Down to the Delta...

Went down to survey the Delta River at the Black Rapids (Back to the Black...10/10/15). My friend Mike was already there when I arrived. He had the data logger running, so we just needed to survey the elevation and then launch the boat for the hydro survey. But when we finished the ground part of the survey and checked out the river at the boat launch, it was obvious that the river was higher than we thought. After discussing the options, Mike decided to pass on launching the boat there.

High water on the Delta River creates pretty spectacular hydraulics. By comparison, Black Rapids Creek, in the background, had a lower flow.

So we drove to a place up river to launch the boat at Phelan Creek. There we could run the river to the survey site above the glacial inflow. This so-called clearwater section of the Delta River has an important fisheries and Mike's project is documenting the flow regime. Had a bit of a search to find a place to launch the boat, the shore ice (aufeis) blocked the usual spots, but eventually found a launching site. No problem running upriver at this high of a flow and were able to complete all the survey work there. When things go well, these trips are a lark, you almost shouldn't get paid for it. Oh, that's right, I don't anymore.

Mike and his namesake boat, two hardy characters. It's always great to get out and work with him, one of nature's gentleman.

Didn't get any photos of the work, too busy I guess, so here's some shots of the scenery.

The Delta River flows through some pretty spectacular  mountains.

Another mountain, near the confluence with Phelan Creek.

Nearby Summit Lake is striped with ponded water on top of the ice. A few more days of sunny, warm, and windy weather will probably get the breakup started.

Here's a photo Mike sent me that he took at the upper Delta River survey site:

Trying to spool up the tangled survey tape; sometimes the routine things are the hardest part.

Hill and the Donald...

While I normally eschew politics (I love that phrase, it implies something so distasteful you'd spit it out), the insanity of the current presidential race screams for a comment. On the one hand, Hillary Clinton, a person so untrustworthy that she's comparable to Sarah "you can always tell she's lying if her lips are moving" Palin. On the other hand, The Donald T-rump, also Palinesque with his rambling word-salad speeches, arrogant, almost child-like put-downs, and inability to ignore any slight, no matter how trivial. It's a conniving, duplicitous woman against a bloviating, narcissistic man. It doesn't get any better than that.

But I digress. This blog is supposed to be humorous, so let's talk about the Donald's hair. You'd think a billionaire could afford a decent haircut, implants, or hairpiece. Instead, you hear comparisons to the raccoon, rabbit, or beaver pelt that sits on his head. Well I think that does a huge injustice to the piece of fur that adorns the Donald's bald spot. To most anyone from Alaska, it's pretty obvious that he probably got a muskrat pelt from Sarah Palin. She would've sent the Todd out to the swamp nearest their Wasilla bungalow to trap one, then present it to T-dumpster as an offering to get her into his supposed administration. Anyways, I think they've missed a big opportunity here: marketing muskrat hairpieces. Give them a catchy name, I don't know, maybe something like T-rat hair?

The Donald's glorious mane...

And a muskrat pelt. I rest my case.
You be the judge.

Rubber Buggy Bumpers...

As noted earlier (First ride...4/30/16)  the rubber band mounts (bumpers) on the sidecar needed replacement. Found this "how to" comment posted on the Classic Motorworks forum:
Replacing the rubber bands on a cozy sidecar (https://forum.classicmotorworks.com/index.php?topic=16577.0).
Tried to follow their method, but after removing the old bands and installing new ones on the one side, couldn't get any mounted on the other. As luck would have it, my neighbor Bert stopped by, took one look and said "that ain't gonna work, ya need to remove the sidecar body."
Well that didn't sound too good to me, but six bolts later, he had the back of the body loose. The front pivots on a cross piece, so didn't need to be disturbed. We tied a ratchet strap to the luggage rack, then to the garage door mechanism and lifted it up. It's real light so could've just as easily lifted it by hand and tied it up with a rope.

With the brackets exposed, it was easy to take a second ratchet strap and pull the bracket over to mount the other side rubber bands. Then just used two screwdrivers to align everything and slide the bolts into the brackets. It's a lot easier with two people, the third hand fits the bolt while the other two hold positioning with the screwdrivers.

So all in all it wasn't terribly hard once we figured it out, but I still think it's the stupidest suspension system I've ever seen. And then the best part was that after we were finished, I noticed one of the new bands was starting to split, it hadn't lasted more than a few minutes. Fortunately two of the old ones were still good, so replaced it with one of those. Makes you feel real confident in the new parts. Been trying to think of something funny to end this post on, but so far not seeing much humor in it.

