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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Ian Healy's LiveJournal:
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| Monday, August 6th, 2007 | | 11:35 am |
Teklanika Headwaters
Heya, everybody. I figured I'd do a couple posts on here to show what's been happening this summer. This post will be about a trip Emily and I made a couple weeks ago. My next post will try to encompass stuff throughout the whole summer. Anyways, here are some pretty pictures: We followed the Teklanika River up to its headwaters where some glaciers feed into it. This area of the park was really amazing. We were about 12 miles up the river, so it felt like we were getting pretty deep inside the park.  We had pretty weather... throughout the entire trip. This was amazing - I've never had such good luck with the weather. I usually bring rain gear and no sun screen. After three days out here, I was wishing I had sun screen.  This was where we were headed.  We had pretty views from our campsite.  Emily and I.  A pretty view back at our tent.  Emily and I with a crazy vertical rock wall behind us.   A nice campsite. On the second day, we spent some time exploring the glaciers.  Look Ma, I'm touching a glacier!  Emily hiking on the glacial moraine (rock and sediment covering ice) with the visible glacier in the background.  "Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........."  Closer to the glacier.   Some nice panoramic glacier pictures.  A look back at the glacier after coming back down.  Emily and I with the glaciers in the background.  A perfect view out of the tent on the last night. Well, I hope you liked the pictures. I'll be doing the whole summer picture extravaganza post here pretty soon. | | Saturday, June 9th, 2007 | | 7:42 am |
Building Base Camp for Mt. McKinley
Hello, everybody. Things have been as busy as can be up here in Denali. I've spent most of my free time developing campground programs, backcountry hiking programs, theater presentations, dog sled demos, riding the trains with the visitors programs, and guided hikes. So, my time available for writing in this journal has been at a minimum lately. Now that the big rush of developing new programs throughout the first month has subsided, I will hopefully be able to post on a more regular weekly or bi-weekly schedule. Anyway... about base camp. I was scheduled to be up there April 25th through the 28th. We were delayed one day going up there and we were delayed one day coming off of the mountain, so everything evened out in the end. My four days on the mountain were mostly spent shoveling lots of snow so that we could build tents and other structures for the upcoming climbing season. We did get a chance to have some fun while we were up there. We were able to do a little cross-country skiing around the glacier, and there was always time to sled down some of the little hills. Enough gibber-jabber, it's time for pictures... and lots of them. Day 1 "Hurry up and wait." - Wednesday - April 25th The day before this there had been a fatality on Mount Wake in the Alaska Range. The guy in charge of base camp, John Evans, had been called out on a body recovery search. Needless to say, our plans for getting things together for base camp were put on hold while John dealt with the situation at hand. We rushed all morning to get gear ready to load onto the plane. Our flight was scheduled for noon so that we could finish all the work that was supposed to happen the day before. Then, the clouds moved in. Our flight was pushed back to 2… then 3… then 4… then, it was decided we would be spending our night in Talkeetna yet again. The guy in charge of the ranger station in Talkeetna said it best, “When you’re here, you’re not on your schedule - you’re on the mountains’ schedule.” Here’s a slide from my theater presentation PowerPoint so you get an idea of where we were headed.  Day 2 “Dig, Dig, Dig.” – Thursday – April 26th We awoke to perfectly clear blue skies. It was time to go. We got everything loaded into the trucks and headed over to the Talkeetna Airport. We were flying a fairly large plane called an ‘Otter.’ Our pilot was a great guy named Tony. He had hung out with us the night before at the bar. Everybody knows everybody in Talkeetna. Luckily, he only drank a couple.  This was our plane with a bunch of our gear. A large portion of the gear for base camp had already been flown up onto the mountain.  Here’s our plane – again.  Left to right – Wayne, John Evans, myself. I felt pretty tall on this trip.  Since it was my first time in a little plane, they said I had to sit up front next to Tony.  Here, we are flying into the Alaska Range. Our flight was about 30 minutes.  We were getting deeper inside the mountains now. It had been smooth up to this point, but then we started rocking and rolling pretty good. The plane was jostling back and forth, and then you’d feel weightless for a couple seconds. It felt pretty rough to me. Tony saw my hand gripping the handle in front of me. “This stuff is light,” he said. Wayne, who was sitting in the back came over our headsets, “I don’t know – this feels like a pretty good medium to me.”  We’ve landed safe and sound. Now, I’m looking west from base camp along the Kahiltna Glacier. That’s Mount Foraker in the background at 17,400 feet. It’s the second highest peak in the Alaska Range. Base camp is at 7,200 feet. So, that vertical relief for Foraker is about 10,000 feet from where I’m standing.  Towering on the east part of base camp is Mount Hunter. At 14,573 feet, it’s the third highest peak in the Alaska Range. We would watch throughout the day as avalanches would fall off of Hunter. It sounded like a cannon going off. Then, the avalanches would hit the glacier at the bottom and the snow clouds that those impacts produced were huge. One of the largest ones we saw probably traveled about a mile. Good thing we were a couple miles away.  Digging the snow was hard work. On top of that, the jump in elevation didn’t make things any easier. We had great weather throughout that whole first day. It was probably 60 degrees in the sun, and we were working in our t-shirts.  Here’s a nice 360 degree view of base camp.  I had skied out along the airstrip and took a panoramic picture of base camp. While skiing along the airstrip, I didn’t have to be roped in to anyone. The mornings when we went skiing around the glacier, we put on our harnesses and roped off to each other. Too bad my camera was frozen that morning.  