Unfortunately, the highlight of my trip, exploring the Arctic Divide and the more northern reaches of the Brooks Range, was not photographed because my camera died on the second day of my long hike. The camera was in my pocket and I think the lens cover jimmied open while I was thrashing through a nasty grove of Dwarf Willow trees, and the lens got crunched. But at least Amie brought her new camera, so the photo log resumes after we met up in Fairbanks after my hike. I have included both my photos and ones that Amie took; total count: 457.
September 19, 2006
Did you know that today is the primary election for Washington State? I voted today, did you? Check here if you need a few helpful hints. You have
until 8PM tonight to complete this mission.
Primary ElectionSeptember 17, 2006
The following items were lost or damaged during my Alaska trip, between 8-9-2009 and 9-12-2006:
Alaska Damage Report
| Item | Damage Type | Location | Cause |
|---|---|---|---|
| Teva sandal (left) | missing | Tombstone Park YT | Inadequate pack attachment |
| Nalgene Water Bottle | missing | Tombstone Park YT | Lapse of memory |
| Digital Camera | rendered inoperable | Gates of the Arctic AK | Attack by Dwarf Willows |
| 2 Fingers on Left Hand | broken | Gates of the Arctic AK | Fall due to insufficient friction on wet rocks |
| 3-mode Headlamp | missing | Summit Lake AK | Rushed departure due to weather conditions |
| Rain Jacket | ripped | Anchorage AK | Collision with motor vehicle |
| Cell Phone | partially crunched | Anchorage AK | Collision with motor vehicle |
| Cell Phone Extra Battery | rendered inoperable | Anchorage AK | Collision with motor vehicle |
| Right Hand | possibly broken | Anchorage AK | Collision with motor vehicle |
| Right Elbow | gashed | Anchorage AK | Collision with motor vehicle |
| Credit Card | $2K Due | (multiple locations) | Cost of the trip of a lifetime |
I made this table using a handy on-line table-making tool located at http://www.bagism.com/tablemaker/
September 13, 2006
The kehoe.org mail server is back online. Apparently it just needed to be turned off
for a while and allowed to rest for a few hours. This old WinNT box is on its last
legs, and I need to figure how to get my new Linux box
configured to run email soon, before the NT box croaks for good.
Email back in ServiceSeptember 12, 2006
For the past few days, Amie and I have been living aboard the M.V. Malaspina of the Alaska Marine Highway System, more commonly known as simply the "Alaska Ferry." The Alaska ferry is a real experience. With the standard ticket option, about $315 from Juneau to Bellingham, you just get on the ferry and find any place on the boat to camp out for 3 days; this boat had about 4 different spaces to choose from. Staterooms are also available for extra charge, but those are for old people. The cool people camp out on the top-level "solarium" deck for fresh air and the best views. Traditionally, many people pitch tents on the deck, but there was heavy rain at the start of this sailing and duct tape wouldn't stick to the deck. We met a lot of cool and interesting people on board. Imagine going on a 3-day cruise on a Washington State ferry, that's about what this trip was like.
Home Sweet Home
The cafeteria on our vessel was fairly inexpensive, but featured a limited selection beyond meat-and-potatoes fare. However, the cafeteria permits full access to its dishes and impressive selection of condiments to all, even those bringing their own food. There was also a microwave, but camping stoves are prohibited. Amie and I had stocked up on food at a natural foods store in Juneau, and we had to get creative cooking dishes like broccoli-cheese risotto with tempeh and steamed vegetables, using only cereal bowls and a microwave. It was like camping, but with a microwave, and you don't have to wash your dishes.
When we got off in Bellingham, we hopped on a southbound Amtrak Cascades train that departed across the street from the ferry terminal only 30 minutes later. Arrived in Pioneer Square about 2.5 hours later where we looked for a bus to take us back up the hill. It was only 11AM, but the city seemed to be a frenzy of furious activity, compared to the environment that I have been experiencing for the past 5 weeks.
