Reflexive State Trip of February

(warning this is a long one: start your roast beef, read, then feast)

Finally, I escaped.  Dark and early at 12:46 a.m. on Monday February 20th, I left the last frontier for the first time since my arrival the previous July for a week long trip to LA and AL.  In the days leading up to the trip, I discovered that the temperature topped 70F just 7 times in Anchorage during 2011.  I experienced four of those instances including the annual high temp of 77F.  At the time of my departure, high temps were running in the upper 20s and thus I was even excited about the humidity and stickiness of the south simply as symptoms of the heat.

 During the first part of the trip, I headed to New Orleans to visit Raffi (four-year Gettysburg roommate for those who don't know) and his fiance Nicole, who grew up on the Mississippi River.  Although Mardi Gras generally refers to a single day, New Orleans has over 20 parades across several days leading up to the Tuesday before Lent.  This was one of the night parades just before Mardi Gras.

The key to getting beads is to be what I am not or to be in range of those folks.  Mardi Gras is a family affair and most of the Krewe's (people in the parade) toss beads, cups, gifts, etc at kids or at good looking women.  So, if you don't happen to be in either of those categories, just stand near someone who is and catch anything that is overthrown.  Raffi, Jason (fellow Penn Stater and a frequent visitor to Gettysburg) and I all managed to get beads thanks to Nicole!  The lights really made the night parade a sight to see.  The parade also featured several members of the Krewe carrying flaming lanterns harkening back to the days before electricity and the great political parades of the 1840s.  If you visit New Orleans for Mardi Gras, I highly recommend taking in a night parade.

Naturally a visit to the Crescent City should also include some Jazz!  After the night parade we headed out to a place called Snug Harbor to listen to some authentic music.  The woman is Charmaine Neville, a well known artist and an expert in impromptu Jazz.  Throughout the evening, she simply called fellow musicians out of the audience to the performance.  It was highly organic, but also very high quality.  Check out Snug Harbor if you go to NOLA.

 Mardi Gras began a little before 6 a.m. as we left Nicole's house and went to the rally point for those on Float #12 in the Krewe of Orleanians.  Raffi joined Nicole's family on the float, while Jason and I watched.  After the bus ride down to NOLA, we found a cafe to obtain beignets (French pastry similar to fry bread covered in powdered sugar) and chocolate milk for breakfast.  Then we made our way down the parade route where we observed any number of people in costumes just out to enjoy the day.  The roller coaster folks had an entire routine that included a wave and rocking side-to-side simulating a roller coaster turn.



  Many of the costumes had a facetious, sarcastic or mocking element. Naturally, mocking speed cameras was amongst the tamest I saw that day.  Plenty of folks dressed up and mocked political candidates and social movements; Occu-Poty was quite hilarious!





The first parade of Mardi Gras was the Krewe of Zulu, the first African-American parade.  These floats are especially vibrant in color and the specialty favors are the decorated coconuts that the krewe hands out.  Every parade tosses out beads, but only one hands out coconuts (throwing is verboten - blame the liability lawyers)!  Of course, everyone who really wants to get the good loot crosses the police barricades to get close to the floats.  Yes, I have a Zulu coconut!

This is one of the stranger sights I observed in NOLA.  At first, I thought it was a coffin.  Yes, it is very odd that someone would have a artistic coffin in the front yard, but hey, its New Orleans.  Later, I saw a few more with plaques and then discovered that it is not a coffin but a trolley car and there are several near the parade route.






 The second parade of the day was the Crewe of Rex, which Raffi informed me was the where the rich folks threw out all kinds of goodies (yes, that was paraphrased).  Several floats in this parade threw out candy or other food in addition to beads and cups.







Earlier, I contended that Mardi Gras is a family affair and here is my proof.  These step ladders and ladders with modified tool boxes, which are seen at day and night parades are for kids.  Not only does it elevated them 6-8 feet into the air, but it also makes a better target for the krewe's and gives them a place to stash their loot.

