Cantwell Windy Creek to Jack River

Super fun Windy Creek packraft day trip. We started in Cantwell with a pretty easy 5 mile hike into Windy Creek. Mark, Ben, Ed, Dea, Magan and Tyler(taking pic).
Looking down from the trail to Windy Creek.

Blowing up the packrafts and getting ready to paddle.
Windy Creek was a big rapid the entire way with no flat water. A great river for such a short hike. Here is Ben and Tyler in the rapids. Nothing too scary, just a whole lot of awesome. Then the jack river is a calm float back to the take out and a 5 mile run back to the car.

Magan in the sinking packraft. It had a small leak and needed to be blown up several times, but it was no problem for her!

July 4th weekend

We drove down to the Denali Highway to backpack into 7 mile lake as the rest of the crew headed on a packraft trip. The trail ended in a few miles and we decided not to carry the chariot and Ann another 5 miles or so into the lake. We hiked McLaren summit trail instead. Both Ben and Ned were away for the weekend....Ben went into the Arctic Ocean! So we had a fun girls weekend while they were away.

After 7 mile lake we had a great dinner at McLaren Lodge.

The dogs ran free inside and out at the lodge. Here is another lab Denali and this cute little baby bird with it's mouth open wanting food from the lab. Denali did not know quite what to do.

Kristen and Anna hiking on McLaren Summit. Anna was a trooper at camping and hiked a ways with us each day.

Birthday Dinner

Brown cooked this amazing Indian feast for my birthday. It was incredible food complete with homemade decorations and garland. Thanks Brown!

We packed my new backpack with a ton of stuff to make sure it could handle it. The packraft is in there too!
The dinner table, Ted Wu took this shot.

Packraft with Pella!

Mark, Mara and Ed on the upper Chena River. Ed wanted to take his nephew Mark and friend Mara out on the packrafts before their big Brooks Range packrafting trip this weekend.
I took the opportunity to take Pella out on the packraft on a mellow river before our next big trip.
She did great and after a mile or so just laid down and took in the beautiful surroundings.

Sea Kayaking from Valdez out to Shoup

This year we had rough seas all the way in and out to Shoup Bay. It was super fun paddling the big swells and a little frustrating on the way in because we were going no where fast up wind. Once in the bay though the waters were calm. Here we are paddling into the cabin.

Kristen and Anthony getting up close and personal with the glacier. Ben even brought his medium format camera and tripod. It is amazing what you can fit in a kayak.

Lena and Mike.Kristen and Anthony.
Ben making some coffee with the jet boil. It was great group and super fun trip as always. I am glad we had rough weather to learn how to paddle in the high seas! I have no pics of that part of course, we had to keep paddling so we did not flip.

Coffee/Pizza Traverse Packraft Trip Part 1

We started out our backpacking/ packraft trip at Carlo Creek pizza place. Check out the map. The hike was supposed to be a 15 miles by the red line Ed drew on the topo map above, and a 16 mile paddle on the Nenana River. You never know what the terrain will be without a trail, or how many times you have to cross creeks and rivers, cliffs and drop-offs. The hike was more like 22 miles, and terrain over the pass was snowy and steep...it was awesome and I was really tired after this one - 3 months, 1 week and 1 day after my kidney transplant.

Ann at the start, overjoyed to be out again.

Ed, John and Ben getting some calories in. Eat and hike - that is the way on these trips. The hike up Carlo Creek was amazing, great skiing back there.
Farther up Carlo Creek there was aufeis , but it was perfect hiking up the valley instead of bush whacking.

Above the brush and starting the ascent to the pass still up in the clouds at this point.

Ben and this sweet waterfall. We only had to cross the creek once or twice, always hiking with wet shoes.

Group shot near an alpine lake. Dea, John, Ann, Ed and Ben and Fernie.

Almost there! A view of our tracks, and the caribou tracks we followed. The caribou knew exactly where to go to avoid the rotten snow.

The ascent was not too bad, but we did not know what lie on the other side. The descent turned out to be steeper than expected and Fernie had be carried down a rock or two. She didn't seem to mind too much.

Ann and John loving the rocky descent and Fernie's cute little head poking around to see what was next.

Ed on the descent way out in front on a ridge.

I skip a few miles of photos, trying hard to keep up with these guys, so no pics and finally the Nenana River!

This steep descent really drops off and the bushwhacking was crazy, but only 1 mile. After this it was really deep and we could not see each other at all, we did lots of doowhooping to keep the bears away. We did see Dall sheep and caribou...bear signs, but no bears. Once we get to the river we pull the packrafts out of our packs and begin to blow them up by capturing the wind in a parachute bag adapter and squeezing it in. It actually does not take that long, I have no pics past this point....so I turn to Ed for part two. Maybe in a few days. All in all it was an amazing trip!

