Weather

'Some days are diamonds... some days are rocks... ' -Tom Petty

So not every day is a sunny day out on the glacier. This past week we had a 'weather day' which means that the weather made it impossible for helicopters to land on the glacier. I'm not talking about extreme wind or freezing rain that's falling sideways, nope just clouds. The elevation from town to the glacier is a change of 4000ft, and dog camp is only about 2 miles from town. This drastic change in elevation means that town as completely different weather. When town is overcast it means that the glacier is above the clouds. We can see into the valley and sometimes it is a like a lake of clouds. Other times on the glacier we can't even see the mountain which is right next to us. When the pilot can't see the ground they can't fly, end of story. Unfortunately, tours get canceled. The helicopter base does try to do weather checks on an hourly basis, so they know the moment that they can start tours again. Some days we might have an hour or two canceled, other days canceled until lunch and then some others, canceled all day. At dog camp we just sit around and wait all day, not that we have anywhere to be. These days are not bad, but not good either. It's nice to have a break but its' also nice to make some money, no tours= no $.

Then there's the day that we had yesterday, beautiful, sunny and clear for miles. Tours every half an hour. It was hot, and all the employees were walking around in t-shirts. The heat is reflected off the white of the snow, and since white is the dominant color in the landscape it gets pretty hot. Tourists come off the helicopter in their fur coats (no joke, some people actually wear fine fur coats to go and play with dogs) and helly hansen ski pants and we're in jeans and t-shirts with ball caps on. These are good days, the best tours happen days like this. These days are also the days that everyone gets sunburned, everywhere. Because the sunlight is being reflected from the snow, which is everywhere, you get sunburned in places you wouldn't normally think about. Such as under your chin and up your nose. You feel like a grease ball all day long because you're also sweating. When I get back I'm going to have an amazing sunglasses tan, watch tan and potentially a strap tan from the camera bag I wear around.

Living on a Glacier

So I've been living on a glacier for about a couple of weeks now. The first week I was up with a small crew and we build dog houses all week long, along with shoveled out groomers, walk through 2ft of fresh snow and of course, as always, take care of dogs.

This past week the full crew was up and we transported another 100+ dogs to camp. There are 13 people living on the glacier with me. There are mushers, dogs handlers, tour assistants (that's me!), the cook and our manegment team.

Tours started on Monday and have been going ever since. We have tours every day. We never have a scheduled 'day off' without people coming up the glacier. On certain days of the week there are less tours than others and during those days we are flown down from the glacier (via helicopter!) and we get to have the next two nights in town and then we are flown back up in the morning. For those who are curious my schedule goes a little like this:

5:50am alarm goes off

5:55 roll out of bed and put rain pants/ boots/ jacket on

6:00 grab a shovel and start finding poop, put poop in a 5 gallon bucket. Usually a dog yard of 40 will have approximately 2-3 buckets of poop

6:30 feed dogs if necessary, put eye drogs in irritated dogs eyes and use zinc on any part of the dog that's pink to prevent sunburn.

7:00 breakfast! (eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, pancakes, oatmeal, yogurt, fruit....coffee...)

8:00 first helicopter lands full of tourists! I unload the helicopter of the tourists/ gear and put gear back on.

Next I lead tourists to mushers after they recieve their safety speech

I then go and stand in the 'photo spot' and wait

I take an 'action shot' of them on the sled

I then walk briskly back to the photo tent where I edit and print off the pictures

I hopefully am ready a few minutes before they get back to the camp so that I can get their pictures organized.

I remember that I sell thousand dollar a night condos when I'm trying to get these people to purchase a picture of themselves

I then lead them back to the helicopters 'no I'm sorry you cannot change seats...' and get them ready to go

Once the helicopter lands I help the new tourists in the helicopter and then I put the old tourists, photos hopefully in hand, back inside. I then unload the gear/ load our gear into it.

This process repeats itself every hour. Tours on 'slower' days run every hour, a full day is every half hour.

5:00ish-7pm tours stop. we feed dogs/ water/ poop scoop once last time.

7:30pm we eat.

8pm a crew does dishes/ we hang out.

I usually go to bed sometime between 9:30 and 10pm.

The picture is of what I'm living in. Note the snow is above the door on either side by about 2ft. I'll keep you all posted about what's going on but for now I'm oging ot get my things organized again to go back up to hang out with the 240 dogs!

