Mom's Last Frontier

Last blog...

2008-09-27T10:12:00.001-07:00

Fall in Livengood
Livengood

Robert's first helicopter ride!

OK, time to wrap up the summer (before winter!). It is almost a month since I left Alaska. I’ve spent most of my days catching up on all the work I would normally have done in the summer, as well as putting together a report on, “How we spent our summer.” A major undertaking. I have taken on some new activities – Tai Chi, Pilates, and Yoga. Hopefully these activities will make me stronger and better prepared for another field season. My knees have fully recovered and the steep slopes are a distant memory. I hope it won’t be too long before I can do the same again. The house survived, Jeanne had a great summer, and the cat is still here!

Enjoy the final photos – they are a mix from the summer. As I said before if there is something you want to do … make it happen. Thanks for following my story!

"Scary Bear" Story

2008-08-27T22:49:00.000-07:00

The summer is almost over. At Livengood, the drill camp where I’ll spend my last few days in Alaska, the leaves are turning yellow and the mornings are a little frosty. I fly home to Denver on Monday evening. 5 work days left.

So … I finally have a “scary bear” story. Not that I ever saw it. Sometimes what you don’t see is more scary! Last Friday Dan and I started work on a soil sample survey about 40 minutes out of Fairbanks. Dan lives in Fairbanks and commuted everyday. I stayed at the Fairbanks Creek Lodge closer to the area. This used to be an old bunkhouse for a mining camp – built around 1928. The family that owns it moved it in 3 pieces about 12 years ago. The lodge sleeps 19 in addition to the family so it is a fairly large building. I spent an interesting evening with Brenda and Steve and a Swedish couple looking at the photos of the lodge-move. Anyway – good food and nice people. Back to the “scary bear.” The soil sampling we were doing was a fair distance from the lodge – about 30 minutes in the truck and then another 45 minutes on ATV’s. That was also an interesting experience as I’ve never even sat on an ATV before last week. Fortunately Dan was a good ATV instructor and wee didn’t lose too much time. Despite the frosty mornings and biting wind I survived and can now put “ATV experience” on my resume!

Dan and I took the first sample together (it took another 30 minutes to get to this point after we left the ATVs! Some commute!) to see what we were sampling and make sure we were on the same page. We then moved to our respective lines which were about 50 meters apart. While digging my first hole I smelt something really bad. Bad enough to make me stand up and look around for a dead carcass. Nothing. I moved on to my next sample site – 50m away and started digging. There was a shriek followed by Dan yelling down the hill “What’s up?” I got on my radio and replied “That wasn’t me?” Dan says “It wasn’t?” So we carry on to our next sample site, still 50 meters apart and as I start digging I hear this really deep, loud growl! Very close. As I fumbled with the radio to ask Dan If he had heard it (silly question, it was a very loud growl!) I was trying to get my gun out of the pack (!!). About the same time I radioed Dan there was another louder growl – loud enough to echo in the valley. It was pretty close and Dan confirmed it was 100% bear growl. Where’s a chopper when you need it? We made loud noises and fortunately we never heard it again. We hoped it got fed up with us and our noise and left the valley. We think that the original shriek was either a cub or the bear killing a small animal. The growls could have been for us or the bear telling its cub to get a move on. We’ll never know. Digging the rest of the holes that day was a little nerve wracking; your senses are all on super alert. The guy that invented Teddy Bears for children had a warped sense of humor or he never heard an angry bear growl!

Not too big of a deal, but a reminder that when we are out working we are intruders in nature!

Not much else from the new part of the world … will try to take Fall color photos tomorrow.

Fall weather - blue skies

2008-08-27T22:41:00.000-07:00

View from Fairbanks Creek Lodge - Mt McKinley in far off distance.
And this is black bear country.
Fairbanks Creek Lodge
Last week - Summit Lake. Road in foreground parallels Alaska Pipeline. We spent a total of 5 weeks at Waters Edge - to right of center, flying out daily to the work area. This was taken on the last day & last helicopter ride in.

My Daily Commute ...

