Jewel Peak Hike near Girdwood

Today we climbed Jewel Peak near Girdwood. This was an incredible hike. I think the pictures speak for themselves. All I will say is that it is amazing how many mountains there are here. Some have never been named, and they are within a short drive of Anchorage. You could spend a lifetime climbing all the snow-covered peaks. This is truly a magical place. Better than Colorado, Utah, and California combined.



A glacier from almost near the summit. There was a lot of snow still on the peak that we had to hike over. And I hiked on a glacier! It actually wasn't any different from hiking a regular snow, but it was still neat. If you look right above the closest 'V' in the picture, you can make out Girdwood, near the Turnagain arm farther still.


Closer pictures of crevasses. You definitely would not want to walk near those without some crampons, rope and a harness.

Glaciers!!!!!!!! Lots of snow and ice.

On the top of the peak. It was a big cliff covered in grass and moss. Mountains behind are the Chugach mountains.

It was around 75 degrees and no wind on the top, so we decided to get some sun on the summit. This was the first time this summer that I actually felt comfortable in shorts and nothing else! I definitely could use some sun.

Horseshoes and Handgrenades

Well not so much the handgrendes as the horseshoes.

Our boss of the boss decided he wanted to treat his group to a 'team build.' We went out to the park during a very extended lunch and played horseshoes and ate hotdogs and hamburgers. There were 120 people playing in this horseshoe tournament. Unfortunantly, my teamate, Brynn, and I lost first round. Oh well. I'm getting paid to do this, so I suppose in this case everyone's a winner.

It was also okay because that meant that I had more time to eat food! I had way too many hotdogs, and only one burger. Everybody knows that in the war between hotdogs and hamburgers, hotdogs always win. They are definitely the true american food. Some will disagree, but I will ask them, can you get a hamburger at a basball game? No you can't.

After that they sent us home early. So yeah, not my most productive day, but it's okay because it was mandated by my boss. After work, we tried to hike some, but it was raining the whole time. We hiked about 2 hours until we were totally soaked, and then went to Sicily's for their incredible pizza buffet.

Other interns that work in the same bullpin as me: Billy(OSU), Mike(MTU), and Kirsten(UT).

55 deg windy and raining = Good Alaskan Ride

Instead of describing my ride yesterday I have made a wishlist instead.

Kenneth's Wishlist for Cycling in Alaska:

• full fingered gloves
• wind proof vest
• rain coat
• cycling pants
• cycling bib knickers
• better chain lube (I've tried 3 so far, none work well enough)
• thicker socks
• better base layer
• shoe covers
• non-white bibs
• clear sunglasses lenses
• common sense

Of course, I could buy all this stuff at a local bike shop (yes, they sell common sense, but I don't recommend that product because it makes you slower). But the bike shops close at 6:00.... and I'm riding until 10:00.

Usually, if it rains, I head straight for home. Yesterday, I wanted to do 50 miles. At first, I was avoiding the rain squalls like a ninja avoiding throwing stars. Then I got hit by the Daddy storm. As my fingers went numb and I started to shiver, I just smiled. Alaska is fun. I did 60 miles instead.

Earthquake!!

Today I was sitting at my desk, working away, minding my own business. I was listening to music with headphone because one of my office-mates was discussing his project with a coworker. All of a sudden my desk started to move around. I thought that the office-mate was kicking my desk, and I thought that this was very rude. But then I realized that the whole room was moving back and forth, side to side. It took me a good ten seconds to realized that I was in an earthquake.

The lights were swinging back and forth and the building was kind of groaning. I am on the 13th floor (lucky). I had never been in an earthquake before and it was very interesting to feel how everything moves, first up and down and then side to side. It felt as if I got up out of my chair too fast and got really dizzy. It went on for about a minuter or so and then everything was back to normal. My first instinct was to run to the window to 'see the earthquake,' like it was a tornado or something. Obviously, there was nothing to see.

The USGS later said that it was a 5.4 size earthquake on the Richter Scale, which is the largest one that Anchorage has had this year. The epicenter was 50 miles away. Luckily, it wasn't so large that we had to dive under our desks or anything like that. Evidently, the ConocoPhillips building is designed to withstand pretty sizable earthquakes without damage.

