Back to the 40-Mile Country

2 am twilight -- Tetlin Bridge

I have been in/out in the field quite a bit the past couple of weeks and I am really ready to be sedentary for at least a little while. I just finished a rather exhausting trip out towards the border and in the 40-mile river drainage. I was back out there doing hydrologic surveys with some folks from our Anchorage office. The trip was so demanding because we worked a couple of 18 hr days and got very little sleep. There were advantages though to working late into the night: no vehicles on the road, amazing soft pastel colors of the twilight sky overhead, birds singing, and even the sound of wolves howling in the distance. It was quite nice...

Scott and Becky measuring flow on the West Fork at the Taylor Hwy. It was really convective this week with quite a lot of lightning and heavy downpours.

Early morning cumulus clouds reflect in the window of the truck

There were splashes of color from numerous wildflowers all along the road.

This is a hovercraft our observers run up and down the 40-mile river.

Becky hopes to pull out a few flakes of gold from her pan. The 40-mile River is know for its gold deposits and has lured in miners for over 100 years.

I intensely try out my prospecting skills.

I caught this cloud-to-ground lightning strike on the road to Northway Village

1 am sunset at the Chisana River