2008-08-19T21:43:00.000-07:00

Hello faithful readers! I heard from my daughter Melissa that there are some of you at Waldies (http://www.waldies.net/) that keep up to date with my blog. Thanks for reading. I can honestly say that I have worn my Waldies most evenings during my Alaskan adventures. What a relief they are after wearing hiking or Xtra-tuff boots all day. If/when I do this again I will take an extra pair of Waldies with no holes for the rainy evenings. Keep reading – it looks like I have only 13 days left in Alaska. The last 5 days may not be so exciting as I’ll be working on the drill project at Livengood. No more wild mountains or days out in the field alone.

We had 2 weather days in a row where it just rained. We work in the rain but when the chopper can’t actually get to the field area because the clouds are too low or visibility is poor we get a “weather day.” One weather day is good to catch up on paperwork. Two and everybody gets bored and grouchy. Hard work outside actually becomes addictive!

Today was just a really quiet beautiful day in Alaska. It was a little chilly and we woke up to frost and fog on the lake, but also glorious blue sky above that! We were in the field a little after 8am and finished about 5pm, anxious to finish up before we leave here in a few days. Great not to see or hear anybody all day. Today I didn’t even see any wildlife. Usually I see a caribou and some ground squirrel, but not today. The photos kind of show my day – from the fog on the lake at camp, the hills during the day and some idea of our daily commute – wide open valleys with braided streams today with the colors are just turning.

I’ve thrown in a photo of Ed, Dan, John stranded on the gravel bar yesterday, hoping that the clouds would lift so we could go to work. We had a good time looking at the rocks and after a couple of hours decided to fly back ‘home’ following the river to the road. I think it shows we made good effort to get to work.

Photos are a little out of order, but I'm sure you can match them with the text!

A Glacier Day

2008-08-15T20:53:00.001-07:00

This is the view from my drop off spot today.

This gives you an idea of the slope I was walking on today. It was 12:30pm before I found a flat enough spot to take my backpack off for a few minutes.
Glaciers seen from the helicopter on the way home today.

Glacial morraine in the valley.

At gun point …

2008-08-14T20:39:00.000-07:00

Just finished a very interesting week or so in Central Alaska. We literally helicopter hopped from one gold placer mine operation to another looking for links and clues for the mega-lode! Getting permission was a little tricky … some we called in advance and others we asked for permission by ‘dropping’ in. Placers miners are a little jumpy – always on the alert for people out to steal their gold. On the first day it was raining cats and dogs (yes we are working in the wettest and coldest summer in Alaska in about 17 years I believe. It has been cold and wet for at least a month and apparently no one thinks we will actually get a summer. Berries are low and the bears hungry.). The rain has no significance to our placer mining stories; just picture 5 bedraggled geologists in rubber boots in the mud, lots of mud. Because we arrived at the lodge at midday the helicopter hadn’t yet arrived and we decided to drive to look at the first placer workings. After receiving a warm welcome from several miners we drove through an unlocked gate hoping to find the owner, shortly after we met an oncoming truck. In it were a husband, wife and dog. We stopped to ask permission and introduce ourselves and the guy had a cocked pistol at the ready! We asked if we could look at his dumps and he said, “No!” One of our group replied “Well that’s an answer”. Fortunately the guy gave us an opening by asking “What were we hoping to find?” we mentioned Livengood in (the company’s big drilling project) and the guy changed tunes instantly. He knew someone connected with our drilling project and had been told that we were the “good guys”. He put the gun away, backed up, and gave us a good tour of his mine. We noticed that the riffles hadn’t been cleaned out that day so he was probably more than a little worried about his gold production for the day been stolen.

The second “incident” occurred a few days later. We were using the helicopter and landed at some old workings. Keep in mind that we all have radios that are using line of sight. This day a placer mine operator was on the same frequency. Not everybody in our group could hear all the dialogue, but below is fairly representative of how the conversation went. The helicopter first dropped of Dan, Ed and myself and then went back to get th others. As they were landing …

Wife of placer miner “Hey xxx, do you hear the chopper? It’s circled camp twice.”

Placer Miner “Get the shotgun ready! Can you see who they are?

Wife “Looks like the statetrooper!”

Us “Helicopter to camp do you copy?”

Wife “ Yeah, we copy”

Us “Can we come in and talk to you?”

Wife to husband “They want to come in an talk can you come over?”
Husband “Do I have to? Can’t you talk to them?”