At last, we reached the third parade of the day the Krewe of Orleanians also called the Jefferson-Elks Parade.  Fitting that Raffi should partake in something of the commons with the name of his beloved Jefferson attached.  No this is not float #12 on which he and Nicole's family rode, but it is a float that portrayed history.  However, the kids are yelling for loot instead of reading the history of Jean Lafayette, the pirate who assisted Andrew Jackson at the battle of New Orleans.  I don't have any pictures of Raffi's float because I was too busy videoing a short escapade on my camera.  He had been saving beads from previous parades to throw at Jason and myself, so we decided to return the favor by saving extra beads and attacking him as well.  Thus with the camera in my right hand and a cup of beads in the left, I attacked.  My beads hit their mark as Raffi's mother lode went flying in all directions.  Then he quickly grabbed a roll of plastic cups, which, when tossed found their way to my right ear.  What a great parade, assault and all!

Ash Wednesday began with a visit to Nicole's workplace as a 4-H extension agent and was soon followed by multiple trips to the Baton Rouge airport after Raffi left and then proceeded to sweet talk his way onto a later flight, two days later on Friday.  After he returned, we did a bit of touring along the countryside.   The picture on the left is captioned "What could have been!"  This is the Catholic Church in St. James Parish where the happy couple considering getting hitched until one of them just had to get married in his beloved New Mexico.  The brick work is beautiful and the sanctuary is breathtaking including a beautiful organ.  Incidentally, the organist stopped practicing and came to say hello.  Turns out that she briefly taught Nicole piano a long time ago and went to school with one of her parents! (Cue "Its a small world after all).






This is the levee just across River Road from the church with a barge on the mighty Mississippi.  I was surprised at the physical character of the levee.  It is essentially a flat plain with followed by an obtuse angled embankment leading away from the river.  The embankment is covered in concrete on both sides with a gravel access road on top.  I suppose I had expected more of a wall like I saw in Vicksburg.


On Thursday, we let Nicole got to work without any interruptions.  Raffi and I took a nice walk along Paulina Beach with all the requisite conversation about philosophy, politics, football and everything else.  It was the first edition of the Forum on the Beach!  The river seemed docile though quite muddy.  We noted several barges moving along the river.



In the afternoon we took a tour of Laura Plantation (http://www.lauraplantation.com/), a Creole plantation with the unique distinction of having been managed by four generations of women.  The last, Laura, wanted nothing to do with the plantation and sold it quickly, but she did live a wonderful written record of the history of the plantation and her family, the basis of the interpretation.  The interpretation was solid and conveyed the difference between a creole plantation and the anglo-american life style that surrounded much of this French/Spanish/French colony.  Our guide defined creole as any person born in the new world of non-British heritage.  This was an odd definition that later led to a riveting discussion with Nicole's dad about his experiential observations on the meaning of creole.  Always get local history from the true experts!



At left, is Evergreen Plantation (http://www.evergreenplantation.org/), once owned by Nicole's family on her mother's side but lost around the Great Depression.  The house has a beautiful symmetrical design more reminiscent of the typical "plantation" in America than Laura.  Apparently, a movie producer decided to plant cotton across the street, a first amongst the sugar cane plantations of River Road.  However, the presence of a film and construction crew made it easier to create our own personal tour!


This is the slave row at Evergreen Plantation, a very rare set of historical artifacts.  Although a few slave rows have been re-created this is either the only or one a very few that is still intact.  According to Raffi, it was occupied by sharecroppers and their descendants as late as the 1980s.  When I did research and site visits at Gamble Plantation in Bradenton, FL, we could not definitively locate the slave residences.  Although nearly 150 slaves worked in forced labor at that site, the physical remnants are gone.  This slave row has 22 cabins intact, one of which had interpretative material and was open to visitors.  It is phenomenally important to see and witness the physical space of the slaves because no plantation visit is complete without the realization that these economic systems operated by cruel forced labor of a large magnitude.


