Hastings Fire

A new fire is burning a little further north and west of the Moose Mountain fire of last week right on the Chatanika River. Just like with the previous fire the forest service is fiercely fighting to keep homes in the area safe. These people are amazing.



Kate and I saw a fire burning near the same location just last night, but not in either of the two places we saw fires today (there were two fires visible, but one was far in the distance and probably not much of a threat). The closest one was big with a large area looking like it had already burnt everything that it could.

The Newsminer is reporting that although the vegetation in the area is less flammable, it's not accessible to the bulldozers to create a fire breaks. From our vantage point northwest of Murphy Dome it looked like an all-out aerial assault. Helicopters were dropping water every time I looked into the viewfinder. They must have just been pulling water out of the river. The ducks were out too dropping massive amounts of water on and ahead of the fire.





Firefighters wait to go in to the Chatanika fire while others load up on Murphy Dome. These operations are awesome to watch. These people are amazing at the things they do.

***********************************************
Update from the Newsminer 5/31:
Hastings Fire grows, destroys cabin; new fires reported off CHSR: "FAIRBANKS - Three wildfires were burning in the Fairbanks area Tuesday, the latest in a string that have sprung up as the Interior continues to bake under high temperatures.
The Hastings Fire, bu..."

The Sun part blah / Wishing for darkness

The Sun rose this morning at 3:39 am. Fine, whatever. The Sun will set tomorrow morning at 12:01 am. Crap. Solar midnight happens at about 1:48 am here, so when I was awake at two in the morning last night staring at how light it was outside I thought, "oh no, the Sun is coming up". We're still gaining 6 1/2 minutes per day and that will gradually slow down until the solstice on June 21st. On that day we'll have two hours of civil twilight in lieu of a nighttime.

Murphy Dome in the Light of Day

Frickin' gorgeous place this is . . .

Kate and I drove up Murphy Dome and explored some of the trails a bit. I realized that this was the first time I have really spent any time up there in the daylight. Jason, Alex and I did quite a bit of wandering one night while photographing the moon halos and a few other times to try to get good aurora shots, but today I found a quite different landscape under light of day. There are a lot of trails and I'm sure it will take a long time to explore them all.

Trees are sparse on the north and west side of Murphy Dome, but in the evening when the clouds break the lighting is fantastic. In the upper left side of the image there is a new wildfire. It grew quickly in the hour or so we were there. There was another couple at the top that said it was not there when they arrived earlier in the afternoon so they called the fire departments. Hopefully some rain falls tonight.
Some kind of lupin like flower on top of Murphy Dome. A chunk of granite with quartz made a nice background.

Just a little more of the landscape atop Murphy Dome. You can see the new wildfire smoking in the background.

A summer-like walk in the backyard

It started out innocent enough, just stroll through the trails behind the house. Sure, there were a few bugs, it was 82° F and there was a lot of mushy ground and some water on the trail. As I got further from the house all the mosquitoes in the area had locked in on my location and were incoming fast. The mosquitoes here are far worse than anywhere else I have ever been (pawtuckaway in the summer included). Not long after I was swimming in bugs the marsh became to deep for me to comfortably pass in chacos and jeans, and I was not about to expose any more skin to the bugs. On the bright side, I finally got a nice picture of a snowshoe hare:

I saw him while exploring the wet, mosquito infested trails behind our house. They usually don't let me get this close, but he seemed intent to eat in his little patch of grass. The only white left on him was around the ear rims and hind legs and feet.

Change of Pace

I have successfully completed my first year of graduate school. After leaving my work with the Interstellar Boundary EXplorer (IBEX) at UNH I thought I would be heading into a possible space physics based career in graduate school too. However, something about Alaska has changed my mind and I've been desiring to get into more ground-based physics. It looks like I may be studying the physics of glaciers, and I hope this means I may get to do a little bit of field work here in Alaska. Everything is tentative now, but I'm getting really excited about this prospect.

To Do in Fairbanks 5: Go Ride A Train

I was skeptical at first. I initially had three main concerns about the leg between Fairbanks and Denali. The first, since I have made the drive a few times, I'm not really sure I'm going to see anything new by taking the train. Second, there is the obvious drawback that riding the Alaska Railroad costs an arm and a leg. Finally, it's all structured and presented with tourists in mind. My camera may be glued to my face in such a fashion that I look like a tourist, but I assure you I am not.



My first concern was crushed on the way down. The RR doesn't really follow the Park's Highway at all. I can count on one hand the number of times we actually see the road on this 4 hour train ride. Leaving Fairbanks the train goes around the 'back' (western) side of Ester Dome. I've never seen this side before. There is almost nothing out there. You are immediately immersed in the vastness of the Alaska landscape, even before you're out of the Fairbanks metro area.


