Mushing with Rick

Its been a ton of fun hanging out with the Holt family the last couple days. Today Tiff and I visited and spent time with the boys. Rick had to go to work. Rohnan and I made chocolate chip cookies, and Keegan was working on adding some audio to a stop motion animation he had made.

This evening Rick and I took his dogs out mushing. He was kind enough to set me up with my own team for the evening. I had 7 dogs lead by Mits, and Rick had about 10 dogs.

Rick also let me borrow his nice headlamp. It really can put out some light. It also has a box that you wear inside your coat on your chest. It has a big button on it that turns it on and off. All you need to do is hit your chest and it activates the light.

you can see the little reflectors on the dogs harnesses behind me. We went out on a 20 mile run. It was amazing. The stars were out all over the sky. We were swiftly gliding our way through forests of black spruce and dropping down onto sloughs and racing across rivers. At one point we had stopped for a second and I had set “the hook” so the dogs wouldn’t take off until I was ready. I reached down to pull the hook and I bumped the button in my chest and the lamp went out. One thing about the headlamp is if its been running for a while it heats up, so when it gets turned off you need to let it cool down before you turn it on again or you might blow out the bulb. So I got to ride for a few minutes without any lights on. The stars were just beautiful. The dogs were just cruising down the trail and I was able to stand back on the runners and just enjoy the experience.

[QUICKTIME http://bbryson.com/bill/files/2008/02/mush.MOV 640 490]

It was a great way to end the day. By the time we got done feeding the dogs when we got back, it was about 1:30 in the morning. Time for some sleep. 🙂 I hope that I will get the chance to do this again in the future. A great experience.

The Sun Is Back!!

The last couple days have been amazing all around the Seward Peninsula.  As you could see from yesterdays post the sun was shining up in Shishmaref.  Well this morning when I woke up in White Mountain the temps were around -30 and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.  I decided to walk through town and shoot some video and then make my way up to the top of White Mountain to get some video of the sun rise.  As I walked through town it was fun to see the smoke rising out of each house.  It really looked cool on the cold morning.

I finally made it to the top of the mountain and as rewarded with a very beautiful sunrise.  Looking down over the river valley and the snow covered trees it really made for quite a picturesque scene.

As you know I like to take self portraits, it can be quite difficult when the temperatures are as low as they were.  You can see the bottom of my ruff building up with frost from my breath, and the sun trying to poke through the top edge.

Andy came and picked me up with the snowmachine and we stopped by one of the teachers houses to film what housing looks like in White Mountain.  As soon as we stepped in the door however the camera fogged right up.  They do fine out in the cold, and they do fine inside when they are warm, but when you take a cold camera inside you’ll need to wait about 10 – 15 minutes to let them warm up and defog.  So we left the camera inside and went to try out White Mountains new panorama kit.  When the school burned down last year their old panorama kit burned up in the fire.  So when Andy was making the order for the new one last spring I told him about the cool OneShot pano kit he could get from Kidan.  Its a half dome of optical mirroring glass that mounts directly onto the lens of the camera.  You take one photo and an entire 360 degree picture is taken.  You then take the photo into some software on your computer and it unwraps it and turns it into a normal pano picture or interactive Quicktime file.  Here is what the unit looks like.

We didn’t read the instructions before we went out, so we didn’t have any really successful results, but I can tell you this.  The very little time that we did take our gloves off to assemble the pieces to the camera and take the photo our hands went completely numb.  Man it was cold.  As soon as I could I put my gloves back on and jammed my hands into the little pockets on the chest of my parka.  It usually warms them up pretty well in there, but they were so cold it took us going back to the teachers house to warm them back up.

Here is a shot of the village of White Mountain from the top of White Mountain.  🙂

While I was shooting the sunrise on top of the mountain I looked over and saw a moose across the river munching on some willows.  I was able to get some pretty good video of him for quite a while.  Not super super close, but sill good video.  Then when we went to pick up the pano kit I looked across the river and saw another moose in a different area.

Sorry my little camera doesn’t have a better zoom, but if it did I probably wouldn’t have had it with me because those cameras are too big to take with you all the time.  But you get the idea from this picture.

Hageland picked me up from White Mountain and flew me to Nome.  We flew really low to the ground and saw two herds of muskox, and a herd of reindeer.  It was pretty cool.   I tried to shoot some video of it with my little camera.  It came out alright, but we were going so fast, you only get a glimps of them.

