Here is the big news
This will be the last post on this blog. We started a new blog for our big news!
Click the below picture to the new blog.
6 hours ago
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
This will be the last post on this blog. We started a new blog for our big news!
Click the below picture to the new blog.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Big News!!!
Well we have some very big news to announce. Just not quite yet though. Check back here on 16 September and we will have it posted!!
Friday, September 11, 2009
Our time in Kansas was very relaxing and enjoyable. We were able to spend lots of time with both family and friends and it's been really amazing. Unfortunately I haven't done a good job at ALL of taking pictures while we were there, so I really don't have anything exciting to post. The weather was awesome and we enjoyed getting out for runs in the mornings and hanging out on the back deck and "chillin'' at night. It was great. Last weekend we did make it to the K-State game which was a great time - GO KATS! - Then on Sunday we had a big family BBQ which was also a lot of fun and a great time getting to see many distant relatives that we don't often get to hang out with. It was nice getting together with friends for coffee/dinner or whatever and just catching up, so overall it was a great vacation....
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Since I posted about my summer I also had to include a few pictures of Travis out on fire! He didn't take very many pictures this summer, but he did have a great time fighting fires all across Alaska. He spent most of his time in McGrath and then went out on a fire or two in Fairbanks and also came out to McCarthy for a few days to work on the Chakina Fire. 
Overall he had a great summer as well!
Friday, August 28, 2009
Well, the summer has pretty much ended here in Alaska. It’s been another great one to add to the storybook of our life! To even try and explain the beauty of an Alaskan summer is just too difficult so I will simply share some amazing pictures with you… 
I have a whole folder of pictures from my summer at Kennicott Glacier Lodge, but I’m sure that you would all be terribly bored by all of that, so I will simply share some highlights and some of my favorite adventures. (I changed the format on the picture so hopefully they will load faster for everyone.) I have so many crazy and exciting stories to share, but just not enough time or blog space to accommodate it all. Therefore, we will sum it all up in “picture book” form.
Here are the 10 highlights of my summer in the Wrangell-St.Elias National Park:
1) Long walks down the wagon trail with my friend, Rachel – I will treasure her friendship always!
2)Hiking the glacier and surrounding alpine area with Sunny, Lisa, and Rachel
3) Walking/Running down to McCarthy for coffee and a Blackburn Burrito at The Potato
4) PROM and the Blackburn Music Festival at the Golden Saloon
5) Yoga in the Wrangell’s with my amazing yoga instructor, Denise
6) Seeing a million bears and also a few lynx, porcupine, moose, and ptarmigan
7) Scrabble, Rummy, and Balderdash games late into the night!
8) Black Bra “Pajama Jam” at the Bunkhouse
9) Warm sunny days laying out and overlooking the gorgeous mountains and glacier!
10) Bonfire for Summer Solstice!!
A beautiful view of the Ice Falls out by Eerie Mine - it was a very bright day!
Sunny out by one of the pretty waterfall/creeks
Me on a LONG day hike out past Eerie Mine with Sunny
A view from the top of the Mill building at Kennicott
This was the three of us (Rachel and I worked the front desk and Matt was the van driver) making fun of our boss! - Of course only those working at KGL will truly appreciate this.
This is me ice-climbing on the ice wall before being lowered into the moulan. I confess that I only went 5 ft. down the moulan but it was still cool!! (Just a little too intense for me!)
This is when the icebergs started to break loose. You can see how some days it was hazy from the smoke, but that was actually a GOOD day!
Me and Rachel!! - Miss you already!
This is an Alaskan "water fountain"...Gotta be careful not to slip - it's really cold!!
One of the times Travis came to visit we hiked up to Bonanza Mine to look out over the mountains and see the bunkhouse. It is an intense hike with a 3,800 ft. incline! I did it twice, but it was SO worth it!!
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Rachel and I went on an all day hiking adventure on the ice and risked our lives multiple times leaping over crevasses and moulans! Crazy...
Lisa, Me, and Rachel at our Black Bra "Pajama Jam" at the bunkhouse. We made all the guys dress up too and it was really fun!!
Me and Sunny around the bonfire the night of Summer Solstice. (The longest day of the year.) It was so much fun, but I actually didn't get many pictures that night.
Matt, Leana and Me at PROM. We make quite the "stair step"!
This was our first day out on the glacier - St. Elias Alpine Guides took those of us who had arrived early (May 17th) out for our first hike!!