Although George Strait sang about swimming across the Ponchartrain for his girl, the water didn't look too inviting. This was my view on the train from New Orleans to Birmingham as I embarked on the second part of my vacation.  The train ride was 8 hours but very comfortable.  The seats are about 50% larger than a plain with twice as much leg room.  If only, one could take a high speed train from Anchorage down to the lower 48!


My friend good friend Ilana from my days in the Swing Dancing club at University of Florida got married to her beloved Jason that Saturday.  This is what a wedding should be: a bride so full of joy that she just has to dance and a groom so thrilled with his bride's joy!  During my two days there I got to meet the extended Stover clan, who excel at southern hospitality.  The only unfortunate part was that I only briefly got to meet Jason, he was a little busy.





However, I did get in some good dancing!  I got to dance with bride, of course, and one of the bridesmaids, my friend Micah.  Micah was the president of the swing dancing club when I first started dancing there.  She also co-taught with me the first time I taught a lesson and as you can see, she has an excellent dip pose!







No trip to the south is complete without some sort of visit having something to do with the Civil War, so I made a stop at Natural Bridge, AL.  This is the longest natural bridge (http://www.naturalbridgeala.com/park.html), east of the Rockies.  While they do not allow anyone to cross the bridge, you can still walk underneath it, which I did accompanied by a red heeler who managed to escort me without nipping at my ankles.




For those who don't ingest everything American Civil War, Natural Bridge, AL is the location where the high estimable Winston County denounced the secession of Alabama from the United States and promptly seceded from the state of Alabama and declared neutrality in the war.  They then named themselves the Free State of Winston!

The picture of the Indian has to do with the fact that the locals took inspiration in the historical actions of the Creek Confederacy for their opposition to the Confederate States of America.  On the left, you can see my rental car including the missing license plate.  The paper placard which said "Tag Applied For" flew off while I was on the interstate.  Thus I made my visit to the Free State of Winston worried that if I got pulled over, the delay would cause me to miss my flight.





After my visit to the secession site, I headed over to the county seat at Double Springs to get a look at the divided loyalties soldier at the courthouse.  Although this bronze soldier is dressed half Yankee and half Rebel with both flags behind him, the boys of Winston county did not favor each side equally.  About 75% of them wore the blue while only 25% wore gray.  Once again the Confederate cause has gained extra notoriety in history to the sad degradation of the loyal Union boys!









A quick drive back to Birmingham and the airport ended my third day in Alabama.  Then, in order to fly to Anchorage I first flew east to Charlotte, NC and then west to Phoenix, AZ.  My flight was overbooked, so I then waited a day before flying into Seattle and then onto Anchorage.  I hope you have enjoyed my reminisces of the reflexive state trip!

Hiking in the "Great Land"

 Alas, I have returned after a long delay!  At the end of August, my team leader for cultural resources shared a hiking group with me called Alaska Outdoors (http://www.alaska-outdoors.org/_sgg/f10000.htm) that I have been a part of for the past 6 months.  We hike twice a week with a light hike on Mondays and a more challenging hike on Thursdays.  I typically attend the Thursday hikes.  It is fun a group, and our leader Toshi knows everything about every trail around Anchorage and also sets a group friendly pace, which really makes for a great atmosphere.  If you ever join a hiking group, I recommend finding one that will cheerfully set a pace for the slowest hiker.  You might not set any records, but you will have a great atmosphere the opportunity to make friends.  Onto the pictures!

This was by first hike with the group near Campbell Airstrip in Centennial park back at the end of August.  To my right, you can see three other people in the back row.  The last two are my friends Pat and Chris. Pat is a retired letter carrier in Anchorage and Chris is former Pennsylvanian who retired from Godiva. In the third row in the blue polo is Ted, who introduced me to the group.  I cannot recall the dog's name, but check out the hairdo!

 This was my first Thursday hike with the group along the Rainbow Trailhead.  We generally take a picture about halfway into the hike whenever Toshi gives the signal as he is both leader and photographer.  This picture overlooks the Turnagain Arm of the Cook Inlet, so named because poor Captain Cook sailed this inlet only to turn again.