Ben's solo show the Annex

Ben and Dennis observing the pictures just for the opening of Ben's solo show at the Annex. The night was a great success!
Our good friends purchased a group photo of the German's and they are going to pass it from house to house.


A video for family and friends who could not make it! Thanks for everyone that came out to support Ben.

Trevor's Going Away Party

The gang out on the deck one last time(double click pic to see)! Trevor will so be missed. I can not say enough about how great Trevor is! We are all fortunate to have had so many good times with him in Alaska. I still get to see him the last time Sat. before we leave for pack rafting.

Trevor and Kate being silly.


As everyone knows Trevor donated his kidney to me in February and I will be forever grateful. I'll miss you TrevAH!

Finished the Sweater

Here it is finally, the sweater is done. I have not blocked it yet in the picture.
Thanks Brown! Pizza, beer and wine on the deck is the perfect way to seam.

Sailing in Chicago

After Mayo this week, I went to Chicago for the weekend to visit my family for my nieces baptism. We were able to put the top down on my dad's mustang and take my first ride in it downtown to sail on the boat.

Jeff, Jen and I riding the tender out to the can, where the boat is docked in Monroe Harbor. This is the harbor right in front of Buckingham Fountain downtown Chicago.

Jen and Jeff are recently engaged and getting married next summer in Chicago. It was great to catch up with them and talk all about the wedding!

Dad and I on the bow of the boat before we raised the sails.

Dad inspecting the new furling jib sail. Jeff at the helm.

Dad and I taking off the main sail cover.

use the wench on the main halyard, raising the main sail.
Jeff sailing us into the sunset over Chicago. It was great night to be out on the water.

The skyline at night. Jen used my camera in night mode to get this shot. Nice work Jen.

of course sailing is not complete without Taylor Street stuffed pizza, just down the street from Jeff and Jen's place.

Julie's visit

Taco and Marg party at Kristen and Ned's on Friday.

Angel rocks to Chena Hot Springs and back. This shot is from the ridge above the rocks. The views were awesome. Kristen and Julie did the 16 mile out and back hike/run.
Ben and I turned around before that. It was a great day to be out! It was good to see Julie and tomorrow morning I will make her one last Huff Latte (not as good a Ben latte :-))

Running...

Getting back into shape is going pretty good. I have been running with both the Kristen's lately. We need some good nick names for these two! Even while flying to Mayo every other week for my infusion, I have been keeping up with the running. I am excited to try a race soon. Maybe run up Ester Dome or something fun like that. Ben is a printing machine only two weeks left until his big show at the Annex!

Record Yukon River Break Up and Ice Jam

From the bridge, notice the shear edge where the ice was flowing down river and is now an ice jam.
The beginning of break up on the Yukon River at the Yukon River Bridge. The Yukon River starts in Canada and runs the entire width of Alaska and feeds into the Bering Sea. This year the the record levels of the Yukon and flooding up river in villages prompted us to drive to the only bridge on the Yukon, all other camps you have to fly to. In this picture the river has just began to break up and we are giddy over the inches the river has raised.....little did we know over the next few hours the river would rise 15 feet and completely ice jam the 3/4 mile wide Yukon nearly taking our camping spot down river. Notice the three levels on the pillars spaced at 10ft each by the next morning, barely one is showing.

Pella was only a little interested in the River break up and some time at this culvert.


Ed and I setting up the tents at our campsite.

Waiting for break up.

From the campsite looking down the embankment at the dock that would be completely covered in ice over the next few hours.

The ice beginning to come up the bank towards the fire.
The view from the tent around midnight, notice the trees blocking the view. The ice rose and took down all the trees.
The jumbled ice less than a few inches from the fire! Now we have a clear view and no trees.



I took a lot of video and tried to splice it together to get the picture of the enormity of this break up, but it is hard tell completely from the video how fast the river rose....except for the excitement in our voices. Ed also took video and used his official National Weather Service hydrologist voice. It is a much better video and he will post it soon on his blog. www.edplumb.blogspot.com.

Delta Clearwater Float/Paddle

Our paddle down the Delta Clearwater to the Tanana to Clearwater Lake was a perfect sunny day. We are waiting for the cars to shuttle back before we can shove off.


Trevor and I toasting.
Ben and Kate.

The long flotilla portion of our paddle, perfect for hanging out, chatting and listening to Mike tell us about "nature".
Kat and Tina and the dogs. Pella always wanted in their canoe and climbed over all the canoes a few times.

Mostly though she was a great dog and had a ton of fun swimming along side the canoe.


Entering the Tanana, looking back at all the icebergs and downed trees we had to navigate through...this was not a floating part of the trip, it was fun and a little intense depending on your steering ability.
Finally Clearwater Lake and the take out. Clearwater is always the first to break up and so people float it every year. Most of the other rivers are just breaking up or still frozen.

