Deadhorse Valentine

I tried to finagle the world's least romantic weekend getaway, but we ended up having to go a few days later.  And luckily, we were gifted with perfect weather: sunny, almost windless, and a mere -30F, which afforded us gorgeous mountain views, a bizarre Mars-like sunset of a cold red ball hovering over barren tundra, caribou and musk ox grazing in the clear crisp air, and even a solitary goshawk sunning himself on a mile marker post.

It was heartening to have five of us in the van as we wound through the Brooks Range and onto the stark, lonely north slope.  Aside from a handful of steampunk-Soviet looking beige corrugated aluminum mechanical sheds and pump houses, it is an austere landscape.  Deadhorse itself was rather buttoned up as oil demand and production are still low; there were a few trucks around, and some single-engine cargo planes.  We shared a fifty-room dorm with only three other inhabitants.  I scored some much-needed toothpaste at the general store and had my first espresso coffee in many months.

It was just a quick trip up and back.  We stopped for a walk near (frozen) Galbraith Lake.  There the foothills and snow over were incredibly reminiscent of the scenery near McMurdo, if you ignored the grasses and stunted bushes.  There's a deep satisfaction in going to the end of the road, as well as returning to our homey camp tucked in with the trees.

One of many scenic places I peed.

Booos!

Pipeline on the north side of Atigan Pass.

It felt like the path to Castle Rock.

Gaiter Maid

Today I skied, jacketless, through four inches of fresh powder.  A relative heatwave struck, treating us to +6F, a swing of forty degrees from much of last week.  I did manage to ski on a mostly windless day in the cold-cold; my breath labored behind my gaiter, my eyelashes thickly frosted and occasionally frozen together.  In the open, the snow prisms the sunlight into drifts of rainbow glitter.  Within the trees, blue-gray dusk is punctuated by golden shafts eking their way through gaps in the thickly woven branches.  And one section of trail proved favorable to a pair of wolves (an hour? a day?) ahead of me.

I wouldn't say I watched the Super Bowl -- I went to be entertained by the handful of deliberately rowdy/intoxicated 30-year-old guys I work/live with.  I believe their pre-game Edward Forty Hands began about noon, and football started at 2:30pm our time.  They made buffalo chicken dip, cuban sandwiches, steak, hand-battered potato wedges, and a miniature Gatorade cooler cake with a jello center for that satisfying je ne sais quoi.

A very industrial nighttime look for the dorm.

Abby and Ben (I think) made the cake, Ben took this photo.

Should I title this "Truck Butt," or "Red Light District"?

It's Not the Heat, It's the (Lack of) Humidity

If there's one life lesson that has really been trying to impress itself upon me over the last year or so, it's the necessity of hydration.  Living in a frozen dessert?  Strenuously hiking above 10,000 feet?  Repeatedly skiing when it's below zero out?  Hey lady: for fuck's sake, drink some more water.  "*This* time," I say (for the umpteenth time), "ok, I got it!"  I guess I took the whole thick-blooded thing too literally, and I don't have Kelly with me to set a good example draining endless water bottles.

But I made real progress wearing my jacket to stave off the cold.  A group of us drove about fifty miles north to poke around some old trapper cabins and cross the boundary into Gates of the Arctic National Park.  I started off with a t-shirt, two wool base layers, thick hoodie, my trusty hobo down jacket, and dad's winter coat, for a total of three hoods and a hat.  One cabin had a wood stove but was built primarily for summer use -- the windows were partially framed, and bits of cotton batting, socks, old pens, and gum wrappers were stuffed around the edges for insulation.  The previous inhabitants left behind a solid VHS collection of '90s movies, some old National Geographics, headlamps, spices and soup mixes, and not totally tasteless nudie calendars.  

After examining said domestic comforts, we set out along a creek, ultimately to its convergence with the Dietrich River (or maybe the river was over the hills in front of us, I'm not entirely sure, but we were in the vicinity).  The scenery was stunningly snow-covered, and we made our way to an electric-blue overflow, where a small fountain bubbled up out of the frozen creek in one place, and flooded the embankment in another so that a refrozen skating rink formed between the trees.  It was like a "Nutcracker" ballet set come to life.

Gates of the Arctic is special not just because of its remoteness, but also because it's free of any trails, markers, or development -- it is preserved wilderness.  Wikipedia tells me it is entirely north of the Arctic Circle, and roughly the size of Belgium.  So we barely nudged our way in, courtesy of the winter-highways of frozen creeks and rivers.

Back here at Camp, we finally had a fire in the Big Tent.  It's an aluminum-frame structure covered with thick plastic, about 40' X 15' with 20' ceiling, and a double-barrel (previously oil barrels?) homemade wood stove.  We got the metal to glow red and toasted a coworker who's leaving for a few weeks of vacation.  In a little over a month I'll be leaving, so I'm trying to keep drinking it all in.

frozen beard guys

enchanted forest

Every other body of water was frozen; I suppose some geothermal heat keeps this creeklet open.