June 11th: snow and de-icing at the Bozeman airport. A hint of some of the weather delays we'd experience in Alaska
Nome and the Bering Straight
Nome
Kigluaik Mountains, north of Nome
we saw lots of lake that were clearly too shallow...
...others looked deep (54 - check depth) but weren't (< 3 m)
Lunch at Quartz Creek...“little did they know”
Lava flows around Imaruk Lake, Bering Land Bridge National Preserve
Grizz -- not liking the helicopter
more lava, but different
lava
Tail of a Beechcraft airplane. We would later find the rest of the plan on a flight back from the preserve
Nugget Pond
Muskox jam
muskox
flat tire...in the rain
Richard the miner, getting ready to head 30 mi off road to his claim.
Hughes 500 D
winter still holding on in the higher country
Jennifer and Ryan, with “The Suppie”
Caribou
the rest of the Beechcraft...
Quartz Creek, 12 pm
sneaking through the clouds to visit “Lake 53”
weather is just flyable....
1st sling load
Nimrod Lake
Grizz find our camp
Grizz circles the lake...slowly
Grizz makes it to our camp...will we watch it destroy our tents???
Grizz keeps on walking...
Grizz makes it to the gear and cook tent...
Grizz looks curious...but eventually leaves wihtout harming a thing.
with the grizz gone, we can final take the Nimrod Lake short core
Ryan learns to row....
bear-proof off-shore anchor technique Ryan came up with for the tender raft...nice work.
lichen on burned tussock, after 1977 fire
Nitwit Lake (very) short core
burned tussock from 1977 fire
chopper...
Orion Lake -- a beautiful setting.
sling load
What's Ryan so excited about?
Orion Lake short core: OR08sh
camp at Orion Lake
good (left) and bad (right) sediment from Orion Lake
not phased by the rain, Ryan and Heather work on...
visit from Charlie, Eileen, and Shane
OR08sh
calculating the load weight
good by to Orion Lake
Asses Ears Lake
Laundry Lake
Cotton grass
Heather, ready to protect the camp
Laundry Lake short core
Last sling load out
cat tracks in the tundra...long lasting
Charlie, Ryan, Heather, Phil, and our pilot, Shane
The drive back to Nome
Nugget Pond short core
miner's camp outside of Nome
Bering Sea and Nome
Phase one, tundra lakes, compete.
Heather, from the NPS Denali fire crew
gold finding machine - feeling lucky?
early warning system left over from the Cold War