Wife “I’m busy boiling pickles, can’t leave them!”

Husband “OK, I’ll come over and talk to them.”

Th others had already landed where we were, which was about ½ mile from their camp. When the helicopter landed Tristan jumped out so fast – no way he was going to face the wife with a shotgun and boiling pickles. It turns out they are the nicest people. We are welcome anytime & she’ll make sure the shotgun is put away and will trade us pickles for a newspaper!

We did spent the day wondering if she was really ‘boiling pickles’ or if that was code for trouble brewing!

Another day we had a prior appointment and got a 5 hour tour of placer operations. It was like being back at school on a field trip. Very interesting and fascinating operation. We also got to see his 2.8oz nugget and a bunch of mastodon bones dug up during mining!

We stayed at a place called Lost Creek Ranch. The owner, Les Cobb, homesteaded it in 1970. His wife at the time was the last woman in Alaska to homestead before the law was changed. They moved up here with 5 children ranging in age from 1 year old twins to a 9 year old. Les had to go off for months at a time to work leaving his wife, Norma, and the kids … often in winter. Les became a very successful placer miner and currently has operations in Nome and Mongolia. He and his wife have parted ways and he is now married to a Chinese woman who looked for us during our stay. Norma Cobb wrote a book called ‘Arctic Homestead’. I’m hoping to buy a copy when I get back to civilization. I read the introduction and it promises to be a good read making our adventures this summer look very tame.

I’ve posted some of extra photos from the summer. They are from the Alaska Range area that I’ve already covered, but they show some different perspectives. Mostly bad weather days.

We spent a night at the Livengood drilling project. For results go to http://www.ithmines.com/ The camp is in an old Atco trailer camp originally used for the building of the Alaska Pipeline in the 70’s and housing about 1200 people during contruction. I think our camp only has about 30 people but most of the trailers are still there. Still raining. In the evening Robert (who had about 1 week left of cutting core before his last year of school) and I visited the camp he lived in last year. Got some good photos of rusty trucks and ate ripe raspberries.

The core recon crew drove to Delta Junction. 2 days of soil sampling. The holes were miserable to dig ranging in depth from 0.8m to over a meter. The sun did come out today so at least there was some good in the day. Apparently my season will end with a week more of soil sampling. Just can’t wait! Only good thing is that we will be using 4-wheelers to get to the project. Not that I know how to ride one or have ever been on one!!

Anyway, we are back down at the place we started out at to follow up on our anomalies. I think people are getting tired, most of the crew watch movies by themselves in the evenings and so things are a little quiet. Good thing I have a book to read.

The hills are beginning to change color so I hope to get some interesting photos before we leave.

Other Photos

2008-08-14T20:21:00.000-07:00

This was my worst day. Too steep, miserably cold, knees like jelly, the day I realized I get vertigo on slopes!

Getting the hang of walking down talus. I managed this slope without falling - a first.

At work
This was the first day of work and training.
And this is a project area ... for real!!

2008-08-14T19:58:00.000-07:00

Minute mushrooms

The outhouse that Robert dug. He also designed the door.
Recon crew panning for fun. Tristan found a flake. Hurray!
Old placer mine!
Mastodon jaw and tusks dug up during placer mining

Robert's antique corebox mover!! He said when they have visitors they all want to take his photo in it. Tennessee orange??

Alaskan Field Observations ...

2008-07-31T19:21:00.001-07:00

–if you sing silly songs out loud so the bears know you are coming … you will eat bugs … and if you don’t chew before swallowing they can buzz all the way down!!
– scrambled eggs for breakfast has a two week appeal, after that you will crave cold instant oatmeal
– if you work outside all day, you can eat man-sized steaks, desserts, cookies, and wine guilt-free
– the concept ‘clean’ is a luxury item
– it is not only pregnant women that crave ice-cream

This has been a month of contrasts working in buggy, dense forests collecting soil samples (yesterday I was wondering what a 45 year old mother of 3 was doing digging holes in the dirt – 20 in a day, about 45x45cm each in a dense forest with gazillions of mosquitoes and flies … all in the name of prospecting?; other days I wonder why all 45 year old mothers of three aren’t out here too?) to working on steep slopes that – well they were so steep that one night I dreamt our crew was walking up a rugged slope which got steeper & steeper … eventually it got so steep we were walking upside down! I guess that is better than the one that where Russell stashed all the shovels in my backpack for the day!