Happy Solstice in Alaska: Flat Top

I have a new holiday. June doesn't really have any good holidays, so now I will celebrate Solstice Day. So Happy Solstice to you all.

This year to celebrate, I climbed Flat Top Mountain with a couple of my friends. We started hiking in bright daylight, at 10:00pm. It was by far, the windiest conditions I had ever hiked in. In some places, I think it must have been blowing over 60 mph. My hands were very frozen all the way up and my checks felt like they were on fire. Part of our group decided to turn back early, and four of us continued to suffer up to the top. When I finally made it to the top, I knew why the wind was blowing so hard. There was a gigantic storm in the higher mountains to the west of us, and it was blowing rain all the way to us from more than 30 miles up the valley.

View of the sun starting to set from halfway up. 11:45 pm

At the top we joined a group of about 20 people just sitting around having a good time at the top. One said he planned to bring his trampoline up this year, but because of the wind, thought better of it. We sat a talked about our travels with the people, snapped some pictures, and decided it would be best if we headed down. It was about 45 deg and the wind was carrying rain from the storm, and I was the only one with a wind-proof jacket. Well my jacket is supposed to be wind proof, but it wasn't working quite as well as the name implies.

Me against the storm. The wind was blowing.

As we left, the people told us we had to wait just a little longer, until 12:15 am. When officially the sun goes below the horizon. We counted down from ten and then all screamed, "HAPPY SOLSTICE!" It was just like new years, except no kissing. After that we said our goodbyes, and everyone wished us a happy solstice. As we were going down, people were still coming up, and it was 12:30 am! Even though the sun was below the horizon, there was still plenty of light to see by, and I felt a little bit like a tourist because I was carrying a flashlight that I definitely didn't need. Although there was one guy that topped me in the tourist no-nos: one old man had a pick-ax for a mountain with no snow, and a pistol-grip shotgun in case he saw a bear. Nowhere else in America will you see people carrying shotguns on hikes within a city - or anywhere.

Wishing all in this picture a happy solstice, especially incredibly-loud-jacket-man (from Austria?) and Jeremy (in black with the beard)

Mayor's Marathon

Today I ran the Mayor's Marathon. Okay, not the whole thing, just part. They had options where you could just do part. I don't think that I would have difficulty doing a marathon right now, if I went slow enough, but I don't like running six miles, much less 26.2. I'll ride my bike incredibly long distances to feel accomplished. I also went on a 30 mile bike ride today, so overall I burned around 4000 calories. But it's not over....

This afternoon I did rest and watched Warren Miller movies, which is this guy that films skiers doing incredible things. A lot of the shots he does are in my backyard, Girdwood, which arguably has some of the best heli-skiing in the world. Or so the Alaskans say.

Tonight is the solstice! Hoorah. To Texans, this is not a big deal, but to Alaskans it's a huge party. I will partake, Alaskan style of course, by climbing one of the tallest mountains in the area (Flat Top) and then hanging out until the sun sets! The idea is that by going to altitude you can see the sun just a little bit longer. This is a bittersweet moment, because we are in the middle of summer, which brings relative warmth (highs of 70 deg), but now for the rest of the year, the sun comes out less and less.

I really want to swim and get some sun. I have seen some of my friends' pictures on Facebook, sitting out at the pool and getting a tan. No such luck here. I suppose I could always jump in Cook Inlet- for about 30 seconds before I start to get hypothermia. Maybe I can find an indoor pool with UV radiation lamps. As Warren Miller says, "You better do it now, or you'll be one year older when you do."

Hike over Anchorage and the missile base

I had another successful hike to the not so great unknown mountainous parts of Alaska. I had heard about some great views of Anchorage from the top of this hike and that it wasn't too hard, so I invited all the interns to go as a group. We ended up with seven people: Me, Kirsten, Joey, Aubrey, Mike, Mike's wife Jessie, and their baby Lilly. It was a good group. Joey and Kirsten were still in the mindset of hiking in Texas, so they both wore shorts. I know that there were times on the hike where I was a little cold wearing pants, long sleeved shirt and a jacket, so they must have been freezing! Really, it was the wind and lack of direct sunlight that made it cold. This was supposed to be one of the windiest parts of Anchorage.