Hageland then flew me from Nome to Stebbins, putting my flight total for this trip so far at 23.   I came back to Stebbins because when I stopped there at the beginning of my trip it was very blizzardy out, and I didn’t get very good video.  Today was a different story.  The sun was shining and the snow was glistening.  Stebbins has some land features in the area that are very noteworthy.  On one side of the village is a very large cliff.

On the other side is a hill that drops down into the ocean.  Very pretty.  So just like the sunrise in White Mountain I was able to catch the sunset in Stebbins.  Here it is about to drop down behind the frozen ocean on the horizon.

I’ll shoot a little more here tomorrow and then head to Unalakleet in the afternoon.  I’ll do some shooting there, stay the night, and then head down to Talkeetna to see the Holts.

Video Misconseptions

This morning I woke up to some pretty chilly weather in Wales, Alaska.  After a quick breakfast of oatmeal, I bundled up and headed out into the cold.  It was about -20 and a slight breeze that really bites at your nose and cheeks.  I hiked around town a bit and shot some video.  Wales has some impressive drifting going on.  The snow builds up all around the houses.  While I was out I snapped this picture of Razor Back Mountain.

By then my hands were getting quite cold.  I have to take my gloves off to film, and even though I have the fancy bag that encases the video camera the folks at the DO failed to send me any of the hand warmers that fit in pouches inside the bag.  So it helps cut down on the wind, but its not any warmer inside the bag.

Around 1:25 Doug landed to pick up a BSSD school board member and myself.  We were the last two on the plane filling all 9 seats.  It was a quick flight up to Shishmaref, following the coast all the way up.  We flew over a few caribou, and I kept my eyes pealed for Polar Bears.  Unfortunately we didn’t see any.

The reason the flight was so full going to Shishmaref was because one of the BSSD school board members wife had just died of cancer.  He was from Shish, so the rest of the board and a couple DO staff went up for the funeral.

When we landed in Shish, it was noticeable colder than Wales  I shot some video as I walked into town, and then got into the school to warm up and check the temp online.  Weather Underground had Shish at -29 with the wind chill at -49.  So it was pretty chilly.  I warmed up a bit and talked to Erin on the phone, then went out and shot some more around town.  I was able to get some video of the sun setting over the tundra.

I didn’t stay out long.  The cold was making my fingers go numb pretty quickly.  The metal tripod was also a bit troublesome.  If I ever touched it with my bare hands it kind of burned them with the cold.  Any moisture in your fingers freezes instantly so you get a little freezer burn wherever you touch.

After the funeral was over Doug flew back to Shish and picked us all back up.   We went back to Wales and dropped off that board member.  As we were coming in for our landing I noticed another plane in the sky.  It was dark out, but you could see its lights flashing.  I thought I saw another one near by it.  The Russian have been known to fly over to see if the U.S.A is on the ball as far as intercepting their illegal entry into our air space.  Just a little while ago we had to scramble some fighter jets from Elmendor Air Force base to intercept a Russian war plane over Wales.  So I was thinking to my self… Great we are going to be caught in the middle of some international mid air relations.  Turns out the one plane was actually an Evergreen helicopter that was making its last trip off of Little Diomede for the night, and the other lights were from Tin City an Air Force radar site just on the other side of some mountains from Wales.  They are the ones that catch the Russians flying over and call in the fighters.

So we left Wales and flew directly to White Mountain.  Andy Haviland (the White Mountain principal) was waiting to pick me up.  I tossed my bags into the sled and hopped on the back of the snowmachine and he dropped me off at one of the school buildings to crash in for the night.  White Mountain school burned down last year, so they are in the process of rebuilding.  They currently have 4 or 5 building scattered throughout the village that they hold class in.  Andy was saying how nice it was going to be to not have to get the kids all bundled up to go to lunch or to the gym.

I’ll shoot around here tomorrow until about 12:30 when I hop a plane to Nome, sit for about an hour and a half, then hop a plane to Stebbins.  More to come on that tomorrow.  I hope the weather warms up a little bit.

OHH yeah the title of this post….

When its sunny out it looks great on video, but the viewers have no idea that its flipping cold out.  When its overcast and gray out, it doesn’t look that great on video, but its a lot warmer out.  So showing off these to hire potential teachers.  They are going to find out pretty quickly that the beautiful days are really so cold you think twice about going out and enjoying them.  🙂

The Tripple Play

Sorry for not blogging yesterday.  I know I must have an insane amount of people following my blog now that I have been up dating on a daily basis.  I wouldn’t want to lose my readers because I let it lapse for a day.

Here is a photo from my morning flight out of Gambell to Nome.   The sun was just breaking over the horizon.