Besides some little dramas involving immature helicopter mechanics - the crew gets along remarkably well. However, I’m not sure how long I could live with all men (for a few weeks it was me & 8 men in a remote lodge – and not as much fun as it sounds). The recon crew didn’t have a day off to do laundry in our 2 and a bit weeks so our work clothes smelt really rancid at the end; fortunately we had showers so we could sleep clean. Interestingly I have observed that a bunch of men behave the same as a bunch of women! Not sure who came up with the Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus theory…but it’s bogus … and men are actually better gossipers than women (they don’t call it gossiping of course, to them it’s probably called ‘dispersing the facts’, and it works a lot like the game ‘broken telephone’)!!

The last day out in the Alaska Range project, we were supposed to finish up early. I was done at 10:30am as were Tristan [also known temporarily as Corporal Dewd, because of his addiction to Mountain Dew] and Dan - 2 of my trusty recon companions (Russell had already flown back to Fairbanks, and Ed was staying back to finish up paperwork). ‘Commander’ Andy, our helicopter pilot, flew to McGrath after dropping us in the field. We expected him back at lunch time, but he didn’t show. Turns out that whatever he was going to get wasn’t there until midday. However, we didn’t know this until much later in the afternoon, so the stinky weather and no helicopter caused us a lot of worry. Dan and Tristan were together, but I was on the other side of a mountain and had no radio contact with them. It was a pretty miserable field day – rain, snow, wind, fog, etc (but we’re tough!!) and by 2pm Dan and Tristan made a decision to hike down to a rendezvous position we had talked about earlier. Coincidentally, I also started walking down at 2pm. I got to the rendezvous point at 3:30pm and could finally get them on the radio (they were much further away than me and were still on the move). It was a relief to be in contact with somebody after 6 hours. I waited under a lone, scrappy alder bush for them, contemplating a long and cold night – the clouds were getting lower and it was just the hardest rain you can imagine (see self portrait taken during a lull in the storm – still smiling!). I can tell you that the greatest sound in the world was the helicopter buzzing up low in the valley with Andy on the radio saying – ‘I’m gonna get you out of there’ – and he did! My survival kit will have some additional things in it now – a large plastic sheet & a whole bunch of extra fire starters!

In the Alaskan bush, bears are the least of our worries. Breaking a leg, concussion, or spending the night out in bad weather are the real enemies, and a poor outcome is most likely to be linked to poor human judgment. We are our greatest enemies! Ed had his sample stash mauled by a bear two days ago, but bears are still not a real obsession with us, we are too busy trying to get our job done to be obsessed by the wildlife, although I do think we all have a heightened sense of awareness for anything unusual in our surroundings. Go Corporal Dewd and his close encounter with an Alaskan wolf!

Today I think I’m very lucky to have the opportunity to work here this summer – great people, great scenery, and memories for a lifetime! Enjoy the photos … and although the summer is winding down … we’re not quite done!

2008-07-31T19:18:00.000-07:00

Sunset at Farewell
Tanana 800 – homemade-boat races ... on the Yukon River

2008-07-31T19:15:00.000-07:00

Alaskan wildflowers – haven’t had a chance to look them up yet
More wildflowers – after the rain
Me in a rain storm

2008-07-31T14:16:00.000-07:00

Mordor revisited? The Alaska Range
Farewell Lake Lodge – our home for 2 weeks
More steep slopes

2008-07-31T14:05:00.000-07:00

- Alaska Range – can you see 3 people on the saddle – gives you a good idea of scale
- This is after I landed on the same saddle looking down to the valley below – the destination on our orientation day.
- Russell and Dan prospecting

4th of July

2008-07-04T08:48:00.001-07:00

This will be about the last post for a few weeks. We move on Monday & our next location will have no internet.

Work has being going well. Modern day prospecting is not that different from 100 years ago. The only difference is a GPS to locate yourself & a computer in camp to print maps & communicate with the outside world. Oh, and a helicopter.