Flying back from Mayo, again.

This picture was our lovely Sunday in Fairbanks, purlin' on the porch at Brown's. I'll be back in Fairbanks on Thursday night. I have to continue the research drug treatments every other week for a year. This is really not bad news, just inconvenient. The kidney is working great and that is the most important!
I really need to finish this sweater, it is an ugly vest currently. I am out of yarn on the right arm, I can hear Brown in my head " i told you so!". So I guess it will be a 3/4 arm length sweater.

Girls Night and Scotch and Socks round two

We had a great girls night last night. Thanks everyone for coming!
Friday night was our scotch and socks night at Brown and Cob's. Though we did not knit socks, only sweaters. There was a lot of scotch drinking by Ben and cob. Then the photos books came out and this time Kat was all over it....the photo book has a lot of thatch. What a fun weekend and tomorrow back to Mayo for a week.

Fairbanks has Bubble Tea!

Brown and I met for tea at Sipping Streams new loose leaf tea shop. I had a bubble tea that was awesome.

Skate skiing in warm weather!

I never got around to blogging Easter or anything lately. I fly back to Mayo on Monday. We had a big Polish Feast at Ed and Trevor's and it was great to see everyone! Fairbanks in the Spring time is so fun, but now we are entering break up and it is a bit muddy.

skiing the Yukon Quest Trail

We drove out to 12 mile summit to ski the Yukon Quest dog sled trail. It is 1000miles total from Fairbanks to Whitehorse. Ed and Jackson skied from BirchCreek off the Steese to Chena Hotsprings in record time with great weather and ski conditions, the ski was 40 miles.

This was my first long ski and it went great. Ben and I parted ways from Ed and Brian about 1/4 mile into the ski at this large overflow ice section. We headed up the Yukon Quest trail towards Eagle Summit, we only skied a few hours...it was great to be out!

Ben and Pella on the Quest trail. The ski conditions are still good here, 12 mile summit is about 80 miles north/NE of Fairbanks.

Ben's on the NPR blog, how cool is that?

Check out this link, scroll down to April 7th:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/

Transplant Update, back to AK for a few days!

I flew home to Alaska on Friday. Ben, Ed and Trevor met me at the airport. It is so great to be home. Trevor's kidney is working great, but I still have antibodies against it. Currently I am on an infusion every week/ every other week to prevent the antibodies from attacking the kidney. I do have to fly back to Mayo for the infusion week 7 and week 9. I am going to try and "commute" from Alaska to Mayo during those weeks and fly back so I do not have to stay there for 3 weeks. I also fly back in May for my 3 month check up. Thanks to everyone for the great support and frequent flyer miles. Also to my mom who has been my caretaker at Mayo for 5 weeks and flew me home to Alaska until my next treatment. My parents and family are just great and I am so thankful for their support.

Ben and I on the Chena River yesterday. It was a beautiful long sunny day in Alaska.

of course i really missed Pella too!

Mary Beth, Brad, Grace and Charlie came to visit!

It was super fun to have the Forester family visit today. Grace went down the big slide like a hundred times, she had this look of terror on her face, but she was really having fun. Charlie was happy go lucky all day while we shopped, hit the local hot spots: coffee, Mac's gyros, gelatto, park and coffee again. We all went to Michigan Tech together and it is always nice to catch up.

Chicago

My parents and I went to Frankie's authentic Italian restaurant. After dinner they brought out this ice sculpture thing with a ladel and gave us Lemonchello shots...my parents know Frankie. The food was sooo good, I love big city food.
My brother Jeff and I went downtown to do some shopping. Typical Chi-town traffic jam at 90/94 and 290 interchange. Jeff lives downtown so we took side streets all the way up to North Ave, pretty slick driving.
Jeff and I shopping in the Lincoln Park area.
We also visited with my nieces Katie and Jenny. Back to Rochester today, but not for long...I should be heading home to Alaska soon.

Lake City, Redwing

My mom and I took a drive up the Mississippi River to Lake City and Redwing Minnesota.

River Trails

My mom and I headed out on another fast paced walk today. It is so great to be exercising everyday. The river trails go for 12 miles in either direction out from downtown. It is 65F today in Rochester and -55 below zero with the wind chill in Fairbanks! I am missing my Fairbanks friends of course, but not the weather. First time in short sleeves since September.

After our walk, I had to have another piece of this brandy soaked fig and apricot tart from the Italian shop...a latte and short journal writing session. Recovering can be rough sometimes :-)

Out for a long walk

I had the weekend off from the hospital and so I bought some new running shoes and did a nice long walk down by the river. I think the Nitrate Radicals are going to make a come back this year at the Equinox Marathon/Relay. I don't know if we can get the original team together, Martin has moved to DC, but we can work something out!
The original Nitrate Radical relay team, looking tough!