A Favorite Hike - Flattop Mountain

Flattop Mountain is not only the most popular hike in the Anchorage area, but it's the most hike peak in the state.  That being said, if you go at the right time, you may not see another person...at least at the top.  It's a 3510ft. mountain southeast of downtown.  I hesitate to call it a peak, because it is literally flat on top.  The glacier sheered off the top a bajillion (that's ALOT) of years ago and the top of the mountain is literally a flat space the size of a football field.  We hiked it ALOT last spring and summer.  You can easily make it up and down the back valley after work and still have time to eat dinner.  Some people run up it...some crazy people.  Sometimes I go alone, sometimes 2 or more of us go up talking and letting the dogs exhaust themselves.  Just behind Flattop are Peaks 2,3 and 4.  Those are their names.  When we have extra time we'll take the ridge over to those peaks too.  In the winter all of these are popular destinations for back country skiing and snowboarding.  Next year...

Banks loves the Camelback!

Flattop Mt.

Early evening light.

Allie happy to be at the top!

Banks and Raven on an after work date.

Looking off the backside with Powerline Pass in the valley below.

Sage, Banks and Raven checking out the view off the backside.

Amy coming to get me to head to Peak 2 up the ridge behind her.

This was one of our first trips up last spring.  When we got to the top there was a crazy, unrestrained lab pup that took a liking to several of the ladies in our group...if you know what I mean.

Flattop & Peak 2: Part I

Part II

All Things Furry

Anyone who knows me, knows that I don't have dogs...I have rather hairy, 4-legged children.  2 of them.  Shy is turned 12 this year.  This girl has seen it all and travelled alot of places.  She's come a long way from living in a cardboard box on a Louisiana farm as the runt of the liter.  She's grumpy, loyal, grumpy, hungry, grumpy, sweet, grumpy, protective, grumpy, cuddly and LOVING ALASKA.  I was pretty sure that she would somehow boycott the move, but surprisingly she LOVES it up here. Even in spite of the occasional bitter cold.  I'm proud to say that she has 3 pairs of booties and a small collections of sweaters (including a hoodie and even a jumpsuit) that she wears on winter dog park outings.  Initially she seemed degraded by her "outfits" but when she sees the sweater come off the hook, she lights up. Due to her age she doesn't have to wear a backpack or pull anything but watching her run the trails and playing with other dogs at the dog park, we are thinking that moving up here has lengthened her life by at least a good 3-5 years!

Shy loving life at University Lake Dog Park.  We think she looks quite dignified with her pink sweater (with the collar popped of course) and her booties!

The old girl enjoying her giant summer bone.  She mostly laid by it and growled to keep Banks off of it.

Banks, Banks, Banks.  I got Banks at 8 weeks old and fell in love with him immediately.  This boy is my heart...my forever best bud.  He, of course, is thriving up here.  He loves his "pack" to the ends of the earth.  Myself and my close friends, Kristin, Amy and my roommate Torrey, are his family along with their pups.  Raven (Kristin's black husky-hound girl) is most definitely his favorite.  They are best friends, and we're pretty sure that they are in love.  Sage (Amy's yellow lab girl) is his playmate and Allie (Torrey's Bernese Mountain girl) is his adopted sister.  We like to joke that he has alot of b*****s.  He's a smart, independent boy, but he doesn't respond to anger or anything in a mean tone.  He'll dig his feet in, do it his way and literally talk back if you raise your voice. He does great in harness and instinctively digs in to pull like a champ. We started skijoring our first winter here, but I'm looking forward to getting a light, kickboggen type sled and 1-2 more dogs and slowly start dog sledding for real.

Banks on top of Bird Ridge last spring.

Spring hike up Bird Ridge with his Aunt Torrey and Allie.

There is 1 bromance that he has cultivated...with a Jack Russell named...wait for it...Jack.  They don't see each other often, but when they do, it's a full on love fest.  Check it out:

A favorite after work or Sunday afternoon activity is the dog park.  We either take them to the airport dog park or University Lake.  Unlike dog parks in the Midwest, these aren't simply fenced in fields.  They are acres of wooded land with hills, streams, trees, lakes and many moose.  It's a nice change of pace from walks around the neighborhood.  It not only gets them socialization with other dogs, but you ALMOST feel like you're really in Alaska and not in Anchorage. :)

1 of My Favorite Things

In my continued "catch-up blogging" I wanted to share one of my favorite things. Since coming up here I have witnessed some truly AMAZING sunrises and sunsets.  It seems the winter ones are the best.  I don't know if it's the snow or the cold or a combination of the 2 that makes them so rad.  Regardless...they are RAD and I reserve that word for stuff that really knocks me out.  So here are just a few of my favorites over the last year. Enjoy!