Here are some highlights from the past week:

- I’m going to be a helicopter pilot in my next life. It is really a good way to see the world. I think it is as close to being a bird as you can get. “Hey Andy, can you give me a bump” translates to “Can you fly me to another location”. - Scenery is spectacular, today was like being in the Swiss Alps, although it was pretty warm & we all got a little too much sun.
- Our cook’s cookies are the best and I enjoy my Cookie breaks on the mountain.
- When I got dropped of this morning I had a really uncomfortable feeling for a while. The pilot radioed me a few minutes after he dropped me off to say there was a Grizzly and cub 1km away. Not too close but humans also have animal instincts. I got to see it when I “bumped.”
- Last week I got charged by an adolescent caribou. He came so fast over the snow bank that I didn’t have any time to react. Fortunately he did a 90 degree turn just a few feet from me.
- The only other animals we’ve seen are moose out in the flat areas, marmots, & arctic ground squirrels.
- Getting pretty good at swinging the overloaded backpack up over the gun & field vest (that is also stuffed full)
- Walking down steep talus slopes and ridge walking/mapping is not an art I’ve mastered yet. I believe we’ll be doing a lot more of that before the summer is out.

Time for sleep…

More Photos ...

2008-06-22T17:49:00.000-07:00

We are rained in today. Yuk, and after a beautiful day yesterday.

Hard to believe we’ve been here more than a week. Today is the summer solstice – from here on out is will be all downhill! Funny how quickly you can adjust to sleeping when the sun is still shining.

This is definitely bear country. The helicopter pilot has seen grizzly bears everyday. Yesterday morning, after I got dropped off, I had a radio message from Russell saying that there were fresh bear tracks just down stream from me. How not to make somebody’s day! Fortunately I didn’t ever see the bear - just fresh scat. The crew has yet to see a bear face to face in the field, but the potential is definitely there. The helicopter pilot (apparently worked as an “Eye in the Sky” somewhere) has a great eye for game, so we usually see moose and caribou on the flights to and from the field.

The helicopter is actually a lot of fun - getting in and out, not so much fun. Taking stream samples is OK, if you can find enough fine material. Walking in between them is hard work. We are eating like horses – I have dessert everyday as well as cooked breakfasts! I thought I would have lots of interesting stories to tell, but at the end of the day all we want to do is overdose on ibuprofen and sleep until the next day.

First Days

2008-06-16T21:41:00.000-07:00

Wow – first day.

We are at our first project. We’ve had several days with lots of orientation, learning how to use gear, and procedures. Information overload!! Today was the first real work day. We are expecting some analysts tomorrow - investors, etc to look at the property. In preparation they need a large runway to accommodate the Caravan they’ll be flying in on. This morning we flew (Cessna) to this airstrip and 5 of us spent the day brush clearing the airstrip – mostly by hand pulling small shrubs out by the roots. We cleared about 1250 x 75ft swath of brush in about 7 hours. I took a double dose of ibuprofen when we got back … I think we’ll be very sore tomorrow.

Tomorrow will be some geological traverses, so that will only entail a lot of hiking, helicopter hopping and carrying a backpack. Piece of cake.

By the way – the scenery is spectacular and today the temperature was perfect! Miss you all.

Day 2 - first day of sampling. Helicopter hopping is interesting! We had a range of weather - sun, wind, hail, rain, sun! Interesting. We did brush bashing and climbed steep hills - pretty tough with the pack and field vest. Tomorrow will be the first day of sampling by ourselves. Not sure how I ended up with the most rugged area. At least their is no brush, its way, way above the veg line. I'll do another post if I survive!!!

Photo - from our camp, we had sat internet installed today, it is a bit slow, but great to have a connection to the outside world!

