Thunderbird Falls (Fall version)

Mom and I revisited Thunderbird Falls. Andi and I had been here earlier in the summer. This time, most of the leaves were on the ground and I had fun taking some photos of them.

Flying - Bears & Volcanos

Once the summer rains broke it seemed like the whole state jumped in their planes and took off. I was no exception. A friend from work took his Citabria and I took our Scout out exploring the west side of the Cook Inlet. We stopped and looked around the McArthur River and then down to Tuxedni Bay. This was my first time landing on a beach, but was no problem. When we landed there was a group of 7 Brown bears a few hundred yards away fishing in the surf. We sat and watched them for an hour or so then jumped in the planes and took off. A fun afternoon.

Photos here

Chuck's Trips - Burlington & Tadoussac

After enjoying a week of actual summer back in Alaska after the Oregon trip, Chuck got back on Delta and headed east for a conference (http://www.geog.umontreal.ca/gbr7/) in northern Quebec.
Flying through Montreal over Labor Day weekend presented a great chance to visit friends (the Tumilowicz's and Graber's) for a long weekend. It was a relaxing weekend involving hiking and eating. Tumor and Jen even took little 3-month-old Luke Tumilowicz along on our all-day journey up Mt. Mansfield (to the chin, for you locals).
After a weekend in Vermont (photos), it was back to Montreal and then 6 hours up the north bank of the St. Lawrence to the small village of Tadoussac (http://www.lonelyplanet.com/canada/quebec/tadoussac). The conference was a great chance to rub elbows with an international crowd of geomorphologists and experience Quebec (which in the countryside isn't really bilingual).

Chuck's Trips - Oregon (for the 'last' time)

In August, Chuck went back to the Sandy River, Oregon where he has been doing fieldwork for his dissertation over the past four years. It all relates to studying the changes in the Sandy River following the October 2007 removal of the Marmot Dam. The last three summers meant one month camping in the field and running a crew of interns collecting data. The winters have involved last-minute trips to measure the river during large storms. This August was a 'toned down' version of the summer field data collection - i.e. no interns. The end of the data collection was capped off with a visit by Chuck's adviser (Peter Wilcock, Johns Hopkins), and three fellow grad students all studying gravel bars as well (The Barflies - Susannah Erwin, Christian Braudrick, and Andreas Krause). Photos here

Flying - Knick Glacier

One of the best places to take people on a short flightseeing tour is the Knick Glacier - only a few minutes of flying time outside the Anchorage area, but one gets to see a huge glacier, a large braided river, and a glacial lake. There are plenty of opportunities for off-airport landings, and it is past the range of 4-wheelers - so it remains pretty much just open to pilots.
When dad and his friend Troy were visiting, we (Troy & I) were headed up to the glacier for a quick trip. It turns out another 'quick trip' was turning not so quick up on the top of the glacier. We received word that a plane had crashed up there and headed up to see what we could do. The weather was too poor to see the crash site, but we established communications, passed word back to the rescue controllers, and made the initial coordination with the rescue forces. As we left the area, it seemed like everything was under control - but it was not. The newspaper story recounts the next few days: http://www.adn.com/2010/08/11/1405574/guard-launches-new-attempt-to.html

Troy's photos here

A few weeks later the pilot of the crashed Piper Cherokee held a celebratory BBQ at his house and invited everyone involved. It was pretty cool to sit around and tell hear the stories - especially by the rescue PJs who hiked up the glacier for 20+ hours. And we discovered that there were 4 USAFA grads involved in that '91, '93, '95, and '98.

Flying - Visit to Fairbanks

With a new plane in hand, the travel time between Anchorage and Fairbanks was cut way down. So with a clear day and a long weekend, Chuck headed north to visit friends at Eielson AFB. There was barely a cloud in the sky so after a quick stop for gas in Talkeetna, there was a quick spin through Denali N.P. Photos
A great friend of ours Mongo Monberg, has a hangar on an airpark (group of houses sharing a private 'runway') in North Pole. There really is something about parking your plane in your yard.
It was a low key weekend with great long visits with Beth Sumner (& boys), the Hoovers, and Mongo. Cristen, Stephanie, and Sprocket Hoover all went for quick flights around the North Pole & Tanana River area. Chuck & Mongo got to take a two-ship of Scouts out as well - their first 2-ship in 7 years.
All in all, a fun weekend or flying, mountains, and friends.

Chuck's Trips - Las Vegas & the Colorado River

As part of this crazy travel year, Chuck signed up for yet another professional conference. This time for a week in Las Vegas. This was the first post-Air Force trip to Vegas, which was a bit odd.

Prior to the meeting, there was a 4-day field trip along the Colorado river to learn about the geologic history and the current issues regarding the usage of the Colorado River water. The trip (photos) took us to both the Hoover and Glenn Canyon dams, along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, down the Colorado River through Glenn Canyon, and through Zion National Park.