I was stuck in Nome again yesterday.  Bering Air canceled their flight out to Brevig Mission.  I guess the weather was marginal, but I think the real reason was the fact that there were only two passengers for the flight, which doesn’t bring in much money for the company.  So I stayed at the Aurora Inn again.  I was able to video skype with my lovely wife for a while.  It really is tough being away for so long.  Not to mention since I’m visiting people at most of the sites, its difficult to find time to get away to call her.  So it was nice to hang out even if we were 3000 miles apart.

This morning I was down at the Bering Air “terminal” at 9:00 because they said that check-in was at 9:15.  Turns out we didn’t actually leave until 10:15.  We flew to Teller and dropped of a state trooper, then took the quick jump over to Brevig Mission.  I didn’t have much time there.  You’ll see why as I continue this post.  So when I landed I got a ride to the school.  I stopped in to AnnMaire’s room and said hello to here, then I was out around town shooting video.  I shot the post office and the clinic, then I stopped over at CO and AnnMaire’s house.  I got to finally meet Harold.

CO and I visited for just a little bit, then I was on the run again.  I filmed one of the teacher housing units, and then borrowed one of the school snowmachines and took it across the frozen ocean 7 miles to Teller.  Just as I pulled into teller the right ski broke free of the tie rod and started to spin around.  As I pulled into the school it was facing backwards.  Not good.  I needed it to get back to Brevig.

So I let Jay Thomas (the Teller principal) know about my situation and he got the school maintenance guy working on a solution.  I went around Teller and shot some video.  The post office and some shots around town.  I even got a few seconds of Joe Garney mushing through town.  He is a local Iditarod Legend.  I got back to the school and the maintenance guy was nowhere to be found.  I waited and waited and waited, and finally really needed to get going.  So Jay tried to jam a stick between the two skies and then tie the tips of the skies together hoping that the stick and rope would hold the broken ski on track with the good ski.  Well, I got all bundled up for the ride back and got all of 4 feet and the stick popped out and the ski was sideways again.  Just as I was working on jamming it back in there and thinking how this so was not going to work the maintenance guy showed up.  He had been looking all over town and finally had found an old broken down machine and “borrowed” the part off of it that we needed.  It only took him a couple of minutes to change out the part, and I was on my way.

I got back to Brevig and had about 30 minutes to visit with CO and AnnMaire at their house before Bering Air came to get me again.  I was on my way to Wales.  The state trooper that was on my morning flight was on there again.  She was on her way back to Nome.  As we approached Wales you could tell that it was covered in clouds.  I snapped a couple pictures of them out the window.  They were very wispy which told us there was some decent wind blowing around out there.

It really hard to tell from the photo because the sun was so bright.  Wales is known for its crazy winds.  They are right on the tip of the Seward Peninsula and the arctic winds blowing out of the north have little to slow them down as they race over the ice pack.

We landed just fine and found that the clouds were pretty high of the ground.  I quickly shot some video of Razor Back Mountain, and of the setting sun nestled in the clouds over the frozen ocean.  Then took this self portrait before hopping on the snowmachine for my ride into town.

I shot some more video around the town of Wales and then stopped into the school.  Craig Probts is the principal here and a very nice guy.  I will be staying at his place this evening.  We chatted a bit and then I gave Erin a call on the phone.  She is up at home this weekend visiting with her dad and April.  I guess the girls are going to run up to Duluth tomorrow.  I hope they have a good time.

I check the BSSD Travel iCal (a calendar subscription that displays all BSSD travel for each day)  I found that once again Teresa had worked her magic and has me flying on Doug (the BSSD pilot/plane) from Wales to Shishmarf tomorrow afternoon, then from Shishmarf to White Mountain tomorrow night.  This is really awesome.  I was so worried about how I was going to make Shishmaref work without having to stay for two nights there.  This will really help me out on the rest of my trip.  That puts me in White Mountain on Sunday, and I am basically back on my original time line.  I should be able to make it down to see the Holts as long as everything goes smoothly.  Keep your fingers crossed.

The Island is Calling

Well this morning I hopped on my 12th flight, this time from Nome, destination…. St. Lawrence Island.  My first stop was in Savoonga.  I hopped off the plane and got a ride into the school.  I went in and visited with Doug Finn, a friend and one of the teachers in Savoonga.  My bags came in a little while after me.  There wasn’t room on the machine I was riding on, and the guy that brought them to the school for me was the local Hageland Agent.  He needed to drop off the mail and the supplies for the store before getting my stuff to the school.  So that gave me time to check email.