Here, I’m going to bed with some nice alpenglow happening on the mountains. It was getting pretty chilly at night (between 0 and – 10). Our sleeping bags were rated to – 40, so I was pretty toasty. Still, you had to sleep with everything that you didn’t want freezing. Day 3 “Where’d the mountains go?” – Friday – April 27th We woke up to some cloudy, snowy weather. We spent most of the day finishing up our digging and constructing the weather port for base camp. There are not too many great pictures. It took us awhile, but we eventually got the weather port constructed and everything moved inside.  Here’s the view of base camp from the airstrip. You definitely couldn’t see very far.  It was a somewhat mysterious atmosphere since the clouds had come down so low. Day 4 “Wow, what an amazing view….. %*&$! My camera is frozen!” – Saturday – April 28th We were scheduled to fly out on this day. We woke up early, had some breakfast, and got all of our personal stuff packed up in case the planes started to show up. There was no radio or satellite phone communication because the radio repeaters hadn’t been set up yet and our satellite phone wasn’t working properly. There was no way of knowing when the planes would arrive. Mary Jane, Peggy, Wayne, and I got harnessed up and roped together. We went skiing around the glacier that morning as a little celebration for a job well done. It was pretty amazing getting outside of the camp area and getting to explore the glacier. Once we got back to camp later in the morning, it was apparent that the planes wouldn’t be flying in that day. While it was pretty sunny, the wind was blowing the snow off the tops of the mountains, so we knew it was blowing around pretty well higher up. I eventually got my camera working for a little while that day.  Here’s Mount Foraker with some mean looking clouds forming around it. Day 5 “The sunshine is back!” – Sunday – April 29th We awoke to clear skies and low winds. It was nice to see the good weather return, but we knew that we would have to be leaving. The planes started to show up around 10 in the morning. There were lots of climbers flying up who were getting ready to try their own summit attempts. We spent our morning helping other people unload their supplies and digging some holes for their tents. Wayne and I also dug some latrine holes for people to have some privacy while they used their Clean Mountain Can (Google it). Wayne came up with the best name for the latrine ever – “The Full Curl.” This refers to the horns of the dall sheep rams. If they are old, their horns complete a circle and it’s called a “Full Curl.” This also refers to something else that might happen in a latrine when you go number two.  Sunrise over Mount Hunter.  Here’s base camp – all built. The weather port is that yellow structure closest to the camera. There’s Mount McKinley in the background. It’s kind of anti-climatic from this area.  One of the planes coming in for a landing. Our plane didn’t show up till a while later.  Who’s this ugly guy up in base camp?  Looking back at base camp as we take off.  Here’s the Kahiltna Glacier. What a pretty view.  We say goodbye to base camp as we make our way over the mountains, into the clouds, and back down to Talkeetna. I hope you’ve enjoyed the pictures. | | Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007 | | 9:40 am |
Cathedral Mountain
Hey, everybody. Sorry I have been pretty bad about posting on here. Now that the summer is coming back, I should have lots of good stuff to post. In fact, I just got back from spending 4 days on the Kahiltna Glacier setting up base camp for Mt. McKinley. It was an amazing trip. I'm holding off on posting stuff for a little while, because the people I was up there with are sending me their pictures. I have lots of good pictures myself, but I want to get all of them. I'll post all those pictures and tell the stories in my next post. Here's a bit of a preview:  My last day at base camp after doing lots of shoveling and lots of building. Anyways, our training has started up here, and things are really moving along. The snow has mostly melted, and our park road is open to Mile 30. I've gotten to drive out along the road quite a few times, and I've gone on some good biking and hiking trips. The animals are waking up big time, and I've seen lots of caribou, moose, wolves, and returning birds. I just saw my first grizzlies of the season yesterday. It's nice seeing all the animals coming back. One good trip I got to do inside the park was driving out to the Mile 30 rest stop, biking in a long ways, and then hiking up Cathedral Mt. with my buddies. Here are some of the pictures:  Us at the top of Cathedral Mt. Will, Jared, and myself. There was a great view of Denali that day. Too bad my big, fat Irish head is blocking a good portion of it.  Coming down off of Cathedral... the fast way.  Again... the fast way. Anyways, I hope you enjoy the pictures, and I hope everybody is doing well back home. I think the one thing I've forgotten to mention since my last update is that I did get hired this summer as a Park Ranger - Interpreter. So, I'll be doing lots of dog demos, guided hikes, campground programs, and almost ZERO desk time! Huzzah! Again, take care. | | Saturday, March 31st, 2007 | | 3:39 pm |
Soundscape Study
My roommate, Jared, and I went out on snowmobiles last Wednesday to go work on a sound-recording station. Jared is a physical scientist in the park who is in charge of the Soundscape study. This study utilizes many different recording stations inside the park to measure both human-made and naturally produced sounds. Studies such as these have begun to grow really fast in the park service. The goal is to figure out how much human activity (flightseeing) occurs in an area, and then compare that to visitor expectations and wildlife activity. For example, if an area is a migration ground for caribou or if it is a place deep within the wilderness area where visitors like to escape from modern life, maybe we shouldn't have 10 planes flying overhead every day. The park can then begin generating policies telling flightseeing companies where they can fly and how often they can run trips through a given area. It's a very long-term study, and it's got a lot going for it. Here are pictures from our last trip:  Here are our snowmobiles in the foreground and Jared working on the soundstation in the background. You can see the microphones supported by tripods. The station is powered by a solar panel that you can't see in this picture.  Not a bad place to work, eh? We did have absolutely perfect weather that day.  