The leaves have pretty much all fallen off of the trees and the mornings are getting colder. Today may be my last commuting day as it is now dark & cold when I normally leave and I'll be out of town next week. Last Sunday, we had our first "hard frost" and the puddles in the driveway were solid ice. I didn't commute for a couple of days this week due the threat of rain and sub-freezing temperatures and every day, the morning cold and clouds had vanished into a wonderful afternoon. This picture was taken on one of my walks home after riding the bus in.
The ride in this morning felt wonderful as the temperature was a balmy 30°F so I took the scenic route through Goldstream Valley. What I didn't think about was that you can't really see any scenery as it's dark (weird riding in the dark) and in some of the low areas, there was a bit of fog. I must admit that it is really nice having that huge windshield and faring on the RT. No need for heated anything which is fortunate given the anemic charging system. This is one of the few times I've ever ridden the bike without it's cases on and I think it actually looks a bit odd. The cases sort of balance out the large faring. I took the only "motorcycle parking only" spot left as they are only reserved during the summer. A Harley rider pulled into the spot next to me with her truck and commented that it was great to see someone still out riding. (She normally rides her Sportster in to work during the summer rain or shine)
For the last couple of weeks, I have been focusing again on getting in some more exercise. A handfull of BMW riders have been meeting for coffee in the morning at a local coffee house and twice this week, I had reason to be on lower campus. It was a good opportunity to go for a walk down from my office on West Ridge and meet them. One of the riders is retiring from the university today and is leaving the state tomorrow morning. He had started the email list of local BMW riders so I offered to take it over and convert it to a Google Group. That took all of 5 minutes including sending out all of the invitations. This coffee house walk is usually good for 4 to 5 miles depending on the route.
My exercise goal is to try and get back to roughly ten miles per day again. The university has a wonderful set of walking and ski trails practically across the street from my office and it's almost foolish for me not to take advantage of them. This shot is taken from the north end of the T-Field located on the ski trails. It is almost a mile around and the ski team has conveniently marked the loop with distance markers every 200m for some sort of training exercise. I frequently see moose and fox back here which is kind of cool since I'm only a short way from my office. The fenced in area is part of some research project, the triangular cone is a radar reflector (used for spatial calibration of radar images) and in the distance, you can see the Geophysical Institute with the large satellite dish on top. We have a Technology Day coming up and I volunteered to help with the geocaching. It is another good excuse to go out and walk around campus. Yesterday, I checked the caches and it was another nice 5 mile walk. Up until February, 2010, I was doing pretty good until I tried some different medication that just killed my knees. It's taken a long time to recover from those two weeks. I don't know why a medication to control blood sugar would affect the fluid in your knees but it did. I can once again easily walk 10-15 miles without much effort and I'm planning on doing the Equinox Marathon again next year.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Monday, September 26, 2011
Atigun Pass
Early Saturday morning, we left Toolik Field Station headed back to Fairbanks. As mentioned in my last post, I took a couple of pictures of some of the views from Atigun Pass. Since the road is fairly steep (12% grade), you are up and over pretty quickly.
We arrived back in Fairbanks around 3:00pm.
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Approaching the Brooks Range from the North |
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Half Way Up Looking North |
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Just South of the Summit |
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Looking South |
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South of Atigun |
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Termination Dust
A sight that makes some around here want to cry. This photo was not taken in Fairbanks but around four hundred miles north along the Dalton Highway. And, for those of you who have forgotten what this is, it's snow aka termination dust. We left at 7:00am in a university truck for Toolik Lake Field Station. We stopped for coffee at the Yukon River bridge and at the Arctic Circle turnout since the other two had never been up this road before. We got to Coldfoot at 1:00 for lunch and fuel before heading up and over Atigun Pass, elevation 4739, arriving at Toolik Lake Field Camp around 4:00 or so. There was a lot of snow at the pass but since I was driving, no pictures and absolutely no safe places to pull over. We were really into the clouds so visibility was only a few hundred feet anyway. As we descended, the temperature warmed up but small ponds were already frozen. The road also deteriorated as we went up and over the pass to lots of frozen ruts.
I am up here to install some instrumentation in support of a UAF research project and needed to get it done before the end of the summer field season. Plus I would never pass up an opportunity to come up here. It is a beautiful trip with vast open spaces. I was last up here around seven years ago to install a VoIP system and get the network up and running. Since then, the camp has grown considerably and it is a wonderful facility to work in. We are having some difficulty already as the fiber optic cable we are working with is heavily armored and very difficult to get into.
We looked hard but didn't spot any wildlife except for a couple of squirrels. This is one of the sections of road north of the Arctic Circle where you can really see the remoteness of this location. From here, the truckstop at Coldfoot is the only place to get fuel and food before you get to Deadhorse. Gas was $5.19/gallon but the food was very reasonably priced with generous portions. I'll try to get some photos of the pass on the way back as some of the views are incredible.
I am up here to install some instrumentation in support of a UAF research project and needed to get it done before the end of the summer field season. Plus I would never pass up an opportunity to come up here. It is a beautiful trip with vast open spaces. I was last up here around seven years ago to install a VoIP system and get the network up and running. Since then, the camp has grown considerably and it is a wonderful facility to work in. We are having some difficulty already as the fiber optic cable we are working with is heavily armored and very difficult to get into.
We looked hard but didn't spot any wildlife except for a couple of squirrels. This is one of the sections of road north of the Arctic Circle where you can really see the remoteness of this location. From here, the truckstop at Coldfoot is the only place to get fuel and food before you get to Deadhorse. Gas was $5.19/gallon but the food was very reasonably priced with generous portions. I'll try to get some photos of the pass on the way back as some of the views are incredible.
Toolik Lake |
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Chena Hot Springs Ride