Before we got to the top, the Mike Morgan family decided to turn back because the baby was heavy. I don't blame them. I don't think I would want to carry a baby either! The view from the top was very nice, and it was cool to see all of Anchorage as if I was looking at Google Earth.

Pictures!

Aubrey, Kirsten, And Joey hiking up

On the top with Anchorage behind us

On the top

Racing in Anchorage

I went out to my first Alaskan race today. It was great!! It was a TT on Fort Richardson, which is a US AMRY and Marines bases. My TT skills were definitely lacking because I have been going on 80+ mile rides at low intensity. Plus in general, I don't like TT's. I like the game that you play when you are in a large peloton or breaking away from said peloton. But it was fun to say the least.

Racing definitely got my competitive spirit going again. My drive for riding was starting to wane, but one good race and I'm back in it 100%. I guess I just love the competitive drive aspect of sports, biking in general. Also the friendships gained on rides are priceless.

I also thought that I might be better than everyone here because their season starts in May and goes to September, while Austin cycling season is pretty much year round. This is simply not the case. I forgot about cross-training with cross-country skiing! There are some fast guys up north, and there will be some great competition for me.

The next race is on Saturday, which is also the summer solstice. The plan is to race in the morning/afternoon, and then climb Flat Top Mountain to watch the sun set at 12:30 am. Should be fun!!

Casual Ride .... Maybe still interesting?

I went on a ride today that was pretty interesting. Of course, it rained.... again. I am getting used to the rain though. In Austin, I would never ride in the rain. I think I did it once. It rains so seldom that you can just wait for a nice day. Here it rains every other day at least, so you would never get any training in if you didn't want to be in the rain. Actually, today I didn't even expect it to rain, but sure enough it did. When I get back to Texas this Fall/Winter, I imagine I will be able to ride through anything.

I saw ANOTHER moose today. Actually, just about every time I go biking I see at least one moose. At first I thought this was really cool to see such a large animal, but actually they are quite annoying. This one was a bull that had just started to grow antlers and was straddling the trail. There was no feasible way that I was going to get around. I sat there pondering what to do for a couple of minutes until another biker screeched to a halt behind me. He said he knew another route and so I followed him around for a while, which was aggravating because A: he went incredibly slow, and B: he insisted on riding on the sidewalks, which I abhor. It's a sideWALK, not a sideride. That's called a bike lane. But no matter.

Not so paved..........

My goal today was to combine two routes that I really have grown to like. One kind of hard to get to, but I figured I could find a way around. I looked on Google Earth to try to find unmarked paved paths and/or roads and... was successful! On GoogleEarth, you can plainly see a path, or something, that connects the two roads. So I set out on my journey. Come to find out, the 'road/path' was not as paved as I thought. It was actually a dirt trail. HUH. Well I had no other option so I just went down this path on my road bike. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. So yeah. With the rain, though my bike got really dirty. Oh well, I guess I'll have to clean it again!

Not long after I hit the dirt, I wasback on the pavement and the rest of the ride went smoothly. And Wet.

I thought this sign was hilarious. Don't see many of these in Texas.....

Bird Ridge Hike

On Wednesday, I did the Bird Ridge hike, which goes to an overlook of the Cook Inlet. It is about a 15 minute drive from Anchorage, so it is a perfect hike to do right after work. Plus the sun is up until at least 1:00 am (haven't stayed up later...) so there is no chance of getting caught in the dark.

It's very comical to me, but I think that Alaskans have never heard of switchbacks. They probably think a 'switchback' is some sort of camel. Actually switchback camel has a nice ring to it. I joked with on fellow hiker something about how "you Alaskans don't know what switchbacks are, obviously!" He replied, "Ah yeah we don't need 'em." I said, " well you're going to have erosion problems on this trail soon," and he asked me what erosion is. This conversation brings up two interesting points about Alaskans that I find very interesting. One, they are convince their ruggedness translates to superiority, and two, they seem to love being in the outdoors but don't really care what they do to their environment.

