2011 World Ice Art Championships

The only thing I could ever imagine doing when it's -10° F is walking around in an ice enclosed ice park. So naturally Kate and I got in the car and drove to the World Ice Art Championships. We purchased our $25 season passes (1 month) and then probably saw about 1/4 of the single-block sculptures.

Some of these sculptures are really cool. They are all lit, so each little facet, crack, cut, and curve shines. This week is just single-block sculptures. Don't let that fool you, some of these are huge!. Next week the multi-block sculptures start. We saw the blocks and I can confirm there are multiple ones.



This place has a huge kids park, with a lot of ice slides that you can probably get hurt on. They are fun, it doesn't take a very big slope to build up a lot of speed. Tonight they were shoveling some of the bigger slides of the snow that fell yesterday.

Photo Projects

I'm working on a couple different photo projects right now so that I'm forced stay motivated on taking pictures of this freaking beautiful state and not always cooped up in the office. My first project is simple: 1 photo per day for 365 days. Every day I have to take and post at least one photo. My favorite one will be posted in this set on flickr. Each one will have a bit more of a description than normal, so in that sense it will be like my photo blog (although I'll still post things on here).

Jason and I have worked out another project that we're going to do, probably for the entire time we are in Alaska, but I'm not posting anything on that one until we're well into it. Get excited!

What's there to do in 12-16 inches of snow? Let's follow Alex!

That's a lot of snow! Can I go under it? No. Can I go over it? Maybe. Can I go around it? Not really. I'll have to go through it!

Aaaaarrrrrr!

???

???!!!

Don't worry, there's probably not anything in there that could kill me.

Project "distraction from homework" is a success!

Birds and Moose!

You know I've been busy when I haven't had time to blog about wildlife encounters. First Kate and I saw two white-winged crossbills. Kate wants to post about them, so I'll just give this one picture from last week.

Magic snow falls from the tree as we watch the birds breathing in -30° F weather.

Then there was the moose encounter at school. Let me start by saying that moose temperament is different out in the woods by our house than it is around buildings and a lot of people. They don't care about me at the house, but they definitely don't like lots of people and people stuff.



This bull charged Jason and I even though we were keeping our distance. Then it ran at Manbharat and a few other students that were watching it by their doors. He wasn't overly aggressive, but he definitely made it known that we were in his personal space. Right before he charged me I got this shot that looks like he is watching his reflection in the window. He's actually just looking at that plant with leaves on it down below him, but it was funny anyway.



Once he got to a place where he didn't feel cornered by the building his focus returned to eating and not on what we were doing over by the parking lot.

Snowy Sunday

Today it is snowing. This is the second 'significant' snowfall we've had in a week. Most of the time it snows only one or two inches at a time here, but it has really built up since the snow-pack goes back to October. We had about 5 inches at our house earlier in the week; between today and tonight we are supposed to get a total of 4-7 inches. It looks like we might get even more tomorrow. The snow is very pretty.

The back yard viewed from our most fantastic in the world window.

From the looks of it we might be through the bulk of the winter. The temperatures have come back up to near 0° F. It's still possible that we could get a cold snap, but the probability of more 40 below days is diminishing. Night-time lows are more like -10. That being said, there is still a lot more winter left and I don't look forward to the gross part when the temperatures are near-freezing.

The World Ice Art Championships are about to start up this week (it goes on until March 27th), and Kate and I are excited to get passes. I can't wait to get out there with the camera.

Since it was snowing today, we finally headed over to the Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitors Center. I was surprised at how much they had there. Not just Fairbanks information, but huge, really cool exhibits. It's definitely worth checking out when you get to the area, or if you've lived here for years. There's what looks like a cool gift shop (but it was closed on Sunday). They have lots of displays and dioramas and you walk through the seasons of the Alaskan interior from summer to spring. There's a lot of native artwork, tools, historical and current information, and everything is incredibly well done. Many of the exhibits are still in progress and I know they need money to finish. Think about donating.