Doug, his wife Michelle, and I had lunch at their house and when they went back to school I borrowed their snowmachine to go shoot around the village.  I drove out of town a ways and shot back over the village.  It was pretty white out, so we’ll see how things look when I get them into the computer.  I snapped this photo of me before I headed back towards town.  The sticks in a tepee shape in the background are markers for the trail.  They have these every 100 feet or so along the trail.  This helps you find your way when the weather is really bad.

So I shot around town some more and took a little video in the classrooms.  By then it was working on evening time and I was hopping on another plane to go to the other side of the island, this time to Gambell.  I made it just as the sun was going down.  The view flying in was amazing.  I tried to shoot it with the video camera, but my window was iced up and I couldn’t get a very good view through the crystals.  So as soon I got to the school I borrowed a 4-wheeler and drove it up the side of the mountain behind the school until I got stuck, and then hiked on from there.  I didn’t get as high as I would have liked,  but I was able to shoot the sunset, and down over the town some as well.

I’m off to Brevig tomorrow (weather permitting).  I’m looking forward to visiting with AnnMaire and C.O., and getting to meet Harold.

Pop the Boot

Looking out the window watching the snow fall down from the gray sky above wondering if a plane any plane would be landing to take me on to my next destination I opened up the National Weather Service search results for Nome, Alaska. Temperature 21 degrees, due point 21 degrees, relative humidity 100%… Great… that means freezing rain. On top of that they were giving Nome the LIFR tag (Limited Instrument Flight Rules) with less than a half a mile visibility. My hopes of leaving Elim today… Not very good.

About a half an hour later however Hutch the local Bering Air agent called and informed me that there was a caravan coming into Elim in the next 35 minutes. I quickly gathered up my bags that had been strewn across Steve’s apartment and around a room in the school. With about 10 minutes until the flights arrival I was given a ride up to the airport. Sure enough here comes a caravan buzzing through the freezing drops falling from the sky. He lands in the foot of snow on the runway and taxis over to us. As I’m putting my bags in the belly pod I notice the build up of ice on the leading edge of the wings and struts. No worries though.. It wasn’t very thick and the caravan has boots installed on the front of the wings, struts, and tail, not to mention the prop blades are heated. So with our bags loaded the pilot and the three passengers including myself climb aboard. The pilot is just about to close his door when Hutch’s wife shows up and tells the pilot that Nome called and wants us to fly to Unalakleet. The weather in Nome has gotten worse. The pilot says “the weather in Unalakleet isn’t much better. We’ll just stay here until the weather lifts in Nome.” So we hop off the plane and the pilot jams a sleeping bag type material into the intakes on the engine while the two other passengers are getting rides back to town.

I was talking with the pilot and asked him how the boots work to keep the ice from building up too much during flight. The way they work is after a substantial amount of ice builds up (about a half an inch or so) he activates the boots from inside the plane. They spontaneously fill with air expanding at a high rate of speed. This quick enlargement causes the build up of ice to break up and fall off the plane. He also mentioned that there is a newer technology which involves a titanium leading edge on the wings and struts that has very little holes poked all through it. If the pilot is flying in icing conditions he activates the system and ethanol is pushed out through all those little holes and covers the entire wing and parts of the plane. This ethanol melts what ice is there and prevents any more ice from building up. He said that using this system you can fly through the worst icing conditions without a problem. The reason they haven’t upgraded to this system yet is to outfit one caravan runs about 50,000 dollars.

The black liner is the boot…

About 45 minutes later I got to experience the boot in action first hand. We got a call from Nome and they told us we needed to go to Unalakleet. Their weather had improved and they had de-icing equipment there. So we hopped back into the plane and headed that direction. About 10 minutes before landing in Unalalkleet he popped to boot and looking out my window I could see it expand and chunks of ice fly off the wings and struts. Very impressive and nice to know we have that option when flying in not so savory weather.

We were only in Unalakleet for about 5 minutes when we were notified that the weather in Nome had improved considerably. So the pilot loaded up about 3,000 pounds of freight put in three hours of fuel and we were back in the air. This time headed for St. Michael, Stebbins, and then on to Nome.

In St. Michael we dropped off a little mail. Not much. In Stebbins however thats where the majority of the 3,000 pounds went. I helped the pilot empty the plane. It took the two of us about 5 minutes to get all of the supplies out. There was everything from snowmachine (snowmobile for those of you down south) parts to bags of rice, reems of paper, canned food, mail, a few boxes labeled “Burger King”, and an assortment of other boxes with unknown contents.

