It got cold

Well... predictably, it got cold here.  The last week of classes is almost over.  Have been real busy and not much time to update this in a while.  It got cold here surprisingly fast but it really hasn't been too bad.  It's about -27*F right now and has been around -20 the past week or so.  My walk to class is only about 15 minutes.  The first few days of -20 was rough but then I bought some sweatpants to wear under my jeans and it's much better... I just need to learn to work a freaking scarf, they're impossible.

This is called ice-fog.  It happens a lot in Alaska and can only happen in real cold places in the world.  It's actually suspended ice crystals - so essentially water vapor freezes in the air and creates fog.  It hasn't been bad but I guess when it's really cold it can get pretty thick.

Cars here all have little plugs dangling out the front at some place... they actually go to a splitter, then to a block heater, which is just a heating element installed into the soft-plug of the engine.  (The soft-plug is just a rubber plug in the engine somewhere so that if it gets so cold the water/coolant in the engine freezes, it will pop open instead of cracking the entire engine block).  There's also a battery blanket and oil pan and transmission pan heaters.  Once it's cold enough, it gets very tough to start the engine without keeping things a little warm.  All of the stores and parking lots on campus and other places have "plug-ins" where they are typically just outlets in the wall or on a post and everyone just carries around an extension cord and plugs in their car... I'll have to take a better picture, it's somewhat amusing looking.

Today, the sun rose at 10:01am and set at 3:43pm.  It's really not that bad, with all the homework I've had I barely notice anyway.  The constant sunset is very cool though, here's a good idea of what it's like:

Thanksgiving was relaxing, just stayed in and got caught up on some homework all week.  We had freezing rain Sunday night through Wednesday before Thanksgiving and everything shut down.  The roads had about an inch of ice on them and most still do in patches.  They don't really plow here because it doesn't snow much, the cars just pack down the snow and it gets blown off to the sides but they dump gravel on the roads and it gets pressed into the ice for traction.  They don't have salt here so the whole town practically shut down from the freezing rain.  The only plows I've seen here are giant construction graders for the streets, and little tractors with spinning bristles on the front for sidewalks.

Fairbanks hasn't had rain in November since 1936 so it was quite the rare occasion and I was pretty happy to get the full week off for Thanksgiving instead of just Thursday and Friday.  I wasn't on the roads but I heard there were cars off the roads every couple feet, especially out of town on Monday morning.  They even canceled the public bus service for the day.  Not my photo but here's Ballaine Rd in Fairbanks that Monday:




And to end this post on a lighter note, they built a Harry Potter ice sculpture outside of the Wendy's here (right next to the movie theater) for the opening night of Deathly Hallows Pt. 1.  And I recently dined at the northernmost Denny's in the world.

Anchorage trip pictures

I took a trip to Anchorage a few weekends ago.  Hit blizzards both during the drive down and back up but we survived.  We went to the zoo which was great, a brewery, ate at a local bar from the snow "Man vs. Food", took in some local scenery, went for a hike, museum, walked along the bay and headed back.  Here are a few of the pictures:

The view from the hotel

 He wasn't really an exhibit but I liked him...

Lynx that growled at us

 Wolverine that wouldn't stop running in circles

 Sleepy Fox

 Angry wolf (he was actually just yawning but I made him look angry)

Hungry wolf

 RAWR

 The brown bears were not out but this sign says they like hugs

 Polar bear was sleeping and this is all we could see of him

 View from one of the foothills outside of Anchorage (nice houses...)

  Hiked up a trail towards the hills

 View of Anchorage and the bay

 Sunset down the coast

  Beer tasting

 The beach

 Sunset over the bay before heading back

Winter in October

 

Well it's getting colder and the snow has started to fall.  Woke up on the 6th to a little bit of snow.  The road I'm on looked like this.Sunday night the indoor soccer intramural team I'm on won our 3rd game.  We're 3-1 now and headed to the tournament... or something.  I just show up when I'm told to, I don't really understand the schedule.  Our last game we were 14 seconds away from automatic forfeit but a 5th person showed up just in time. 

Rules are you play 7 people but need 5 at minimum to start so we played 2 men down the first half then 1 man down the second half.  We managed a single goal with 2 minutes left and didn't let any in.  If we can just get everyone to show up, we might be able to do well in the tournament.  If we win we get free t-shirts!  Anyway, the snow has been on the ground for a few days now.  Had about an inch of snow this morning and a bit more now.  This is the view out the window of my room to the backyard.  There's a few storage sheds but it's mostly a redneck playground with plenty of tires and old bicycle frames.  I tried my best to get them out of the frame for the sake of scenery.

Ester Dome Hike

 October 2nd I went on another hike through the school.  We drove up to the top of Ester Dome and hiked down into the village of Ester.  The entire time I thought we were going to hike back up after, which would have been awful, there was a section that was about 30 degrees down for half a mile and going down.  But had I read a copy of the itinerary, there was another vehicle waiting for us at the bottom so we kind of cheated.  Anyways, here's some pictures.  This is looking over Fairbanks in the morning.

 Ester Dome was a big gold mining area and still has a few active mines.  We came across plenty of holes that people would dig, sift through, then move on.  There's also a lot of places people would just dump stuff before there were any roads out there.

 Not sure what kind of car this was but it had a straight-6 under the hood

 The bus had an old mattress in it, looked like someone made it a home for a while

 The saloon we were supposed to stop in for hot chocolate but they didn't open until noon so we left

On the way back there was literally an entire house on the opposite side of the highway going against traffic.  Cars were coming onto the on-ramp up ahead then immediately pulling over so I'm not sure what the plan was or who came up with it.

Wickersham Dome hike

Well it's been a while since I've posted but here's what I've been up to.  I'll probably make a few posts to split it up.  September 19th I went on a hike to Wickersham Dome.  It was about 6 or 7 miles total and great weather.  Took a few pictures, here they are.

 We met some dogs along the way that like to eat mud.

Finally did a handstand in Alaska.  This seemed like an appropriate place.

The Group on the summit

The sun was much nicer on the way back.  This is the summit

I'm still working on the geography around here but this is facing south and I'm fairly certain it's THIS mountain range.

This I'm certain is Denali (Mt McKinley).  Photo taken from the main quad of campus walking back after the hike.  I think I falsely claimed a few posts ago that different mountains were Denali, but this is definitely it.