Those machines can move pretty darn quick. See Mom and Dad, we're wearing helmets.  I used Jared's super-nice camera to take a bunch of pictures and then put them together to make one big panoramic picture. There's a really neat free program called Huggin that compiles all of the pictures together and turns them into one, seamless picture. Pretty awesome view, eh? Well, that's it for today. The 3 day backcountry trip that I did inside the park a couple weeks ago went pretty well. I should be getting some pictures from that trip from my friend pretty soon, and I'll be sure to put them on here. My big trip is happening in late April. From April 24th through the 28th, I'll be helping to set up base camp on Mt. McKinley. We'll be flying onto the Kahiltna Glacier, landing at 7,000 feet, and then spending a few days getting all of the tents and shelters set up for the summer climbing season. There should be some good pictures from that trip. | | Sunday, March 11th, 2007 | | 1:57 pm |
A Friend's Photos
The following photos come from a bus driver from our park who is also a professional photographer in her free time. These photos are a pretty graphic example of predator/prey interactions.     The winter has still been going strong up here. We've been dropping to -30 degrees at night but warming up to 10 degrees during the day. Fortunately, March has brough plenty of clear skies and lots of sunshine. My summer job search is still going strong as well. I've been offered a Park Ranger - Visitor Use Assistant position for the summer (the same stuff I was doing last summer, but getting paid!) My boss and I are waiting to see if I've gotten any other positions that I'd prefer, such as Wildlife Technician or Trail Crew. So, I can't wait to find out what I'll be doing this summer. I've got 2 or 3 weeks off coming up in April. My trip to help set up base camp on Mt. McKinley is scheduled for April 24-28. That should be a great trip, and I'm sure I'll learn a lot. Hopefully, I'll also get out for some backcountry trips, and I'll be able to put some good pictures on here. Enjoy the warm weather down south. | | Monday, February 5th, 2007 | | 3:04 pm |
Mt. Healy Winter Snowshoe Hike Video
Well, I went hiking up Mt. Healy a couple weeks ago, and I took a video camera with me. I put my video editing skills to good use and made a 3 minute video with some nice music. It was my first weekend in a long, long time when I had sunlight and clear weather. I'd forgotten what direct sunlight was like. Still, you can see throughout the video how the sun just barely makes its way above the mountains to the south. I left C-Camp at about 10 am, and I got back from the hike at about 4 pm. Throughout the video, I am hiking up the south side of Mt. Healy, and I am continually looking back south towards the Alaska Range. There are a couple parts of the video with animal tracks. The first clip is of an area where a Moose slept and walked around, and the second clip is of some Snowshoe Hare tracks. I just didn't want anyone to be confused. Click on the link and you can experience the highlights of the hike without dealing with the super cold temperatures I ran into once I got above treeline. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4372159296637094828I hope everyone is enjoying the cold weather back in Illinois. It's been colder there than here for the last week or two now. *If you want, send me a comment or email on the video. I can't stream video on gov't computers, so I have no idea how this video looks. Is it fuzzy? clear? as good as can be expected?* | | Friday, February 2nd, 2007 | | 2:14 pm |
| | Monday, January 8th, 2007 | | 3:32 pm |
Solstice and Christmas
Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Holidays and applications for summer jobs have kept me busy lately. Anyways, winter solstice (December 21st) was a pretty big deal up here. This guy named Jeff King threw a huge party for everyone in the community. Jeff King is a dog musher who lives in the area and he has won the Iditarod four times. I actually have been working at his place on the weekends to make a few bucks on the side. He has 100 dogs, so the job of mixing food and picking up dog poop is on a ridiculously large scale. Here are some pictures that I took during the winter solstice. This is the view out of the front of our visitor center.  9am  10am  11am  Noon  1pm  2pm (already getting dark again) My friends and I spent Christmas at this one ladies' house who we worked with this summer. Her name is Jurine. She lives a pretty hardcore Alaskan lifestyle. She doesn't have electricity and she doesn't have running water. The Christmas lights you see were hooked up to a car battery. Here are some pictures.  As you might be able to tell, her husband is a big time hunter. Unlike most sport hunting in the lower 48, people up here use every part of the animal. When he shoots a moose, that's most of their food for the winter. Unfortunately, Jurine's husband had to work during Christmas so he's not in any of the pictures.  Here's Chris with Jurine and Hanna in the background. We got to her place around noon and she stuff us with food for about eight hours straight.  Ahhh, relaxation. A nice fire and a nice dog. What you can't tell from this picture is the worry in the back of my mind that I'll eventually have to get up and go use the outhouse even though it's -20 degrees outside. It's refreshing ... kinda.  Here we all were. Hanna, Jamie, Chris, Me. Jurine and her dog, Ty, are in the foreground. It was a great Christmas. A nice cabin, a nice fire, good food, and good friends. Well, I hope you enjoyed the pictures. It got down to about -40 degrees today. My boss and I did the trick where you throw a cup of boiling water into the air. It immediately turned into this snowy fog and floated away. None of it hit the ground. Plus, it made this pretty weird whistling sound when it happened. Brrrrrr. | | Sunday, December 17th, 2006 | | 11:56 am |
A Wildlife Encounter and Some Artwork
