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Play me, PLAY ME!

A special audio dload for you to enjoy with the picture show and over an icy cold microbrew or a swirly sniffter of Syrah.   This goes out to my other man, Greg Brown, who’s playing his first show ever in Fairbanks this Friday at the Blue Loon.  This will be show No. 7 for Sass.   I love you, G, you’re the man.  22, you’re the REAL man.  Maybe not the first, but the last.  And so far, the best.

Tribute to Greg Brown  “Two Little Feet”

This ‘blag’ (as Father would call it) is a lot like Seinfeld.  Episodes of Sass’s life, daily ramblins about everything and nothing with some wildlife and biological tendencies.

It’s been a month since we’ve arrived and it’s high time to get backcountry.  No better time than the loooong holiday weekend.   Forecast is supposed to be impeccable.  We rode the bus out to E. Fork Toklat, Area 7 of the Park, up the riverbed to Who-Knows-Where, Denali.  Wanted to get a crack at, or at least look at Pendleton Mountain.

The backpacker bus let us off at the bridge.  A feeling somewhat similiar to being dropped off at school for the very first time when you’re a kid.
Sublime. Raw. Pristine.  This is the AK backcountry.  It is  a larger scale than you can even try to imagine. Only one other thing in my life has ever made me feel smaller.
Slip gaiters on, schmear some sunscreen on nose, assemble poles, tighten pack straps.  Deep breath.   There’s only one way to approach this.  Dive right in with unabashed, reckless abandon.

Time means nothing.   In all honesty, this is the very first backpacking trip (of many) that I left the watch, the phone, any possible mechanism that could tell time, behind.  A long overdue surrender.   (I now check email on avg. 2x/ week and might consider glancing at my phone every other day).   Maybe one of these days, I’ll conform fully to the type of outdoor, pack-carrying, backcountry voyager that 22 wants me to be.  Maybe not.  Little luxuries like deodorant and indoor plumbing still mean something to me, not just for my sake, but for others in the MSR Hubba Hubba with me:)

Day One we walked the drainage 5 miles in and spike camp on a grassy plateau sure to get a great peak of the sunset and a wide panorama of the valley.    Hubba Hubba erect, we crawl in for an afternoon siesta.   I think we were out for a few hours.   Walked down to our cooking area, where a still fresh Dall sheep head carcas was propped nearby.  Suddenly I felt like I was in an old western.   If it wasn’t so dang heavy, I would have carried it out and put it above the front door entry to our cabin.

We prepped the pasta and white sauce and devoured it it in the midst of bears crossing the drainage and skirting the adjacent hillside.  The silence was deafening, in a comforting sort of way.   All stimulation weigh heavy on the visual.  So much to see.   Any and all aural stimulation comes from birds singing, animals feeding and hooves on rock.  Rocked in our camp chairs and watched  for a long, long time before cleaning and separating our cooking area from our food area.   At one point, we climbed up a grassy knoll to see where the drainage bear was on his travels.  To our surprise, he had wandered up our knoll and was now about 75 feet from us, tho not seeing us because we were upwind.   He kept feeding until uncomfortably close.  Finally 22 stands large and puts on his deep sexy phone voice for le bear.  “hhheeeeeyy beeear.   hey beeeaar.”  Bear looks up, sees us and flips.   Does a complete 180 and RUNS, FAST, back down the knoll, into the drainage and up the drainage as far as we can see, at least a mile and a half, bear butt wiggling adorably the whole way.  Turns out, he was super scared by us and just wanted to get the heck outta Dodge.  We retreat to the tent and get a good night sleep.  The next day was a glacier hike.   I’m guessing roughly 10 miles roundtrip, but took a hefty chunk of time because we were rock hopping, evading rivers and pools, snow sloshing and scree slipping.  We were trying to follow a rock spine up the glacier to get a better view South from behind the mountainous valley we were in.   A glorious trek with dreamy glacier fields that we wanted to glissade but were just a bit too under stable.    Return to camp, siesta, eat, repeat.    A leisurely start the following day, sun shining boldly, a free a timely bask in it’s rays on a rock.  Eventually we got packed up and rolling.   We decided to forge one range, skirting the wildlife closure area, heading NW around Area 7 and exiting 5 miles down the road by Sable Pass.   The terrain was vastly different, rolling yellow grass fields, always a lovely contrast against the Polychrome rocky mountains, blue sky, white clouds.  When the sun illuminates the landscape, it casts a gold hue, the Midas touch over everything, leaving you with sublime reminiscence.  Reminds me of the Robert Frost poem  “Nothing Gold Can Stay”