Any way you look there is nothing but hills, trees and an occasional small body of water. This spot can't be much more than 10 miles from our home, just on the backside of Ester Dome.
Being away from the road means that you are almost always away from homes and businesses. You really only see them when you go through towns, and there are only a handful of them between Fairbanks and Denali. Also, on the way to the park the elevation increases subtly and you go through a variety of different worlds.


This was quite possibly the largest beaver construction I have ever seen. I do not have either end of it in the frame because it was too big. They sure know how to pick a home!

The last few miles before entering Morhdorh, I mean Denali, the world turns to rock. We just happened to have some magnificent skyscapes on our ride too.

When the world turns to rock you'll simultaneously be paralleling the Nenana River which has carved out quite a nice looking little valley for itself.

So the train arrives at the DNP train station at about 12:15ish, depending on how often you stop for other trains or wildlife. They will slow or stop for bear, moose, and (no joke) to let off a stowaway iridescent butterfly. The train is not to be taken for speed, driving down is much faster.

Once you arrive in the park you have about three hours before needing to check in for the trip back, or you can stay in one of the many hotels or campsites in the area. There are a few day packages offered where you can go rafting or flightseeing before heading back. Just walking some of the trails near to the visitor center can be a great activity while there. There is a pretty good chance to see some wildlife, even close to the park entrance. The views aren't too bad either (picture left from the junction of the Rock Creek and Meadow View trails).

I've come up with a fail-safe formula for getting over the price of tickets. The money you fork over is well worth it if you like at least two of these things: people-watching, nature, animals, big animals, forests, rivers, mountains, hiking, doing something you don't do every day, and/or relaxing. Actually the price is pretty comparable with that of a theme park; except here it's easy to pack your own lunch which can quickly make the train ride cheaper than a theme park. Some prices are shown below.

The seats on the train have lots of legroom, big windows, and an observation deck with panorama views (they ask you limit yourself to 20 minutes on the deck to give others a turn). There's a dining car that has snacks, lunches, breafasts, etc., and alcohol. You can also stand in between cars and hang out the window; just watch your head when approaching things like bridges/bears.

Getting into the Alaska Range from Fairbanks -- people pile into the outside section of the observation deck once we get into the mountains. The fancy shmancy gold star members get the fancy car with glass ceiling. Low level people like me have to hang out the window in between cars.
As far as my tourism concern goes, all I can say is, "eh, whatever". You are kept separate from those that came up from the cruise ships. They all have their own cars. I was more of a tourist than anyone else, standing in the window the whole time taking pictures. Half the people on the train were asleep on the way down. Plus, you get to hear people talk about what they think they know about Alaska, photography, or Denali, which I found to be pretty entertaining.

During peak season, which is from June 1st to August 31st a one way ticket from Fairbanks to Denali is $64 ($32 for children). Alaska residents can get a 20% discount on all fares. For a break-down of all the fares and segments visit the Alaska Railroad website here. Or, just go to the Alaska Railroad Corporation site here.

I didn't write much about Denali National Park because I'll be writing about it more extensively this summer. Some previous posts from the park can be found with these links: Springtime in Denali National Park, Beautiful, Beautiful Denali National Park, or Kate's Blog Alaska's Fall Foliage. You can also get more park information from the NPS site here.

You can read more about what there is to do in Fairbanks here. And, of course, more pictures from the day-trip here.

Yellow Rumped Warbler

Yellow Rumped Warbler, a photo by Lee Petersen on Flickr.

In Denali National Park on the Taiga Trail.

Fairbanks Wildfires

Since I sat down to start editing some pictures tonight about thirty waterbombers have flown directly over the house. Our home is on stilts and it rattles a bit when they fly over. We are apparently right in the flight path between wherever they are filling and a massive wildfire burning on and near Moose Mountain just north and west of us. Earlier today I saw a lot of smoke down south of UAF. When I left this afternoon to pick up Kate I saw more smoke and fire engines going in every direction. Then while driving on College Rd. I looked north to see a massive fire and smoke billowing on the northern hills. I picked up Kate and we drove over to Denali Elementary School. On the way we saw the fire burning on the south side of the city. It looked like it was pretty well contained. When we got to the school I got my first good look at where the northern fire was.



Of course our house is right in between this and us so we drove over to Ballaine Road to get a closer look. There were quite a few people pulled over on the side of the road to watch this fire burning on the hillside.



Hopefully the homes in the foreground are not in too much danger. The fire at this point seemed to be moving in a more eastern direction (to the right). A waterbomber flies into the middle of it (center right).

Our house is miles away and (probably) in no danger from this as long as the winds don't shift to the south (which is doubtful). Occasionally huge flames erupted from the front of the fire.