They have a really cool reading area here. Lots of good books too about the region, wildlife, and history.

One of the winter exhibits at the Fairbanks Visitors Bureau.

Lots and Lots of Aurora All Over the Place

It's been a good couple of nights, and last night left me breathless.



Classes and work are in full force again so I don't have a lot of time to make new posts. I'll soon make a link to new photos so browsing can be easier and there aren't tons of posts and re-posts on here and facebook. For now here click here for latest photos.

Probably Missing Aurora

It's so lousy when we have 15 clear nights in a row and almost no aurora, then a solar windstream crosses Earth's path while the Sun is still up. Pictures flood out of Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Greenland, I get all ready for darkness to descend and then the clouds roll in. No doubt we missed a good show last night. This morning I went outside before getting ready for work, there was a small hole in the cloud cover over the house, and this was happening:

The northern lights were so bright they were even shining through some thin cloudcover. I would have loved to have seen them unimpeded. Maybe it will clear up later tonight when I'm done with my lab section so I can watch when I get home. The temperature is in the mid-teens above 0, and we can now walk around outside in just long-sleeve shirts.

When I was in Boy Scouts, I would always think that the kids from Canada were showing off at camp when they were out in t-shirts and it was cold out. Now I know that they were not; it really is relative. It just takes a few weeks of temps less than -20, and a few days at -40 or lower to put the idea of 'cold' in perspective. To think, at +15 it's almost 60 degrees warmer than it was a couple of weeks ago is pretty wild.

I've been posting a lot of pictures on flickr lately. The most impressive subject to shoot has been the light in the morning sky. The Sun is just rising in the right location, at the a good angle and the atmosphere has had the right conditions so that the typical sight has been this:



This was taken about half and hour before sunrise, although it was pretty spectacular even an hour before:



The red was considerably deeper then.

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - Alaska seeing impact of climate change in its infrastructure villages

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - Alaska seeing impact of climate change in its infrastructure villages

The Sun Is Returning: Blue Skies to the South

This view has been common for a while now. Since about mid-November the southern sky has mostly been orange, yellow, or red during the day. The Sun sits so low on the horizon that only the longer wavelength light reaches us since it must penetrate more atmosphere; the blue light scatters, which is why the sky is blue. During the winter months here, the days are really just like an extended sunset. Today I walked outside and noticed the southern sky was blue!



Also, the Sun was noticeably higher as the daylight is returning. Actually it's already returning at a rate of over six minutes a day. I never noticed the change in daylight over time in the lower 48. It's just noticeable that November's days are shorter than September, but here I really notice it day to day. We are already starting to enter nautical twilight when we leave for work. Stars are still there, but the sky is lightening. Check out this table from www.timeanddate.com to see how much the day-to-day changes here:

To Do In Fairbanks 2: Chena Hot Springs

In case you haven't heard, Kate and I spent the weekend at Chena Hot Springs Resort. Kate posted yesterday. We had a few problems, but only one would really be the 'fault' of the resort. Most of the photos have been posted in flickr here.

This place is a great winter stop. There are an incredible amount of activities to do here. You can hike, snowshoe, cross-country ski, take a dog-sledding ride, learn how to dogsled, snowmachine, and (of course) the obvious soak in the hot springs. There's a lot of historic vehicles and gold mining equipment around the parking lots. In the summer there are campsites and yurts (but no winter activities). You can always tour the Ice Museum year round. There is an aurora viewing area that they will take you to in a snowcat. You can sit inside to watch when it gets really cold. The resort is powered by geothermal energy and they offer 'geothermal tours'.

It's about a sixty mile drive from Fairbanks.  In the winter the road will be covered in snow and ice.  You can be like me and imagine you are an Ice-Road Trucker, or take a shuttle that the resort operates. The drive is beautiful along the Chena River. Angel Rocks and Granite Tors are along the way.

