperatures have been reaching 70 [deg F]. The long term forecast has us going into the 20's next week with highs of 50 [F]. It is going to get cold fast.

(2) Since arriving, I have seen two nights of fantastic auroral shows. They are apparently small displays for this region, but already both have been more intense than anything I had ever seen in Minnesota. The filaments stretch straight down over our road while smaller curtains dance over our home. Someday when I can afford a better camera I will post pictures.

(3) Every day is different. These warm temperatures have also brought really clear skies. Every day I go in to work and have to stop and look south to the Alaska range. Every day we lose almost 7 minutes of daylight, and the Sun at noon subtends an angle of about 1.5 [deg] less in the sky. Every morning the range is struck by a different angle of light and it never gets boring to watch.


The Alaska Range stretches across the entire southern horizon. It also blocks any warm air that might think about moving in from the southern coast in the winter. I can't wait.

(4) We have lived here less than 1 month, and the day is already 3 hrs. and 8 min. shorter than it was when we arrived. We have another 11 days of having more daylight than New Hampshire does. It is getting noticeably harder to wake in the morning (although this might be exhaustion from work and classes.

Beautiful, Beautiful Denali National Park

Denali National Park is gorgeous. I will be posting most of the pictures on flickr (Denali Set) over the next couple of days, but for now I'll just share some highlight photos. We went on Sunday, September 5, and it looked like it was getting pretty close to the peak foliage color for the season. You can read more about the foliage on Kate's post. It was overcast the whole time except for a few instances where the sun shown down on parts of the valley or peaks. There was a 'river' of yellow aspen trees in the valley below that literally glowed when the sun shown on them.

I got to boulder for the first time in Alaska here on the Healy Overlook Trail. It was probably V0, or V1, but it was hard enough (or I was weak enough) that I had to take my hiking boots off.

 

Along with the many awesome sights, there was also plenty of wildlife. I had to stop and wait on the trail for a black bear to finish crossing the path in front of me. I managed to get up close to a couple big ground squirrels who did not mind having their picture taken at all. While driving home we had two wild, yet safe moose encounters to end our day.



Animal lessons are: moose are quite large animals and yield to bears. Actually, the National Park has a good rule. If the animal changes its behavior because of your presence, you are too close.

1st Day of School

My classes have officially begun! When Kate dropped me off today in front of the Reichardt Building (physics, chemistry, and geology departments) we were treated to a fantastic view of the Alaska Range. The building sits on Wood Creek Butte and overlooks the entire Tanana River Valley (between the hills north of Fairbanks and the Alaska Range). I could sit up there all day and watch the float planes flying all around against the mountain backdrop. On a clear morning like today Mt. Hayes, Hess, and Deborah shine in the sunlight. I'll say right off the bat, the pictures don't do it justice. Sorry, the quality here wasn't what I had hoped. Turns out the panorama software on the camera can't deal with the shadow created by the lens.

click for full size

Notice there are a couple light black V's in the sky on either side of the picture. Those are the Sandhill Cranes migrating south. Yes, the birds are flying south, the trees and groundcover are changing color, and the air is getting cooler.

By the way the crow flies, Mt. Hayes is (the big one in the picture) is 92 miles away, has an elevation of 13,832 ft., and a vertical rise (from the base) of 11,507 ft. It looks huge , even from this distance. On a clearer day than today we can see Denali (150 miles away and 20,320 ft. in elevation). It is spectacular, and I hope someday soon I will both see it, and have my camera with me.

On a physics note, looking at Mt. Hayes today was like glimpsing into the past. Approximately 4.9E-4 seconds (or approximately half a millisecond) into the past since light only travels about 671 million miles per hour. That's only half the amount of time of a typical photo flash!

September 1st, not quite a frost

But, it did get a little chilly. The car told me it was 36 [deg F] this morning. The leaves are more yellow when compared with yesterday. Yes, Autumn is officially here.