Brooks Range trip

As a part of a bonding experience for new graduate students, the department holds a trip to the north side of the Brooks Range in northern Alaska every year.  This year it was from Friday (the 24^th) until Monday (the 27^th), and although I felt sick to my stomach for much of Thursday night, I am incredibly happy that I went.

On Friday morning, we packed up 4 vehicles- three Excursions and one large truck that I neglected to see the make or model of- loading our stuff and ourselves into them all before heading north.  It’s interesting how I manage to find really awesome people to hang out with.  I say this because I chose my vehicle purely based on the fact that I had walked back from a meeting the day before with three people, and since I “knew” them I wanted to be in the car with them.  Luckily a few other awesome folks joined into the same van, and with that we created what I deem to be the best group of people we could have formed.  As soon as we were all settled in, Mary (with such poignant truth) says, “You know, guys, van bond is the strongest bond.” And a great weekend began.

Day 1 was spent driving north to the Dalton Highway, crossing the Arctic Circle, and stopping at a number of locations along the way to see the transitions in rock types as we passed through terrane after terrane.  It was basically show and tell. We got to see shales and chevron folds, amongst other things. At night, a group of us- which consisted largely of the people in our van- set up the large cook tent.  We were the designated constructors, since we had been the ones to learn how to put it up after the meeting on Thursday.  It drizzled a bit, on and off, but it didn’t stop us from drinking a few beers and sitting around the tent.

Our dean helped lead the trip.  Here he is talking about the shale.

Sara(h?) showing us where the fold is.

The colors were amazing.  Just beautiful fall colors.  In the few days between driving north and south, they increased in intensity dramatically.  

Hanging around the campfire on the first night

Day 2 is when the van bond started gaining strength.  More music was played, head-bobbing and arm-dancing started to become more frequent, and we started really laughing and having a good time. This was all as we continued farther north, toward Galbraith Lake.  There were stops at cirques, stops at lakes, and stops at construction. Probably because of the incredibly short summer season, there was plenty of construction along the Dalton Highway.  Whenever the wait was more than a few minutes, we crawled out of the vehicles to stand around, play soccer, or toss a football while we blasted music through the speakers.  We ended the night at the campground at Galbraith Lake, where we yet again set up camp and the community tents.  At that latitude, you are above the tree line, so there were no trees anywhere to be seen.  If the wind picked up, there was nothing to stop it. So we laid all sorts of small boulders on our tie lines and hoped for the best.

Looking at a cirque on a cloudy day.

Playing futbol during one of the construction breaks.

Hanging around the fire again, making smores and JiffyPop

The third day was probably the nicest of the days.  There was a slightly biting breeze, but we spent the majority of the day hiking a few miles towards a beautiful waterfall that cut through a series of thrust faults.  Which definitely warmed me up.  Until I stood still for more than three minutes.  There wasn’t much of a happy medium, and the jackets went on and off repeatedly. But that part really didn’t matter.  I got to mingle with all sorts of people on the trip, learn about their pasts and where they come from, all while hiking along some strikingly beautiful scenery. It took about two hours to walk in, where we had lunch perched on the side of a fairly steep slope with a great view of the waterfall.  After eating, most of us hiked down to stream level and wandered our way up to the fall itself.  Others spent time looking for large pyrite chunks in one of the exposed layers.  And I would like to point out to my parents that they can feel confident in my choice to not climb the loose talus piles like others did.  I walked along some talus on the way up, but nothing that I could leap down 10 feet at a time (because it was so steep).

Along the hike

The view from the waterfall

The waterfall

Heading up the stream to the Fall.

After we hiked back and made another group dinner- for that’s what they all were- we headed to Toolik, a research camp that UAF has up where we were staying.  I probably wont ever stay there, but there is a chance that if I had research in the area, I could.  After the brief, but interesting, tour, we headed back to camp for more beers and more fires- for that’s what happened every night.  I stayed up until a whopping 11 o’clock, so I actually got to see the dark sky for once! I figured that the next day we were driving home, so I could stay up late.

The van of rock'n!

The next morning, I awoke around 6.  I peeked my head out of the sleeping bag, and what I saw first puzzled me.  Then I realized that at about an inch above my nose was the side of the tent. Which was collapsing in on me.  So I got myself up a bit to orient myself, and to try to dump some of the snow off of the walls.  And then I scooched in to the center of the tent again and curled up.  And around 15 minutes later I emerged and there was more tent over me. So I repeated. And at about 630 I decided that after waking up with more tent over my head, I had to actually do something.  So I got up, in the process woke up my tentmate, and together we cleared off the tent.  Yes it was snowing.  I got my first Alaska snow.  It was much like the only snow that Seattle gets.  A thin layer of wettish white.  Everyone froze their fingers- especially me- taking down all of our gear and packing it into the trucks again to head 400 miles back to Fairbanks.

A morning surprise

The drive was a bit more subdued than most of our other days.  We had become a pretty rambunctious group.  Head-bobbing and arm-dancing turned into full-on upper body dancing by the second or third day.  Everyone was in on it, even the driver, who will be a professor I have starting tomorrow. It was a blast.  But the last day had many hours of driving, and a good portion of those were spent nodding off.  We would all awake for an upbeat song that we could dance to before drifting off again.

Don’t worry.  We ended it in style.  At the end of every day, when we were pulling into camp, the entire van danced their hearts out to this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llyiQ4I-mcQ .  I had never heard it before, but now it gets stuck in my head and I cant help but start dancing when I hear it.  Maybe I’m listening to it right now, in the library.  And I might embarrass Amy by how into this song I am.

Oh yeah, and either Sunday or Monday, we saw a grizzly off of the road a long ways.  The truck in front of ours came to a complete stop, and in true "van of rock'n" style, us in the back seat threw off our seatbelts and rushed to see what there was (this happened throughout the trip, since the back windows were so covered in mud).  And there it was! A big old grizzly bear, moseying in the valley 500ft away.  My first wild grizzly was spotted in Alaska.  I think it's appropriate.