Recent sunrise from Alaska Native Medical Center parking lot.  I drive east to work every morning, which means I drive right into the sunrise.  As long as the mountains aren't socked in I usually have a pretty great show.  I'll start missing this probably within the next month as the sunrise gets earlier and earlier.  This is ~7-730am.

Moonrise in mid-December 2011.  This is b/n 3:30-4:00pm.

Sunrise from the orthopedic floor of the hospital in eaerly December.  Likely after 9:30am.  Facing southeast.

Lake Hood sunset - November

Lake Hood on a different day at sunet.

Stopped me in my tracks coming out of Wal-Mart.  This is impressive as I am generally RUNNING out of Wal-Mart.

July sunset off Pt. Woronzof - July 2011

Something New

This weekend I did something totally new.  We packed up and went winter camping.  I love camping and backpacking in the summer, so this just seemed like the next natural progression.  Those in attendance included myself, Banks and Allie.  We decided to leave Shy at home, with the temperatures hovering around 0-10 at night I didn't think she'd do well.  So...she got a spa weekend at the kennel instead. Kristin and Travis came along with Bank's girlfriend, Raven.  We contemplated skiing in, but settling on snowshoes with Banks pulling one sled of gear and Travis pulling in the other sled...with some firewood in it. We headed down to Turnagain Pass, dumped out in the parking lot and got everybody all hooked up.  This was Bank's first time pulling anything other than me, and I have to say that he KILLED IT!  We could have carried pretty much everything, but part of me wanted to see if Banks would be interested in really pulling, and he was.  Travis, on the other hand, was not crazy about pulling a sled while having his pack on his back too.  I headed out first on snowshoes cutting a trail for Banks who was following with Allie and Kristin behind him and his sled.  Raven was frolicking in the deep snow and Trav was bringing up the rear.  We picked a spot near the trees to protect us from wind and stamped out an area for our camp.  Allie, Banks and myself were in my 2-season tent (genius, I know, but didn't have time to buy a new tent beforehand) and Travis, Kris and Raven piled in the other tent.  We brought in a garbage can lid to build our fire on, so Travis went to work on that and in no time at all we had a blaze going.  Dinner was delicious Mountain House freeze dried meals.  And I seriously mean delicious...beef stroganoff is the deal!  The dogs chowed down and Banks curled up next to my chair...one tired pup.  It was a perfectly clear night and we were able to see every star in the sky, the constellations as well as a couple planets.  No Northern Lights show though.  Bummer...hopefully next time.  After some rum spiced cider (best idea ever) we turned in.  I wouldn't say that I was necessarily comfortable, but I did sleep.  At one point I was shivering and Banks got up and came and laid across me.  At home he doesn't cuddle during the night because he's too hot...so I'm sure that he knew that I was cold.  I love that dog.  Not only is he the best, but thankfully he is also a 4 legged portable heater!
     Overall it was a great experience and I can't wait to do it again.  My goal is to get out with the pups on a multiday sled/snowshoe winter backpack.  Ideally to some hot springs!
This is the blurry video of Banks and Travis.  I left the GoPro at home (was too excited packing up to go, I guess) so this is done with an iPhone.

Part of camp.  And yes, that IS a box of wine.

Banks taking a much deserved cool off.

Allie had to carry all the dog food and fish.  Not sure if she had much fun, we think she would have been ready to head to the car at a moment's notice.

Cook Inlet the morning after we snowshoed out.

Worst Blogger Ever

     I am officially the worst blogger ever.  It's true.  The worst, nearly 1 year since my last post. :)  Facebook is just too easy sometimes, but it can also limit the volume of information and those of you that know me can attest tat I generally have alot to say.  So my "1/4-of-the-year-is-over-resolution" is to update this weekly. Even if just to throw out a brief note.  I've got alot to

     As you can imagine, alot has happened over the course of a year.  At the hospital we made the transition to electronic medicl records in October and with the exception of a few bumps and bruises everyone has survived.  However, we seem to use more paper now that we ever did before.  I've seen alot of really interesting patients at work and just got news today from Dr. Clawson, our hand surgeon, that I'm headed to Bethel and Metlakatla sometime in the next 6-8 weeks for field clinics.  Bethel is about 350 miles west of Anchorage on the Kuskokwim River and it's the hub for te 56 villages inthe Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.  So as you can imagine, it's an impressively large and cosmopolitan metropolis.  A whopping 7000 folks live there...and it's "dry."  And I don't mean that theres no plumbing.  It's one of several alcohol free communitie in the state (theoretically...).  They are known for hosting the Kuskokwim 300.  It's a middle distance dogsled race that is held in January. They also have a Native dance festival every March.  Many of the residents do live in dry cabins/homes meaning they don't have running water.  Alot of our patients bath in steam houses and at communty washeterias.  For this reason, Bethel is also known for one other thing:
http://www.anthc.org/cs/dehe/envhlth/ehcoordination/mrsa-in-alaska.cfm
     Metlekatla is a much smaller village, about 1500 people. It's at the very southern tip of te Southeast panhandle of the state.  You can't see Russia from here, but you can see Canada. You can get there via the Alaska Marine Ferry which is neat, but pricey and time consuming so we fly in on a teeny little plane.  Since living here I've gotten quite used to small aircraft...anything from a 3-4 seater up.  My preferred way to fly is actually floatplane.  I think it's pretty smooth, but I digress.  The Alaska Natives from this area of the state are from the Tlinget, Haida and Tsimshian tribes.  When we go to these smaller towns and villages, patients from the surrounding villages come in to get their medical care.  It can save them a more costly and time consuming trip to Anchorage if we can help the non-surgically.  I'm pretty psyched to get out into some of the villages and see the different ways of life. 

