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.

White Mountain Ski

I went cross-country skiing yesterday in the White Mountains. Here are some photos!











It was absolutely gorgeous and the weather was wonderful. Weather.com said it was 46 in Fairbanks!!!

Ice sculptures!!!

I went to a park with a bunch of ice sculptures last weekend. It was some kind of international competition so there were some incredibly impressive sculptures. Unfortunately most of them had begun melting.... to the point that the mermaid sculptures had lost at least one of their arms. But! They still had their boobs.... and no, I didn't take any pictures of those ones.

Ellen and Kirsten imitating the figure skaters.


Ellen wearing some giant Carhartt clothes? And looking a little... speculative. Yes, that's the word I would choose to describe it.


I don't know what this one was supposed to be but it was interesting.



These next two were a couple of my favorites.




The best parts of the park were the sculptures in the "Kids' Section." They had all sorts of ice slides, forts, whatnot!!!! I ended up with a bunch of bruises on my knees and elbows but they were so worth it. Ellen took more pictures than me so I'll try to get some of 'em from her and post them here later.

You would sit in these basket looking things and then have someone spin them around. I felt a little sick afterwards and Ellen looks like she's trippin'.


ICE SLIDES!!!

I lost my wallet at one point while crawling through some ice tunnels on all fours. Fortunately some little kids found it and turned it into the office before I even realized I had lost it.

Spring Break pictures

I got back to Fairbanks today! Spring break this past week was a lot of fun and I even made a little money.

My dad and I went cross country skiing partway down Exit Glacier Road with Maude, my dad's dog. There's a guy who lives nearby who won the Iditarod a number of years back and owns a few dog teams. So we got to see him sledding which was kind of cool. Maude didn't like them though.



I worked for a few days until my friend Frederik came down Thursday and Friday. He, his roommate Matt, and I went skiing again down Exit Glacier Road only this time we went down to the point where you can actually see the glacier. It was cold and windy but worth it!


And on Friday we went to the SeaLife Center and saw all the animals they have. It was really nice not having a mess of families with little kids running around. It's always a zoo there during the summer.






I also got to go sledding down a friend of my dad's driveway. It was perfect for sledding! Long and steep with a bunch of wide turns. He had waxed all his sleds the day before so they went pretty fast. But now I'm back at UAF and need to start thinking about getting back into school mode. Maybe tomorrow though.