Sure sign of spring...

NWS Monthly weather summary for April for Fairbanks Alaska (edited for brevity)...

"April 2016 was the second warmest on record. Average temperature was 42.4 degrees which was 9.9 degrees above the normal average temperature of 32.5 degrees. There were four temperature records set, all warmer than normal.

Green up (when the south facing hills near town change from brown to green) occurred on the 26th of April, breaking the previous earliest date on the 29th. The mean date for green up is the 9th of May.

Looking forward to the month of May, sunshine continues to increase by nearly 7 minutes per day. The day light hours increasing from 17 hours and 8 minutes on the 1st to 20 hours and 30 minutes on the 31st.  The average daily high temperature increases from 54 degrees on the 1st to 67 degrees on the 31st. The average daily low temperature increases form 31 degrees on the 1st to 44 degrees on the 31st. The forecast for the month of May from the climate prediction center calls for the likelihood of above normal temperatures and near normal precipitation."

Another sure sign of spring is the harnesses and winter gloves washed and hung out to dry. In winter, the dog's diet is supplemented with lots of fish, meat, and fat scraps added to their regular dog food. This gives them real oily fur which rubs off on the gloves and harnesses. If they're not washed every few years, they can get pretty fragrant, even moldy.

First ride...

Most years we don't get the bikes out too early cause our gravel road stays pretty muddy until mid May. But this year, we finally got some decent conditions and it dried out much earlier. Spent the morning getting the bikes ready, when it was sunny and in the sixties. By the time we got going, it was cloudy and had dropped into the fifties, so it wound up being a little cooler than expected. The highlight of the ride was probably the new frost heaves and dips in the road that almost sent the bike airborne. But all in all, it was pretty good for the first ride.

Took the 650 Moto Guzzi out for the first ride. It handles a lot like the old Triumph I rode back in the day, pretty much fun.

Got Andy's bike running, but then...

She noticed that some some of the rubber suspension bands were completely split (removed one to see it better). I think it's time for some maintenance.

Beardcicles and jellyfish...

One of the blogs I follow is mostly about motorcycles and shop work, in other words, gear head stuff. But it's written in a laid back funny way, so it's often interesting. The other day he posted a selfie eating bacon in his shop. I wanted to post a funny comment, but couldn't get this photo on his blog. So I'll just post it here (http://thegreasyshoprag.blogspot.com/2016/04/bacon.html):

The bacon looks great, the beard not so much. It looks like you ate some miso seaweed soup and most of it stuck to your chin. HA, just kidding. It really looks more like a bunch of dead jellyfish tentacles. No seriously, if you had a crop of facial fuzz like that in Alaska, you'd wind up looking like this...

Scott, if you read this, remember, if you're not laughing, you're not having fun.

A musher from Mars?

Here's another photo from our trip last month (Out to the Whites..3/26/16). Bill never brings a camera since he has an I-phone. So when he tried to send me the photos, we were both surprised nothing arrived. He spent several weeks trying to figure out the problem and finally got this one from him. Now I know it looks like I just landed from Mars (or maybe Uranus). But there was a brisk north wind blowing across the ridge top and combined with the glare off the hard pack snow, well it was pretty comfy wearing the dark goggles, face mask, and parka. While I usually look like your average over-the-hill dog driver, sometimes the conditions dictate the appearance.

In Passing...

Last fall I wrote about visiting my cousin Rosemary and her family (Family reunion...9/26/15). When I was a kid, she lived with her husband Chuck just down the street from us until they built a house out in the NW suburbs. They spent a lot of time at our house and being older,  well they were more like an aunt and uncle to me than cousins.

Anyway, what I wanted to mention was Rosemary's visit to Alaska. In the early 90's, she apparently was on a tour of Alaska with her sister-in-law. We got a call from her one day, saying they were in Fairbanks. So we drove into town and picked them up. Now back then, we had an old Ford Bronco. It was great in the winter, four wheel drive and all, but because I'd installed heavy duty rear springs, well it rode kind of hard. In fact, we'd nick named it the bucking Bronco.

So we're driving them out to our place on the Chena Hot Springs Rd. Back then it was a narrow two lane road with lots of frost heaves, kind of like a mogul ski course. I remember looking back in the rear view mirror and seeing their heads bobbing up and down like a couple of bobble heads as we road over the rough spots. I imagined them both getting whiplash and seas sickness simultaneously. But when we got to the house, she never said a word about the rough ride and we had a great visit.