 Bear Valley was my favorite non-winter hike.  This trail has a very steep continuous ascent and I was the second one up to the top.  Since I am in the photo, you'll know that Toshi got their first.  We had low cloud cover that day which made for an excellent cloud hiking experience. 

 Here, we have the group at the top of the Bear Valley Trailhead.  Although, it was very warm during the climb, the wind at the top put everyone into their jackets.  You may notice by know that this is a very dog friendly group and several of our canine friends regularly make these treks as well.  The valleys in the Chugach Mountain ranger that face west looking toward Anchorage (photo is facing east toward Canada) are gorgeous, much like the Powerline Valley that I discovered on my Flattop Hike at the end of July.

Fall!  I actually saw fall with leaves changing colors!  This was a first since I was an undergrad during my semester at Gettysburg College back in 2004.  We hiked North Bivouac at the end of September and about that time I joined a swing dancing performance group and missed several Thursday hikes.  When I returned, things were a bit different ....

 Hiking in the snow in the dark is a true Alaska experience!  We hiked Potter Trailhead on November 10th about two weeks after the first snow hit Anchorage.  I found that hiking in the dark in the snow is easy after a couple of simple adjustments.  First, get a headlamp, which everybody seems to have.  Second, wear water proof pants.  Hiking will keep your body warm even if the temp is below 32F or 0F for that matter!



Our group dwindles a bit in size in winter and due to the outdoor conditions, but still we hike.  This is our climb up Prospect Heights Trailhead near Hillside.  Hillside is one of the ritzier subdivisions in Anchorage, but the catch is that you have a challenging icy commute in the winter when you build homes into the side of a hill.  I have been amazed at the subtle reflections of light off of the snow during the winter.  It gives the feeling that you are not really hiking in the dark, but unfortunately it is far too subtle to see with most cameras.  It highlights the valleys and even the ice on the inlet.

Jodhpur Trailhead! This was my absolute favorite winter hike.  It is the one that you should ask about the next time you see me in person.  We had to re-route on several occasions because we saw 4 Moose and it was the first time that many members of the club witnessed our fearless leader fall due to the slippery nature of the landscape.  We went up and down hills while it was snowing and even dropped to our butts to slide down some particularly icy spots.  We were rewarded with both an awesome workout and  spectacular views of the ice on the Turnagain Arm in addition to our wildlife visitors.

My sister Kara and her fiance Dave joined us for a day-after-Christmas hike during their visit to Anchorage for a wedding.  We took a nice stroll around University Park Lake and Kara made fast friends with both Sheba and Sammy.

Our group has no problem breaking new tread or occasionally cutting new spurs after a recent snow.  The up and down also includes crawling over trees and occasionally climbing over stumps!  This was our hike along the aptly named Basher Trail at the end of January 2012.  I think it was also one of the coldest hikes with temps around 0F and below!

 You will find me in a rather odd position in this picture--the front!  We have a term for the challenges of deep snow called postholing, which is when you take a step forward on what you believe to be packed snow and quickly find out otherwise.  I often "posthole" up to my kneecap or waist, anywhere from 18-30 inches.  In this particular instance, I jumped up, and landed about waist deep!  Toshi decided it was picture time at that moment as well.

I hope you have enjoyed some pictures of hiking and winter and both!  According to the National Weather Service, we have 103 inches of snow this winter, far above the normal 69.5 and or track to challenge the Anchorage record.  I will share some more snow pictures, a recent skiing expedition and a bit on the youth groups that I help lead, in the future! 

Brooks Camp III

Welcome to the third, an final, installment on my visit to Katmai National Park.

This is a small valley between Baked Mountain and Broken Mountain, I think you can connect the volcanic eruption to the names of each mountain.  I got up Saturday and began my hike about mid-morning.  My goal was to see as much as possible, but especially to climb into the volcano that caused the great eruptions.

