Final Frontier Forum

Final Frontier Forum 

      Some express their friendship through hugs and giggling.  Others share a semi-reluctant half-hug that has become an acceptable masculine substitution of the former.  And others .... just argue! 

I have always maintained that launching into a good argument/debate/discussion with Raffi is akin to giving him a hug.  Naturally, I have enjoyed these conversations as well and we have affectionately referred to our housing arrangements and various trips as editions of the Forum.  Sadly, I have yet to see the original: (http://www.tickitaly.com/galleries/forum-rome-italy.php)

At the end of May, Raffi made a trip up to Anchorage for a Final Frontier edition of the Forum and we embarked on a few new adventures outdoors and celebrated old traditions: breweries.

We started out at the Alaska Native Heritage Center (http://www.alaskanative.net/) here in town which is absolutely amazing.  I recommend that everyone who visits Alaska check out this place.  Native Alaskans are generally recognized as five different large people groups: Inupiaq, Yupik, Aleut, Athabascan, Tlingit/Haida/Tsimshian.  My work has dealt with the Inupiaq of northwest Alaska (next blog post) as well as the Tlingit of Sitka, Alaska (sadly no trips there).  The AHNC features a museum with a performance arena that is really cool.  We saw young athletes practices for the Eskimo Olympics preforming high kicks that would be used to notify a village of a successful hunt.  We also watched several dances and the performers took the time to explain the motions and the story being told through the music.  This was one of two highlights.  The other was talking a 1/4 mile walking tour with our guide Yari.  This short walk outdoors stopped at five different houses, one representing each of the various Alaska Native people groups.  No, there were no igloos involved, that is just a myth.  We got to walk inside the houses, learn about construction, decoration, uses, and habitation.  I don't know if pictures would have been welcomed, but I was so fascinated with our conversations that I probably would not have taken any.

After giving Raffi just a day to adjust the land of the midnight sun (seriously sunset was at 11pm the day he arrived and twilight lasted until 130am), I decided to throw him into the outdoors with a little mountain run:

 Alaska Mountain Runners has six races each summer that make up an official grand prix starting with Kal's Knoya ridge race (http://www.alaskamountainrunners.org/calendar.htm#kk). Sadly, the full race was cancelled due to the record snow this previous winter, but we still embarked on the 5.6k, 2900' race.  For the mathematically inclined, that is an elevation gain of .55 miles across 3.5 miles.  It starts at a reasonable grade and then just goes up, up, up.  By the halfway mark, it was a speed hike and then a hike, not a run.  I pushed Raffi a bit too hard and without water he had to turn back.  Out of 135 runners to finish, I clocked in at 1 hour, 39 minutes and 35 seconds, good for 133/135.  Still not the goat!  Hopefully, you can understand why I had to borrow a race picture instead of offering one of my own.

 

 For a restful day, we decided to head over to the Rasmusson museum and check out the special exhibits on the Art of the North as well as a special exhibit on climbing Denali and painting Denali landscapes.   This is Sidney Laurence's Mt. McKinley from 1929.  It captures what I love about the west: the vast landscape with immense beauty, varied terrains, the awe of the of the gargantuan and simultaneously amazement of the minute.  This is one of a very few pieces of art, I would actually consider buying.

 

 It is so easy to burst Raffi's bubble that even he can do it without trying!  The Rasmusson has an awesome set of how-things-work rooms, three actually.  One room has general physics stuff and the next room has a bunch of Alaska themed natural science: landslides, tsunamis, earthquakes, etc and a third room has some fun waves and bubbles stuff.  Ideally the person in the middle slowly pulls the bubble contraption thereby creating a bubble around themselves.  Its a lot of fun to try and to watch!

 

After a day of rest, we headed outdoors again to the Falls Creek Trailhead outside of Anchorage in the western range of the Chugach.  My idea was to being at sea level and take the trail a couple miles in to the lake gaining about 3000 feet in elevation and then bushwack north to climb South Suicide at an elevation of just over 5000 feet.