So, this happened about a week or so ago. I was walking from the showerhouse back to my cabin. It was really dark outside. For everyone who is interested, the sun is rising 10:47 AM and it is going down at 3:11 PM for a day length of 4 hours and 24 minutes. Anyway, I'm walking through this dark part of C-Camp and I see this black shadow coming towards me. It looks like it's about the size of a big dog. I freeze and stand still. Then, I realized that one of the girls in C-Camp always lets her dog out. So, I squat down and hold my hand out and say, "Come here, Gypsy." As the shadow is walking towards me, I'm thinking, 'oh, god, I hope this is Gypsy.' Luckily, it was. The day after this happened I was walking from my cabin down to the shower house. It was about the same time of night and it was really dark. Again, I see this black shadow coming towards me out of the darkness. This time, I was happy. I was like, "Oh, it's Gypsy. Come here, Gyp." The shadow moved closer and closer to me. It was about a foot away when I realized it wasn't Gypsy. It was a Red Fox. He stopped about a foot away from my outstretched hand. Now, I could see him perfectly, because my eyes started to adjust. He sat down and looked at me. I was still squatting there. So, there we were, right next to eachother. I'm like, "Hey, little man, you're getting a little too friendly for being a wild animal." I was enjoying being around him too much, so I kept squatting there without moving. It probably lasted about 5 minutes. His coat was beautiful, and he was really cute, because he kept yawning. Finally, I stood up, and said, "Go on, get outta here." He didn't respond at all. I started to walk away from him, and he started to follow me. I stopped and turned around. He stopped. So, I made a bit of a step at him like I was going to chase him. He kinda did this run around, spin move, I-want-to-play type jump. I figured I'd just keep walking and pretend to ignore him. He followed me for quite a long way, but he eventually walked off in the other direction. So, that was a long story. Who knows, maybe he was just trying to lure me into a trap where 30 other foxes were laying in wait to jump me. I was still happy to get a cool interaction like that with a wild animal. Now, for some artwork. I've done a couple pictures for my friends after they saw the pictures I did before. Here they are:   Here's Larkspur. He's a retired dog from the kennels. Actually, he's more like a small horse than a dog.   Here's Sesi. She's one of the smallest, sweetest dogs at the kennels. Well, I hope you enjoy the story and the pictures. | | Thursday, December 7th, 2006 | | 3:46 pm |
Heat Wave
We're having a heat wave up here. It has reached +35 degrees outside. In all seriousness, feeling +35 when it has been - 35 makes it feel like summer outside. I've heard of something called 'hardening' before. You get so used to cold temperatures that your body begins to adapt. My friend, Chris, and I took a hike out along the park road the other day. The road itself is closed to vehicles at Mile 3. We took a couple dogs out and hiked out to about mile 10 or so. I don't think I wore gloves or a hat the whole time. Of course, I brought some anyways just in case. Here are some pictures:  Here's Hogan in the foreground and Keta in the background. The wildlife seems to be quiet this time of year. I haven't seen much of anything besides the Red Fox that hangs around C-Camp.  Here's the view from where we sat down and took our break. Unfortunately, Mt. McKinley was not out. You could sit out that and not hear anything. Amazing silence.  Here's Hogan and me. Awwww. The poor little guy is going to get retired soon. He's 8 years old and he's got a bone spur on his back that's keeping him from pulling a sled. The kennel staff is looking long and hard for a good home for him. And finally, I got a picture from a friend a while back from this past summer. I look back at these pictures sometimes to remember what short sleeves were like. Ahhh.... the memories. Remember short sleeves? Remember sunlight?  Well, that's it for me for now. I've actually been really busy doing art stuff at night. I'm doing some pictures for my friends for Christmas. Sorry, but I'm not going to post them until Christmas is done and I've handed out the presents. The one thing that's been rough has been the holidays away from home. My Thanksgiving was spent up here with my coworkers. It was a great night with lots of food and lots of fun. I think I have plans for New Years, but I'm not sure yet. Christmas is still up in the air. If you have time, letters, emails, and comments would be greatly appreciated. Stay warm back in Illinois. I think it's actually colder down there, and you guys have more snow. | | Monday, November 20th, 2006 | | 11:18 am |
- 30 °F
Yup, that's right minus thirty degrees Fahrenheit. That's about the coldest it has gotten around here, and that's not counting the windchill. Lately, it has been about -20 degrees and night and -5 degrees during the day. I can't remember the last time it got above 0. The lack of daylight is also getting pretty bad. The sun is rising around 9:30 or 10 and it is going back down around 4. The key seems to be taking advantage of the sunlight while it's there and doing some stuff outside. So far, I've gotten to do some cross-country skiing, and I've also gotten to do more of the dog mushing training. Here are some pictures.  My friend, Chris, and I went cross-country skiing during my last weekend. When we left, the thermometer outside was reading - 25 °F. The wind chill was killer, because it was blowing about about 20 mph. As you can see in the picture, I managed to grow some pretty good ice crystals on my eyelashes. Cross-country skiing at this temperature was not bad at all. It's just when we stood still that the cold started to get bad.  The cold here starts to become relative, I suppose. 0 degrees is now referred to as a 'balmy zero degrees.' Like I said before, I've gotten to do some more dog mushing training. We've been getting more snow, little by little. There's still not enough around this area to take the sleds out, so we're still stuck using the ATV's for the training.  There I am, having fun by riding around on the ATV. Alex has all of the dogs lined up in front of his ATV.   Here's Alex and Jess on the ATV. Here's a little fact about dog mushing that you may not know. When the dogs are running and they have to go to the bathroom, they kinda run and poop at the same time. They lean back and go and their front legs are going a million miles an hour to try and keep up. Anyways, the tug lines that come off of the back of their harnesses have a little brass latch that you use to hook up the dogs. It seems like more times than not, their poop hits this latch and instantly freezes to it. The point of this story is that when you're finished mushing and you have to unhook the team, you usually don't have very clean hands afterwards. I would not suggest ever shaking the hand of a dog musher after they have been running their dogs.  Riding an ATV like this is the worst when it is cold outside since you're not moving. Oh well, it's still a blast.  And here are some of the dogs in the dogbox that we transport them in. There's Esker in the middle with his super-big, super-blue eyes. Well, that's all I really have for this update. I think the worst part of it being so cold up here is that you can't make snowballs. The snow just doesn't pack when it's this cold. Anyways, I hope everybody is doing well back home and I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving. | | Friday, November 3rd, 2006 | | 12:39 pm |