 

Here I am at the top of Baked Mountain, 3695 ft above sea level.  Note the geodetic survey marker next to my left shoulder and of course my Penn State t-shirt!  In the background is Mt. Mageik with its glaciers.  It took me about an hour to climb 1000 ft up Baked Mountain, most of which was fractured slate like rock.  It reminded me of the rock at Willoughby run at Gettysburg.  I had lunch at the top of Baked mountain and then continued my hiking.

This was my first view of Novarupta, the volcano that cause all of this.  For over 40 years, Novarupta was overlooked as a secondary eruption because it does not resemble a mountain and was not previously identified as an active volcano.  However, it did erupt at least 3 times, maybe 4.  Today, it is inactive.

 

This a view of my descent from Baked Mountain.  The apogee is the background on the left and one of the three finger peaks is more prominent.  If you look closely, you will see the zig-zag pattern I used to ski down the mountain about 1500 below to the valley floor.  I say skiing because the sand provided a surface with minimal friction and I descended very quickly.

Here is another view of the mineral rich valley floor.  Mt. Mageik is in the background behind Mt. Cerebus (both on the left) and Baked Mountain is on the right.  Mount Martin is the center background.  The valley floor was very soft and frequently had a crust-like surface that reminded me of dried mud.

Walking through a dry river bed, I discovered this feature.  Although the glaciers had melted earlier in the summer (or sometime further in the past), this item remained behind.  It is a huge chuck of ice covered in tephra.  I am not sure how well the picture will come through, but it had a very light pink coloration in person.  I brushed off the dirt and excavated ice into 3 gallon-zip lock bags.  After it melted, I treated the water and used that as my drinking water for Saturday evening.

 Late in the afternoon, I climbed up the remnants of Novarupta.  The loose rock was difficult to somewhat challenging to navigate but I have now summitted a volcano! If you can increase the size of the picture, look for a small blue dot in the center, that is my pack.

There is life in the valley!  During my Friday hike out, I saw a plane fly overhead and then on late Saturday as I returned to the huts, I saw a few birds. Other than that, it was just me hiking in the middle of the wilderness.  Peace and quiet!

 I rose early Sunday morning and descended 700 feet down from the Baked Mountain spine.  What took an hour going up, took only 7 minutes going down.  Unfortunately, the sunrise was behind me, but from time to time, I turned around for photography.  This is Mount Griggs during sunrise.

I reached the Lethe River near 8 a.m. on Sunday morning.  I took my boots off and slung them around my neck.  Then I rolled my jeans above my knees and crossed the river in double-socks.  It was frigid!  Seriously, I think the water temp was at 32.0001 Fahrenheit.  As soon as I reached this bank, I took off my socks, dried my fit with a shirt and put on dry socks to continue my hike back to the trail head.

When Novarupa exploded it left 3 cubic miles of tephra in the Ukak valley spread out over 40 square miles with an average depth of 100 feet, and range of 40-700 feet.  This is one of my favorite shots showing how glacier streams have carved their way through the tephra back to the Naknek Lake.

I found this price of drift wood on the Naknek beach at Brooks Camp and it became my hiking staff.  It was quite sturdy and had a nice soft bow.  Looking that the top (the roots) one of the guests mused that it looked like a weapon from Lord of the Rings.  Those roots spreading out made a for a nice rest, a spot to hold a camera bag or a water bottle.  It also helped me fish my jacket out of the river when I dropped it once.  It was an excellent hiking staff.


Well, this concludes my posts about my visit to Katmai National Park and Preserve where I visited Brooks Camp to examine potential historic buildings before hiking about 40 miles through the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes over three days.  If you ever make a trip to Alaska, I recommend visiting even if you only take the bus tour to see the Windy Creek Overlook without hiking the valley.

