Ally's Adventures

Summer in Alaska

2008-06-13T13:19:00.007-08:00

A beautiful glacier that we flew over in Lake Clark Pass.

Visiting our site which is on a mountain overlooking Lake Clark.
Oh yeah, this is awesome!
Flying in the helicopter on Kodiak Island

At our site in Katmai National Park.

Augustine Volcano

2008-05-19T12:50:00.008-08:00

I am back on the Kittiwake. We motored from Homer out to Augustine Volcano (10 hour ride) to take empty fuel barrels and old batteries off of the island. Augustine is an active volcano and erupted in 2006. We have 5 GPS stations on it to monitor its activity.
The Kittiwake anchored at Augustine.

Augustine, as we fly over to check out our stations.

Slinging gear off of the boat
After a long day of slinging gear off the volcano. Nice hair!

A beautiful sunset as we come into port at Homer. 10pm and the sun is just beginning to set.

Augustine is in the Cook Inlet off the coast of the Alaska Peninsula about 70 miles southwest of Homer.

Chernabura (Shumagin Islands)

2008-05-06T15:45:00.009-08:00

After installing Nagai, we motored 3 hours over to Chernabura Island. We had beautiful weather here and got the site done in a day.
Churnabura Island! Very remote, very beautiful.

Max with the hut
Here I am covering the tools so they don't get blown away by the helicopter.
Our site, very small, at the top of the island.
The helicopter shut down on the boat.

Chilling out, waiting for more supplies to be slung from the boat to the site so we can start.
Ally drilling holes for anchoring down the hut.
Oh yeah, looking tough on the Hiliti.
We looked down to the beach and wanted to go swimming, but then we realized we were in Alaska and not the Caribbean, so we decided not to.

Our tools, in black and white, looking out to the island across the water.
Doerte and I about to hop out of the helo.
Slinging gear

Jeff, the helicopter pilot also helps us with the construction of the sites. Yup, he's awesome!

The Kittiwake and Nagai Island (Shumagin Islands)

2008-05-06T15:01:00.020-08:00

From Sand Point we got on the Kittiwake and motored 8 hours over to Nagai Island which is part of the Shumagin Islands. They are south of the Alaska Peninsula and right before the Aleutian Islands start. The Kittiwake used to be a crabbing boat and used to be called the Time Bandit, so it is the senior to the one on the show The Deadliest Catch. We were on the Kittiwake for 4 days. We were supposed to be on there for atleast a week, but the weather was good and we finished early.

Looking from the wheel house down to the deck with all of our gear.
The gang
"Ah yes, here we are."
Pointing to our current location
Tim, the engineer on the boat

Max and Doerte
Doerte, Max and I all ready to head out to sea.

Doerte checking out our route

Anchored at Nagai Island

Looking out the kitchen window

Tim and John fishing while we have some downtime. They caught some cod so we got fresh blackened cod for dinner! Yum Yum.

John, part of the boat crew, watching our progress from the wheel house.
John, the captain of the Kittiwake.

All our gear on deck
Here's our bunks! Nice and cozy. The waves and motor on the boat rocked me to sleep.
Rob, the helicopter mechanic having a cup a joe on the Kittiwake
Rueben, the cook. Lots of wonderful food. Steak, salad, bacon, eggs, fresh fish...pretty much had it all.

John, Tim and Max hooking the hut up to the helicopter sling.

Jeff peeking his head out of the helicopter to check on the sling load below.

And there it goes...

Max drilling at the site

Looking down to the water below from our site

It was super cold out there so I kept moving and worked hard to keep warm. The winds picked up at the end and snow was coming down so we had to leave and come back the next day to finish.
Our GPS monument built and beautiful looking out across the water.
Doerte at our hut. I drilled the holes for the rock bolts and anchored down the hut.

Max and I working at the site.

Sand Point (Shumagin Islands)

2008-05-06T14:18:00.014-08:00

This is my first install of the season! I was so excited to be out in the field again. Sand Point is on Popof Island which is part of the Shumagin Islands. They are south of the Alaska Peninsula right before the Aleutian chain starts.

