Skolai Images

Hey Folks,

Here’s a photo I took a little over a month back, of Long Lake, off the McCarthy Rd. You can see what happens if you get to close here; the last photographer obviously tried a little too hard to push the boundaries. This lake freeze over, except for this small outflow at the western end of the lake, and another small section on the northside of the lake, where a spring bubbles into the lake, and keeps the surface from freezing. That section is a spawning ground for salmon all through the winter, even into April, and is one of the latest spawning areas in Alaska. The winter spawn is an important food source for a lot of animals in the area, including lynx, wolves, wolverines, raven, mink, marten, foxes and coyotes and more.

Won’t be long now until the lake thaws and the waterfowl settle in. Loons nest here every summer, so I hope I’ll get to photograph some of them soon enough.

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

The last 10 days have been pretty busy, as I’ve been doing the Wilderness First Responder course (note to self: don’t let your certifications lapse in the future). One of the primary goals of the course is to teach participants basic life support in backcountry and wilderness settings. Here my friend Lisa is holding her patient’s head stable to protect the patient (Jason) from spine injury. Both hands on the head, holding it still and steady, are critical. You can see in this simulation Lisa, with help from her other rescuer, has the patient warm and dry in a sleeping bag, on a foam pad to help insulate him. Jason was found lying in the pool you can see near his feet. Lisa and Taylor did a safety drag, where the spine is immobilized and Jason was dragged out of the water, on to the pad, they cut his wet clothes off, rolled him onto his side, placed a sleeping bag under him, rolled him back down and zipped up the bag. In no time at all, he was dry and warm. That’s a HUGE deal, as any treatment in this situation is going to (in all probability) be a minimum of several hours, and hypothermia will most likely set in. Hypothermia can affect people even when the ambient temperature is 65˚F (18.3˚ C) - so for someone with a possible major injury, lying flat on the ground for a short period of time even in mild weather can easily induce hypothermia. Get the patient dry, off the ground, and in a bag.

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

Well, I was going to try to set this up

So another off-the-wall post here; how would you expect anything other?

Another of my little projects this winter was to learn to play the Native American Indian Flute. I thought it might be nice having an instrument I could backpack and hike with during the summer, and I was also concerned about having a guitar in the cabin this winter, with the crazy low temperatures not being friendly to a delicate and expensive guitar (I ended up bringing my acoustic guitar, a Martin J-18, out to the cabin with me anyway - more on that later). I bought the flute in late January, a flute handmade out of walnut, in the key of E. It’s awesome. I’ve been playing it nearly every day, often for hours at a time.

Playing a wind instrument is SO different to playing guitar .. I never pay attention to my breathing when playing guitar, and yet it’s almost the ONLY thing to give attention to on a wind instrument - learning the difference between ‘blowing’ and ‘breathing’ makes the world of difference to tone and depth.

Lately I’ve found playing a few notes and riffs is a nice way to say ‘thanks’ to the mountains after I’ve done some photography .. so I usually get to my spot, pick out some compositions I want, play the flute while I wait for the light to really glow, then when I’m done, I play a few simple tunes to thank the landscape. It’s a treat for me to hear the flute amidst such scenery.

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

“Oh, break up is early”, they said. “Spring’s here!” they cried. “Summer’s on the way”, they projected. Well, it was about 15 degrees Fahrenheit this morning, and that didn’t factor in the wind chill. Winds in the vicinity of, oh, I dunno, say around 200mph, blowing straight out from under the polar ice cap, I’m led to believe. And here’s me trying to snowshoe across one of the great lakes to take some pictures!

Well, fool me once, for about 5 minutes, but I’m not THAT stupid. Uh uh, no sir, not me. This little vegemite turned tail, and (more…)

hey Folks,

Here’s another from the start of the Iditarod in Anchorage, March 1, 2008. It doesn’t seem like that long ago, and here the month has flown by. I wanted to get a shot or 2 of some interaction between the dogs and heir handlers, but they were typically not in decent light. Finally got a few that I was happy with. This one, the handler knelt down to check the dog’s booties, and he got a face full of tongue for his trouble. Seconds later the starter said “Go”, and the dogs were gone!