Finally I returned to my humble abode, concluding my 5-week adventure to Alaska and the Arctic. The local Seattle weather seems downright tropical, and it appears that not much rain has fallen while I was gone. My friend Chris Langston, who was house sitting for me while I was gone, has done some nice work on my yard, which was a pleasant surprise to come home to.
Tomorrow...back to work...
Alaska has kicked our asses, so we are headed back south now. Yesterday afternoon, we boarded the Alaska Marine Highway ferry. Right
now I am in Ketchikan during a 3-hour layover. Gotta get back to the boat now, so more about the ferry later...no time for
proofreading..
We had excellent luck hitchhiking south. We got a short ride to a traffic signal at a one-lane bridge down the highway, where almost all traffic was forced to stop and look at us for a while. Amie had some juggling bean bags with her, and put on a show for the waiting motorists. From there, we hooked up with a pair who was going all the way to Homer, we tagged along with them and shared gas costs, spent the night and checked out the local bar in Talkeetna, and along the way stopped at a restaurant that our driver knew about, with bottolmess soup.
Once in Homer, we planned out a 3-day hike in Kachemak Bay State Park. The park is across the bay from Homer, and we had to charter a water taxi to take us to the trailhead. We hiked out to Grewingk Glacier and camped there for two nights. We had planned to do some more exploring on the second day, but there was much rain and we only did a 2 mile hike up to the foot of the glacier and back. Nonetheless, it was a beautiful area to spend some time in. Tomorrow, we head up to Anchorage for a day and then on to Juneau.
. And there isn't much that I can do about it right now. So if you sent me a message and it bounced, sorry. Try again after I return on September 13.
Hiking in the arctic is pretty different from hiking in other mountains, like the Cascades. There are no trails, but the terrain is fairly open. You can pretty much make bee lines from point A to point B, but often there are boggy sections and an abundance of the dreaded Sedge Tussocks, that can sometimes be avoided, sometimes not. Walking across Sedge Tussocks is like walking across a field of hairy basketballs partially submerged in mud, they sometimes support your weight, but sometimes collapse and send you tumbling into the mud. The rivers often have gravel bars, which provide easy walking, but they switch from side to side. For many miles, I just hiked in my sandals and forded
the creek to get the best walking surface. I got to scramble up several peaks, including one in the evening, where I watched a sideways sunset, a unique feature of the arctic. Another unique feature that I explored was a glacier that was almost completely covered with broken rock, like walking on a frozen mountain. The mountains here are constantly shedding loose rock, big and small and sometimes a hazard.
A couple of bummers happened, though. 1: My camera died on the second day. I got some good pictures in before that, but it was just the tip of the scenery iceberg. 2: I broke two fingers on my left hand on the 4th day when I slipped on a rock while crossing a stream. I was holding a walking stick in that hand and I landed right on it. I used some duct-tape first aid to splint the fingers together.
Now I have rendezvoused with Amie in Fairbanks, and we are figuring out what to do next. Thanks Amie for helping me type this because of my partially-incapacitated left hand.
Anyways, my plan is to be deposited along the North Fork Koyukuk River, near Pyramid Creek, and just north of the two peaks, Boreal Mt. and Frigid Crags, that Bob Marshall coined the Gates of the Arctic during his early explorations of the area. I have been reading a book of Bob's accounts of these journeys he took during the late 1920's and early 1930's, being the first known white person to travel these lands; he got to name a bunch of the rivers and peaks in the area, names that are still shown on my current USGS map. The area along the North Fork Koyukuk River and its tributaries north of the Gates has peaked my interest, so that is the area where I am aiming. This area straddles the so-called Arctic Divide, where if I pee on the south side of the divide, it will drain into the Pacific Ocean, on the north side it will go to the Arctic Ocean. I'll spend a good part of a week hiking, exploring the valleys, and scrambling up peaks of the area. To return, I'll be picked up either at the same dropoff point, or up at the headwaters of the Oolah Valley. Or if the weather is uncooperative, I'll have to do something completely different; these details to be determined once I get to Bettles.