While it's not cheap to stay here or eat here, the rooms are comfortable and the restaurant is cozy with good food.  If you just come out for the day you can soak in the hot springs for $10, or just walk around for no charge.



If you have a forty-below night, make sure before you go to bed that your car is plugged in.  They have around eighty rooms, but only about 15 parking spaces with outlets.  The staff was not helpful in making sure we had a spot (or many of their other guests).  The result was many upset guests in the morning trying to get cars started and staff running around with extension cords (they tried to sell us one, which was pretty bad taste on their part).  Cold nights are nothing new here, I can't imagine they operate like this all the time. With packages running $200-$700 this was a little upsetting.



Don't let this stop you though, the area is beautiful, the resort is historic yet modern, and the hot springs are awesome.  It's worth it to go on a forty below night just to walk out there in a swimsuit and slowly wade into the pool. The steam from the springs freezes on everything and makes it a total 'winter wonderland'. Our room was great; everything was great they just need to work on their logistics.  You can get to the resort website here.

Do I go, or do I wait? . . . I'll wait

We had a visitor at near our outhouse tonight. It was a young Bull Moose and (I assume) his mother since later there was a much larger moose near the neighbor's house. I wasn't expecting to take any pictures tonight so I left my laptop at school; The higher-res photos and some more are on flickr now. A few minutes later I said, "why doesn't this flying squirrel care that I am here?" I took a few pictures of him too. I was literally holding the camera up to his face.

This really is Rocky and Bullwinkle's world. I am absolutely positive that they were working together to lure me into a false sense of security. I'm really looking forward to taking more wildlife photos when it starts to warm up.

Oh, I almost forgot the good news: today the sun rises before 10 am! We're on our way to having sunlight again. In a little under a month our days will be as long as the shortest day of the year in the lower 48. Yeah, you have it good. It's alright though, I love it here. Of course, another great thing about Alaska is that when the wildlife leaves, you can walk down to the end of the street and watch the aurora for a while. I didn't even notice that I was walking around outside in -20^o F temps for over an hour.

Pretty Cold

Today was awfully cold. After struggling with the car this morning, I finally got to work at around 9am and it was about 40 below (celsius or fahrenheit - they are the same at this temperature). The car door wouldn't latch and I got a little frostbite trying to push it closed. It's supposed to be colder tonight.

At this temperature we get ice fog. Homogeneous nucleation occurs when it's a little lower than -40. This just means that water (even pure water) will freeze all by itself. Normally when it's below freezing water needs something like dust or other ice crystals to form an ice nucleus. Since it's colder than that here, at times we get some of the driest air in the planet; it absolutely cannot hold any moisture at all. Here's the ice fog from this morning:

Late Night

I went to pick up Jason from the airport last night/this morning. His flight was delayed and I didn't drop him off until about 2am. When I left his place and got to the end of his road I saw this:

Just Eating

Yesterday our neighbor came knocking at our door to let us know that there were a couple of moose in her yard. We went over and watched them for a while. I tried to get a few pictures, but the Sun had set and the lighting was bad, so I couldn't get anything great. Earlier when I was walking in the woods behind the house I noticed that there were signs of moose all over the place. I guess they're just not around when we are home and awake.

Sunset on Denali

It's a special few days when the Sun sets behind Denali when viewed from Fairbanks. It's so pretty I'm sad that not everyone can see it. Kate and I drove up Ester Dome to watch it today, so I'm sharing some pictures. Click on any of them if you want to see the bigger versions in flickr.


3:19 pm, 17 minutes before sunset. It's hard to believe that the Sun is going to set behind the mountain, it moves almost horizontally here.


3:36 pm: The last of the Sun fades into the eastern edge of Denali.


3:39 pm, 3 minutes after sunset: the edges of the mountain light up like the flame of a candle.


3:53 pm, 17 minutes after sunset: The 'flame' is slowly dying and there is some wicked superior miraging on Foraker (right of Denali).

Goodnight!