Audrey, Carrie and I mountain biked Gilmore Trail Saturday with all the dogs. It is a great trail with a steep climb and fun descent.

Backpacking and Packrafting in Denali

Sable Sanctuary Traverse is an incredible trip that includes a little logistics, Ed, pack rafts and backpacks. Denali Park has over 6 million acres in the park and only 5 people are allowed per quadrant in the backcountry per day, to ensure few people and no trails in the back country. It was my first big trip with just a map, and of course my first pack rafting trip. It is so great to just hike in and pull out your raft from you backpack and float down the rapids! By far the best trip I have been on in Alaska, but I say that every time. I can't even believe a short drive from Fairbanks and we did this trip in a weekend, it was definitely a burly hike for me. Ed carried my raft and Ben carried my stuff because I can't carry a big pack with the catheter. I am so glad they did so I can still do these crazy trips! I highly recommend getting off the road if you come to Denali, you can see so much more. Above is our route marked by Ed's GPS software.
The start of our hike. the bus driver let us drop a couple bags (with tents and dry clothes) at our camp site where we would stay at the end of the day, and then dropped us off near Sable Pass where we skirt around Cathedral Mountain and down to the Teklanika River basin.

We hit some heavy brush patches and lots of do whooping for all the grizzly bears.Crossing the Teklanika many, many times, you just prepare to have wet feet the entire trip. We hiked down the Teklanika until the Calico Creek drainage.
Here are some of the many grizzly bear tracks, hair and scat we saw along the hike. We only saw one grizzly bear from the pack raft portion of the trip.

Everyone jumping for joy as we really lucked out with the weather and wind so no bugs!

Ted and Ed hiking up Calico Creek. I like this pic because way in the upper left the bit of snow is the pass we are going over, that was the longest part of the hike.

Finally we start making our way to the top and it was much steeper than we anticipated.

Ed at the top. Ed rocks for planning this adventure on a Thursday and we started Saturday morning. He has two extra pack raft boats and he is carrying two in his backpack, these things are amazing.
Down the other side of the pass, huge steep scree field and snow, man was it fun sliding down.
Looking back at the pass we crossed right in the middle.
awe. dan and ed with a rainbow on our way down to Sanctuary River and the beginning of the pack raft portion or our trip.
Everyone pulled out their rafts and started blowing them up. Hold up a bag connected to the inlet to catch wind, tie it off and squeeze the air in as a lightweight pump demonstrated above.
All done and we let them rest in the cold glacial silt water to equalize while putting everything in a dry bag in your pack and then tie your pack to the bow of the boat.
All the boats getting ready to paddle 16 miles down the Sanctuary river after our 10 hour hike.
Ben starting off. It was total chaos as ted, ben and I learned to ferry and drive the boat into the braided river. Ed and Dan are seasoned veterans, and had a good laugh at the beginning, but we got the hang of it soon. we were able to get pretty comfortable before we hit the class II rapids, what a wild ride in a pack raft! it was a great trip, capped of nicely by pulling the boats up to the shore just 30 feet from our camp site on the river where we had dropped bags earlier. this was the biggest day i have had on dialysis. 28 miles on land and water in 13.5 hours.


on another note Torsten and Dirk were just leaving when we returned. bye guys and we will miss you greatly! Check out their link what a trip!

i went climbing with lisa and dan at grapefruit rocks. i have not rock climbed for many years, but it was sure fun to try climbing again. dan developed part of this area with a sport climb route and top rope.
lisa lead climbing.
me giving it a shot. grapefruit rocks is 1 hour north of Fairbanks and with the daylight we could of climbed all night...but i was starving.
ben and i rode our bikes to laura and dave's wedding. here is a pic from the reception, what a fun day!
ben and i ending the day on ed's deck, again.

we had a big send off party for Julie last week. she is way into her drive now in Canada somewhere.
all of her friends were there, both old and new. jeff, ellie and wyatt from delta came in.
ed and anna. both anna and wyatt were into the dance party...they were so cute.

we had a nice deck party this weekend at Kristen's and to hang out with the Germans before ben went up the haul a ways with them to shoot. another tip to tip team taking a year or two off, but this time in a 52 beetle, check out ben's blog.
along with every deck party is also a dog party. they had one wild night unsupervised on 7 acres.

more hick everyday. what do you call it when ben is driving, i am sitting next to him and pella is in the passenger seat?

TGIF

man i am glad this week is over, just not feeling that great....but better today just in time for the weekend :-) i still rallied for a birthday dinner that Kristen made.
and a night out on Ed and Trevor for the car shuttle we did while in the Brooks Range, can't pass that up.