Back in a week...
So now I.m borrowing Rachel's bike running around greater Fairbanks. It has apparently been raining here almost constantly for weeks, and everything is soggy, but today it is nicely dry and overcast, perfect bike riding weather. Unfortunately, since it is Saturday, the Gates of the Arctic National Park's main office is closed, so I can't really talk to anyone about trip/route planning until Monday. I found that I can go to the public library and use the internet for free for an hour at a time, which is where I am right now. Hmm...what's to do in Fairbanks on a Saturday night and Sunday?
Next, I'm going to try going up the Klondike Highway into AK, since I am making good progress and have a few days extra to work with. This route is north of the Alcan and becomes the "Top of the World highway" in AK. I'm also going to try to do a bit of hiking in Tombstone Territorial Park for a day or two. I would upload pictures, but it's hard to find a mini-usb cable or a card reader in these parts, eh?
More later, but it might not be until I get to Fairbanks...
I took a Trailways Bus up to Vancouver, BC and then caught a Greyhound to Prince George, BC. From there, I tried to hitchhike northward. I heard that there was a truck stop up the highway about a kilometer past the last transit stop, so I started hiking up the highway. After about 3km, nothing, and I was in a bad spot to catch a ride because cars were going too fast and the BC ministry of Transport uses sub-standard shoulder widths. But, I met up with this fellow who strapped my pack to my trailer and took me back into the outskirts of town. Too bad he was going south, because it would have been fun to ride with him for a ways. After more waiting, I eventually got a ride to McKenzie and then another ride to Dawson Creek, "Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway" where I am today. After breakfast, I will seek out a ride northward.
The only thing left to do now before shutting down the old NT box is to move over the mail server functionality; this will be a more complex task that I probably won't tackle until I get back from Alaska.
Also, I decided to dump the Fedora distribution in favor of Ubuntu, after I had some trouble with
Fedora and got a timely tip from my friend, Kris, who is a
server guru. Ubuntu is a much less
bloated version of Linux; It fits on one CD! Also it seems to have a strong community that maintains the project and who are happy to provide helpful advice to those who need it.
One challenge with moving over my website files is that I had to go through all of my links and make sure that they still worked; Microsoft servers don't care if you use upper or lower case for specifying links addresses, whereas Linux is case-sensitive and will not tolerate sloppy links. So, if you notice any broken links that I missed, let me know.
My ultimate goal is to cross the Arctic Circle and spend a week in the remote wilderness, probably within the Gates of the Arctic National Park, but these details will be worked out once I get to Fairbanks. I'm planning to park myself in front of a computer for several hours once I arrive in Fairbanks, so maybe I'll be able to post a mid-way trip report.
One notable thing that I will share is that I found a route from the Chatter Creek trail to Ida Lake. The route is long and somewhat horrendous in spots, but doable. Feel to email me of you want details on finding the route.
Using an old computer that was donated to me by my dad, equipped with a slightly-obsolete AMD Athlon 1GHz processor, I am building a Linux box with the goal of eventually using it to my server.
The first step was to choose a distribution of Linux to install. A distribution is like a package of programs and scripts that run on the Linux kernel, which some individual or entity has bundled together for some specific need or purpose. There are lots of different ones available. I settled on the Fedora 5 distribution because it seemed to be a robust all-purpose package that was created by Red Hat, a well respected name in the Linux community. Fedora is probably overkill for my needs, but it seems to be a good way to get familiar with Linux. Another distribution that has intrigued me is the CentOS distribution; I might give this one a try before fully moving into the server.
Next, the installation. This process began with a 3-gigabyte download, which then had to be burned onto 5 CDs. One of the CD's is bootable, and that's how you start the installation. Well, my installation didn't work at first. It would start initially, but then freeze up with a blue screen full of random Russian characters. After hours of troubleshooting, I found the trouble to be a bad RAM module. With bad chip removed, installation proceeded normally, although it took quite some time.