 

This is a photo looking back toward the trailhead, which is now invisible a couple thousand feet below.  However, the view offers the amazing scenery of the Kenai Peninsula across the Turnagain Arm. A couple of miles into the hike we started hitting some pretty serious snowfields. Unfortunately at 3.5 hours into the hike, we hadn't reached the lake and the approach to the lake, not to mention the peak was likely to contain more more snow.  Determining that we could not reasonably continue without snowshoes, which we didn't have, we made the decision to turn around.

 

Here it is ladies and gentleman, a classic Raffi "Ahhh" picture.  On the left, you can see that the last people through here used skis.  Also, take note of the various footsteps and post-holing.  Post-holing is when you fall through the snow up to your knee or thereabouts.  In most situations, its not a big deal, but makes the hike much, much more strenuous.  All told, we had about a 5 hour hike covering around 4-5 miles and gaining about 2250 feet in elevation, not bad for a day excursion.
 

Saturday ended with a visit to a local brewery just down the block from my apartment.  Raffi is posing with his glass from the Sleeping Lady Brewery with the Anchorage's Sleeping Lady, Mt. Susitna, visible in the background. The mountain is approximately 30 miles away and has an elevation of 4396 feet.

 

 Even the supposedly dull days are beautiful here.  On Sunday, we headed down to the Kenai Peninsula and the drive which generally should take about 2.5 hours took more like 4 or 4.5.  If you ever get to drive the Seward Highway, don't plan to drive quickly.  Just relax, enjoy the scenery and take plenty of stops.

 This is one of the stops that we made on the way to Seward.  We saw numerous water falls right along the edge of the road as the mountains drained off their beautiful white blankets.

We drove to the Kenai Fjiords Nature Center to get a look at Exit Glacier.  Glaciers are living, moving objects despite the fact that they just seem like a massive block of ice.  These photos will give you some quick information about how the bend and move.  Essentially, gravity and the weight of the ice pulverizes the anything beneath the glacier, even melting the bottom layers which decrease friction and aid movement.

At the same time, silt, dirt, rocks, and boulders are moving through the glacier.  As the glacier moves downhill, especially as it bends, crevasses (giant cracks) form as well.  A lot of care must be given to safety around a glacier, because even the parts that look safest, can be very dangerous.  (Note the comment about getting trapped under a glacier in the poster).

Ta Da!  The Exit Glacier, so named because a group of explorers used it as an avenue back toward the coast. It has quite a bit of dirt and such near the terminus and doesn't look as petty in this view.  Note the series of streams running off from the glacier.  While Raffi and I were able to cross without special equipment in late May, I would not have been able to do so just two weeks ago.

 

After visiting Exit Glacier, we decided that just standing on a glacier was not enough, we needed to get in a hike on a glacier.  Unfortunately, the first guiding group we called, could not accommodate someone with feet the size of Goofy.  (I kid you not, he is a few inches shorter, but has feet 3 sizes large than me).  However, that turned out great, because we found MICA guides (http://www.micaguides.com/) and the did a phenomenal job. Here is a look at the Matanuska Glacier still several miles away.

 We met up with the guides next to the highway to get boots, crampons, and helmets before driving down to the glacier.  Some homesteaders moved out to this area about 70 years ago and found that the soil was quite as good as they had hopped.  However, the got the land closest to the terminus of the glacier and since one must cross private land to reach the glacier, they found their windfall to the tune of $20/person on their way to the glacier. 

 This is a view of the terminus.  The Matanuska Glacier is some 26-27 miles long and has a breadth of nearly 4 miles in some places.  It is believed that it once extended another 100 miles or so down to Anchorage a few ice ages ago. 

This a a view of several seracs that have been carved by crevasses.  We hiked uphill and downhill in crampons, which requires a bit of a different technique.  First, you must always keep your feet apart to avoid tearing clothing near your ankles (the crampons have metal teeth).  Second, you must always place your feet perpendicular to the surface of the ice to fully engage the metal teeth and slap the teeth into the ice.  It is a bit different that most hiking, but quite a bit of fun.  Along the way, we got to see some beautiful lakes, moulins, caves, waterfalls and we stopped to fill up water bottles with some pristine glacier water!

So, what happens when you put the Forum on ice?  Not much changes, the adventures continue as due to the passionate discussions about everything politics, football, philosophy, and history.

Next post: my work trip to the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve and Park (site of the picture time challenge).