Brooks Camp II

Welcome to the second of my three posts on my Katmai trip.  After completing my work on Wednesday and Thursday, I took a long weekend and headed for the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes (http://www.nps.gov/katm/planyourvisit/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&PageID=305031).  On June 6, 1912 a volcano on the Alaska Peninsula erupted.  A total of four eruptions displaced more than 7 cubic miles of earthen matter into the air and the nearby valley.  Once known as the Ukak valley, it was soon covered in tephra (volcanic matter).  Waters trapped underneath were heated into steam, which broke through the tephra.  Consequently, Robert Griggs of the USGS called it the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes.  

 This is a view of the valley from the vicinity of the trail head. I took a bus 23 miles from Brooks Camp to the trail head on Friday morning.  The other riders were taking the bus out to the visitor center where they would have lunch and then join a ranger for a short 2 hour hike.  I disembarked the bus at 11 a.m. and headed out into the volcanic wilderness.

 As I mentioned earlier the volcano exploded four times.  One of those explosions actually emptied andesite lava from underneath an adjacent volcano combing different types of rock.  Disclaimer: I am not a geologist, but I believe this is a heterogeneous composition of ryolite and andesite which would have come from the third explosion.

My most exciting find!  This is a piece of ryolite.  The pumice from the first explosion was described as a snow white ryolite pumice.  This is the only piece I saw during my 40 miles of trekking through the valley. 

My hike on Friday consisted of a 14 mile walk out to Baked Mountain.  I crossed this river (at a different) spot about an hour after I began.  All of the reddish colored soil is volcanic deposit.  99 years later, the Lethe River has cut its way across the valley again.  The water is glacier fed and thus very cold and it is also quite swift.

 The mineralization of the rocks and soil around me were amazing.  Unfortunately, I do not have the space or time to share all of these pictures.  I do not know for certain, but I think this may be a location of one of the ten thousand smokes, a place where steam broke through the volcanic matter to escape from the surface of the valley.

This is baked mountain with an elevation a little over 3800 feet, but look closely.  The purplish material toward your viewing right is indeed rock, but that tan-ish stuff is finely ground tephra.  Have you ever walked on the sand on the beach?  Now, consider what it would be like trying to hike 700 feet vertical on that terrain.  However, before I could even consider that, I had to deal with the Lethe River.

 The Lethe River is not particularly large, but it is swift.  The width along here is about 10-12 feet and the depth is only about 4 feet.  However, when I placed a sturdy hiking staff into the current to test the depth, it was so swift that I could barely hold the staff vertical with single hand.  I walked up and down the south (right) side of the river for over half an hour trying to find a spot to cross.  I found a few short sports where I could climb down one side and climb back up the other, but inevitably, they current was too fast to attempt a crossing.  Some fools might be tempted to vault the river with a quick jump.  Even for those who could jump ten feet, could it be done with 40 pounds of gear?  If you slip on a wet rock on the landing you would been in the water.  The danger of the Lethe River comes not from its depth but the combination of the swift and cold current; hikers have died crossing this river, but not I.

Unable to find a crossing (above) I kept moving. Nearing 5 p.m. I began to consider camping for the night, because I estimated that the cabins on Baked Mountain would be at least two hours from the river crossing.  Suddenly, I discovered this large pool with gentle ripples.  I crossed the Lethe River at the widest spot with a depth of about 12 inches and a very passive current.

 In the background you will see Mt. Griggs under clouds.  The foreground is the slopes of Baked Mountain.  My body sank into the tephra with each and every step up.  I was stepping up as quickly as I would sprint on solid ground.  With an additional 40 pounds on my back, this challenge was enough to force me to rest every 60-70 steps.  It took me over an hour climb 700 feet vertically.  I think I covered 1/4 - 1/2 mile horizontally in that time.

Paradise!  At 7:12 p.m., I crested the lower spine of Baked Mountain and found the huts.  I probably could have walked around the mountain with greater ease, but in hindsight climbing over it was a great accomplishment.  These huts were created by the University of Oregon research team in the 1960s when they conducted scientific research in the valley.  They offered great protection from the wind and a flat plywood bed never felt so good!