I was out for a week and we installed two GPS sites, built a repeater site and did maintenance on a current site at Sand Point. All the gear was staged off of the Kittiwake and we stayed on it for 4 days for the installs.

Looking out to all the fishing boats

There were bald eagles everywhere! This one was sitting on a post while we filled up the truck on the pier with gas.

Very beautiful out there. Looking out to Unga Island across the water

Max, Ben and I heading down to the dock to the Kittiwake.

Oh, Peggy Sue has seen better days...
Max and the little hotel dog. They got to be very good friends.

To the west was the mountainous terrain of Unga Island and to the North was the snow covered majestic Alaska Range across the water.
Hanging out ready to head to the site.

Max filling up the truck at the gas station. It was the same place for both boats and cars so we had to drive out onto the pier to get gas.

Here I am with Doerte checking out the equipment at the Sand Point site

Oh, it was a chilly one. Everything was frozen...hands, feet, bum...I had to dance around all day to keep warm.

Max and I looking tough in our Mustang suits as we are about to fly up to the repeater site on a mountain top above town. The suits are super warm. I felt like a huge warm orange marshmellow.

Here is an overview of where I was. The red arrow is pointing to the Shumagin Islands.

The April Storm and AK Team

2008-04-30T08:14:00.007-08:00

Here I am super excited to be working again in Alaska! This is my 3rd summer with UNAVCO Plate Boundary Observatory.
Ryan, one of the field engineers jammin' out to some tunes while picking up supplies in Anchorage.
Kristen, our permitting assistant and our new manager Brian
The Chugach Mountains sit right above Anchorage. So beautiful. Anchorage definitely has a lot of trucks on the road. I have never seen a city with so many white trucks.
The winter storm! We got over a foot on April 25th. This was very unexpected, but it gave me a good flavor for life in Anchorage during the winter!
Looking from my porch to the snowy scene outside

Excited for the snow!
The apartment is two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a nice kitchen and living room. Very comfortable. I love it!
I love to sit in the chair, look out to the Chugach mountains, and sip my tea. So good!
Here are the Chugach Mountains after the storm looking out from my porch. They hid for at least two days and then the clouds lifted and revealed such a beautiful scene.
I love how the sun lights them up.

Mesa Verde

2008-03-31T15:28:00.004-08:00

So, excited! Road trip to Mesa Verde!

Melissa, taking a self portrait. So nice!

Gotta have the fruit!

Fruit for the road, apple for Ally, orange for Melissa and banana for Megan.

Mesa Verde next exit! Only 45 minutes from Durango. We had to check it out.

Melissa and Ally at the entrance

Melissa and her good friend Megan from Oklahoma

A lot of Mesa Verde has been burned by natural forest fires in the last 20 years.

Stuck behind the slow pokes...Geeze.

Melissa, the photographer

So pretty looking out at Mancos.

Oh, we better be careful.

Super cool ruins from 1300 AD, right before the Pueblo Indians left.

Cliff Palace, you had to be a really awesome rock climber to live here!

The gals being tourists

A lot of the trails were closed because of all the snow they received this winter, so we road around and did all the short hikes to the cliff dwellings.

Lunch break!

Mmmm...yummy

Checking out the Juniper Berries, getting the seeds inside.

Oh, so sad...dead, burned, charred...

Posing in the dead forest

Trying to look tough

It was crazy how much of the park was burned.

Pearl, my beautiful Subaru with the burned trees

Smiling after a wonderful park ranger told us all about the Pueblo Indians.

Looking down into the kiva

Melissa chillin' at the ruins

The Orange Puffs

2007-07-02T16:09:00.001-08:00

We camped out in the Chugach Mountains after work one day. We left around 8pm and got into camp around midnight. No worries about the sunlight, 24 hours baby!
Looking good with that sweet Bam-Bam hairdo!

Brad and I looking off into the distance.

We had an awesome time taking photos of each other in our sweet orange puff jackets. Crazy times.

Dang! Look at that mosquito!

Okay, time for bed.

Geeze! Can I yawn any bigger?

Our awesome camp right above a bunch of beautiful lakes.

Getting ready to head back to the trail head where we stashed our bikes to ride back home.

Hiking back in the Nomex long johns. People gave us some interesting looks.