To understand point one, all you have to do is mention something about the lower 48 to any true Alaskan. Anything that you bring up will be harsher, colder, bigger, pricier, or more hard core than it is in the lower 48. This, for the most part is true. Especially the price part. Food has to be about 1.5 times more expensive here. Also, it is much colder. I, in fact, am cold all the time, but I'm getting used to it. I would agree that Alaska is more rugged or hardcore than anywhere else I've been. Also the ruggedness is closer in proximity to major cities (major being Anchorage, pop. 250,000). An Alaskan's logic would say that the rugged climate breeds more rugged people. This might be true, but they also think that this means that they are superior, which is simply false. Everybody knows that Texans are superior to everybody.

Point number two: every Alaskan that I have met seems to love the outdoors, but doesn't really care about the environment. This is quite different from the lower 48 stigma that only hippies and environmentalists go on hikes to the mountains. Everyone enjoys the outdoors here. But nobody cares about erosional problems caused by not having adequate switchbacks on trails. If a trail went straight up a mountain in Colorado, someone would quickly make switchbacks so that there would be minimal impact on the environment. In Alaska, if you want to get to the top of a hill, you walk straight up the ridge until you get there. Nobody cares about erosion. I have a theory to why this is: its not that Alaskans are intrinsically uncaring, it's just that they have come to realize that there are so few people in Alaska, it doesn't really matter where you go, you still won't impact the vast spaces. In Colorado, if there is a magnificent view two miles from the highway, you will soon have to concrete the path because hundreds of thousands of people a week will want to do that hike. I guess in Alaska, if everyone in the entire state did the hike once a week, they might have to take the same measures.

Bird Ridge was no exception to the lack of switchbacks and went straight up a ridge for 2000 ft of vertical elevation gain in four miles. While we hiked, the Cook inlet tide was coming in. It was neat to see how the water rises from an areal point of view. The top of the ridge was breath taking and had 360 degree views of mountains and snow. I couldn't believe that we had just driven 15 minutes out of Anchorage for this! I still had 3G service on my phone! I used this in fact on the way down, to the dismay of my hiking buddies, to call Ally and my parents. It was funny because when you ask someone what they are up to at the first of a conversation, you never expect them to say, "Oh, just hiking down a mountain."

Anyways, here are some pictures below. It's supposed to rain the rest of the weekend so I'm sure I'll have some ridiculous story about how I rode my bike in the rain, which is really gross here because of all the sand they use for the snow in winter. I guess no one bothers to pick it up.

Sorry to nerd out, but this is a perfect example of a glacially formed valley. Notice the 'U' instead of the 'V' that you usually see with river formed valleys.


Bird that tried to attack me and then sat very still for a picture. Ptarmigan, I believe.


Turagain Arm of the Cook Inlet. This was soon full of water.


Beautiful Fireweed in the mountains.

Turnagain Arm bike adventure

On Saturday, I decided to be daring and ride my bike over 80 miles when I didn't really know where I was going or what the road conditions are. It went better than I excepted.

Turnagain Arm is part of the Cook Inlet near Anchorage, home of the bore tide and beluga whales. The first part was on the side of the highway, with cars traveling to Seward whizzing by at 60 mph. Of course, the most disconcerting part is the tour buses from the cruises coming out of Seward. Because the bay around Anchorage has such a big tide, the cruises dock at Seward (about 100 miles from Seward) and then the people ride buses up to Anchorage for sight-seeing. There must be 1000+ buses in the fleet of Seward bus-dom. Seward doesn't have that many people living there year long, so the big joke is that there are more tour buses in Seward during the winter than there are people.

Nobody seems to come to Alaska during the winter. Locals will tell you that it is the prettiest time of the year, and that the skiing is great. I think people think that they need more than 6 hours of sunlight in one day or they are afraid of losing their tan. But most of the cruise towns completely shut down. Whittier, a town known for its kayak adventures during the summer, has a population of near 0 during the winter.

Okay, I digress. This ride is one of the best I have been on, scenery and training-wise. For the scenery, there are mountains on your left and and a beautiful bay followed by more mountains on your right. I cycled all the way to Girwood just looking around and gawking at the sights, which wasn't neccesarily conducive to riding in a straight line. Girwood is famous for backcountry skiing, but is also very nice during the winter. There was a great hill at the end of the town with aobut a 5% grade for about 10 minutes. Good training.