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Looking towards the airstrip |
View Larger Map
BTW, I just noticed in the Google Maps image you can see the smoke from a brush fire north of the resort. This suggests that the image is probably at least a couple of years old.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Fall Colors

Here in the interior, we are right in the middle of Fall with most of the leaves having changed but are still clinging to the branches. You may notice that we don't get many colors mostly different shades of yellow. Nowhere near as colorful as other parts of the country. This is along Eton Drive and is one of my favorite places to walk as the traffic is light and the views are pretty good. And plenty of hills for those of us crazy enough to have a need for them. Walking without hills would get pretty boring.
This is the view looking towards the south. The clouds are still obscuring the Alaska Range and most of the city of Fairbanks is off to the left out of frame. I ended up doing this walk twice yesterday, once in each direction, to at least get in a single ten mile day this week. I must admit that the evening walk was done instead of a motorcycle ride. Too many activities and too little time. I couldn't be gone too long as during this same time, I had a couple of pots on the stove but they were in their "simmer for a long time" phase. Some of my favorites, collard greens (from the farmers market) and jambalaya...
For me, walking is still a great way to think and reflect. Maybe I should do more of it. At least my knees aren't hurting anymore. Maybe there is some good that came out of all that slack time...
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Two Tanks of Gas
How did I manage to go through two tanks of gas without going anywhere? The weather guessers were predicting rain for the entire weekend so no trips were planned. It turned out to be a beautiful weekend with dark blue skies and temperatures into the sixties. I had to pick up some stuff from the strore and one little wrong turn leaving our subdivision somehow added a hundred miles to the trip. The only downside was that the vendor at the local farmers market was out of my favorite bread by the time I finally got there. Nice round loaves of whole grain raisin apricot. Similar trips were "required" throughout the weekend and before I knew it, I had to fill up a couple of times. There were a lot of other bikes out enjoying what's left of our summer and I ended up traveling over most of the major roads in our area. Out to Moose Creek to the east, Nenana to the west and Chatanika road house to the north. No food stops and no pictures. After all, I was just running to the grocery store....
On Monday evening, the Airhead group met at the on-campus home of Kevin and Annie for a barbecue. Kevin has been involved trying to very loosely organize the local BMW riders to at least have a first and last ride of the season. They will be leaving the state at the end of the month (retiring) for questionably warmer weather in Montana trailering their last three bikes (all BMWs) after shuttling the first two at the beginning of the summer. Another couple (retired) headed out this morning on their bikes for a 15K, two month road trip. They will be leaving their bikes down south and flying back to enjoy the holidays and Alaska winter. (Can you tell that I'm feeling a little jealous?) There was a pretty good turnout to see them off. Mostly fellow Airheads but there was a new Guzzi Norge, an K1200GT and a Yamaha cruiser in the mix.

Photo by Kevin Huddy |
Pretty mangy looking group, eh? And ended the weekend with 382 miles of going nowhere.
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