Nature’s first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold
Her early leaves a flower
But only so an hour
Then leaf subsides to leaf
So Eden sank to grief
So Dawn goes down to Day
Nothing gold can stay.

Flan Extraordinaire

First Pot Luck for Trails – Mexi Theme.  Against my better judgment, I bake.  Two miserably failed attempts.  Third time is a charm.   For those searching for the perfect flan recipe, this is IT.

Flan recipe
Ingredients:
10 egg yolks
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 (12 ounce) can evaporated milk
3 tablespoons margarine
3 tablespoons brown sugar
Prep Time
10 Min
Cook Time
1 Hr 10 Min

DIRECTIONS
1.    Whisk together the yolks, condensed milk, and evaporated milk; set aside. Melt margarine in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the brown sugar; keep stirring until the brown sugar has dissolved, and is smooth. Evenly spread the sugar over the bottom of a pie plate or 8×8 pan, wait until it coats and hardens, and then pour in the custard. Cover with foil.
2.    Prepare a water bath for the flan by putting the prepared custard pan in a larger pan 1/2 filled with water.  Cover the entire larger pan with foil.  Cook for 65 minutes at 350 degrees, or until the flan has set.   Test it by putting in a knife and if it comes out clean, you’re gold.   Hint*  it should still be slightly jiggly in the center.  Remove flan from the boiling water and allow to cool for at least 30 minutes.
3.    To serve, loosen the flan from the pie plate by running a knife around the edges; invert onto a serving plate. The carmelized topping will flow over the top and sides. Serve at room temperature or cold.

Bon Appetite!

Life in AK is one gigantic lesson.  Some finer points to keep in mind should you visit Denali:

–Snow Hares have extreme suicidal tendencies, especially toward cars driving down the road at 35 mph

–When you spot wildlife, it is better to NOT to divert your eyes because when you look away, chances are, it will be gone.  Revel first, then grab the camera.

Willow bark post winter

– Tip for hiking in the backcountry and along drainages.  Remember this RULE of THUMB.   Amply scout the drainage for the height and congestion of the willow shrub and tundra schmeg.  I know, sounds harmless, but it is my nemesis and no one should underestimate it.  Trodding course up or downhill thru a willow laden drainage is not only treacherous, but frustrating.  It will suck you in, suffocate you, spit you out, cut you, transpose, multiply in front of your eyes, make you claustrophobic, get stuck in every nook loop of your pack.  And if you’re really a glutton for discomfort and agitation, make your way thru a willow forest in the driving rain.   While willow bark makes great tea to alleviate headaches, it becomes uber slippery when wet.   And do it in the rain when it’s 80 degrees outside, so that your rain pants and rain jacket can stick like mad to your sweaty skin.   And one more thing…do it in July at the very pinnacle of mosquito season…when they’re 6 inches in diameter, faster, swarm-ier, and leave you welted. At this point, you either give in and commit yourself to the sanitarium OR your hiking partner radio-s a heli to life flight you out of the willowy purgatory.  Then you’re having a good time.

I bring this up with the very best of intention.   Tell anyone you know who is thinking about going backcountry in AK.   I wish someone would have warned me.   That aside, a tremendous experience to behold.

Ahem. Where was I?  Right.   Back to the list.

–C Camp is like summer camp for adults.  Not that I wanted, or needed, to revert to my crack college days, but so be it.   It’s 4 months.  Let’s hope I don’t get eaten by a moose and live to tell about it.

–Learn to appreciate the daylight, ‘cuz you won’t see the dark for awhile.