After the hill climb, I turned around and headed back for Anchorage. I realized I had been having such a good time on the way up because I was being befriended by a good stiff breeze from my back. Now I was battling this wind back to Anchorage. The turnagain arm winds are known to reach hurricane force a couple of times a year, so I suppose I was lucky that it was only blowing at 20-25 mph. I have some friends on the MSU cycling team in Whichita Falls, and they always say that they have no problem facing the hills in Austin because they are used to the relatively high winds in the Texas plains compared to the more stagnant air of Austin. Well, when training in Alaska, you have to deal with both. The wind back completely shelled me.

Needless to say, I took Sunday off and played a game that I found in Adam's house called Rome: Total war. Hopefully I don't get addicted.

Time for another ride! Today I'm going back to Eagle River to see if I can find a better route than last Monday. Wish me luck.

Hike up O'Malley Peak

Yesterday Adam, my roomate, broke me in to hiking in Alaska with a four mile, 3500 ft elevation gain climb up O'Malley Peak. I was surprised at how close the trailhead was to our house. It took us no more than 30 minutes, even while going past the post office. This is very different from hiking in Colorado, where you sometime have to drive for 2 hours down dirt roads before you can start hiking.

We started about 12:30 or so. This morning the clouds were really low, so the whole trailhead was in a cloud bank when we started. Cloud banks kind of look like a really dense fog, and it feels like you are sweating four times more than you really are. The first part of the trail was muddy, then the next part was really steep, and the third part was six feet of snow. I definitely got a taste of what Alaska hiking is like. Anchorage's climate is similar to Seattle's, so during the summer, it is raining more days than it is sunny.

After slogging it through the snow on the northern side, we crossed over to the southern side of the peak, where more sun hits the rock. The whole side of the mountain was coated with mounatian tundra. The tundra is mossy and spongy, and feels like someone laid down a huge, multi-colored carpet on top of the rock. I wanted to lay down and take a nap on the ground, but knew I should go on and bag this peak.

The last part of the mountain was covered in scree. Scree is smallish rocks about 2 ft deep. When you try to take a step in scree, the joke is that you take one step forward and go two steps back. Suddenly, the wind picked up a little and the cloud bank we were in disappeared. As soon as it moved away you could see miles of clouds in all directions, like being in an airplane, and snow-coverd peak sticking up through the clouds. It was one of the most beautiful mountain-scapes I have ever seen. Unfortunantly, camera ran out of batteries, but I got some shots on my phone, which doesn't do the scenery justice. At this point we were about 400 ft from the summit, but we just stood there looking around for a while until the clouds came back again. We reached the summit, but while we were up there all we really saw was white clouds. We sat at the top for 30 minutes, waiting for the clouds to clear again, but they never did. I was not disapointed though because we still got to the top.

On the way back down, the frusteration of scree turn into pure joy. Instead of fighting gravity, now it is your best friend. When you put your foot down, it slides an extra 3 ft, so you can 'skate' down the mountain, going 5-6 mph down the steep slope. It is so much fun, and we were not at a big risk of getting hurt. And the snow was even better. Instead of hiking step by step up the ice, we sat down and butt-slid all the way down. As we raced, Adam was winning so I got and ran the last 100ft. This put us in good spirits, and I didn't mind that the clouds and wind were making me pretty cold. We continued hiking and got back to the trailhead about thirty minutes later.

Last Day of the trip to Alaska

Today I made it to Anchorage around 1 pm. Adam had not called me yet, so I tried all day today to find a computer store with no real luck. Finally I found a hole-in-the-wall place that could open up my email and I got Adam's number and quickly called him. I could hardly believe that I was at the end of my 7 day journey to Alaska. I was blessed with great weather coming into Anchorage, but all I really wanted to do was sleep. And I certainly did not want to drive anywhere for a long time. It is now Saturday and I start work on Monday. At 21 stories tall, the Conoco-Phillips building is the tallest building in Alaska. I was told I was working on the 13th floor (lucky!) with great views of the town and surrounding mountains and bay.