Dog Mushing, My Cabin, and Art
Well, it's been getting pretty cold. Tonight is supposed to get down to minus 15 degrees. Brrrrrr. In preparation for bad weather, I drove to Fairbanks during my last weekend and got enough food to last me through January. Anyways, I have gotten to help with the ATV training to get the dogs in shape for dog mushing. Here are some pictures:  Here's Carmen and myself taking a break during the training. I'm the one with the funny blue hat on. I seem to have lost my winter hat on the way up here. I found this blue one laying around, and while it may not be very fashionable, it is very warm.  Here's a view from the ATV. Overall, the dogs were great with following commands. They would still take a wrong turn once in a while, or they would get distracted and mess around. I figured I would share some pictures of my cabin with everybody. The cabin I am in now is about 100 times nicer than the one I was in this past summer.  There's my cabin and there's my truck. I don't think our front porch is going to get much use this winter.  Here's the inside of the cabin. As you can see, we only have the bare essentials. I did bring a lot of stuff up here to keep us entertained when it's minus 50 outside.  And here's my room. I did manage to cover one whole wall with pictures from this summer.  Finally, here's the state-of-the-art weight room located behind my cabin. As you can see, I'm modeling my training after Rocky in Rocky IV... you know, the one where he fights the Russian guy. I've also been working on my artwork this winter. My subjects right now are the dogs at the kennels. Chinook   Beluga   Tonzona   Tahluu   Well, that's a lot of pictures. I hope you enjoyed the update. | | Thursday, October 26th, 2006 | | 11:24 am |
Update, Thursday, October 26th
Hello, everybody. The update for today consists of a couple of my favorite things up here... puppies and eating contests. Luckily, those two things are not being combined. Winter is officially here. We've been getting quite a bit of snow, maybe about 3 inches or so. Yesterday, I drove to the town of Healy which is about 10 miles north of us and they had more than double the snow we have. The little microclimates here vary a lot. It's also been getting down to around 5 degrees at night. Pretty chilly. I'll be posting some of the winter pictures here in the next few days. Here are a couple pictures that I meant to put on here about a month ago. Chris, Jay, and I decided we would see who could eat the most by going to a restaurant called Rose's and ordering Grizzly Burgers. If you finish the burger, they put your picture on the wall. The burger consists of a 1 pound beef patty, an egg, 2 slices of ham, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, and a bun. Plus, they pile a bunch of fries on the side.   Of course, we all finished our meals. I won the award for cleanest plate. Jay won the award for speed. Chris won the award for looking the most like Cat Stevens. My picture is actually up on the wall twice at Rose's since I had eaten the burger one time before this. You know you're jealous. Now, time for puppies. Taking the puppies for walks is always a lot of fun. They run around and do their own exploring, but they always look back and keep an eye on you so that they don't get lost. Getting to see the pups grow up has been an amazing experience. Their instincts are so strong, it is just astounding. They seem to know so much after having experienced so little. Still, they are learning a lot about the world every day.  Spur on the left, Sultana on the right.  Sultana crossing a stream.  Sultana, then Cassin, then Fin, then Spur.  Here are the puppies figuring out what a creek is.  Here they are making their way back up the hill. And here's one funny picture from this past summer that I found. Sometimes, the visitors don't realize that some of our dogs believe themselves to be lap dogs.  I hope you enjoyed the pictures. Get ready for lots of pictures with lots of snow here pretty soon. | | Thursday, October 19th, 2006 | | 9:40 am |
New Update! October 19th
Sorry for taking so long to update everything. I've been busy driving up here and getting everything moved in, and things have been slow-going. Anyways, yes, I drove all the way up here from Illinois. First, I drove to Montana since I have some family that live there. Then, I drove straight up through Canada for a while - Calgary and then Edmonton. After that, I was driving northwest on the Alaska Highway for about 1300 miles. Overall, it was a pretty good trip. I had good weather, and I got to see lots of animals. I saw more Buffalo than I can remember, I saw Caribou, Stone Sheep (kinda like the Dall Sheep we have here in the park except brown and bigger), a Black Bear, a Wolf, and a Red Fox. There were also lots of horses and cows on the highway throughout various parts of Montana and Canada. I guess open range really means open range. Now, I'm all settled in at my cabin and things are going well. I have a roommate named Jared. He works on the Soundscape studies taking place inside the park. That studies involves placing microphones at various locations inside the park and monitoring them to see how much noise pollution there is from planes or other human sources. There are only a few people living up in C-Camp where we have our cabins - Jared, Alex, Cass, Carmen, Jess, and myself. Alex, Cass, and I staff this winter visitor center, and Carmen and Jess are the dog mushers for this winter. I'm staffing the winter visitor center, and this place is getting quieter by the day. The weather has not been too bad. We don't have very much snow on the ground. At least, not enough to lead the snowshoe hikes or the cross country skiing trips we are going to do this winter. The coldest night here so far reached about 5 degrees. Generally, it's been pretty mild - about 30 to 40 degrees during the day and about 20 degrees at night. If anyone reading this wants information about the park... or if they just want to call me, the park information number is 1-907-683-9532. It will probably be me answering and saying, "Denali National Park, this is Ian. How may I help you?" I do have a cell phone up here now, but I forget my own number. I think it's 1-309-716-8832. I need to double check on that. Anyways, I have had time to take a few pictures. The northern lights have been out a lot lately. My roommate, Jared, has a really nice camera, so we went out on the park road one night and took some pictures. Here is the best one:  This picture really conveys what the lights look like up here. It's pretty amazing. Plus, the dogs up here are very sensitive to the lights. They bark and howl a lot when the lights are really bright. That kind of adds to the mysterious atmosphere.  