We buy a plane

The day Andi left (and at her urging) we bought an airplane - a 1974 Bellanca Scout. It is a 2-seater which can carry us and a few hundreds of pounds of gear around 300 miles. You might notice the tires are big (Alaska Bushwheels) which allow landings away from prepared fields - i.e. gravel bars, beaches, tundra.
Its quite a nice machine to get out and around Alaska - way off the road system.
In the first two months of flying its gone to Denali, Fairbanks, the Kenai (Homer, Seward, Kasilof), the Knick Glacier area (shown in the photo - more of a camping trip here), and the west side of the Cook Inlet.

Oh, and it also came with skis for the winter. More to come....

Andi heads east

At the end of June, Chuck headed to Las Vegas for a conference, and Andi got on a series of planes finally ending up in Iraq. She is working in a hospital on a US airbase there for six months. So her Alaska summer came to a abrupt end, but Chuck's continued.....

Thunderbird Falls

Everytime we kayak at Eklutna lake we pass Thunderbird Falls. Today we took a little adventure to T-Bird Falls. It was a nice, easy hike and a pretty waterfall. Great trip for visitors.

T-Bird Falls Pics

McCarthy Weekend

In our attempt to squeeze a summer's worth of travel into 30 days, Chuck and I headed to McCarthy, AK last weekend. If you are looking in McCarthy, it's inside the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and surrounded by gorgeous mountains and glaciers. We drove down Friday night and camped next to the Matanuska Glacier then drove the rest of the way Saturday morning. McCarthy is not accessible by car, so anyone that isn't a local must hike the 1/2 mile once crossing the footbridge. We spent some time on the Root Glacier (glad we didn't pay for a guided tour) and ate some delicious food. Sunday, we rafted a low Kennicott, Nizina, and the Chitna rivers. Then we flew back and had some great views of the Kennicott and Root glaciers. Monday--we drove!

McCarthy Pics

Homer for Lunch

One of our favorite places in Alaska is Homer...great little town and one of our favorite pizza places. Chuck decided he needed more time in a tail-dragger and I wanted to get to Homer this year, lunch met both options. It was a cloudy day but the view was spectacular, as always.

We also cruised down a few valleys by the house...Eagle River and Ship Creek, amazing views and less than 5 minutes from the house.

Pics...

Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day Weekend was great and we did a little bit of everything (not that you are surprised). We spent Friday with the Rabe's at Byers Lake. It was the best deal...$30 for a cabin and a view of Denali. Chuck and I look forward to skiing there this winter. After several kayak trips around the lake we (Chuck and I) headed south to Talkeetna and the Rabe's headed north. In Talkeetna we visited the Denali brewery, spent the night at the Alaskan Lodge, and we enjoyed a wine pairing dinner with Hogue wines. We both look forward to the next one.

Pictures

Seward with the Rabes

We've had a few friends in town over the past few weeks, including our friends the Rabes from Germany. We spent quite a bit of time exploring with them during their visit. Our first adventure included an overnight trip to Seward with the Rabes and Little's (Colorado). We enjoyed a great dinner at the Double Musky in Girdwood then drove to Seward and spent the next day Halibut fishing. We caught several halibut, rock fish, and sea bass.

Seward Photos

Boulder - Quickly

Chuck got to go back to Boulder this past weekend for his little sister Mary's graduation. It was a typical unpredictable May Colorado day - started off with snow, and finished up with sun and warm weather. The weekend included two graduation ceremonies, a celebration dinner out for delicious Mexican food in Lafayette (Efrain's), a feast by dad, and a Mother's Day picnic at Annie and Daniel's on a wonderful sunny day.

Sitka, Alaska

Chuck and I went to Sitka for a little birthday celebration...we had one gorgeous spring day and one typical day of Alaska clouds. We easily met all of Chuck's requirements for a good weekend--walking, delicious food, relaxing, reading, walking, and no work. We look forward to going back and exploring the islands by kayak.

Pictures

Flume - Done

I finished up my flume experiment a few weeks ago. I tried to make up a video, but I couldn't get it to upload. Fortunately, this was put together by the folks at the lab. Enjoy.

Chuck

Chuck in the Flume

In the middle of February, I decided to bolt out of (semi-cold) Anchorage for the warmth of the lower 48. It turns out that the weather in Minneapolis is just about the same at this time of year. Oh well.

I came to Minneapolis to do a few geomorphology experiments at the St. Anthony Falls Laboratory. This is a good place to do experiments since they have a huge flume here.

What is a flume, you ask? Well, this one is a big concrete ditch (6 feet deep x 9 feet wide x 250 feet long) which kind of reminds me of the big concrete waterways in LA (that you always see in any action movie with a car chase in southern CA - like the Terminator). No car chases in this one, just gravel and water.


My goal out here is to see what happens to a gravel river when you add a bunch of sand and gravel. This is kind of like what I am looking at in my project on the Sandy River, OR.