As I drove around Anchorage, one of the things that really surprised me were the huge tides that go in and out of the bay just west of the city. When I saw it , the tide was going out. Fast. I was watching from a bluff about 50 ft up from the water, but as the water passed me I could seea wall of water about 3 ft high rush past at about 10 mph. During a full moon the tide can form a wall of water 6 ft high! When the tide is out, it leaves behind a giant mudflat that can be very dangerous. Someone told me that last year, a small girl ventured out into the mudflats and was never found. Needless to say, I think I will just watch the tide from the bluffs.

Tomorrow, I hope to go bike riding. It will be simliar to riding in Austin during the winter, with temperatures around 50 degrees. One cool thing is tha the sun will not set until about 3 in the morning, so there is plenty of time to go as far and as long as I like!

Trip to Anchorage Day 6

After last night in a cozy warm bed, I set off in hopes that I would make it back to God's country, the USA. One of the cool things I saw along the way is the signpost forest, which has signs from town all across the globe, placed there by travelers of the ALCAN. I also got some great pictures of the St. Elias Mountains as I traveled north about 50 miles from the Pacific coast.


It was today that I started to feel the wrath of the notorious Alaska mosquitoes. These mosquitoes are actually much slower, bigger and dumber than their southern counterparts, but there are literally hundreds per sq ft! Every time I would get out of the car to take a break or get gas, I was bombarded by thousands of these guys. I soon put on my hoodie and socks so that I didn't have to deal with them on my feet or neck.

At about 8 pm Alaska time, I got to Tok (rhymes with smoke), Alaska, without any trouble through the border patrol. I was glad to be back to the much lower gas prices (still 3 bucks). I will make camp soon and make it to Anchorage tomorrow.

One thing I discovered in Tok is that my computer decided to completely die on me. This is even worse than it seems because it had the number of the guy that I'm supposed to live with this summer. Unless I fix my computer, I will have no chance of getting in touch with him. If I can't get it fixed, then I will have to wait until Adam gets worried and calls me. We'll see what happens!

Trip to Anchorage Day 5

Day 5 is the day that I got into the Canadian Rockies. They are spectacularly beautiful. Another amazing thing is the expansive forest that I traveled through right before I hit the mountains. It was the southern end of the Boreal forest, which holds 1/3rd of the world's trees and circumnavigates the globe.

Picture of me in front of a glacially-fed lake (green colored)

I also saw an incredible amount of wildlife today. In about 3 hrs, I saw four black bears! Also, I saw a moose and lots of bison. I managed to catch a few pictures as I drove by. I also got a movie of what I thought at the time was a moose, but upon further investigation, I see that it is a caribou. So ignore when I yell out "MOOSE" at the end of the movie. (See below.)

The best picture I could get of the bear. (He was fast!) The bison couldn't care less that I was taking pictures of them.

Most of the day's driving was very winding and steep with lots of glacier lakes and beautiful mountain that still had most of their snow. It rained a lot today, but in between rainstorms, I was rewarded with expansive and brilliant views. The temperature barely got out of the 40's and for a while it actually snowed on me! Needless to say, I decided to stay in a hotel tonight because I didn't feel like camping in the snow. Tomorrow, I will make it back to the USA!

Trip to Anchorage Day 4

Well I finally got a new computer and can now update my blog. YAY!

Day 4 I got up bright and early and immigrated to Canada. I don't know much about Canadians except that they love saying "eh?" Anyways, when I got to the border, the agent thought that it was very strange that I was traveling to Alaska by myself, so he told me to come inside while they ran my passport through Interpol to see if I was running away from my family. After about 45 min, he gave me my passport back, saying, "Well nobody's looking for ya yet. Have a good trip and drive safe, eh?" I felt like a secret agent, except there were no gun fights. Next time maybe....

There was not much to see as I drove north through Alberta, just plains, plains, plains. I quickly found out that in America, we have nothing to complain about when it comes to gas prices. It's close to $5 USD a gallon. It's very deceiving though, b/c they put their prices in $/litre, so it's about $0.99/litre.

In actuality, there is not much to say about today. Just cows and farmlands. I can't wait until I get farther northwest and cross over the Canadian Rockies!