My friend, Chris Infante, and I drove out Teklanika on our day off and then biked a long ways into the park. Here's a picture from the Teklanika river looking south into the Alaska Range.  Here I am at the Sable Wildlife Closure. You can see that there is a decent amount of snow on the ground, but it's not completely covered.  We found these tracks along the road. It seems that this Wolf may have been following this Snowshoe Hare.  A lot of times, people are surprised when they see a Wolf, because it is a lot bigger than they expected. Here's my handprint next to the wolf's pawprint for scale.  And, of course, here's a beautiful sunset to end the trip. Sorry it took so long for me to get an update on here. Also, sorry to anyone back at home that I didn't have a chance to visit. I only had about 1 and a half weeks back at home, and I spent all of that time with my family, my friends back at home, and doing a million different things to get ready for the drive up here. I hope everyone is doing well, and I hope you enjoyed the pictures. | | Sunday, September 17th, 2006 | | 12:42 pm |
Update, Sunday, September 17th
Well, it's official, I'm going to be up here this winter. I'll be working in the winter visitor center, staffing the desk and leading guided snowshoe hikes. There are also tons of other little projects that I'll be part of. I need to make myself as available as possible. I may get to go out with the park researchers on overflights while they do the Moose and Wolf counts. It'd be great to start working with some of the park biologists and really get to use my degree. I will also get to go out with the Dog Sled Patrols once in a while inside the wilderness area, and I may get to go on some of the snowmobile patrols outside of the wilderness area. There are a lot of opportunities for me here this winter. It should be good. So, I am going to be flying home on the 22nd. Then, I'll be at home for about a week and a half. Then, I'll be driving back up here and starting work on October 9th. I hope to see a lot of you guys when I'm home. Anyways, I've already posted a ton of wildlife pictures and whatnot, so I figured I'd mix it up a bit. Here are some pictures from the visitor center that we work out of.  Here's the front desk that we work at.  Here's the nicest lady in the world, Jurine. She always bakes cookies and cakes for us. The fastest way to a Ranger's heart is through his stomach.  Here's one of my supervisors, Jennifer. Since Jurine had to sit on my lap, I had to take a turn sitting on Jennifer's lap.  Here's another crazy supervisior, Jim Lebel. I like to call him 'the hobbit.' Tiny little guy.  Here's Hope. This place would have fallen apart without her. She's back home right now hunting Moose. What a girl!  Here's some of our West side staff, Cass and Dan. They're pretty isolated out there in the park, so they get kinda crazy.  Here's more of our West side staff, Denise and Brandie... see, still crazy.  We have to swear in lots of Junior Rangers every day.  Here's Jay and my roommate Brian... trying to look tough.  And here are the real tough guys with our 'law enforcement' pose. And, of course, I have to make time for the new puppies that we have here. The kennels will be keeping 4 of the 9 puppies that were born. The rest will be going to kennels in the area that we have relationships with. The 3 males that we are keeping will be named Cassin, Spur, and Fin. The 1 female that we are keeping is named Sultana. The theme for their names was climbing routes up Mt. McKinley.  And here's a link to the video of the puppies playing. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3257533040863004329 Well, I hope you enjoyed the update. Maybe I'll be seeing you back at home during my short trip back. Wish me luck for this winter. | | Saturday, September 2nd, 2006 | | 4:09 pm |
Update, Saturday, September 2nd
**UPDATE** My new mailing address is as follows: Ian Healy PO Box 334 Denali Park, AK 99755 Hello, everybody. This update consists of some of the best wildlife pictures collected from my friends and myself from this year. I hope you enjoy all of the images.  This is a picture that my friend, Denise, took. Unfortunately, it's a little fuzzy. I have been this close to a wolf before, but of course, I didn't have a camera at the time. Thankfully, Denise thinks ahead.  This picture is probably my favorite one from this summer. The bear is just so intense. Again, Denise took this one from her car as she was driving to do a campground program. I'd hate to be on foot and be this close.  I like to look at this picture right after looking at the one before this. You have one picture of a bear that strikes terror, and you have a 2nd picture of a bear that makes you go 'awwwwww, how cute.' The bears are some of the most amazing animals in the park.   These two Bald Eagle pictures come from a visitor who was on my Horseshoe Lake hike today. He was down in Homer in southern Alaska and was able to take these photos. He had a really, really, really nice camera.   These two Moose pictures are from the same visitor on my hike. We were lucky, and this guy was munching on the vegetation right next to the shoreline. You can see the velvet falling off of the antlers. You can also see blood where the velvet has torn away. This guy is a young male, probably about 4 years old. Older males typically have much larger antlers if they are healthy. The rut is going on right now, and we've been trying to spot the males fighting each other. A switch from the wildlife. Here are some pictures my friend, Denise, took of me during one of my last dog sled demos as a SCA. As you could see from my last post, now I've got a real job and a uniform and everything.    Well, it is pretty amazing how different my job is now. With my new uniform, it is crazy how many people come up to me just to make conversation. The Park Ranger outfit is like a magnet for little kids. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the update and all of the pictures. | | Thursday, August 24th, 2006 | | 3:42 pm |
Update, Thursday, August 24th