Survival Kit and Farewells

2008-06-07T14:52:00.000-07:00

So what’s in my survival kit? I have a metal tea canister (what else!). It still has tea bags, the #1 priority, in it. A bar of chocolate is #2. I have duct tape wrapped around the outside of the canister. I can make a Duct Tape Wallet to fight away boredom if I have to spend the night out. The canister fits inside an empty soup can (my tea water boiling pot). The tea canister will hold an extra triangular bandage (Girl Guide training!), tea bags, whistle, mirror, fire starters (lint, candles & waxpaper), tea bags, outdoor matches, knife, super calorie energy bar, cup-a-soup, tea bags, lipstick. Pause – the lipstick is another Girl Guide thing. You clean out the lipstick. Cut a rectangular piece of felt & add pins, safety pins, threaded needles, etc to the felt. Roll up and put inside lipstick container. So where were we, oh yes, lipstick, tea bags, water purifying tablets, torch (flashlight!), tea bags and a space blanket … it didn’t all fit in the canister, but the Ziploc bag should be OK for the rest. I’ll also have insect repellant, sunscreen, lipbalm, TP, GPS, and water and other stuff like Susie (my gun), sampling gear, notebooks, GPS, warm and waterproof layers etc. Weight … no problem, I believe we gain about 20+lbs of sample material through the day. Groan…

Thanks for all your support, friends! I’m leaving in the morning – a quick detour via Reno to visit my friend Debbie visiting from Australia. I haven’t seen her since 1997! A lot to catch up in 40 hours!

Special thanks for encouragement from the Colorado DIVAS (a women shooters club). Mojitos at YiaYia's should become a regular social event! Have a wonderful summer Anginette, Chris, Elaine, Heather, and Nancy … I hope to see you in September for the clinic. I’ll see what I can do about a bear rug, Anginette – although I was hoping not to see any wildlife on this trip!! an the adventure begins......

A parallel universe

2008-05-22T15:14:00.000-07:00

Preparations still under way for the big summer in AK. I’m now qualified to tell you (after you’ve fallen 20ft and unconscious) that I’m certified in Wilderness First Aid Basics and can help you. Perhaps I’ll leave out the ‘Basics” – it might worry you! I did OK on the First Aid test, just missing a question about identifying a Pit Viper. Never heard of one until Sunday. Thank goodness there are no snakes in AK!

Have you ever wondered why more geologists don’t write blogs? OK, you hadn’t noticed – probably because you’ve never looked. They don’t write them because doing crazy wild stuff is completely normal. Training to work in adverse conditions is a crucial part of undergrad studies. Those that can’t cope … quit. I remember one lecturer – Ian Stanistreet who took us on a field trip into a mangrove swamp in South Africa. “Flip-flops will be adequate, follow me.” We stomped knee deep thought mud with scrunchy crabs lodged between our toes (yes, it was ‘eyuk’). No one made it back with flip-flops (our fearless leader wore running shoes of course) and those that cried didn’t sign on for another year of geology! They trained us tough!

This is a link to a Geologist Reality TV show that was a disaster, from the 'normal' world's perspective. I heard about this from another source as well so there could be a thread of truth in it: http://physics309.wordpress.com/2008/02/29/geologists-reality/ Hilarious, but believable! Should have picked me though, I think I could have given the responses they were looking for!! Geologists live in a parallel universe to the rest of the world. If I stop writing part way through the summer – you’ll know I crossed over and got back to my roots ‘across the universe’. Who knows I may even sell everything, move to Alaska, and become a blockbuster movie next Fall! Maybe…

Bears, bears, bears…

2008-05-16T22:22:00.000-07:00

I’ve been to the library, checked out and read almost every book available on grizzly and black bears. I’m not sure if I have all the knowledge I need to avoid a conflict with a bear, but I know I need to. One thing that struck me from my readings is that many bear attack victims talk about bear stench. My take - anything that smells that bad has got to chronically grumpy and should be avoided. I’ll hopefully be carrying some bear spray and the gun will be a last resort. Yes, I am now the owner of a Smith and Wesson 44mag revolver (2.6lb pounds). Russell and I took a basic handgun course at the local shooting center and I followed through with a ‘Personal Protection in the Home’ course. That doesn’t sound particularly relevant but the practical focused on shooting in a compromised situation (interpret – not at the shooting range). Overall it gave me some confidence that as long as my legs don’t turn to jelly I have a good a chance as anybody at hitting an attacking bear. Despite the big gun, and some raised eyebrows, I’m not a bad shot. Pretty unbelievable – if you had told me a year ago I would own and shoot a handgun – yes I would have shaken my head and rolled eyes too! The pictures were taken at the shooting range earlier this week. The magnum bullets have a wild recoil, but I can still find the target. What do you think (9" paper plate ~30ft)?