The North Slope

The North Slope!

Okay, now that we have a 'blog' going, lets take a step back and start at the beginning.  Nate here today and we'll take a photo tour of the North Slope of Alaska.  In early June, my parents and I drove six days straight from Colorado to Alaska in order to get here in time for me to begin work.  The drive was interesting, but not something I want to do again.  Huge thanks to my parents for all their help, we couldn't have done it without them!  On June 11th I left for the North Slope.  The Slope is a big place, covering all of northern Alaska, but specifically I flew to Deadhorse and took a bus to a camp near the Colville Delta.  For the next month I worked on three different projects which involved searching for waterfowl nests and monitoring fox dens.

In general, the North Slope is a dichotomy. On one hand, its saddening to be around such massive and destructive oil production. The people working for 'Big Oil' are from the opposite end of the political, social, philosophical and educational spectrum. On the other had, its exciting to see such unique wildlife that I would never see anywhere else, so close and in large numbers.

This is a normal day of nest searching.  The topography of the slope is far flatter than Kansas!  The ground is either tundra, like this, or shallow lakes (hense the hip waders) with a bed of ice (permafrost) just a few feet down.

This is how we got to work each day and home at night.

This is the first 'camp' I was at.  It was by far the nicest accomodations on the slope. 

This is one of the first flowers to come up in the summer.

A King Eider and a nest searcher.

A brown bear print.  Polar bears are rare in the summer, because they are usually out on the pack ice hunting seals.  But, with climate change, it has become more common to see polar bears on land in the summer.

Thanks to polar bears, the caribou is now the second most important species up here.  The caribou pictured here are happy, because the mosquitoes aren't out yet.  Once the mosquitoes come out (late June) they often just run all day long to avoid the swarms, and migrate towards the coast where the winds are most consistent.

Oh, yes, there are mosquitoes!

 

There are two species of foxes up here, the arctic fox used to be the most numerous, but now is becoming quite rare.

Red foxes are fairly common and more habituated to humans.

Musk Ox!  Definitely the coolest of the animals on the slope.  They are native to the arctic, but this population was reintroduced.  Musk ox are the contemporary of the wooly mammoth and they survived the ice age by finding ice free areas away from people.



This picture was taken in early July at about 1 am.  The sun never set while I was on the slope, and didn't set until early August. 

A month in the field is way too long, but its especially too long when its on the North Slope.  It is an interesting place, but not somewhere that anyone really enjoys going to.  Much of the work I'll be doing will be on the slope, but also all around Alaska - which will be the nest posts!

 

Denali

Denali!

This is the first of our blog posts from The Last Frontier, but not the first to be posted in chronological order.  We just got back from an overnight trip to Denali (really, near Denali, mostly Talkeetna).  We have long been putting off starting this blog, but are giving it a shot tonight.  What follows are some photos and brief narrative of a quick weekend trip, September 8-9, 2012.  *click on a photo for a larger image*

This is the view of Denali from Talkeetna, with the swift-moving Susitna River in the foreground.  We are about 60 miles away from the summit, which is at 20,320 feet.

The mountains surrounding it are quite spectacular as well.  This is taken with a telephoto from 30 miles away.

 

 

Here is Jennah at a viewpoint.  You'll notice some yellow in the vegetation - its the beginning of autumn here and many of the leaves are changing from Anchorage to Denali.  Although they are not as bright as Colorado, they do add to the beauty. 

Here is one of the first of many photos of Sanuk jumping in famous places.  More to come!

 

 

On the way home we took a detour over Hatcher Pass, which is north of Palmer.  The 'termination dust' (or early snow representing the end of summer) plus the early fall colors made for some amazing views.

And here is Sanuk enjoying the views.  Yes, another picture of Sanuk...

Well, that was our trip to and from Denali this weekend.  As time permits we will post more photo blogs of our adventures in Alaska!  And we will get more proficient at this blogging stuff.