Alaska Range

I took a bunch of pictures of the Alaska Range from campus and made a panoramic shot out of them. This is what I see from campus on beautiful sunny days! Denali isn't in this though, you can only see that on really clear days.

A few newer pictures

I went to Creamer's Field Migratory Waterfowl Refuge today with my friend Jano to see the sandhill cranes! They always stop in Fairbanks apparently during their migration. Pretty nifty!

Also, for those of you who actually read these posts, my final exams are next week! This semester has gone by incredibly fast. I'll be coming back to Maryland for a few weeks starting May 23rd until June 12th and then I'll be heading back to Alaska to work for the rest of the summer. I'm looking forward to the muggy Maryland summer! Not really but at least the mosquitoes won't be the size of small dogs and I'll hopefully get to see a couple good thunderstorms.

Hike last weekend

Last weekend I went on a short hiking trip to Angel Rocks with a group of other students and then we went to Chena Hot Springs afterwards for a nice, hot swim. I was even able to go with shorts and flip flogs for the rest of the day! Crazy.

We saw a moose along the side of the road on the drive to the trail head.

It was nice and warm out so I had to break out my wicked shorts with leggings underneath.

Group shot!

And now a group shot at Chena Hot Springs (minus Christine because she's the one behind the camera). I've been told it's even better during the winter when it's -35+ (+ as in colder) because you can get your hair wet and then it freezes pretty quickly into funky shapes. Next year.

Ice Climbing

Hello!

I went ice climbing for the first time yesterday at Fox Creek with my friend/flatmate Ellen and her friend Randy. It was so much fun! I rented all my gear from Outdoor Adventures on campus on Friday. I must say, it is so much easier walking on ice while wearing cramp-ons.

But before I show you the pictures of ice climbing, here's the picture of the northern lights I think I mentioned before. My roommate Becky is on the left and I'm the one on the right.

And now ice climbing! We stopped and bought some homemade [delicious] donuts on the way to Fox.

We finally made it to Fox and had to climb up the frozen creek.

Randy repelling down after putting in the anchors.

Ellen climbing.

That's me climbing! And Randy is belaying.

I'm a mad woman. Watch out.

SQUEEEE!

My lab group and I did an experiment in Ecology where we were testing how different types of algae (unicellular and filamentous) would affect the biomass of ramshorn snails. Well some of our snails ended up laying eggs and having babies! *sniff* We were so proud. I took some pictures through a microscope because the babies were so frickin' tiny you couldn't even tell they were snails with the naked eye.

I realize this has nothing to do with moving to Alaska other than it's something I've done in one of my classes. But I thought it was awesome! [and adorable]

Recently

It's interesting waking up in the morning and it being so light outside. I always think "aw man, woke up 30 minutes before my alarm again" and then when I check my clock it's only 5:45 or something like that. There's so much daylight now, it's great!

Also, two of my roommates (Becky and Ellen) and I drove to Ester Dome last night and watched some spectacular northern lights!!! They were mostly green and white but there was a little pink too and they took up almost the entire sky. Ellen got a few pictures so I'm going to try to get them from her so I can post them on here. There's one she took where you can see the silhouettes of me and Becky and then the northern lights behind us. But pictures really don't even come close to the real thing because there was so much movement.

More pictures from the ice park

Here are a few more photos from last weekend.

They had an ice phone-booth! Damn thing ate my quarters...


Doing something goofy after sledding down the freakin' awesome ice slides.


My favorite part of the kids' section was this ice bowl thingy. It was so much fun!


But it was kind of tough to get out of.


And I got to ride an snow-machine actually made out of ice! But I couldn't see through the windshield very well.