Dumpster Diving

2007-07-02T15:57:00.000-08:00

I was taking the trash to the dumpster one day and looked inside and saw all this cardboard that could have been recycled! Sara and I jumped into the dumpster, pulled out all the cardboard, and put it into the recycle bin. We got pretty dirty and yes, super smelly, but it was worth it.

Nikolski (Aleutians)

2007-06-28T15:03:00.001-08:00

Here are some photos from Nikolski (One island west of the island of Unalaska). The wind is pretty intense here! More like Nederland on steroids. It took two 12 hour days and lots of wind while installing the GPS, but we “gottr done”.

Vsevidof (right) and Recheshnoi (left), two volcanoes, sit above the town of Nikolski.

Our GPS site sits on the top of this hill. It’s about 3 miles from town and makes for a crazy quad ride when the wind and rain is howling. It really sucks when you forget something in town that you need at the site. Lots of trips up and down this guy. The air force used to have radio towers up on the hill, so there are some roads leading up there. There is an environmental crew up there now removing the underground septic tanks and old oil tanks.

Nikolski used to be a private ranch until the 70s. When they closed the ranch they left it all to the native corporation. Now there are wild horses and cows roaming the island. Pretty cool stuff. I don’t think the cows are aggressive, but I let them have their space.

Max and I flying through the air as we get blow off by the wind.

The view from our lodge looking out at the volcanoes. These accommodations were cush! We got stuck on weather hold for 3 days, but that was fine with me: a wonderful cook, leather couches, lots of tea, good books, internet access...

Here I am drilling a hole for our GPS. It’s my first time drilling! Wahoo!

This old plane sits beside the runway welcoming newcomers when they land at the airstrip.

Steve and Max double-timing it. (That’s my post in the middle).

Waiting on Steve to come up from town with the few things we need to finish the site.

Vsevidof at sundown (10 or 11 pm).

Dutch Harbor (Aleutains)

2007-06-28T14:41:00.001-08:00

Here are some photos of Dutch Harbor (Unalaska). This was our jump off point to Atka and Nikolski where we did 2 GPS installs and 2 maintenance sites. We do have a site in Dutch that we did maintenance on. Lots of fish, lots of boats, lots of bald eagles, lots of beauty! We were here in the Aleutians for 2 weeks!

The Russians “discovered” the Aleutians mid-1700s. This is the oldest cathedral in Alaska! They had a lot of influence on both the architecture and the natives here. Many Aleuts were used for their hunting skills to get seal skins and sea otter fur for the Russians. We bought Alaska from Russia in 1867 for the same reasons…fur!

Lots of crab cages. Mmmm...king crab!

This was this dude’s loot. He would sit here for hours and munch on the yummy scraps from the super expensive hotel restaurant in the background. You could see him out the window of the restaurant munching on the leftovers while you were eating your meal.

Oh yeah, it’s a party at the dumpster! I counted 13 bald eagles while I was taking the photo. I didn’t get too close for fear of pissing anybody off, ha! These guys are huge!

Smile, you’re in the Aleutians!

Beautiful Dutch Harbor! Blue skies! We lucked out!

Dutch was the largest defense outpost in the Aleutians in WWII with 10,000 people. It was bombed by the Japanese in 1942 triggering the relocation of all the Aleuts to camps for 3 years where 10% died from unsanitary conditions (abandoned canneries). Afterwards when they returned, many of their homes were ransacked by the soldiers. The Aleutians were a big part in the Pacific Theater, but many don’t know about the bombings, the occupations, and the relocation camps. Many think of it as the “forgotten war”. Also Attu and Kiska were occupied by the Japanese for a while. These little pillboxes are all over the island and are where soldiers would sit all day and scout for the Japanese.

Ally on the lookout at this pillbox!

Dad, this one’s for you! Huge Coast Guard boat and helicopter in port. All the "coasties" as they call them were really partying at the hotel we were staying at. I had to wear earplugs to get any sleep.

Soldotna

2007-06-25T16:43:00.001-08:00

Here are some photos of our install in Soldotna on the Kenai Peninsula. The install was a deep braced monument, so the holes were drilled about 30 feet into the ground. The drilling took 3 days: broken drill parts, wrong equipment...the drillers were pretty grumpy, but I tried to lighten the atmosphere by offering to pick up some donuts for them when we went into town.

