Delta River Float - Fourth of July

A wonderful Wedding

Lars and Sharon got married!!!! Yay! It was a wonderful wedding. They both did so much work to prepare and it really turned out very nice. Everyone had a great time. Especially the kids cause they had a big moonwalk and some other big carnival type games. There was good music and dancing too. A big dance party took off even through a heavy downpoor. We all got really muddy and wet, but kept on dancing. It was soooo much fun! Thanks Lars and Sharon for a great night!

Kesugi Ridge - Memorial Weekend 2007

It was 80 degrees Farenheit when we left Fairbanks... the perfect introduction to this trip. Neither Brian or I packed many warm clothes. We went for the lightweight packs. Didn't even really have a change of clothes. Just a couple MRE's (military Meals Ready to Eat) that don't require cooking and sleeping bags. Oh, Brian brough Josie as well (his chocolate lab).

Friday night we left Fairbanks for a 3 day weekend. We just hiked in a short distance on Friday night when we arrived and camped. This was our campsite. Pretty nice. Then on Saturday we headed up higher.

We were having a good time and decided to go off on a side hike even higher up into the mountains. We went up and up and up. Up into the snow where we got our boots really really wet.

We went way up into the snow. We had a bit of trouble punching through the snow and in some places it was quite deep - waist deep.

On the way back down, we got tired of punching through the deep snow and decided to roll down the mountain. We got really dizzy doing this, but it was sooooo fun!

The mountains were nice and on Saturday during the morning it was a beautiful day. Then the weather started to change.

We camped Saturday night and woke up with the tent covered in a thin layer of really wet snow. Our boots were frozen. We could barely get our boots on and when we did, our feet felt like ice blocks!

We decided on Sunday morning that we would just finish the last 18 miles that day so we could get out of the cold, bad weather. So, we hiked and hiked. It was such a beautiful trail. I want to go back and do it again sometime when the weather is nicer. It took us a long time, and the weather never improved much. We got rained on most of the day on Sunday. We just tried to follow the Kairns to keep on the trail.

My feet didn't like the 18 miles of hiking in wet boots on really steep trails. Especially the trail down from Kesugi Ridge to Byer's Lake. It is really steep and your toes get jammed in your boots! This is how my toes look almost 4 months later - still nasty!!!

Mustache Party

Some hockey friends threw a bonfire/mustache party. It was also a going away party for the hosts, Brent and Emily. There were a number of great costumes, but, unfortunately I didn't get photos of everyone. Guys had to come with mustaches and women could either come with a mustache of their own, or dressed as someone who would hang out with a guy with a mustache. I went with the 80's pornstar look...

Lars was a Professional Wrestler, with Gary as his manager. Sharon was Uncle Sam.

A raging bonfire went all night...
Brian was looking good with the gasket, while Lena brought out the tiger print. Reeeeeaaaaaarrrrrrrr....

Lena and Brian looking their best for the camera.

Brent and Stephen just back from hunting, or do they always look this classy?
Lisa sporting the Mustache Rodeo shirt from an Ultimate Frizbee Tournament from a few years ago. Nice...

Clearwater Float

Denali Highway Snowmachine Trip

Ed, Kristin, and Tina decided to ski across the Denali Highway. I dropped them off in Paxon on Thursday night, then drove back up to Fairbanks. Worked on Friday, then took of early Saturday morning with Mike and Kat to snowmachine in from Cantwell to meet the skiers on their last night along the highway. We had beautiful weather and the snowmachining was great.

This is one of Ed's photos of their skiing. He said that it was some of the best skiing of his life. And Ed has done a lot of skiing. You can see from the photo that it is an amazing place and the weather was perfect all weekend.

Here's Mike just getting all ready to take off from Cantwell on Saturday. All loaded up. We had a little difficulty getting all the gear and the sleds to work, but it didn't slow us down too badly.

How do we set this thing up again?

Kat shoveling out the snow. The tent worked great, was the perfect size for 6 people, and had a little wood stove to keep us warm.

I brought my travel guitar and played a few songs. Though, it sounded pretty rough. I hadn't practiced in a really long time and I'm not such a good player anyway.

But, I did get some musical accompanyment with Kat on the bongo and then Kristin took over.

We all slept pretty cozy. Just enough space for all of us to fit in the tent. Though, Kat had to sleep alone over near the door :(

We said goodbye to the skiers after Kat made a nice breakfast. Then Mike, Kat, and I took down the camp and loaded up the snowmachines.

Then we had a nice leisurely ride back out through the beautiful countryside.

Chatanika Days Outhouse Races

Ed, Brian, George, Melissa, and I pushed Old Faithful two days in a row on a 0.8 mile course in Chatanika. The course starts with a steep downhill. On the Sunday race, the teams were only started 30 seconds apart. There were a few wipeouts, missed turns, and near crashes on the hill. Fortunately no one was injured. After the steep downhill, there is a long straight stretch to the Chatanika Lodge and the finish line. This was the hardest 0.8 miles any of us had run before.


A number of outhouses lined up infront of Chatanika Lodge. We were waiting for George's friend to show up with our outhouse. They guy never turned up, so we volunteered to push "Old Faithful", the resident sled belonging to the owner of the Lodge. 28 years and running!!!!


Here we are catching a ride up to the starting line. Brian's looking sharp in the passenger seat.


We're at the bottom of the big hill, already tired and still had a long way to push.

Here we go along the straight, flat part. We were all worn out from sprinting down the hill.

Ed - showin what he's made of...

Workin hard for the money... so hard for the money...

Here we are at the finishline with the prowd owner of Old Faithful and the owner of Chatanika Lodge, Roy. He was very generous and gave us drink tokens for pushing Old Faithful around for the weekend!