Now one thing to keep in mind is that Rosemary was adopted by my uncle. So even for a cousin, we weren't really related, except by her feelings, the warmth she always had for my family. The nicest thing she ever said to me was that I was real family to her, and that was special, for both of us.

Rosemary passed on last week after a short illness. She was 85. And we never did take that family reunion photo.

NWS March Weather Summary...

"The remarkably warm and dry weather pattern continued into mid March when a short cold spell dropped temperatures to 20 below on the 18th, which was the coldest temperature recorded in the month A warmer, wetter pattern took hold during the last week of the month, when a storm on the 29th and 30th set a record for the most rain in twenty four hours in March, 0.30 inches.

The average temperature was 19.8 degrees which was 8.4 degrees above the normal average temperature of 11.4 degrees. This ranks as the 9th warmest of 111 years of record. The highest temperature was 51 degrees on the 25th which set a new record; the previous record for the day was 50 degrees set in 1999. The coldest temperature for the season remains 29 below which occurred on Christmas morning. This makes 2015-2016 the only winter except for 1976-1977 where the temperature at Fairbanks failed to drop to 30 below or colder, in 111 years of record.

Looking forward to April, the average daily high temperature increases from 35 degrees on the 1st to 54 degrees on the 30th. The average low temperature increases from 8 degrees on the 1st to 31 degrees on the 30th. The warmest temperature recorded at the Fairbanks airport in April was 76 degrees in 2009 and the lowest temperature recorded in April was 32 below in 1911 and 1944. The average snowfall for April is 2.9 inches.

Possible sunshine increases by nearly 7 minutes per day with daylight increasing from 13 hours and 41 minutes on the 1st to 17 hours and 1 minute on the 30th. The forecast for the month of April from the climate prediction center calls for above normal temperatures and near normal precipitation."

The snow was disappearing fast by the end of March.

But then we got a dump of snow in early April. It's melting now, so hopefully it'll soon be gone.

Winter logging...

Mentioned earlier (Back on Track...1/24/16) that winter logging was going on in the valley where our trails run. In the past, they bulldozed out whatever trails they needed to access the logging area and we had to use different trails. So some of us dog drivers got together and formed a group (with the catchy title of Little Chena Dog Drivers and Trail Users Association) and had a series of meetings with the State of Alaska, Division of Forestry, who held the timber sales. The upshot of it all was an agreement that they would put in separate logging roads so that the recreational trails would still be available for others. By and large it has worked OK, though sometimes they block cross trails with their berms and push debris onto adjacent trails. This year, with all the warm weather and lack of snow, the logging road crossings got real icy, so it's not uncommon for the sled to go sideways at the crossing. It's great fun.

Crossing one of the logging roads.

Now, with the latest warm spell, the dog running is mostly over, so it's the time of year to haul in wood (Iron Dog...4/19/09). It's been a race to haul as many loads of logs up the trail and over the hill before the snow's gone.

Hauling in logs, to be bucked up and split for firewood, is a spring ritual. Most of the trees that were  hauled in had already fallen on or next to the trail, so it's kind of recycling, in a way, they get used for more that just growing mushrooms.

Out to the Whites...

Went out to the White Mtns. to run dogs with my friend Bill. We did the same trip Andy and I had done back in 2012 (Last dog run...). It was a bit of a slog going in, as the trails were drifted over in places due to recent snow and high winds. There was a lot of running and pushing to get the sled up the steep pitches, but we eventually made it to the cabin. The next few days were beautiful, sunny and not too windy, so like it always is in the Whites, good weather makes for good times. The trip out was easy. The BLM trail crew had groomed the trail while we were in there, so we almost flew down those steep sections of trail that we had struggled to climb earlier. Too much fun.

Bill's team climbing up the ridge-top trail.

Following Bill back to the cabin.

We had beautiful sunsets,

and a full moon every night.

Spuds and Barney at age eleven; still running up front after all these years.

Back to winter...

After one of the warmest winters on record (Warm enough? 3/6/16), it's finally returned to typical winter weather:
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FAIRBANKS AK 3/19/16
 ID           STATION                HI   LO                                              
PAFA  : Fairbanks Airport    17 / -20
PAEI  :  Eielson AFB             16 / -18
PANN  : Nenana                    16 / -20
PATA  :  Tanana                     16 / -21
But for running the dogs, it doesn't get any better than this. Gave the older ones (Barney and Spuds) a day off, so just took the five youngest. Pretty interesting run, since none of the younger leaders know their commands yet. But we made it around the trail and got home just fine. Like most of the time out on the trail, it's just too much fun.