Shuyak (Kodiak)

2007-06-24T15:22:00.001-08:00

These are photos from our last maintenance sight on Kodiak. Right after we got off the plane from Akhiok we ran across the runway to the helicopter that was waiting for us. We loaded up and flew to this little island north of Kodiak. A park ranger, Kevin, came with us to check the sight out. It's pretty sweet because they have a ranger station out on Shuyak that Kevin built during his 12 summers on the island. Kevin (ranger) and Tom (pilot) chilling out

Doerte and Max checking out the GPS receiver.

Picking up batteries from the beach and bringing them up to the site

Doerte checking out the beach. There were huge bear tracks right where she was walking. It looks like the bear took a little dip in the water. It was a beautiful day for a swim so he probably enjoyed that.

We dropped mail off to the rangers out at the station. They are there all summer on the island maintaining 4 public use cabins.

Four-Peaked (left) and Mt. Douglas volcano across the Cook Inlet. I flew over Four Peaked last year during the time it was venting. The USGS wanted us to go document it since we had the helicopter out at Augustine volcano.
Our beautiful site!

Kevin and Max being dropped at the site while we fly down to the beach so we can send up batteries that were dropped off by a float plane earlier in the week.

Doerte and the State Park Ranger hanging out waiting to get on the helo

Flying to Shuyak Island

“10-4 good buddy. Mission accomplished. We’re coming home!” Ha Ha.

Atka (Aleutains)

2007-06-22T02:04:00.001-08:00

Atka! An island on the western side of the Aleutians. The village has about 30 people. Crazy! Everyone was super nice. We spent 3 days here installing a GPS monument. We had beautiful weather. Look at that blue! So rare.

“How does this thing work again?”

Here I am on the quad. I did a lot of shuttling on this thing lugging equipment and batteries. Fun stuff. I got to be fairly proficient!

A moment of Ally’s bizarre weirdness. I thought I would do a beautiful self portrait. Ha Ha!

Atka

Max and Steve working hard. Don’t worry, I’m working my butt off too.

Building our GPS monument, she’s a beauty!

Hanging out with the Epoxy gun

Steve and I flying from Dutch Harbor to Atka. Jammed into the plane with all our equipment.

The arrows show Dutch Harbor on the island of Unalaska, Akutan, and Nikolski on Umnak Island. Atka is off the map more to the west.

Akutan (Aleutians)

2007-06-22T01:27:00.001-08:00

Here are some photos of Steve and I going over to Akutan to do some maintenance on our communications hut in town. Akutan is one island east of Unalaska. It is a little native village of about 50 people. The volcano on the island is also called Akutan and we have 9 GPS stations monitoring it.

Playing tug-a-war with this native dog. He carried the 2x6 around all day and he wouldn’t let you play fetch because he never dropped it.

The village is made up of all these little boardwalks.

He’s still got his 2x6.

The Goose landing. PenAir has 3 “Geese” and they are all from the 1940s. They don’t make them anymore. They just keep repairing them.

Akutan, the village, sits at the foot of this mountain on the bay.

Flying by the Orthodox Church.

We flew over on the Goose. It is amphibious so it can takeoff or land in the water or land.

Akutan, the VOLCANO!

Firearms Training

2007-06-22T01:17:00.001-08:00

Here are photos from our 4-day firearms course. We shot 12-gauge shot guns, .45-70 rifles, and .44 magnum revolvers. I personally liked the .45-70 rifle the best. I felt like I could get the best shot off with it and the best aim. It was awesome!

Sara (my new roommate and other student field assistant) being awesome and shooting the .44 mag.

Ryan in action with the .44 magnum revolver.

Pulling out the .44.

Shooting the .45-70 rifle.

Oh yeah. Check out that bruise. It got a lot worse by the end of the day.

I’m dominant with my left eye, so I have to put by head across the butt of the shotgun to see the sights clearly. It kept hitting me in the mouth and I got a huge fat lip. I don’t like the shotgun because it hurt me, but the rifle was nice to me.

