The days are longer, and the nights are colder. Actually the days are colder too, I think I saw -17 deg F one day when I was out walking and -25 one morning while making coffee. The days now stretch out for about six hours, more than twice as long as when we arrived.

Visitors

Aurora. Alex's first night. (photo by Alex Mule)

Aurora (by A.M.)

From the Glass Room at Poker Flats (by A.M.)

Aurora at Poker Flats (by A.M.)

If you are tracking the moon you may realize that this last week or so was prime Aurora time. This just means that we are around the time of the new moon, since a bright and full moon can wash out the Aurora. So Kristina has rolled out the red carpet and invited people to join while we are here near the 20th of each month.

Our first wave of guest included Alex Mule, Kristina's grad student, and Dave & Ellen Knutsen, colleagues from Calgary. Kristina wanted Alex to see the Aurora (he studies it, but had never actually seen it), to meet other Aurora scientist, and to experience a bit of Alaska.

I meet Alex at the airport at 1:30am. He had a huge duffle bag, with "everything warm I own", and a long bag with our skies in it! While driving home I thought I could see something going on in the sky even with my headlight on. So we pulled over on the side of the road and watched the finest Auroal light show I have ever seen!

When I think of a good aurora I think of a strong, neon green arch across the sky. But what had not seen before, and only saw that night, was a strong arc in the west, and a completely different light show going on in the east sky. In the west a classical and steady river of light. In the east, the aurora grew and then danced and then disappeared. But it was 2:30am and -15 deg, so we headed home & to bed.

The next evening the five of us headed to Poker Flats, the rocket range, which is about 30 miles north of Fairbanks. First dinner at the Chatanika Lodge. Then up the hill to the "Science Building" and it north facing glass room. Maybe it was not as spectacular as the pervious night on the side of the road, but it was a lot warmer and we stayed until 1:30am watching the sky evolve.

The next evening there was no aurora. The following evening was cloudy, which was okay since our entertainment plans took us toe "Jazz Bistro of 4th", a tiny Cuban restaurant we have discovered where the chef and wait staff play music and sing after the last dessert is served.

Birch Hill

Alex has skied before, but I thought it best to give him a chance to try out rental skies before heading into the mountains. So one afternoon we went off the Birch Hill. In the late afternoon the sunlight through the birches is golden and the day was beautiful! It turned out that Alex's experience had always been of the "break-your-own-trail" variety, so groomed trails were a novelty.

I've been back since that day and have yet to find the end of all the trails. Birch Hill park is actually not that large. But it boarders on the army's Fort Wainwright, and the city, army and Nordic Ski club have some sort of agreement which allows for skiing on the base.

The first time I was there was just to see it on a Saturday, when it was mobbed, so I am a bit surprised to see it so quiet and empty mid-week.

Murphy Dome

Hard Snow on Murphy Dome

Snow-machine trail west

Denali in the clouds

Fridays are my "exploration days".

I am back out to Murphy Dome, and this time with back-country skies!

Murphy is at the center of a long, east-west ridgeline. That major ridge has a number minor ridges extending to the north. If the ridge I went on east time was Alpha, today's goal is Beta. But first a mile on the major ridge. I could zig-zag off the dome, like the snow-machines do. Or I could plunge over the open slopes, the snow covered blueberries, which is very attractive. The problem is that the snow is either light powder, or rock hard, wind packed ridges. One moment I am a foot deep in powder, the next moment I am skating on top of snow I can barely get my steels edges into.

On the beta ridge things level out, but I am still picking my way across hard snow, soft snow and brush. About three or four miles out I take off the skies and climb up on a rocky outcropping and settle down for lunch. It is someplace below zero, but I've got my internal furnace stoked. I sit on my mitten, but still wear my gloves and eat, and relish, my half frozen sandwich and thermos of hot tea.

Back on the main western ridge I follow the snow-machine trail west and southwest. The skiing is easy and I soon find myself a few miles beyond beta where I come up over a knoll and to the south west, 150 miles, is Denali. Today, only the highest peaks of that range have their heads stuck in foal weather.

Out beyond the end of the ridgeline straight west is Mintos flats, a land with a few snow machine trails and a thousands lakes and ponds. Someplace beyond that is the confluence of the braided Yukon and Tanana rivers. There are even a few native villages. But, as far as I can tell, there are no roads in the next 350 miles, between me and the Norton Sounds, which is part of the Bering Sea.

Wickersham Dome

On Saturday Alex was also ready to explore. I've been itching to touch the White Mountains of Alaska and he was game for the hike. And so, despite the forecast for snow and a bit of a breeze, we headed north. It is a bit of a drive, nearly 40 miles, so I'll tell you more while we travel.

On the trail, below treeline

On Wickersham's south ridge

A bit of wind and snow.

The White Mountains National Recreation Area of Alaska is a million acres, or about 25% bigger the Rhode Island. I would like to figure out how to travel there, and so Wickersham, on its very edge, is but a first step. I also told Alex that I expect the footing to be firm based on what I saw on Murphy Dome, but we are going to carry the skis at least to the trail head, in case conditions are very different there.

When we pass the town of Fox, we head north on the Elliot highway. If you want to go to Deadhorse and Prudhoe Bay, on the Northern Slopes, it is only another 360 miles. We, however are only going to mile marker 28 - this is how addresses are given in this area.

The snow is firm and so we march north. At the mile point we top a little knoll with a clear summit and though the light snow can see Wickersham Dome about two mile north of us. We drop into a basin thick with spruce, and what I expect is a spruce bog in the summer. But the black flies do not bother us today as the wind and snow starts to pick up and the temperatures fall.

Except for the weather, this is not a hard hike. We climb from 2200ft to 3200ft in just over three miles.

By the time we break treeline the visibility has dropped to 150 meters and the wind and temperature are starting to feel a bit arctic even though we are still 90 miles south of that circle. And then we tumbled off the end of the trail.

When we consulted our map we realized that the official trail was 200 meters to the east. But what we were on was an obvious way of getting to the ridge line. I now think people traveled the same way in the roads, but once things opened people spread out and there was no real consistent tread way. Occasionally we would find hard snow, but a lot of time we were knee deep or more, wading in the snow. Still, we could see that the ridgeline was windswept, down to the rocks and grasses, so we swam up through the powder.

At one point we tucked behind a few dwarf spruce and adjust our gear. I finally put more gaiters and wrapped my face in my scarf against the wind.

Once on the ridgeline we headed north. The viability through the snow of about 150 meters, but Wickersham Dome is a smooth dome, and not a ragged peak. So navigation really was just a matter of going up. Finally the radio mast on the peak came into view and we tapped the high point, then quickly found a sheltered spot. We wanted to experience the peak, so allowed ourselves a dozen minutes of wandering around, before retracing our steps back down.

Except our tracks had been erased; filled with snow and filed smooth.

Still we knew the way, recognizing a black tor a cut in the ridge and a few other landmarks until we again reached treelike.

The return to the trailhead was too simple to mention. The only remaining delight of the trip was in the trailhead parking area a team of dog sleds was packing up to go home. The dog team owner has a box build into the bed of his pickup truck with eight doors into eight compartment, one for each dog. And the dogs - they are the happiest creatures you can imagine! An outing on a day like today was too much fun even for an Alaskan sled dog!