After the install eventually completed, Fedora booted into the text-only terminal; this is because I had used the text version of the installer. If I expected to get anywhere from here, I had to brush up on those Unix commands, which I learned a little bit of in my days at the UW (remember ls and man?). To really dig into the more advanced and newish features of Linux, I would need to start the graphical interface The startx command is supposed to launch the X-windows graphical interface, but this only gave me a black screen. Turns out that the monitor I was using was so ancient that it wouldn't support the default resolution. A quick trip to Re-PC landed me a rather impressive 19" Viewsonic CRT for only $24.95, and that problem was solved.
And this where I am now, I have a fully functioning Linux-based server to play with. In the next few weeks I'll be trying to figure out how to set up the email and web services to match my current configuration on my aging NT box.
Linux seems to be a decent operating system for desktop use too, particularly the Fedora Distribution. If my hardware had been all up to snuff from the beginning, then I think that installation would have been a breeze. The Fedora distribution includes copies of the OpenOffice Suite, the FireFox browser, and other useful open-source software tools.
Although it's taking me a while to learn, I think that Linux is becoming a more and more useful skill to have. As the Microsoft products are becoming increasingly restrictive with their licensing policies and lack of support, I can envision a time when Linux-based operating systems may become the standard.
More on this topic as I become more acquainted with my new toy. It's a beautiful day today and I need to get outside.
I'm already thinking of ways to grow my tattoo in the future. The next layer could be something more organic and plant-like, which would feed my machine with bio-energy, kind of like how I get around on my bike.
Oh, and happy 6/6/06.
© 2006 Owen Kehoe
More trip pictures, damage reports, etc. to follow later.
September 10, 2006
With a day to kill in Anchorage, I thought I would rent a bike and cruise around the town for a bit, and check out the Costal Trail. I hadn't got very far when I was hit from behind by an absent-minded woman driving a Ford Taurus. I fell onto the pavement and got a big gash on my elbow and also hurt my other hand; now both of my hands aren't fully operational. Anyway, the police arrived and cited the driver for "Failure to Prevent a Collisoin" and I went back to the bike rental place to get another bike and continue my bike ride plan, this one being a little less ambitious.
Bad Drivers in AnchorageSeptember 7, 2006
After a couple of days of recuperating and bumming around Fairbanks, Amie and I headed south to Denali National Park. We got dropped off at the Wilderness Information Center, took a look at our calendar, took a look at the crowds congregated at the center and roaming the village, and decided to blow the joint; this way we could spend more time around the coast. We hiked back to the highway, about a mile, so we can say that we hiked Denali; we got a little lost on the way too.
Hiking near HomerSeptember 1, 2006
So my 7 day hike turned into a 8.5 day venture into the Alaska Wilderness.
I had beautiful weather for most of the trip, until the night before my scheduled pickup, when the fog and rain
rolled in from the north. Luckily there was an old cabin at the lake where I could get out of the fierce wind and
stay dry while I waited anxiously. I finally got picked up by a guy in a float plane from Bettles Lodge. Brooks Range Avaition had called him after they got backed up with other work due to bad weather. Apparently they do this a lot, Kurt my pilot, told me. So if I ever do something like this again, I think I'll give Bettles a call first. Also, I think I would do a trip that didn't require an air pickup. In the time that I waited for a pickup, I could have probably hiked the (estimated) 25 miles out to the Dalton Highway.