Taking out the bad boys.

Steve Nelson, the instructor helping me get comfortable with the revolver.

Posing as a model for Revlon, check out those nails!

Visualizing success!

Sara with the 12-gauge

Sara and Ally (The Interns)

2007-06-22T01:12:00.001-08:00

These are photos of my roommate Sara and I . We have soooooo much fun together. Crazyness all the time!
Sara in her flight suit getting ready to fly on the bird.

Twins in our awesome orange Montbell puffs.
Oh yeah, the Bolder-Boulder lunch boxes. They travel everywhere we go!
Mmmm...
Taking in Alaska!

Hiking Powerline Pass near Anchorage.

The Slush Cup

2007-06-22T01:04:00.000-08:00

I went up to Alyeska for the Slush Cup with my co-worker Kristen and her kids Hunter and Kaitlin. Also Max and Ryan who work with us were there too. I dressed up as a gangster, viking, bat lady with UNAVCO and Earthscope stickers all over me.

I was one of 40 crazy people to tuck as fast as I could down the hill and try to make it across a 100 ft pool of icy cold water without falling in. Some costumes were: a big banana, a moose poop, Borat, triathlon man, a gorilla, a penguin, Winnie the Poo, a drunken Bode Miller, Jesus…

Ryan, Hunter, and Kaitlin
Max wearing the viking wig. Looking good.

You would have to go off this jump, get some air, and glide across the pool.

I didn’t make it either…but I got some pretty awesome air and speed.

A friend in Florida was reading OK magazine and saw my picture in it! I have no idea how I got in , but I thought that was pretty sweet!

The A-Team!

2007-06-22T00:56:00.000-08:00

Here's the Alaska crew aka the A-Team. We rock, we're cool, we get 'er done!Kristen (Earth Rooster)
Ally (Earth Snake)
Ben (Water Rat)
Ryan (Metal Monkey)
Sara (Wood Ox)
Max (Wood Rabbit)
Jeff our helicopter pilot (Water Tiger)

Sitkinak (Kodiak)

2007-06-22T00:45:00.001-08:00

We are flying from Akhiok to Sitkinak for some maintenance. Sitkinak is a small island south of Akhiok near Kodiak Island. A rancher lives over there with a bunch of cows. It’s about a 15 minute ride.

Max and Dörte getting ready to weld the solar panels on.

Our enclosure with the GPS receiver and radio that shoots to our VSAT (internet connection) over at Akhiok across the water.

Our site at Sitkinak from the helicopter. Solar panels blown off, battery chest exposed, batteries dead.

Staring off into space…

The helicopter couldn’t shut down up at the site because it was too windy so he had to go lower on the mountain. We unloaded at the site with the rotors still going, that was intense unloading while the blades were still turning. Stay low.

Akhiok (Kodiak)

2007-06-22T00:25:00.001-08:00

After Old Harbor we flew back to the city of Kodiak and then on to the southern part of the island to a village called Akhiok. We chartered a little Islander plane from Island Air.

Hanging out with my buddy.
Gary and Buster hanging out at the runway.

The Russian Orthodox Church with the only trees around Akhiok

Akhiok

This is Buster. He’s Gary Jr.’s (GJ) dog. GJ helped us bring gear up to the site way up on the ridge above town. Buster followed GJ everywhere. He’s following us to the airport in this photo. I think Buster ran more than a marathon on this first day.

Doerte fixing the guy wires on the swing set.

Touching down at the airport in Akhiok

Old Harbor (Kodiak)

2007-06-21T23:45:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos from Old Harbor on Kodiak Island. This was the first site that we visited on Kodiak to do maintenance. We had 4 stations and 1 week. Lots of flying, lots of beautiful sights.

The village of Old Harbor

Max sporting the weapons

Views from our site on the hill

Max chatting on the sat phone
Max and Doerte working on our station

Big bear country. We saw 4 right before we landed about a mile from the runway just playing in the river.

The stash: notebook, file, computer, camera, enclosure key, and the guns.

Old Harbor is on the east side of Kodiak Island, Akhiok is on the southern part of the island, Sitkinak is a little island south of Akhiok, and Shuyak is an island north of Kodiak.