Getting to Small Town Alaska

I have spent my first 24 hours at my home base for the next 6 months. Once again out of respect for my company I'm not going to disclose the name of the town, if you're interested in knowing my address please just email me, mperry421@gmail.com. I flew into Juneau at about 7:30 and then got to my hotel where I made a few phone calls and went to bed. I didn't wake up again until 5am, 30 minutes before my alarm was going to go off. I was getting up early because there are one of two ways to get my home base and both leave at ass-crack-of-dawn o'clock. The first way is to fly in a small plane from Juneau. When I say small I mean an 8 seater cessna. The other way, which takes longer but is much more relaxing and scenic, also has no weight restrictions on baggage (big plus!) is to take the ferry. I've flown into Rutland, VT before which has about the smallest airport one could ever ask for. The one here in this town is the same size. When sizing up my options I thought about the flight from Boston to Rutland and how it was beautiful, it also got tossed around a lot. I also thought that I hadn't yet traveled by ferry. So my choice was easy. Ferry it was!

Continental breakfast at my hotel didn't start until 7am, which was a bummer because it meant that I had to get breakfast on the ferry. I also like to eat a big breakfast from the continental counter because then it means I have to pay for less food later. At 5:30am the coffee wasn't brewed let alone the bagels set out. So on an empty stomach I set out to discover how one travels by marine highway. Now here is an interesting tid bit of knowledge- if you own a car and wish to drive it on the ferry you MUST be there two hours in advance. However, if you're a traveler with an excessively large bag and nothing else besides yourself you can pretty much arrive 30 minutes before the ferry leaves, even though the website says an hour. So I could have slept another 30 minutes, but what did it matter? I still would have missed breakfast anyway. I had bought my ticket in advance which means that I reserved it and would pick it up when I arrived. The kid who gave me to my ticket was very nice and I asked if I could board and he said yes, if I wanted to. I figured there might be breakfast, or at least a cup of coffee on the ferry so I went straight for the boats. I checked my abnormally large bag and walked onto what was about the size of a cruise ship.

I then saw a sign for the cafeteria, and went to investigate. After going up 3 flights of stairs I saw it, with a big sign that said 'Open at 11:30am.' I was crushed. I had some pistachios and some granola in my bag as snacks that was going to have to do until 11:30. There were people milling about but it seemed to me they were mostly people who just wanted to sleep in the cushioned booths. I walked away feeling a little let down, and surprised. 'Really they'd have this place open for boarding but not serve coffee... huge money loss' I then saw someone come out of a door from the cafeteria with a steaming cup of coffee. I retraced my steps to find that the place where they sell the food isn't visable from those walking around. I then got my cup of coffee, nothing else seemed to interest me so I was going to wait for lunch and have granola instead. This was a good decision. BEWARE they only take cash and there ZERO atms on board. I had enough to get my lunch but not enough to get lunch and breakfast.

After my cup of coffee I found the front viewing deck and fell asleep again. Totally worth it. When I woke up I watched the beautiful scenery as we passed. The mountains were still snow capped and came right up out of the ocean. I saw a whale and some porpoises along with an eagle or two. The landscape was clearly rugged and wile. Nothing for miles, we didn't see any sign of human impact besides the occasional abandoned lighthouse. If you have the chance to take the ferry out of Juneau I highly suggest it.

When it was a respectful time to call others I tried to reach those picking me up in my town. No answer. I left a message. I tried two hours later. Still no answer. It got the point where they were supposed to pick me up in an hour and half, still no answer. I finally call a person who I'd been speaking to in Juneau and no answer, I asked that she try to get a hold of the ground crew in my town so that someone would be there to pick me up. I was stressed at this point. I realize that I'm on this kick about trusting others, to know that they care about strangers... blah blah blah. I still believe this, but as far as trusting others with my logistical plans I generally try not to leave it to fate. Benin has taught me that especially in travel, if you're planning something, you cannot leave it up to others to follow your schedule. So I confirm all hotel reservations, double check flight times, check in early, weight my baggage, speak to those I need to speak to in advance, and so on. I also realize that I should have called about a week ago, or even the night before. Because I didn't calls someone before all I could do now was cross my fingers and hope for the best. I hadn't heard from anyone until the ferry was 50 feet from the dock of where I was getting off. I got a phone call and they said that someone would be holding a sign with my name on it and they were there right now. I thanked the travel Gods and skipped off the ship to get my luggage.

The town I live in is very small approximately 700 people. I can walk anywhere and they even loaned me a bike, which I realized the seat was set for someone who's about a foot taller than me. I tried to lower the seat but it was rusted in place. The rest of the bike looks good (thank you Peace Corps/ Papa Velo for training me about bikes) tires were solid and the brakes/ gears worked, chain needed oiling but other than that it appeared to work well from the time I spent poking it. I also found the laundromat, public library, grocery store and local hardware store. The joke about the hardware store is that if they don't sell it you don't need it, true statement. I left with all the items on my list. Overall I'm happy to be here and interested in exploring my area before I get on the glacier, but still anxious to start working!