     The longer that I live here, the less impressed I am with certain aspects of "civilization."  I can definately see the allure to packing up, throwing the pups in the truck and heading "out."  There's something to be said for being self sufficient and making do with "less" than we think we need.  If there's one thing that I can take away from Alaska as a whole, it's utilitarianism.  If it needs to be done, Alaskans do it and if they don't know how, they figure it out.  Kind of awesome.

     More catching up later...thanks for reading!

Video Capabilities!

Lookout internet world, I have figured out how to add videos!  That being said, I have several videos that I wanted to put up on past posts but lacked the necessary tech skills to pull it off.  Lucky for all of you, me + a few glasses of red wine on a Friday night = computer miracles.  I hope you enjoy!

This first clip is from Mom and Jackie's recent visit.  After all the Iditarod excitement died down, they had 1 more day in town.  We decided to drive south down the Seward Highway and check out the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center.  It's actually one of my favorite things to do, I even sprung for a season pass for this year!  AWCC is a nonprofit organization south of Anchorage that takes in injured and orphaned wildlife from Alaska.  They give animals that would no longer make it on their own a second lease on life.  We were down there in mid-March to see the moose, caribou, pourcipine, elk, bald eagle and maybe the lynx.  What we didn't expect was for the bears to be awake!  What a surprise.  They recently acquired 2 baby brown bears.  We had a ball checking out the little boogers, and they LOVED listening to Jackie talk to them in her best "baby bear" voice!  Here they are!

The Big Finish

We were estimating the first musher to cross under the Burled Arch sometime late Tuesday or early Wednesday morning.  This presented a problem as our flight was scheduled to leave Tuesday evening.  We diligently monitored race progress on the internet over the course of our stay in Nome, as well as spoke with every local we could.  As it turned out, the early favorite and defending champion Lance Mackey had to pull several dogs from his team and wasn't progressing as quickly as people would have hoped.  Last year's 3rd place finisher, John Baker was slowly creeping to the front.  As the race progressed Baker surged to the front of the pack.  We got word that he would be in Tuesday morning.  We got down to Front St. about 8am to get a good spot to watch him finish.  The trail breakers were the first to cross the finish lines.  They were a group of several snowmachiners wiarmed with shovels and trail markers. Their job was to break and mark the trail for the mushers.

Then I turned my attention to the porch of a nearby building to see the Anchorage news team prepping for their telecast.

This gentleman is an Inupiat Eskimo from Unalakleet, Alaska.  He was in Nome along with a group of Native singers, dances and drummers who stood at the finish line welcoming John Baker into Nome.  Mom actually got a video but I'm having difficulty loading it at the moment.

There were even celebrities in attendance.  This is Ariel Tweto, of the popular television show "Flying Wild Alaska," a show on the discovery channel about a family who owns an airline in Unalakleet,AK.

And HERE COMES JOHN BAKER!!!  He and his dogs set a new course record by nearly 3 hours arriving at 9:46am with a total time of 8 days 18 hours 46 minutes and 39 seconds.  Pretty amazing that theycovered roughly 1150 miles taking 2 mandatory 8 hour breaks and 1 mandatory 24 hour break!  John is Inupiat Eskimo from Kotzabue, Alaska.  He placed 3rd last year after being in the lead but falling asleep on his sled and getting lost!

One of John's team dogs ready for a snack and a nap!

A normally very reserved John Baker with his daughter walked around and shook the hands of everyone lining the corral.  Myself and Jackie included! He was ery grateful for all the support.

Baker being presented with the 1st place purse:  $50,400.

Not long after John Baker arrived 2nd place finisher Ramey Smyth.  He felt his pups had worked hard enough and done such an excellent job that they didn't need to pull him across the finish line so Ramey ran part of the Bering Sea ice and all of Front Street with his team.  That made me cry. :)



Ramey's pups were anxious to get their booties off.