On to the next big adventure….Stay tuned for more info!
Me on a LONG day hike out past Eerie Mine with Sunny
A view from the top of the Mill building at Kennicott
This was the three of us (Rachel and I worked the front desk and Matt was the van driver) making fun of our boss! - Of course only those working at KGL will truly appreciate this.
This is me ice-climbing on the ice wall before being lowered into the moulan. I confess that I only went 5 ft. down the moulan but it was still cool!! (Just a little too intense for me!)
This is when the icebergs started to break loose. You can see how some days it was hazy from the smoke, but that was actually a GOOD day!
Me and Rachel!! - Miss you already!
This is an Alaskan "water fountain"...Gotta be careful not to slip - it's really cold!!
One of the times Travis came to visit we hiked up to Bonanza Mine to look out over the mountains and see the bunkhouse. It is an intense hike with a 3,800 ft. incline! I did it twice, but it was SO worth it!!
.JPG)
Rachel and I went on an all day hiking adventure on the ice and risked our lives multiple times leaping over crevasses and moulans! Crazy...
Lisa, Me, and Rachel at our Black Bra "Pajama Jam" at the bunkhouse. We made all the guys dress up too and it was really fun!!
Me and Sunny around the bonfire the night of Summer Solstice. (The longest day of the year.) It was so much fun, but I actually didn't get many pictures that night.
Matt, Leana and Me at PROM. We make quite the "stair step"!
This was our first day out on the glacier - St. Elias Alpine Guides took those of us who had arrived early (May 17th) out for our first hike!!
On to the next big adventure….Stay tuned for more info!
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Last days in Tok...
This is the owl that comes around our house every night at the same time for the past two summers...He's awesome! We are working on getting a video of him flying because his wingspan is amazing!!!
So, as most of you know, I am leaving Tok on Sunday for a summer adventure at Kennicott Glacier Lodge. I will be working as a Customer Service Rep over the next four months at a very remote Lodge in the St. Elias/Wrangell National Park. I've never been there before, but hear that it's a lovely place and should be a wonderful time. Luckily I won't have to travel the long and grueling dirt road to get there - I am taking a bus from Tok and then they will pick me up by plane at the airstrip in Galkana. This will be a much easier way to travel there so I'm very pleased with that. It will be interesting living in a bunkhouse and being in such a remote area, but I'm totally stoked about it and very excited to see how it goes.
Travis will fight fires this summer again with Tok Forestry and is hoping to spend most of the summer out fighting fires in AK as well as any lower 48 crews he can have the opportunity to work on.
Unfortunately because of the remote nature of where I will be working my blog will most likely not be updated much over the next few months - if at all - But I encourage you all to check back in September as we will definitely update at that time.
If I don't get back on here until September, I want to have a chance to wish you all a wonderful summer!!!
This is the owl that comes around our house every night at the same time for the past two summers...He's awesome! We are working on getting a video of him flying because his wingspan is amazing!!!
So, as most of you know, I am leaving Tok on Sunday for a summer adventure at Kennicott Glacier Lodge. I will be working as a Customer Service Rep over the next four months at a very remote Lodge in the St. Elias/Wrangell National Park. I've never been there before, but hear that it's a lovely place and should be a wonderful time. Luckily I won't have to travel the long and grueling dirt road to get there - I am taking a bus from Tok and then they will pick me up by plane at the airstrip in Galkana. This will be a much easier way to travel there so I'm very pleased with that. It will be interesting living in a bunkhouse and being in such a remote area, but I'm totally stoked about it and very excited to see how it goes.
Travis will fight fires this summer again with Tok Forestry and is hoping to spend most of the summer out fighting fires in AK as well as any lower 48 crews he can have the opportunity to work on.
Unfortunately because of the remote nature of where I will be working my blog will most likely not be updated much over the next few months - if at all - But I encourage you all to check back in September as we will definitely update at that time.
If I don't get back on here until September, I want to have a chance to wish you all a wonderful summer!!!
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Mt. Fairplay Adventure
So, we have been attempting to climb Mt. Fairplay for two years now. Last fall we went up and it was REALLY cold and rainy. We had gone up what appeared to be a good side (There is no trail or real plan for climbing up the mountain.) And when we got to what we thought was the top we discovered that we would have to go almost all the way down the side of the mountain we were on and climb up another steep side to get to the top. At that point we chickened out (or I should say that it was mostly me.) So....We wanted to attempt it again this year and thought that spring was perhaps a better time to do that.