Anna and Alister

last night lisa and dan had a bbq to welcome anna and alister. they are from Australia and are taking two years off to bike from Prudhoe Bay to Tierra Del Fuego, South America...tip to tip. they had great stories so far and we look forward to keeping up with them on their website:
www.thefuegoproject.com
check out their map, gear and gallery of pics!

turning 35 in the brooks range!

ben and i headed up the haul road to the brooks range. the brooks range is remote and farther north then the farthest most tree(no i didn't take a pic of the sign). farther north than the Arctic Circle at mile 130, see map below. most of the brooks range is only accessible by plane, unless you start your hike from the haul road. we did the drive north for my birthday to go camping and hiking, it was another amazing trip. the picture above is on the dirt haul road at Galbraith Lake, we camped near Atigun River Gorge on our second night.

Atigun River Gorge goes into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, hiking up the gorge is a must if you come to the Brooks Range.
the start of Atigun River Gorge. there is a waterfall 4 miles in.
there are no trails, you just head out with your map, here is a giant tussocks on the sponge like wet tundra that makes hiking slow going.ben, pella and i up the Atigun River Gorge on night two.

the light was great in the late evening and we did some fossil digging because this area used to be under water before the Brooks Range was formed.
the Yukon River, 3rd largest river in North America and empties in the Bering sea, we stop here to visit Jeremy and Dorthy whom Ben photographs for his haul road work. they make local jewelry out of birch bark and porcupine quills.
ben at Finger Mountain near the Arctic Circle late at night (click for a larger view of the mosquitoes) . this was the longest day of the year, and the Arctic Circle is an imaginary line around the Earth above which the sun does not set until August. pretty cool to spend solstice north of the Arctic Circle.
lunch near the Koyukuk River.

north of the Brooks Range, near the Sag river confluence, mile 292.

hiking up the river at Galbraith Lake.

of course we saw the usual moose with calves, fox, grizzly bear, dall sheep....but this time we saw a musk ox! i can't believe these guys still roam the tundra, they are so prehistoric and cool looking. above is my poor picture, it is the brown dot in the middle.
we also had a hail storm on the Elliot on the drive home. we packed a lot in this weekend and plan to do a big backpacking trip in the Brooks Range after dialysis.

it was one crappy week this week, from pella being sick to bad transplant news and more postponements....so kristen and i headed to lavelle's afterwork. trevor and ann joined us later on and we had a great night out!

walking home at 2am or sunset/sunrise in Fairbanks.
after an unsuccessful day of beaver spotting with lisa and dan we headed over to ed's for a deck party to celebrate chris's arrival from South Africa. ed and dan just got in from another crazy 85 mile trip near tok and ed is demonstrating the bush buddy stove, pretty cool.

Yeehaw!

I discovered when I am really excited I yell yeehaw(like on the rapids leaving upper shoup bay), so that is the title of our amazing weekend in the Prince William Sound. We had a very adventurous crew and started with a 1 am hike up Worthington glacier on our way into Valdez in the pouring rain. It poured rain all night and into the afternoon. Here are Kristen and Ted getting ready to shove off into the windy, wavy sea.

Ben and I just leaving Valdez.
Heading out to Shoup Glacier.
Kristen and Ted paddling in the rain.

The weather gradually improved and as we rounded the bend into Shoup Glacier, Dan was there with his pack raft. He hiked in this crazy steep 11 mile trail that was suppose to be impassable. He also took caz and sky. He beat us to the cabin and blew up his pack raft to come and paddle. Caz is in the boat and sky is swimming next to him.
The view from our cabin, seriously, look at this awesome view!

after settling in at the cabin, we paddled up close to the glacier and drank wine and cheese.

the crew at the Kittewake cabin. Kittewake is a bird and the cabin faces an island of Kittewake's nesting.

the kayak out was blue bird skies, in Valdez no less! here is Audrey and Ann happy to be kayaking in the sunshine.

of course what sea kayak trip is complete without bringing your skis and tele skiing on Thompson Pass. Here is Dan hiking up with Caz and Sky. It was a great weekend to get away!

lovely dinner out on the deck at Lisa and Dan's.

Julie gets a job!

Julie just found out she is moving to Washington to work for the Nature Conservancy in Mt. Veron. After 12 years in Alaska, she is saying good bye to the cabin life and Fairbanks. She has been such a great friend, especially with all this crazy complications of trying to have a transplant, which are still on going. she leaves today for Aniakchak for field work and then moves straight to WA. We will hopefully be gone by then for the transplant so we headed out to the Pump House for a quick good-bye. Martin is also leaving in a few weeks for Washington DC, we hopefully will have a few more outings with him before he leaves!
a quick night out to say good bye. we will miss you Julie and Martin!