–Know what’s in a Purple Alaskan Thunder Fuck, BEFORE you drink one at the local Dive.  All you die-hard alcoholics, click the link for the recipe.    You can be SURE we’re throwing a Thunder Fuck party upon our return to PDX.

–Bears trace the scent of moose placenta.  Moose are giving birth to calves right now.  They go close to the road to do so, hoping that cars will scare the bears away from eating their calves.   You do the math when walking along the road.

I’m sure there will be an addendum to this later.

I have no words sufficient enough to describe the wildlife obs this past week. On the drive to Toklat with Borg and crew, here is what we saw.  Happy Park Opening and Happy Birthday Brother.  This bear hug is for you.

New bear cub

Mama bear

Little bear bum

Big bear and little bear bums

Caribou

Lazy caribous

Dall sheep

Male dallies

Big Griz on the Tek bridge

Oh sh*t, we've been spotted!

Banging a putt

On Saturday, we went to Healy to test out the stellar 6-hole disc golf course at the school.   I say that with a dallop of sarcasm.  Come to find out it’s actually OK.  Three more baskets and it’s on the way to being 1/2 a sweet course.   Good baskets.  Decent layout and length.  We adopted two grade school kids to play with us.  Not judging, but I figure it’s constructive to teach them something other than how to blaze on a 4-wheeler and shoot a BB gun.   I hope to get them some decent tee signs and circulate a brochure to generate some interest and instigate a league night here, along with an ultimate pick-up game — since the nearest one is 2 hours away in Fairbanks.

Chains!

Healy Youth

Hucka'bee Wannabee!

Full moon and the Salmon Bake’s Grand Opening is tonight.  22 and I are in the process of deciding RIGHT NOW just what kind of night it’s gonna be.   I think we’ll arrange to take the shuttle from camp.

Went with Borg, the Road Counter and Wildlife Obs chick, to set up road counters on the path into the Park.  These counters gauge traffic into the park by an electro magnetic current that runs under the road.  When a car drives over, the magnetic field is broken and the vehicle is counted.  Not rocket science but takes a certain amount of knowledge of the device and set up of the necessary info to make the count accurately.  In between stops, we were scouting out wildlife, counting them and recording their behaviors.   We found 24 Blanca Te Tonka (Dall Sheep)  and, YES, 3 bears. I swear, the wildlife pictures are coming…   A mama and two cubs out in the distance.   So exciting!!!!  The Resources Division is kind enough to hook me up with Aviation Training, which will allow me to take flights into DNP for various purposes.  Super fired up for that.

Pre-hike fuel

Friday is the weekend!   Got to sleep in and then make a fancy brekkie of broccoli egg scramble, bacon, avocado, english muffins, grapefruit and Mate.

We packed some snacks and headed to hike up Healy Peak which is 5,500 ft with a 1,600 ft rise.   Sweet little day hike, about 4 hours up, 1.5 down with some nice lookouts over the Valley, including the C Camp, the Nenana River, over to Sugarloaf Peak, which we’ll climb soon.   So many options… so little time.

Wildlife factor:   Ptarmigans (state bird), snow hares, ground squirrels a plenty

Hilarious factor:   When we sat down at the 2nd main overlook to fortify, 22 was reaching into the pack for snacks when two ground squirrels literally ran up over his pack and their fur grazed his forearm, and (I shit you not!)  he shrieked like no animal fearing woman I’ve EVER heard, jumped and shuddered and shook.  There was no way to contain myself.   I laughed until I peed and almost fell off the mountain.

Up Healy, from Lookout 1

Looking into the Valley

Ground Squirrel Friend

Male Ptarmy

Heading up to Healy Peak

While I’m in beautiful AK, I’m taking the time to hone in my cooking skills, now that I’ve got $1100 of accessible groceries to go nuts with.   I decided on an Indian feast of Chicken Schwarma.