I will be staying in Nome tonight and flying out to the Island in the morning. My first stop should be Savoonga, then Gambell the next day. I hope the weather decides to play nice.

At this moment I’m in the middle of my 12th flight and approximately 56.2 nautical miles from Nome flying at 6,560 ft. over the partially frozen ocean below.

“Freezing Rain”

I’m stuck in Elim right now. I was originally scheduled to fly out with Hageland, but they called and told me they were overbooked and wouldn’t be able to pick me up. So Teresa set me up on a Bering Air flight out at 5:15 P.M. Well as the time drew near we got a call and were told that they had canceled the flight. Another BSSD employee was scheduled to take the same flight from Unalakleet to Elim to work on the phone system. They told him in Unalakleet that the reason the flight was canceled was freezing rain. Well, I’ve been out side all day and we had very nice dry snow falling. Nothing close to freezing rain. Even walking home from the school 10 minutes after the flight was canceled there wasn’t any freezing rain to be found. I believe I was struck yet again by Bering Air’s continual canceling of flights with the old “the weather is bad over there” excuse, when they basically just don’t feel like flying. I’m guessing they didn’t have enough freight or passengers to make the flight “worth while”

(Photo from www.beringair.com)

Snowmachining

Well the blizzard hit Golovin and most of the region. Hageland was on weather hold, and it didnt’ look like they were going to come and get me. Not wanting to get stuck there and get behind on the trip I skyped Teresa (the person in charge of travel for the district) and she tracked down Doug (the district pilot) he was in Brevig and was on his way to Elim. She had him stop by Golovin and pick me up on his way.

After a quick flight to Elim I was picked up by Steve the site principal.  We quickly found Mark and John and hopped on snowmachines to go out for a ride.  We were hoping to get out to the hot springs, but with the resent dump of snow the trail was not only unbroken, but also laden with deep snow.

We ended up getting a bit stuck and had to turn around pretty quickly.  It was a lot of work getting all 4 machines turned around.  You couldn’t really go off the trail at all without really getting stuck.  So we had to turn them around by hand.  Lifting up the back end and and moving it around and likewise with the front of the machine.  It was a lot of work.  The whole time we were punching through down to the river below.  Good thing I was wearing bunny boots.  They are stellar in just such an occasion.  You can literally step in a river and have your boots fill with water.  All you need to do is dump the water out and put them back on.  Your feet will not only not freeze, but stay warm.  So we got back out of there and went down a different trail that had been used more recently.

It was a good day to be out on the machines.  I really like getting out in the woods.

I’m off to White Mountain tomorrow if the weather is kind to me.

Snow Shoeing

 Today was a really nice day. The sun was out the wind was pretty much non existent, and it was only about 20 below. So a couple of the teachers were going to head out for a little snowshoe in the woods. I asked if I could tag along to shoot some video. They graciously welcomed me on the little adventure. I borrowed some very nice snowshoes from Kevin. I think a nice pair of snowshoes are a good idea if you plan on running around the outdoors in the winter.

It was very nice to get out and get some exercise.  I also able to get some very nice video.  I hope that it looks good when  I get it back on the computer at home.

I’m off to Golovin here in a bit.  They are forecasted to get a blizzard tomorrow morning.  I hope it doesn’t hinder my flight from there to Elim.  I’ll keep you posed.

Cold and Sunny

I left Shaktoolik this afternoon around 3:00.  I had a nice time there with the staff. I was able to shoot some nice video over there.  Here is a photo of me about to get on the plane.

It has been pretty chilly out.   Roughly 30 below with the wind chill.  My fingers have been pretty cold trying to run the video camera.  I can’t wait for the replacement bag to come in.

I got to Koyuk and helped the Bering Air agent unload and load the plane.  After helping him finish that up I asked the agent if he’d mind giving me a ride down to the school.  So we loaded up the sled and I hopped on the back of the 4-wheeler and off we went.  After getting to the school I borrowed the truck to go shoot some video of the sunset around town.  Here is a photo I shot of the sun going down.

So it was nice to be out and about, but also nice to head back into the warm school.  Elim’s boys basketball team was there for a game at night.  I hung around the school and shot some video of the game and talked with some of the teachers.

Kevin (the principal in Koyuk) was nice enough to have me crash at his place.  Steve the Elim principal is also over staying here.  We all watched October Sky on a projector which was nice.  It has gotten awfully late and I’m a tired kid.  I hope that I can get some nice sleep tonight.  For some reason I’m already tired out on this trip.  Its only the beginning and for some reason I’m really dragging.  Hope it picks up for me.  🙂