Yesterday we headed out there as it was pretty decent weather. Travis brought along a co-worker from Forestry and his three dogs. All started off well (except that his friend forgot to fill up with gas and the mountain is like 35 miles from town....when he arrived he had been driving with his empty light on for 10 miles! Not a good sign! haha....) We headed off with dogs in tow and everything was going pretty well. It's pretty steep and you never know when you are going to fall into knee/waist deep snow so it's pretty treacherous. Anyway.....About halfway up the dogs went off in search of more freedom and entertainment and we lost Coby along the way. We saw him after about a half hour, but then totally lost him and we had no idea where he and the dogs had gone. Turns out that the dogs went to the top to chase a huge herd of caribou!!! We saw about twenty of them racing across the top of the mountain with the dogs closely behind! (Later Coby told us that he had seen the rest of the herd - probably close to 100 over the other side of the ridgeline) It was pretty cool......Anyway, we didn't want to just hike on without him, so we searched around the mountain for Coby and his dogs and ended up going back to the truck to see if they were there. No sign of them anywhere and we were starting to get pretty worried. I headed back into town for gas and all I could think about was that I hoped he hadn't broken a leg somewhere because it was starting to get cloudy and cold and we really would have a mess calling in search and rescue!! haha......Turns out that he was fine and had gone to the top with the dogs thinking that we had continued on without him. We all returned safely home and it was a good adventure, although we didn't make it to the top.
SO.....We woke up this morning and it was so gorgeous out that we said, "Should we give it one more try!?" Off we headed and we had a wonderful day out hiking up Mt. Fairplay! The weather was totally perfect and we had a great time despite how difficult the hike actually was. At one point I couldn't look up or down for fear that I would totally just "blow" off the mountain with the next breeze....It was pretty intense! All in all it was a great hike and we enjoyed finally making it up!
Oh, and here's a little humor as well - we both are totally FRIED with windburn on our faces!!! Guess we weren't thinking clearly! My face looks like a clown!!! YIKES...
So, we have been attempting to climb Mt. Fairplay for two years now. Last fall we went up and it was REALLY cold and rainy. We had gone up what appeared to be a good side (There is no trail or real plan for climbing up the mountain.) And when we got to what we thought was the top we discovered that we would have to go almost all the way down the side of the mountain we were on and climb up another steep side to get to the top. At that point we chickened out (or I should say that it was mostly me.) So....We wanted to attempt it again this year and thought that spring was perhaps a better time to do that.
Yesterday we headed out there as it was pretty decent weather. Travis brought along a co-worker from Forestry and his three dogs. All started off well (except that his friend forgot to fill up with gas and the mountain is like 35 miles from town....when he arrived he had been driving with his empty light on for 10 miles! Not a good sign! haha....) We headed off with dogs in tow and everything was going pretty well. It's pretty steep and you never know when you are going to fall into knee/waist deep snow so it's pretty treacherous. Anyway.....About halfway up the dogs went off in search of more freedom and entertainment and we lost Coby along the way. We saw him after about a half hour, but then totally lost him and we had no idea where he and the dogs had gone. Turns out that the dogs went to the top to chase a huge herd of caribou!!! We saw about twenty of them racing across the top of the mountain with the dogs closely behind! (Later Coby told us that he had seen the rest of the herd - probably close to 100 over the other side of the ridgeline) It was pretty cool......Anyway, we didn't want to just hike on without him, so we searched around the mountain for Coby and his dogs and ended up going back to the truck to see if they were there. No sign of them anywhere and we were starting to get pretty worried. I headed back into town for gas and all I could think about was that I hoped he hadn't broken a leg somewhere because it was starting to get cloudy and cold and we really would have a mess calling in search and rescue!! haha......Turns out that he was fine and had gone to the top with the dogs thinking that we had continued on without him. We all returned safely home and it was a good adventure, although we didn't make it to the top.
SO.....We woke up this morning and it was so gorgeous out that we said, "Should we give it one more try!?" Off we headed and we had a wonderful day out hiking up Mt. Fairplay! The weather was totally perfect and we had a great time despite how difficult the hike actually was. At one point I couldn't look up or down for fear that I would totally just "blow" off the mountain with the next breeze....It was pretty intense! All in all it was a great hike and we enjoyed finally making it up!
Oh, and here's a little humor as well - we both are totally FRIED with windburn on our faces!!! Guess we weren't thinking clearly! My face looks like a clown!!! YIKES...
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