Chix Schwarma

Tasty, no??   Here is how Stones helped with the Tzatziki:

Cucumber Head

One of the sectors of DNP I am working with is Resources.  Studying and working with Flora and Fauna.  I met the infamous Dandelion Queen and she summarized one of the projects we’ll be tackling – the devegetation of an invasive species brought into the Park, and the reveg of the good stuff.    We’ll spend a few days in June on each end of the park yoinking a plant called Crepis Tectorum (common narrowleaf hawksbeard)  It’s mainly brought in by cars driving as far as they can get into the park before the road turns to gravel and park buses are only allowed.   There’s an infiltration here of these buggers.

Frozen over the last few seasons is the healthy flora and now we need to clean seeds that we’ll use for reveg in August.  We have a plethora of categories and families to clean.  The challenge?  Deciphering the best and most efficient method to clean these seeds, thresh and scarify them if necessary to prep for planting.  The park was left with some older, used seed-cleaning mechanisms, including a Crippen wheel-driven mechanism with multiple screens that agitates and separates seeds from chaff, all-the-while preserving the fragile seed.

Oxytropis Campestris

We got to work on Oxytropis Campestris (Common Name is Locoweed) collected in 2007. We were able to put the plant into a pillowcase and kick it around of the floor to loosen the seeds.  Then we took the chaff and used our hands to agitate it over a circular screen with holes that are 5/64 inch width.  This gets the majority of the big parts out and then we put the remainder into a vacuum tube to thoroughly clean the seeds. In theory, the weight of the seeds make them fall to the bottom of the test tube and the vacuum causes all other seed debris to adhere to the top of the tube.  The seeds are a tiny, blackish-green and we extract them from the tube and rebag and freeze.   These will also need to be scarified (scratch the surface) so they’ll transplant and grip the soil when dispersed.

Rounded out the weekend by planting our newly-bought seeds in the greenhouse.  We are trying for radishes, cilantro, chives, snow peas, and four types of lettuce (Argula, Butter, Romain and Mix).  We had our first dinner guests and a round of Uchre.  The grandparents would have been proud.

Woot! Home for the summer..

Week 1
Settling into 573, a new cabin built last year by a youth crew in the park.  Compared to the historic ones here previously, this is the Taj.  Bigger, updated, lots of kitchen space/shelves and cupboards, a nice kitchen table area, a futon for guests, dresser and a nightstand in the bedroom, a mud room up front and a pretty patio deck. We sit higher up on a berm and have a decent view over everything.   It’s beyond my wildest expectations and am pleased.  We won’t having running water until June, but we have heat!  Good internet so far from the Rec Hall and even into our cabin at times. Lots of choice moments to relish in my new found freedom and I’ve taken a healthy swan dive into the books I am reading, namely “The Lost City” by Henry Shukman – an incredible story about a young man who goes in search of lost ruins in South America.  All the trials and tribulations and characters he encounters on the way plus a dangerous threat by the un government trying to keep these ruins a secret and uncivilised so that they do not become the next Macchu Piccu.  Two thumbs up.   I haven’t had any media stick with me in a long time, but this one stuck. In other current news, swine flu is running rampant.  I try to touch base with all the departments I’d like to volunteer with this summer, but many folks aren’t “on” quite yet.    Had a wonderful conversation with the Dandelion Queen and I’ll be working with her on the cleaning and dissemination of plants seeds in the park so we can reveg in a few week.  I’ll also be working on building trails around the park as well as the road stats and wildlife observations teams, so there will be plenty of chances to get out into the Park and roll my sleeves up.   Downright giddy I am to be out of a cubicle and the Land of Five Hundred Emails a Day.

22 introduced me to the C Camp Greenhouse, where people could reserve plots and grow sustainables to their heart desire.   After last fall, it was left high and dry and needed some TLC.   Pulling all the dead old stuff out and tilling the soil was a project.  Can’t wait to get to planting.

C Camp Greenhouse

Greenhouse

Most of the folks here right now are here in interim before heading further out into the park for the season.   Made a friend that I’ll visit at Tek who promised to guide me to banded agates and morels by the plenty.