Pinnell Trail

the view on Pinnell Mountain Trail is awesome. Last time we hiked the 27 mile 2 day trail, we could not see past our fingertips.
there was still a lot of snow and we had a blast thermarest sledding.


we hiked about 4 miles in, set up camp and slept for a few hours. with 24 hour sunlight, we decided to pack out and head to the river.
four wheeling down a dirt road to Bear Creek.
hanging out by the river, a nice relaxing weekend!
we ended the weekend at hot licks with ted and ed fresh off the plane from kodiak island where they both ran a marathon this past weekend.

the haul road

ben had a great trip up the haul road into the brooks range this weekend. he is working on his photo project using his 4 x5 large format film camera. this time he took some digital pictures so i can see what it looks like. the road had huge ruts and was impassable with a car, good thing he now has his truck.
ben looking out at Chandalar shelf.
crazy unicyclist that rode from Valdez to Prudhoe Bay (Arctic Ocean)! he carried all of his gear with him in a backpack. ben gave him a ride back to Fairbanks after he reached Prudhoe Bay.

one long day!

Lisa and I headed up to the white mountains to hike and meet up with Ed, Ann and Trevor. They left at 8pm the night before on a 30 mile paddle and 20 mile hike out to whickersham dome. They thought they could do this in 15 hours, they were only off by 8 hours! Hypothermia and had to start a fire, post holing thru knee deep snow with their pack rafts and back packs........ these guys are really crazy and I am glad they made it with no problems, after our hike to whickersham dome and back we only waited 5 hours! Then we were treated to a dinner a Hill Top.

We got back into town at around 10pm and made to Brown and Cobb's Martini and boa party. Here we are on the deck at around 11pm, of course it is still light out.

Brown's Martini table far outweighs mine. They had lots of top shelf liquor and some great Martini's!

and we were treated to breakfast on Ed's deck. kita and pella trying to find some shade.

mother's day weekend

we all met mom at Pike's for some burgers and beer. what a fun night, my mom knew everyone from their blogs.
hiking at Granite Tors trail.
mother's day brunch at the Pump House on the river. we had a great fun weekend, it was good to see you mom!

big news in Fairbanks, Ben bought a truck today! From our spandex wearing, subaru Boulder days, to this! the background is a pipeline overlook on the way to Audrey's house to check out the 4x4 on the steep dirt roads. a little more clearance for driving the haul road project and all of our other Alaskan adventures.

dinner at Audrey's new place, it was just great....Brandt cooked up some awesome caribou enchiladas, the best caribou I have had yet. we also met delta, the best hunting lab dog i have met. he demonstrated all the calls the dog knows and it was amazing.

out on a mellow Saturday night on Ed's deck, finally spring!

Anchorage, again.

well, we had to do a fast trip to Anchorage again. i had another infection in my catheter and had to have surgery right away to replace it. i'll spare the details. here is ben swimming with the dolphins. we were also able to shop at my new favorite store, circular.

Way to go Ben!

The official word is out, Ben won 2nd place in the Alaska Positive Photography competition. They frame his prints that were selected and all the photos selected tour the state museums of this coming year. Check out the link below.

http://www.museums.state.ak.us/documents/press_releases/04_23_08_AK_Pos_winners.pdf

I passed!

I passed my orals exams and I am now a Ph.D. Candidate! Thanks everyone for coming out to Silver Gulch, it was a great time.

Thanks to Ed and Trevor, who gave me a gift certificate for a massage, from Brown.
Dan also passed his oral exams this week and who wouldn't want a pair of down booties for that.

i spent most of the day getting ready for my upcoming oral exams (very exciting!), but still was able to get out for a long ride on the bike. kristen, lisa and I headed out for a superb day on the dog musher hall/ creamer's field ski trails.
of course spring time in Fairbanks means skiing, but we are trying to move on. i led us on a crazy route all over the trail system to some loops i have never seen. kristen had her massive Fairbanks snow tires on, which were perfect for this kind of riding. there were some soft spots, but that just made it more interesting.

we had a girls night music swap last night at kristen's. i have been updating my ipod all morning. pink martini and new ryan adams are my new favorites. she had a ton of music that i have not heard before from Denver, she is from CO too and moved to Fairbanks in the last year.

pella making herself at home, she fell asleep on this tin tub in the corner.

ed and brian had a slide show this weekend on their wilderness classic route through the wrangell mountains. there was a good showing and i showed up early to make martini's for everyone.

then of course, the slide show party turned into a dance party. it was another fun night of dancing. we even had wu out there showing us his moves.

greg and kristen came over friday and greg was going to help ben with his photo website. but then he settled into our couch with some scotch and pella......instead we listened to some great new music ben has downloaded. (hi sarah!)

they made it!

photo by Brian Jackson
we will see the official slide show from Ed and Brian this weekend, but here is the article in today's new's miner and some great pics from them!(click on the sentence below)

Jackson and Plumb were two of the nine racers who accepted the challenge that is the Wilderness Classic, the longest, toughest — and only — unsupported backcountry ski race in Alaska.