the light is fading...

... faster than we can drive.

Cheers,

Climbing on the Arm

We returned to excellent weather so I left work a bit early on Wednesday and did some climbing on the Turnagain Arm.

Tommy and the Turnagain Arm looking east.

Me sorting out the business.

Looking west up the Arm. A good bit of climbing to go with the weather, cheers.

Colorado... part deux!

Pete and Sara's wedding went off swimmingly, sadly we did not get any pictures. After a good bit of dancing at the reception, we headed back into Denver on the Party Bus. Pete and Sara were kind of enough to provide transport for all their friends in the form of an awesome bus.

Ellen with a great party bus face.

Saturday morning, we met up with my family for some lunch at the Denver Botanical Gardens.

A nice setting.

Renia, lil Jack, and Aidan.

My dear parents enjoying a beautiful day.

Orange flower.

White (more or less) flower.

Popiel family (missing Nanda and company and Eric and company).

Next on the agenda was the Great American Beerfest downtown Denver. 

The above picture sums up the night, lots of shots of beer and a lot of antics.

And before we knew it, we were flying over southeast Alaska. 

Cheers, 

Colorado!

Jes and I flew down to Colorado for our friend's Pete and Sara's wedding.

We left Anchorage very early on Thursday. The fog that had rolled in earlier this week was present and thick.

Clear skies somewhere over British Columbia.

Upon arriving in Denver, we went to the mall. There are amenities that Denver offers that Anchorage doesn't and we needed to take advantage.

Early Friday morning, I headed out to Clear Creek to climb with Zac and Tom. Here Tom works out the moves to a route on the Guppy Wall.

Zac near the top of a great route at the Primo sector. 

The rock quality is great in Clear Creek.

Jes and I met back up in the early afternoon and headed out to the wedding.

The wedding was held at a country club is South Denver. The setting and the weather were perfect. 

More to come, cheers

Visitors!

We were more than happy to host several friends from Colorado at the beginning of the week.
Ech and Liz came through on the tail end of their honeymoon. We picked them at the train station and were shocked to find them very tan. They enjoyed some great weather on their honeymoon.
Yelena came in later that night, she was up on business but got a couple extra days tacked onto her trip.
And finally Jen Underwood who was in town visiting family.

We all got together on Tuesday evening, ran a local trail race, and then got dinner and hung out afterwards. 

I love panoramas!

Ech in focus.

Liz in focus...

Neat sequence.

Cheers,

Hatcher's Pass

We woke up to great weather on Saturday so we decided to head up to Hatcher's Pass for a walk about. On our way up, we got a bit lost and happened upon this vista... (click on the image for a larger version)

The trees are changing fast. 

Shadow portrait of Jes and I with Hatcher's Pass in the background.

Hatcher's Pass is above treeline which makes the space feel even more expansive.

Jes roamed about in the tundra while I hiked up a hill to get a higher view. 

Even the lichen is changing colors. 

Panoramic view from the top, click on image for larger version.

Cheers, 

Glen Alps

We were in South Anchorage and decided to make a quick trip up to Glen Alps for the sunset. Pictures were taken and with a bit of messing around the panorama below was created, pretty neat.

Click on the image for a larger version. 

Cheers.

McCarthy and Kennicott

This weekend we drove out to McCarthy to take part in a small trail race out there. Our friend from summer league ultimate, Jess, was driving down and meeting some friends from Fairbanks and invited us along. In the pre-trip planning we learned that you cannot get directions to McCarthy, Alaska via Google maps. Lucky for us the directions were very simple: drive to Glenallen, take a right, take a left towards Chitina, drive until the road ends.

On the drive down, we stopped at the Pipeline.

The Pipeline receding into the distance.

We camped in Chitina and then set out for McCarthy. The road to get there is 60 miles and dirt the whole way. The colors were incredible and we spotted a lynx at one point.

And then we arrived at the campground and the official start of the race. I specially liked the 'Start' banner which was a hastily made, hand-written sign on a big sheet of plastic. 

Keeping with the simple aesthetic, the course was laid out on a sheet of plywood. Great!

We all ran the race, Jes and I did the 5 mile course which was really 6.2. The Fairbanks crew split between the half-marathon and the shorter course. We didn't get any pictures of the race or post-race activities as the camera was back at the campsite. Once we all finished up, we headed back to the campground for food, beer, and company.

Sunday dawned misty and rainy. 

We took a quick walk over to the Copper River to check out the old tram used to cross the river before the bridge was put in. 

The Copper River is huge and pretty wild. 

And now a bonus picture...

I checked and couldn't hear the oil flowing. 

Cheers, 

Trip to Kodiak

I took a trip down to Kodiak for work. I had a bit of leftover time after the site visit to wander around Kodiak before my flight left.

I talked with some of the guys at the site and they had heard there was a run of silvers coming in from the ocean. They insisted that I take the jobsite fishing pole (I'm not kidding) out with me, a couple flys, and try my luck catching a silver. Jes and I have our fishing licenses so I was legal and I figured if I didn't want to ship my catch up to Anchorage, I could just catch and release. 

I took a couple pictures at the river and then got to fishing. 

I have next to no experience fishing and it showed. The river was fairly crowded and many of the fishermen were pulling in large silvers with alarming frequency. I moved up and down the bank, searching for a good spot. I copied what I thought the other folks were doing. I would spot a group of running silvers, cast in front of them and let the fly drift by enticingly. They ignored my feeble attempts to trick them. This process repeated itself several times. I ended up snagging one in the side but the hook didn't set and the fish got away. 

That is as close to catching a silver as I got. Nevertheless, a very good time and a lot of learning went on. 

For work, I stopped by a couple projects by our firm.

Kana-Koniag office building on Near Island.

A view of the front.

Kodiak Fisheries Research Center.

View of conference room overhang. 

Small boat harbor on Near Island.

A good trip with great weather, yes!

Cheers,