A few days at Inigok in a storm, back to Umiat and a great flight back to Fairbanks

We sat out a powerful wind storm at Inigok for a few days, made a day dash out to our site at Koluktak, 40 miles to the west.  We then made our way back to Umiat, packed and inventoried and had a spectacular flight over the Brooks Range back to Fairbanks.

40mph winds create a ground blizzard.

Short movie of the windstorm.

Snow survey at Koluktak

Sunset snowmachine tracks at Inigok

Incredible vistas.

Sundogs at Inigok

Inigok Sunset

 Wright Air Service Caravan, our chariot to Fairbanks.

Brooks Range

It never ceases to amaze me the beauty of this country...

No words can describe this...

Happy camper at the end of a great trip!

Fish Creek to Teshekpuk Lake Observatory and back to Inigok

Over the span of four days we travelled from Fish Creek to the fantastic Teshekpuk Lake Observatory maintained by Ben Jones (USGS) where we recharged our literal and figurative batteries for two nights.  We went to service the stations on the Arctic Coast at Drew Point and then made our way back south to  Inigok.  The bears were waking up and we saw a bunch of tracks, and the snow buntings guided our way…

Working in the flat light cloud - no frame of reference… 

Adjusting sensors at Lake 31, 10 miles south of the Arctic Ocean.

Teshekpuk Lake Observatory.

Always nice to see a snow bunting… 

Neat, but sometimes disconcerting to see these tracks…

The grizzlies are awake.

Impossibly blue sky at a repeater south of Teshekpuk Lake.

Insane vistas, like a different planet.

Inigok to Fish Creek

Well, this is about a month late that I am now finally updating the blog.  Limited internet access and Frank being pretty consumed busy with getting work done precluded updates… I will split the remainder of the last trip into several entries to make it a bit more accessible.  Mainly, the photos will tell the story but we had a very successful trip, the weather mostly cooperated, the snow conditions were conducive to relatively comfortable travel and best of all, we found very little damage or faulty equipment at the stations visited on our loop.  The damage we did find was repaired and we installed a few new sensors and a few new real time monitoring cameras along the way.  The first segment was from Inigok to Fish Creek, about 40 miles Northeast.  We stopped at several repeaters and monitoring stations along the way including USGS river gaging stations at Fish and Judy Creeks…

We flew into Umiat, traveled to Inigok, then made our way up to Fish Creek to the Northeast and eventually across the north side of Teshekpuk Lake, a visit to the Arctic Ocean coast at Drew Point and then back down the West side of Teshekpuk to Inigok.  We then took a trip west to Koluktak (AK106), back to Inigok and eventually back to Umiat.

Here is our exact route from our satellite tracking device.  For anyone interested, here is the google earth .kmz file SPRING ROUTE

Two caribou along the way…

First repeater, R9 A OK!

Swapping cards and batteries on a river gaging station.

Great weather!

The weather crapped out when we reached Fish Creek Station and worked on completing a snow survey about midnight.

Home sweet tiny home… Arctic oven, two cots and a wood stove.  So nice to have a sanctuary from the cold and storm… 

"Sunset" at camp at Fish Creek

Eric wrapping up the last of the snow depth probing at 1:00 am

Fantastic day on the Arctic Coastal plain… 

Umiat to Inigok

We spent a couple of days in Umiat prepping and packing our gear, met some nice locals and did a bit of work on a station I have deployed about 4 miles north.  Enough can not be said about the help and hospitality that Richard Kemnitz (BLM) provides us on these trips and his infrastructure at Umiat is indispensable.  After a few days in Umiat we were ready to head north to our camp at Inigok about 55 miles away.  We stopped and did maintenance on several radio telemetry repeaters enroute.   Man was it great to be back in Inigok.  We installed a new snow and ice monitoring camera on nearby "Franks Lake", worked on repairing things around camp and did snow surveys and station maintenance at our local sites.  To our dismay we found that a good portion of our fuel reserves that we cache at Inigok had been stolen during the winter.  Richard Kemnitz helped us to coordinate some locals from Barrow to deliver us one drum of fuel that should provide a safety cushion for our long traverse.  That fuel arrived about 10pm last night and just in the nick of time.  We spent a great few hours chatting with our fuel saviors (Crawford Patkotak and son) about life on the north slope before heading to bed.  Today we are off on the next leg of our journey, heading north and east toward Fish Creek.

Geared up and ready to go!

2-3 weeks worth of fuel, science and survival gear...

This is what happens when a bear decides he does not want your solar panel to function.  Lots to work on to fix the damage at this repeater!

This repeater with an electric fence fared much better this winter!

Sunset at Inigok about 10:30 pm our first night in camp.

The next morning at Inigok with the colors flying!!  

Install of the lake and snow monitoring camera.

Eric Yeager, the master of the snow tube...

Sunset at Inigok our second night in camp.

Fairbanks to Umiat

A few days were spent in Fairbanks gathering last minute supplies and meeting with collaborators.  I presented an overview of our work to our BLM colleagues as well and had very nice dinner evenings at some of my favorite local haunts…   Time in town was short however and further north I needed to go.  Eric Yeager (expedition partner) and I hopped on an extremely nice BLM Alaska Fire Service PC 12 plane for one of the best flights I have had in my years of working in this area.  We flew from Fairbanks to the remote Umiat camp north of the Brooks Range.  We have a depot of equipment and resources located there, established and managed by the infamous Richard Kemnitz (need I say more?).  The flight was fantastic, the peaks of the Brooks were just jutting out above the clouds and our view at 24K feet was spectacular.  A near perfectly smooth landing and Eric and I were on our own.  We head out into the field for the next two weeks or so, camping on the frozen tundra and traveling via snowmachine.  We will have very intermittent internet access but I will post when I can.  We plan to complete a loop around Teshekpuk lake visiting 20-30 permafrost and climate monitoring stations enroute.  We will download data, fix damage, complete detailed snow surveys at each site.

The Pilatus PC-12, what a spectacular aircraft.

Views of the Brooks Range peaking out from the clouds - ethereal…

Thanks to Pilot Bob for an extremely enjoyable flight, what a landing!

 On the ground in Umiat (www.umiat.com), a remote outpost along the Colville river north of the Brooks Range.  

Unloading the PC-12

All geared up and just about ready to head north