And finally *drumroll* puppy time!
We sauntered over to the kennels to some very excited pooches.   We got to pick which husky sled dog we’d adopt for the season. There are 32 dogs this year.  Of course, 22 chose Yakkers again, the beautiful blonde wolf.   I needed some QT with all of them to see who I bonded with.   Ironically, one of the first dogs in my line of site I recognized right off the bat.  It was the pick of last summer’s litter that grabbed my heart strings then.  Crystal blue eyes, tall and proud, distinguished snout, big ears and bigger paws.  My kind of man.  He’d grown 4 feet and been given the name Tuya.  See the before and after pics.  The litter was named after types of volcanos.   There’s always a theme for the litters- rivers, tribes, etc.

Tuya at 9 weeks last July

Tuya Now

My dog

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuya

Tuya, sometimes known as “table rock”  is a type of distinctive, flat-topped, steep-sided volcano formed when lava erupts through a thick glacier or ice sheet. They are rare and normally found in regions formerly covered by continental ice sheets and also had active volcanism during the same time period.  They are rampant in Iceland and BC.

Tu doesn’t have the whole walking thing down yet, but we’re working on it.   When I go to fetch him, he stands up on his back two and he towers over me for a bear hug.  He gets so excited to be out, his big legs travel fast, nose to the ground, zigging and zagging the entire way.   If a rabbit comes into sight, it’s everything I can do to hang onto him.  We have to walk the dogs at least three times a week.  Tuya motivates me to sprint…and I was worried about not getting regular workouts here

The sad news:  there will no be puppies this year.  I repeat.  NO PUPPIES.   With the litter from last year and only retiring two dogs this year, Aspen and Willow, there’s no need.   I say there’s always a need for husky puppies.    If the NPS isn’t careful, I may sneak into the kennels overnight and let two choice dogs off leash to convene at their leisure.   It IS a full moon this weekend. With a little magic, I’ll be able to pirate a pooch back to Ptown with me.  Shhhh.

For the Trails Crew, weeks are 4 10’s, with a 3 day weekend.  Let’s hear it for more play time.  I may need to consider abandoning corporate ‘Merica for good and join the ranks of the government.

Denali stands 20,320'

We celebrated by taking a bike ride into the park.   It’s the perfect time because the road is virtually empty until season kickoff May 15.  So no people, no buses.
We drove 30 miles to Teklanika, parked, saddled up for  a 15 mi gravel road ride to Sable Mountain Pass.   Nice, steady incline with some decent puff pushes to get up to the Pass.  We were kindly rewarded with a prisitine, blue-bird view of Denali in all her glory.  No picture will ever do it justice.  Its every bit as powerful to feel her presence as it is to see her.   We reveled for a good bit and got psyched for the downhill charge, which was about 1/10 as long as the ride up and chock-full of hoots and hollers.

Some sketchy wildlife

Igloo River

It’ s our first official weekend in the park and we B-line 2 hours to Fairbanks to stock up on food for the next month.   Between Sam’s Club and Freddie’s, Twelve Hundred Dollars is dropped and we cram 4 total carts into the pickup.  Don’t worry, 1 cart alone was filled to the brim with liquor and beer. We could have opened our own store, and maybe we will. While I’m the very last advocate for drinking and driving, an airline bottle of Crown was chugged like a champ prior to the drive back.  There is no wonder so many multi-children parents are alcoholics.   If I had to repeatedly cough up a house payment each month to feed the mouths of little me’s, it would drive me to drink too.  But, I digress.

In between shopping sprees, we dropped into a local dive bar known as the Mecca, where 22 lost a game of pool in effort to win us the table to a raging alcoholic and blind veteran affectionately called PacMan, while I chatted with a patron who extended an thoughtful invitation to join him for some methadone and marijuana back at his place.  Nothing like a meth/weed invite by the Natives to make you feel welcome.

On another note, it was our steamy date night, so I put on my going-to-town shoes – a pair of vintage adidas kicks (no plug intended as I am now brand-affiliation free) – the nicest thing I brought with me to the Land of the Midnight Sun , we hit the theatre for the X-Men “Wolfman” movie.  Hugh Jackman makes me want to howl at the moon.