The first 2 of my last 4 weeks in the 49th state

It's already the middle of my last month here. O-Week advisors are already moving back in to Rice, but I'm still here for another two weeks, finishing up my stint in this beautiful place! Here's what I've been up to for the past couple of weeks since I returned from my big, ten-day backpacking trip.

Below is kind of a motley assortment of photos from the last three excursions I went on: first, an overnight backpacking trip on the Pinnell Mountain Trail, an alpine hiking trail on BLM land about an hour and a half northeast of Fairbanks. It was kind of a monotonous landscape, but it was a nice hike (albeit a very hard, cement-like surface that takes a toll on your joints; I prefer hiking off-trail on ridgelines because the natural ground is softer). We did ten miles in to a shelter and then hiked back out the next day. I went with Josh, his girlfriend Jen, and her friend Katie.

This past weekend, Josh, Jen, and one of Jen's friends and his daughter and I went up to a high place half an hour or so out of town in the middle of the night to see if we could get any good meteor shower shots, since the Perseid meteor shower peaked in the past couple of days. I only got one meteor on camera (and it wasn't that great of a shot), but the aurora did come out for a few minutes! That was great to see; I had been hoping to catch a glimpse of it at this time of year when it actually starts to get dark at night. There's still a band of orange glow along the northern horizon, since the sun isn't too far below it, but there's still about six hours of sunless time, and about two hours of solid darkness. Enough for the aurora to be visible on a night that was rated 2 out of 9 for strength of aurora activity!

The aurora viewing outing was pretty haphazard...I had intended on just shooting the shower from my backyard that evening. I texted Josh at like 9pm, telling him he might want to do the same. He decided we should drive out somewhere, and we left about two hours later with time to recruit other people! It was a fun night with some beautiful sky.

During the aurora viewing, we actually should have been atop Kesugi Ridge down in Denali State Park, a park that's across the highway from Denali National Park & Preserve. It's about four hours south of Fairbanks. We (Josh, Jen, JR (another coworker, the videographer), and Kyle (another coworker coming along for a fun time)) had driven down there on Friday morning, hiked to the top of the ridge about three miles, only to find ourselves in the middle of low cloud cover, fog, and rain, and soaking wet, despite our rain gear. We called the National Park Service dispatch at Denali NP&P to ask about weather for the next two days, the expected duration of our trip...and it was supposed to be the same. Our pictures would have sucked, and we would have been pretty cold and miserable. We decided to hike back down and attempt the trip another time. Maybe sometime in the next two weeks, the weather will clear up on Kesugi and we can do the trip again. I really want to get up there before I leave - the ridge is supposed to be a pretty easy hike (read: I can take lots of pictures since I won't have to concentrate too much on hiking or be too tired) and it's supposed to offer the best views of the Alaska Range (home of Denali/Mt. McKinley) in the entire state - supposedly even better than Denali NP&P's 100-mile road! It's from the south side of the range, though, so a bit of a different view - the 20,000-foot Denali behemoth still towers over everything else, though. I hope we get to do it.

Anyway, without much further ado, here's an unordered photoessay. Photos labeled Pinnell are from the Pinnell Mountain Trail outing, Cleary = aurora, and Kesugi = duh.

The aurora above Jen's Jeep. The Pleiades star cluster is visible just on the left side of the strongest point of the aurora (the patch on the right). Cleary.

THOUSANDS of male mosquitoes were buzzing around the trees on the summit we were hanging out at. They didn't bite or heckle us, since they were male and don't feed on blood, but they did buzz loudly and get in our pictures. Cleary.

Fall colors are already visible in the high alpine, as well as along the side of the road on the drive down to Denali State Park. Pinnell.

Most of the fireweed is going to seed at this time of the year and is losing its flowers and thus its hot pink allure, but a lot of it is still visible, making entire hillsides pink. Pinnell.

Josh drinks water at a rest stop. It was hot and dry, and we went through water pretty quickly. Pinnell.

Since Pinnell was just an overnight trip, we elected not to bring a stove and fuel in order to save weight. Since there was no wood since there were no trees up on the alpine ridge that comprises the entire trail, we brought fast food in our backpacks :) Josh and Jen brought Taco Bell, and I brought KFC. Katie brought some homemade salmon (mm). Pinnell.

Josh framing a shot. Cleary.

Kyle picking berries. There were TONS of ripe, fat, tart, wonderful blueberries on the Kesugi trail. We saw lots of berry pickers out on the way up, and thankfully, no bears. I wish I had snapped a picture of one of the numerous huge handfuls of berries I stuffed in my mouth on rest stops. Note Kyle's lack of rain gear...this was before the heavens opened up. Kesugi. The foothills of the south side of the Alaska Range are visible in the distance. Kesugi.

Resting and waiting for the rest of the group with a view of a nice valley. Pinnell.

The Pinnell trail meandering along the rocky ridge. The trail is as hard as a sidewalk. Pinnell.

Some river beauty along the trail, still surviving into August. Pinnell.

More rockiness. Pinnell.

A new wildfire flared up while we were on the trail due to the hot, dry, and windy weather. All of this smoke settled in Fairbanks. I'm currently breathing it now. My lungs do not appreciate it. Pinnell.

The group deciding to head downhill. Notice the lack of visibility. Kesugi.

More Pinnell rockiness. Pinnell.

The trail shelter we slept in. Pinnell.

A lone truck going on the Steese Highway into Fairbanks late at night, as we drove out of town, in search of a good night sky. Cleary.

A small wildfire that I'm 100% positive went out about ten minutes after I took a picture of it. It started raining, and the air humidity just saturated everything. I was surprised to see a fire here, since the Kesugi Ridge trail is on the south side of the Alaska Range, an area that is technically no longer Interior Alaska, but instead Southcentral Alaska, since it is under the rain shadow of the Alaska Range and receives considerably more precipitation than areas north of the range. Evidence of this difference precipitation can be seen in the relative size and quantity of glaciers on the south side of the range compared with the north side. Kesugi.

The new wildfire flaring up south of the Pinnell trail, but definitely still in the Interior. Which is always hot and dry in the summer.

So, that's pretty much it for now! I have actually finished editing all of the photos I've taken for work so far (except for a random roll of black & white film that I shot in early June, which I'm supposed to pick up tomorrow; not sure what's on it), so hopefully I can go on a trip this week to have something to do for the next two weeks! I love it here in Alaska, and I will be sad to leave, but I'm also itching to get back to Rice. Rice friends, I'll see you all in two weeks! I won't be there for Dis-O, as I'll be on planes coming back to Dallas that day, but I'll roll in from Dallas on Sunday! Thanks for reading.