As I'm writing this it seems the smoke north of our house is getting lower and the waterbombers less frequent. Hopefully that's a good sign. Here is a link to the latest story in the News Miner:

Newsminer: Fire in S. Fairbanks contained; crews battle 500-acre wildfire in Goldstream
and the update too:
Newsminer: Crews battle 500-acre wildfire north of Goldstream Valley

All the firefighters and pilots need a huge shout out and an even bigger 'thank you'. This was the most impressive show of airpower and bravery I could imagine! There was never not an aircraft flying into the middle of the smoke. I'm sure people lost homes in this, please keep them in your thoughts. Hopefully no one has been injured.







Waterbomber skimming the trees and the flames through the smoke.

Smoke rising behind the UAF campus from the Goldstream fire.



**** Update 5/22/2011 ****
The fire looked very well suppressed yesterday and they were still hitting it pretty hard with aircraft. Here's the latest update from the local paper:
Newsminer: Moose Mountain fire slows; wildfire reported in Healy
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The Things That Happened That Were NOT School Related

The last few weeks were rough. Teaching, grading, presentations and papers, final exams, random paperwork that for some reason is always due around finals week, cleaning out my office, blah, blah, blah. Despite everything else we still managed to get out a little. Here are a few things to do to put off what you need to do and a few things that just happened over the last week.

(1) Trains: The open house of the new railroad station. We got to tour some train cars, go for a train ride, and buy tickets 2 for 1! We're riding down to Denali National Park next week.



(2) Spring: is sprung!





Fairbanks is finally turning green again this week. Temperatures are in the 70's in the day. The mosquitoes are out. It is really spring!

(3) Evening walks at Creamer's Field: with the Sun setting after 11pm there is no excuse to not get out for a walk. The last of the cranes are on their way north to the tundra, but the evening light is gorgeous on all the birch.

Sandhill Cranes feeding on the grounds at Creamer's Field.

Flock of Sandhill cranes over Creamer's Field

Strolling through the Boreal Loop Trail at Creamer's Field at 10:00pm.



On the boreal forest loop at Creamer's Field. The Sun is just about to go over the hills at 10:15pm. Still another hour before official sunset.

(4) Just go outside for a minute: this is Alaska.

We went almost a month without seeing a moose after visiting Denali National Park. In the last week I have seen about 7. This one was really good at bending and breaking trees.

Junco

Junco, a photo by Lee Petersen on Flickr.

Dark-eyed junco's arrived at our home about a week ago. Fairbanks Alaska.

Wildfire Season

I still have trouble grasping the size of the state of Alaska. I think I saw one of the first wildfires of the season from our roost at UAF today (the first report was on the 6th of May). It was really far away, but we can see for literally a hundred miles or more from here (although, we can't see Russia).



I heard on APRN this morning that it is expected that we have a 'normal' fire season this year; 700,000 to 1 million acres will burn. Let me say that again, 'normal'. That is roughly between the size of the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the state of Rhode Island. Will burn.

Compare that with the record of over 5 million acres in a season (about the size of New Hampshire).

Alaska Slideshow

Since I don't have the time for posts right now I'll just add a slideshow of pictures from the last 9 months:


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Tanana Breakup

So this week was busy. End of the semester projects and homework have been due, finals are to be prepared for, grading needs to be completed, etc. It's been so busy that I didn't really get to do much of anything. We missed the Tanana River breaking up on Wednesday afternoon which was a bummer. Here's the article from the News-Miner:

     Tripod drifted toward riverbank before Tanana River ice flushed it downstream: 

     "Here is a nice video of the ice going out in Nenana Wednesday afternoon.

     A reader shot the video and posted it, along with his play-by-play, on YouTube. 

     The tripod was on a large section of ice..."

Jason, Alex and I took a break from working to drove down near the Pump-House on Thursday evening to see if we could see some remaining ice, but from our vantage point the river was all water. There was still stuff to take pictures of, just no ice-floe.


The last little strip of ice remaining next to the Tanana River in Fairbanks. Reminiscent of Superman's Fortress of Solitude the shapes of ice that was 40 below zero just months ago are really cool and crystalline when they melt.


There is no more ice on the Tanana River, but now there's plenty of open water. On this clear day only the current and eddies broke up the reflection of the sky.


This was a shallow pool near the Tanana River just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska that beautifully reflects the tall trees beside it. I guess this makes Alaska spring official.


Earlier in the week Alex and I walked down to the experimental research farm at UAF to see some of the newborn reindeer from last week. They were really cute, but groggy in the mid-evening Sun.


Just waking up from a nap, a little wobbly on the feet.

By the middle of next week I'll be done with everything except a few of my TA responsibilities. Then I hope to have a few weeks of adventuring and picture taking before science camp starts up.