Blogs from Palmer, Alaska, United States, North America - page 3

Here are more pictures from my daily work route :) It's absolutely stunning! Every day I see baby ducks trying too scoot away from the boat, hawks, numerous bald eagles, several other water birds, and even a great horned owl. I have had to use the air horn 3 X so far, to scare away moose and to scare away people shooting shotguns that had no idea we working in the same lake. Yeah, probably my biggest worry are the nuts that like to target practice all over the area, not too worried about bears! There is actually a no target shooting sign with bullets in it.... read more

Met up with Jen and hiked the Hatcher Pass Mint Trail along the Little Susitna River. Jen taught me all about different plants, vegetation, and wildlife. We traveled 14 miles round trip with a serious surprise lightning strike on the journey back. It was a sudden inspiration for us to run through the sudden rainstorm until we no longer felt like sitting ducks. The situation gave us a surge of adrenaline and the giggles. Wildlife spotted during our adventure were drakes, an American Dipper, marmot, ground squirrel, and two beavers. The drakes were sporting incredible white water moves across the churning waters and were really fun to watch. After our daylong journey, we had 50 cent McDonalds ice cream cones, followed by a real shower at my host’s house. While I cleaned up, they prepared special ... read more

Summited my first mountain, Lazy Mountain, which was not so true to its name. Completed it with my coworker, Casey, who is an avid climber/summiter and in amazing shape. Ascended ~3000 feet in 2.5 miles, which was a constant greater than 45 degree angle with not more than 15 ft. of level ground the entire hike up. A challenging first summit for me, but was incredible rewarding with views of the Mat-Su Valley below, and surrounded by the Talkeetna and Chugach mountains. We started out in green dense vegetation where we spotted a few bear trails and beautiful wildflowers(blue bells, dandelions, wild roses) and ended up in cold, barren, windy terrain above the treeline. It took 4 hours round trip. Spotted a young moose on the walk home. Level, paved ground never felt so good after ... read more

On Wednesday it was rainy and foggy when we left Tolsona Wilderness Campground, but we did manage to get some photos of Matanuska Glacier as we traveled to Fox Run Campground in Palmer, which is near Wasilla. Fox Run will be our home base for the next few days. We had a pot of homemade soup and fried cornbread for supper tonight. We watched the DVD "We Are Marshall." Thursday we decided to visit the Musk Ox Farm where we learned of their unique role in Native Alaskan Culture. The Musk Ox, which is a prehistoric ice age survivor, has an underhair beneath their very coarse, heavy, and long outer fur covering called qiviut. This underhair, qiviut, is finer than cashmere and warmer than wool. It is also pretty expensive. Today's market value is around ... read more

Visited downtown Palmer, AK today. A town festival was going on, walked the park area where that was going on. Took some pics of the different booths, the belly dancers, and other downtown buildings. Stopped by a thrift store and picked up a movie and some science fiction books. Went to RW's and had a World Famous hamburger - - it was very awesome. . . We went for a ride and found the reindeer farm which had reindeer and moose. I worked on the windshied wiper and lost a small nut soooooo after hours of sifting through the gravel with my metal detector, I decided to go buy one. Found a Lowes!!! Works every time :-) Got the wiper fixed, came down to work on the blog before we head out to Denali. Jack has ... read more