To the Yukon!

Ah.. Finally time to write, and its late on the night before I am going into the field again. I guess that’s life in Haines! It has been nice to have a few days off here (well at least a few days where I could move at a more reasonable pace through the office). I was due for some time in town and just being here and being around has made me realize how much I really love this place. Haines is a great town, small, quaint, lots of stuff going on, still pretty rugged. If you think about it in the grand scheme of things, the gold rush was really the first thing that brought people to South East Alaska, and that was only 100 years ago. This is still very much a “cowboy town” full of really interesting people and a vibrant community. I can easily see how people come here for a season and end up just staying.

I, however, am going back into the field right away. This next trip is going to be pretty amazing, and I’m stoked about it. It’s going to have some crazy logistics, but I think that is going to keep us all on our toes and keep things interesting for all. The schedule looks something like this.

July 23-28: Raft Guide Training and Swift Water Rescue on the Blanchard River in Dalton, Yukon Territory

July 29: Transport to Whitehorse, YT

July 30- July 6: Hiking the Wheaton River Drainage to Primrose Lake

July 7: Float Plane brings rafts and re-supply

July 8-July 13: 1^st Commercial Decent of the Primrose River!

July 14: Transport back to Haines for de-rig.

Crazy! But I think at the end of a long summer all the changes going on will help to keep things fresh and keep people (myself included) on our toes and stoked about being out there.

So I’ll be back in town on the evening of August 14^th, and then am planning on spending a few days in Haines wrapping things up before I head back down south. (I’m planning on being in Portland somewhere around the 21^st and back in Mankato somewhere around the 24^th). Travel plans are still pretty up in the air, I’ll figure it out when I get back, it seemed too far away on this break to really plan anything or set anything in stone.

All in all, life is excellent in Alaska, but at the same time I’m getting excited about getting back to my life in Minnesota and all the awesome things that are going to be going on there this next year. Always a new adventure!

More Pictures from Glacier Bay

So there are many fabulous things about leading trips with Ted Roxbury, but one of my favorites is that he is a photographer, that takes way better pictures than I do.

So here is the link to Ted's Pictures from our trips! Enjoy! http://tedroxbury.com/gb.html

Back from Glacier Bay.... again.

Hey Y'all!!

I decided that since I had way too many pictures from this trip I wasn't going to take the time to really upload all the pictures to the blog and instead I just did a mass upload of them all to snapfish. You can find them all by following this link. Pictures from Glacier Bay

This last trip was great. We spent 24 days in the bay and this time got to see almost everything in both the West and East Arms of the Bay. We spent the first 12 days in the East Arm of the bay doing skills training with the students and also doing some exploring. It was my 3rd trip in that part of the bay, so it was starting to feel rather homey and really familiar which was nice.

The West Arm was new and really awesome as well. There are tons of tidewater glaciers in the west arm and it was a totally different environment out there. Super sweet.

Now I'm in town taking some down time to just chill out and relax before I head up to the Yukon for my last 24 day course. Shoulds like its going to be awesome! More details later.....