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

Here’s another from the Rio Baker - at the end of the first canyon, which is 5 enormous rapids over 2 miles, there’s a flatwater section, and then just down from the take-out spot is a big playwave. We bought an extra kayak, a smaller playboat, just for this one wave. You’d never want to run a river the size of the Baker in such a small boat, unless you’re a kayaker with world-class crazy skills - a bigger volume boat is what you need for running such big rapids. But, once down at the playwave, those big boats aren’t as handy for doing tricks and surfing, like this small Wave Sport ZG playboat. Being smaller and less volume, the boat is more maneuverable, and in the hands of someone like Santiago Ibanez, from Peru, it rocks and rolls with ease. Santiago’s a great fella, a helluva great kayaker, and he guides on the Futaleufu River when he’s not in Peru.

By the way, if you haven’t read my earlier blogs on the Baker, the river is scheduled to be dammed in the coming year. Hopefully enough activism and enough demonstrations will stop that from happening. For more information, visit these pages:

Baker River and also here.

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

Simpler times indeed. Last year at this time I was in the Andes Mountains with some good friends, on a trip to the Rio Baker, or Baker River, Patagonia, Chile. A series of insane Class 5 and 6 rapids make this one of the biggest whitewater kayaking runs in the world. This is the first of the 4 rapids, a cool drop over a waterfall. This kayaker is my friend from Futaleufu, Chilean native Memo, who’s real name is Guillermo - we just called him Memo. It was his first time on a river this size, and he paddled it with aplomb. I’m hoping to get back down to Chile maybe next winter and revisit some old friends and places. We’ll see if that happens.

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

Here’s my first attempt to bring an mp3 (Dad, that’s an audio file) online.

 

 Slow Turning: Play Now | Play in Popup

I have no idea if this will work. This is a tune I recorded with a few friends of mine years ago, for an album a group of John Hiatt fans recorded, called We Love The Jerk. The album is named, tongue-in-cheek, after one of his songs called “She Loves the Jerk”. Each person who wanted to recorded a song, and submitted it to the group, where the compilation was put together, including a cool album cover, and CDs shipped out to the John Hiatt fan club. Kind of a fun little project.

This tune is me playing guitars, my good friend Steve F playing bass, Steve Lusk singing his a** off, Chip Lunsford playing drums and Randy Hoexter playing piano. Randy recorded it at his studio. I really need to get in and do some more recording/writing and get some tunes online — maybe that’s another project I should finish. The song, Slow Turning, is the title track on John Hiatt’s “Slow Turning” album .. one of his best efforts, IMO. Definitely check out that album.

The photo is a friend of mine, Nate, way down in Futaleufu, Chile, right now, about to run the 3rd rapid of the Baker River, or Rio Baker - big, big water. Nate got smashed!

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

Well, just as I was winding down and about to go to bed, the news comes in. Lance Mackey wins the 2008 Iditarod. What an amazing achievement! He won the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod last year, and repeated both wins this year. 1100 miles down the frozen Yukon River, and virtually the same set of dogs wins the 1000 mile Iditarod. They said nobody could ever win both. He won both in 2007 and just won’ em again. Congrats Lance.

Jeff King, 4-time winner, is about an hour behind, and looks set to take 2nd place.

Cheers

Carl

hey Folks,

So whilst I’m locked down in the dungeon of Anchorage, waiting on the mechanics to tell me my van is fine, and any possible breakdowns were/will be my own doing, I’m dealing with another issue. My backpacking/guiding website, www.alaskanalpinetreks.com was set up, with the help of a friend Bugsy, a fantastic artist from Atlanta (now in LA), years ago, and hosted, at the Bugs’ recommendation, on digitalinet.com. Well, it’s been an adventure, but digitalinet can go to he**.

Their website indicates 24/7 tech support, and toll free phone support. Their website fails to provide any phone # or contact information, other than a standard form to fill out, at all. Not even an email address. I did, via extensive Google searching, extract a few of phone numbers that were supposedly related to digitalinet.com .. 2 of them were no longer working, the other 2 both yielded immediate voice mail messages, and I couldn’t get anyone to return a single call from either of them. (more…)