Mom had planned a helicopter trip to Safety, AK for the afternoon.  We weren't sure if we would see any mushers finish, so she was hoping to at least see them from the air.  Safety is the last checkpoint, 22 miles south of Nome on the coast.  We booked the chopper for 2 PM.  The plan was to fly out to Safety, land at the roadhouse, check it out and fly back.  This was out ride...and I got to sit in the front.  It was all windows and offered virtually unobstructed views!



Heading south on the Bering Sea coast.  This is the sea ice that was jammed into the shoreline during a storm several weeks prior.




And look what we saw about halfway to Safety.  It was soon to be 3rd place finisher Hans Ghatt.




Hans was off the sled tending to the team, changing booties and giving them a quick snack.



Up and down the coast there are very small, one room wooden structures.  These are fish camps during the summer months.

To the east, off the left side of the helicopter were the Sawtooth Mountains.

This is the Safety Roadhouse.  It is closed all winter, except for the Iditarod week.  It closes after the last musher passes through.  It has been run for the last 20 years by the same adoreable Eskimo - Tom.  We made instant friends.  He apparently has a Dr. appointment here in Anchorage.  He plans to find me in the orthopedic clinic so that I can take HIM out to dinner.  He asked if I would take him and I accepted.

This is inside the roadhouse.  Virtually every bit of usable space has a dollar bill stapled to it.  We of course autographed and stapled our dollars as well.  Mine is above the men's room door if you ever make it out there.

The volunteers at the checkpoint informed us that Dallas Seavey was nearly there.  He had to crest one more ridge.  And here he comes...

...and there he goes after a very brief 90 second check in.  His dogs had to be held back.  They knew they were almost done and seemed like they were just ready to "GET THERE ALREADY!"

We bid good-bye to Tom, promising to return next year (probably via snowmachine next time)!

We spotted Dallas not long after taking off for the return flight.

Yes.  Your eyes don't deceive you, those are bare buns you see.  We were MOONED!!  Hilarious.  Our pilot, Russell, spotted it first!

This is Point Hope, just 5 miles south of town.  It is called "Little McKinley" by the mushers.  This is the last true obstacle of the race.  The winds whip dangerously around the cape where it juts out into the sound, potentially blowingg people and dogs into the ice/water.  The mushers have to go over it to the left (just out of view of the picture)



You'll have to take my word for this one, but these are 2 spotted seals that have clawed through the pack ice!  They come up through this ice to sun themselves off shore far from preditors.

This is where someone has dropped crab pots.  They crab for Alaskan King Crab.  Delicious!

 We got back to Nome and hurried to the finish line because Hans Ghatt, the musher we saw from the air heading out to Safety was about to come in.  I couldn't resist snapping of pic of this woman's gorgeous parka!

And here comes Hans Ghatt...3rd place.  When he got into the corral he bent over and snuggled and kissed each and every one of his dogs.  This made me cry too.  LOVED IT!

SNACK TIME!  Frozen salmon of course.

Someone set the bag of frozen fish down and I was thoroughly impressed that this guy just sniffed it...for the first 3 minutes, then he managed to swipe an extra piece or two.  Who could blame him!

Hans loving on and congratulating his 2 lead dogs.

"I'm hot!"

"We're ALL HOT!"

 Traditionally, at the finish, the mushers will tos their used booties into the crowd as keepsakes.  Mom was thrilled that she managed to get a booty tossed to her.  Jackie and I didn't witness it, but I didn't hear a child scream so we're hoping there was no shoving of children out of the way. :)  (Just kidding Mom!)

And here comes 4th place Dallas Seavey.  He is just 23 years old.

It's difficult to tell in this picture, but this pup was leaning on the one behind him.

Dallas was really excited.  He said, "So this is what it's like to come in during the day.  Last year I came in in the middle of the night and it was just my parents out here!"

After the teams come in, the judges check the sleds to make sure all the "required" items are there.  The vets check the dogs and then the teams are taken to the dog lot.  They are kept here for several hours or overnight until they can be flown out of Nome. 

The pups are given straw and a big, hearty meal...and plenty of love from the handlers and volunteers assigned to the dog lot.

We departed Nome Tuesday evening and had an uneventful trip.  Mom and Jackie left the following evening.  The last musher crossed the finish line and blew out the Red Lantern on Sunday, March 20 with a time of 13 days 19 hours 45 minutes and 49 seconds.  Her name is Ellen Halverson, she was 47th this year.  The first winner of the race, in 1973, took nearly 3 weeks to reach Nome.  They've come a long way baby! 

62 mushers started the race this year, 15 scratched for one reason or another.  Some scratched due to injury, some scratched because it was what was best for their dogs, and still others gave no reason why they scratched.  Regardless, they trained and attemped one of the scariest and most difficult things on earth.  They, along with the 47 finishers, certainly have my respect and admiration!

See you next year Iditarod!