Big news, everybody. My Student Conservation Association (SCA) contract is running out... so, I got a job here! That's right, I'm now an official Park Ranger with the National Park Service. I'm only scheduled to be here through September 22nd, but this is still a pretty nice step up for me. Behold!  'Excuse me ma'am, please stop feeding the wildlife.'  'Hi, how are you? Can I help you?'  'Who goes there?!'  Hahaha, who is crazy enough to give me a badge? Anyways, that's my big news. I'm really excited. I've heard little things here and there which are hinting that I'll probably be here this winter doing one of the volunteer positions that I talked about before. Then, next summer, I'd be hired on as a Park Ranger again for the whole summer season. Pretty cool, eh? Every day, I think about how lucky I am. I mean, this is my drive to work in the morning:  And here were just a couple cool pictures from out inside the park. There are two Moose skulls tangled up with eachother out by Wonder Lake. My roommate, Brian, took these pictures while he was out there. You can see one of the antlers has a part sticking into the eye socket of the other Moose. I'm guessing the one Moose died, and then the other one was stuck to him. Then, either the wolves found them or the Moose died of starvation.  See the antler stuck into the eye socket?  You could also see other parts of the skeleton laying around. That's it for this update, I hope you enjoyed it. | | Saturday, August 19th, 2006 | | 2:59 pm |
Update, Saturday, August 19th
Sorry I haven't posted in a long while. I've been busy with work and spending time with a couple visitors. Two of my old friends from back home, Brian and Harry, came up for a visit this past week. We spent a long time out in the park, and we got to see a lot of animals. Of course, it had to be raining for the entire week that they were up here. It has actually been raining for about 2 weeks straight. This is not an exaggeration. A couple bridges south of here have been washed out, and we've pretty much been cut off from Anchorage. The good part is that it keeps the forest fires down. A bunch of people from C-Camp who have their red cards have been sent down to the lower 48 to fight the fires down there. The other good part about the rain is that the animals don't really care at all. While Brian and Harry were here, we saw a bunch of Dall Sheep, more Caribou than I can remember, 12 Grizzly Bears, 1 Wolf, and 1 Moose. Anyways, here are some cool pictures from the past few weeks.  WE HAVE PUPPIES!!! Our female, Jenny, had puppies on August 5th/6th. Beluga, the sled dog that I walk, was the dad. She had 8 males and 1 female. Beluga spent the night walking around the dog yard and handing out cigars.  Ahh, the beautiful scenery.  The weather is already starting to get cooler, and some of the plants are starting to turn colors. Fall is not too far away.  The majestic Juvenile Golden Eagle.  A female Caribou with a nice background.  Some Dall Sheep Rams posing for the camera.  The average traffic jam on the road.  Out by Toklat the other day, the Grant Creek Wolf Pack took down a couple Dall Sheep. Those are the same wolves that were in the pictures that I posted on here before. Anyways, some bears moved in and decided to steal the kill from them. There were 5 bears eating the Dall Sheep, and they kept trying to chase the wolves off. You can see 3 bears eating the sheep, 2 bears chasing the wolves, and a couple wolves in the background. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1005314239058653727Here's a link to a video of a female Caribou just walking along and munching on the vegetation. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2336251457627570638Here's a link to a video of a couple Bears as you usually see them out in the park - just walking along and taking it easy. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3826748986099155000Here's a link to a video of a few Dall Sheep running together. Anyways, I hope enjoy the pictures and the videos. | | Thursday, August 3rd, 2006 | | 10:59 pm |
Update, Friday, August 4th
This post mostly has to do with the wolves that I've had a chance to see inside the park. During my last couple days off, I went out to visit my friends living in a place deep inside the park called Toklat. It just so happens that about 2 miles down the road past Toklat is a wildlife closure area where a wolf den is located. The den itself is dug right into the side of the hill next to the road, so they've been very visible this summer. Anyways, my friend, Cass, and I walked up to the wolf closure during my first day in Toklat. We got there and watched the wolves playing on the side of the hill and enjoying the beautiful weather. There were about 6 or 7 puppies, and there were a couple of the parents there watching over them. After about an hour of watching the wolves play, we headed back to Toklat. Here are some pictures. Sorry if they're not the sharpest pictures in the world, but I had to use the highest zoom to try and get a good picture of them.  The mom is the big gray wolf at the bottom, and the dad is the big black wolf at the top. All the little guys in between them are the puppies.  Here's one of the other pictures. The mom and dad are the right side. Later that night, a couple of us went back to the closure to see if we could see the wolves again. It was about 11:30 at night, and it was getting pretty dark out. Even though it was about 5 hours later, the wolves were in the same place, and they were still playing with eachother. Then, the adults started to howl like crazy. The little puppies started in, and they were all howling and yelping for about 5 minutes straight. It was really amazing. I got a pretty good audio recording of their howling. Needless to say, that was a good end for the night. Listen to the Wolves here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-42796176926441884&pr=goog-slThe next day, Jennifer and I went hiking south of the park road by a place called highway pass. The weather was absolutely perfect, and we got a lot of great views along the way. Here are a few pictures.  Like I said... perfect weather.  And here we were at the top.  We did get to see some female Dall Sheep on the ridge across from us. There was still a little bit of snow in some of the little valleys that form in between the ridges.  