The idea is that we will take measurements over a few years in the field of what happens to the river when you let a bunch of sediment go down it, and also take measurements over a few weeks watching what happens when we shovel tons (literally) of sediment into this indoor river. For a sense of scale, this indoor river can get up to about 300 cubic feet per second but we are running it at about 30. This is about like Boulder Creek. But unlike an outdoor river, we have a 'magic cart' which takes laser scans of the river and makes millimeter-scale maps of it. With the data we get from these experiments, hopefully we will know more about how real rivers work.

Australia - Hunter Valley

Finally, after sailing and Sydney we headed about two hours north for relaxation in the Hunter Valley. This is a small wine making region tucked between the coast and the 'mountains'. We stayed three nights at Chez Vous Villas with some gracious hosts. From there you are stumbling distance to delicious dining at Roberts.
Well fed and well rested we arranged for a small charter bus to take us around to several wineries the next day. Ian, from the Cheers Bus was a perfect tour guide - knowledgeable, but not too organized or formal. Most all of the wineries in the Hunter are boutique sized, but Ian took us to the smallest of the small. We especially enjoyed Ivanhoe, Peacock Hill, and Oakvale. Also enjoyable was the Peterson Champagne House.

The second day we rented bikes from two guys in a barn. They ran a small bike rental business and the Pokolbin Brothers Wines. Riding around in the sun (you can't do that for about 6-7 months each year up here), sipping wines, and snacking made this an enjoyable and relaxing today.

Recommendations: Cheers Bus for transport, Chez Vous to sleep, Roberts to eat, Ivanhoe, Peacock Hill, Oakvale, and Pokolbin Brothers to drink, the Smelly Cheese Shop for snacks, rent a bike.

Things we learned: 1) Semillion is a delicious not-too-sweet white wine which the Hunter Valley is known for. 2) Sparkling Shiraz is a tasty drink.

A few photos are posted here.

Australia - Sydney

From the Whitsundays we headed back south to Sydney. We rented a room on top of a pub (the Mercantile) in the Rocks - right at the base of the Harbor Bridge. Ashlee was only in Sydney for one day so we quickly hit all the highlights - Opera House, ferry through the Harbor, market in the Rocks, and the fish market.

We were there for a bit longer so we enjoyed strolls through the city and the botanical gardens. We walked across (though not up) the Harbor Bridge. We splurged on incredible seats to Tosca in the opera house. The fish market was too tasty to just hit once, so we lunched there twice. We found that Barramundi is a delicious fish. We didn't really love Kings Cross, but found Potts Point to be pretty attractive. We left just before Australia Day, but did get to see the frenzy associated with Prince William's trip to Sydney and boat trip around the Harbor.

Reccomendations: the Mercantile Hotel, staying centrally in the Rocks, Potts Point, meat pies, oysters at the Sydney Cove Oyster Bar on Circular Quay, the Watson's Bay ferry, the botanical garden, lunch at the Fish Market, and dark beer (which proved difficult to find in Australia) at a German-style beer hall.

A few photos are posted here.

Next, rent a car and head north .......

Australia - Sailing

Just after the new year, we hopped a plane out of frigid Anchorage for the southern hemisphere. After a brief (12 hour) stop in LA to visit family and cruise Venice beach, we were off for Sydney. Several days of travel and five flights later, we were in the Whitsunday Islands, Australia - met there by Andi's sister Ashlee. These are a group of islands off of the northwest coast of Australia, inside of the Great Barrier Reef.
Using our sailing experience from last winter we chartered a nice 39 foot sailboat - The Dehler Magic. We spent seven days sailing it around the Whitsundays.
The weather was a little stormy - gusty winds and rail squalls. This made it just a bit challenging, but fun nonetheless.

Check out the map of the route using the Google Earth Plug-In on the previous post.

The days were spent on the water, the afternoons enjoying snorkling, reading, sunning ourselves, etc... anchored up in small coves. We cooked on board most nights and docked twice at Hamilton Island. The whole island is served by electric golf carts and no regular cars. An hour of buggy rental lets you see the whole island.
There was one long night - we just couldn't get the anchor to set and had to sit lookout all night. Other than that it was pretty smooth sailing.
Recommendations: Cumberland Charter Yachts for bareboat charters, order fewer days of provisioning than you plan to spend on the boat, bring lots of sunscreen, don't go during the rainy season, visit Hamilton island for the beach / resort, Manta Ray Cafe has good pizza, boats with the traveler in the cockpit are kind of awkward. Skip the smaller resorts - South Molle, Daydream Island, Happy Bay. Don't pull you dingy too far up on the beach during a falling tide. Bring plenty of books.

We would highly reccomend this to anyone contemplating this kind of trip.

A few photos posted here.

Next..... Sydney

Map of the sailing trip

Australia Trip

We just got back from a nice vacation to Australia. We were there for two weeks: one week on a boat in the Whitsundays, and one in the Sydney area. Check out the map and watch for updates and photos in the next few days.

Chuck



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