And here was some Grizzly sleeping on the hill across from us. You can see his butt sticking towards us in this pictures. He was sleeping for about 10 minutes or so as we made our way along the opposite side of the river. Poor little guy was all tuckered out.  Here's a Caribou that was munching on some plants on the side of the road as we came back home on the bus. As you can see, his antlers are still covered in velvet. And now for a couple random pictures from around here.  Here was a wolf that I had seen down at Horseshoe Lake a few weeks ago while I was leading a guided hike down there. Luckily, a couple visitors in my group sent me some of their pictures after they returned home from their trip. We were incredibly lucky to see a wolf down there since they really don't like to hang out in the front part of our park where there are a lot of people. You can also see that this wolf is collared. Most of the alpha males and females of the packs are collared so researchers here can track the movement of the packs through the park. And, of course, we have to end it with some beautiful sunsets.   Anyways, that's it for this update. I've had a few people asking me what is in store for me after this season is over with. Well, I'll be finishing up around September 20th. After that, I am hoping to get one of the positions here working in the winter visitor center. I'll have a chance to lead snowshoe hikes and get to do some other projects around here. I may have a chance to go out dog mushing with some of the patrols into the park, and I am hoping to go out with some of the researchers in the park if they ever have an extra space. What would happen is that I would fly back around September 22nd, spend a couple weeks back at home, drive up here in mid October, and then stay on here through the winter. The following Spring, I would most likely get a paid position here in the park as a Park Ranger doing a lot of the same interpretation stuff that I have been doing this summer. For really long term stuff, it's a matter of doing a lot of seasonal jobs until a permanent position becomes available in some National Park. Well, I hope you enjoyed the update. Until next time. | | Wednesday, July 26th, 2006 | | 11:23 pm |
Update, Wednesday, July 26th
Well, this post is consisting of my trip to Chena Hot Springs (which is about an hour outside of Fairbanks), and a bunch of random pictures of the dogs here. I figure that everyone always likes seeing more pictures of dogs. First off, the other night, I had a couple friends visiting from Toklat. We were sitting around the campfire, enjoying the nice weather. Then, from the north side of the camp, we heard the sound of these hooves pounding the ground. A big moose mom and her calf came running through the camp at full speed - no more than 30 feet away. They didn't notice us at all and ran right through. We were all standing there for a few seconds wondering what they were running for. Then, back from the north side of the camp, we hear someone yelling, "Bear!" We made our way over to the Rec Hall and got inside as the bear was making its way past the cabins and towards us. A few of our Wildlife Techs kicked into gear real quick and started yelling at him to get him to leave. Pretty much, we don't want the bears to get used to hanging around any place where there are people. The bear looked a little ticked off as he walked back the way he came. I guess he wasn't going to get dinner tonight. A few of my coworkers and myself made our way up to Chena Hot Springs for our weekend. We camped a couple nights, went for a nice hike, relaxed a lot, and managed to catch Superman Returns while we were passing through Fairbanks. By the way, that movie is freaking awesome. See it if you haven't already. Anyways, here are some nice photos:  Here were some parts of the forest burned out from the Parks Highway Fire which I had spoken about in a previous post. Lots of the forest was burned between us and Fairbanks. But, as you can see, stuff starts growing back very, very quickly.  We could even see some of the smoke from a couple little places where the fire is burning out.  There were some beautiful sunsets as we were driving up to Fairbanks. This was probably about 11 o'clock at night.  The one hike that we did was up Angel Rock. The trip wasn't so much about hiking as it was about relaxing. This was a little ways off the road on the way to Chena Hot Springs.  There were some nice, ripe blueberry plants along the trail. I love any plant with free, delicious food. Sorry, but we didn't take any pictures at the Hot Springs themselves. You get to miss out on my amazing farmer's tan.  Here was a nice rainbow on the way back home.  And here was probably one of the most beautiful sunsets that I have ever seen. And now for lots of cute doggie pictures.  Here's Beluga - the dog that I walk at night. He's a 7 year old male. If you look closely, you can see that he has both blue and brown in his eyes.  And Healy moves in for the headlock.  It's a mean bout, and both fighters are moving around for better position.  And now we have to end it by still making sure that we are friends.  Here's Esker. Most visitors are amazed by his stunning blue eyes.  Here's Orca - he's Beluga's brother. He literally smiles when he is really happy. Usually, after a run, he smiles and you can see all of his teeth. Sometimes, visitors think that he is bearing his teeth and being mean. We just have to explain that he's a smiley dog.  Here's Blue - he's also Beluga and Orca's brother. He has some blue and brown in his eyes also. Both Orca and Blue are built like little tanks. They are very wide, but it is just solid muscle. They are some of the best dogs for breaking trails in the snow.  Here's Tor. He's a cute little guy, and he never wants to play fight. He just wants to run and be petted.  Here's Chinook. He and I have a nice tradition of wrestling with one another. It's nice sometimes, but it can be a pain when you're busy with visitors and he thinks it's play time. He's only 2 years old, but he's still one of our largest dogs.  And here's Tonzona - our biggest male. He's only 3, but he is very smart. It's up for debate now, but apparently he has learned to fake out some of the female workers here into thinking that something is behind them so that they turn around and he can bite their pony tail. Well, that's it for this update. I hope you enjoy the pictures. Pretty soon I'll be applying for some winter positions here. Wish me luck. |
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