Back out of The BushAugust 22, 2006
...but it's really slow so just a quick update. The good people at Brooks Range Aviation think that they will be able to take me
tomorrow morning. My drop off point is a gravel bar along the North Fork of the Koyokuk River near Pyramid Creek. My arranged pickup point is at Summit lake, near the Oolah Valley, on August 30 at high noon, athough it could be anytime that day. These points are about 20 miles apart, and I should have no trouble making the distance in 7 days, with plenty of time for side-trips and scrambling along the way. I have all of my food packed in a bear-proof container and I'm ready to go. I just bartered the barkeep at the local tavern here a free beer (normally $5 a bottle!) for showing him how to enable standby mode after 30 minutes of inactivity on this computer; apparently power is very expensive, they use a diesel generator and can only haul fuel here in the winter when the winter road is open.
Bettles has InternetAugust 21, 2006
Tomorrow I fly to the bush community of Bettles, AK. From there I'll work with a local air taxi service to see where they can take me. I spent a good part of the day camped out at the National Park Service offices (Bonus: they had a grand opening gala-type thing with an impressive banquet spread of free food) and on the phone with various ground and air transportation outfits. Due to the bad weather and flooding, it's a little uncertain right now where they will be able to land and drop me off. They typically land on gravel bars next to the rivers, but some have been washed out. One outfit that I talked to had about a week's worth of flights queued up (mostly of people going Caribou hunting) because their planes have been grounded due to bad weather. But I found a company, Brooks Range Aviation, that thinks they can fit me in as soon as I can get to Bettles and camp out in front of their flight desk. There is a regularly scheduled flight to Bettles that leaves tomorrow at Noon.
A Rough PlanAugust 20, 2006
I found a cool coffee shop in Fairbanks that has computers with
card readers, so I could download the pictures off of my camera.
Here are a few choice ones from my journey up to AK:
Some Pictures
August 19, 2006
I am now hanging out in Fairbanks, AK. I got here last night after hours of waiting for a ride in Tok, in the cold wind; Tok is not a friendly place to hitchhike, as the local barkeep had forewarned me the night before. The person who gave me a ride told me not to tell his aunt that he picked me up, further details would be incriminating so I will leave it at that. I got dropped off by the University of Alaska, and walked over to Rachel's cabin, about a mile away. Rachel is someone who I met on a couchsurfing website, and has graciously offered floor space for me to crash upon while I'm in Fairbanks figuring out my next steps. Rachel's cabin has no running water, which actually seems to be pretty common around here, but I can take showers over at the University. She invited me to a birthday party with a 'prom' theme and I met some local Fairbanksians, who were very cool. Entertainment for the party consisted of a laptop drum machine, rapping about computer programming languages, and live jamming on a Theremin; all this under a big blue tarp that had to be adjusted every so often to drain the rainwater that was continuously pooling and threatening collapse.
Fairbanks Achieved!August 17, 2006
I have crossed the border into Alaska. From Dawson City, I got a ride with a duo from Austria that drove the
gravel-surfaced "Top of the World Highway" like it was the Autobahn, and then a ride from a older couple in an RV;
quite the contrasting experiences. Now I am in the metropolis of Tok, where the Alaska Highway splits paths, straight thru goes to Fairbanks, and a left turn goes to Anchorage. There's not much here and the town doesn't seem to be very pedestrian-friendly. The weather has been a little iffy, scattered downpours with sun breaks, so I'm going to find some shelter to camp out in before heading towards Fairbanks tomorrow morning; there is an abandoned trailer across the street that I am eyeing. But first, to find some grub...
Tok, AKAugust 16, 2006
For the past three days, I have been hiking in the Tombstone Territorial Park, in Yukon. It rained almost all day yesterday, and a little bit today too. The mountains there were interesting, but the plants there are unreal. Picture a 12" layer of moss and another 3" of lichen on top of that; and the whole thing goes squish when you step on it. Anyways, I'm glad to be out of the mountains now and into "civilization" if you can call Dawson City that; they still have gravel roads and wood-plank sidewalks here. I got a ride out by a local who runs a grader on the 0-135km district of the Dempster Hwy, the very stretch that we were driving on; he pointed out all of the trouble spots, and we had to stop a few times to take down some construction signs. Right now I'm sitting in a real Honky-tonk bar, complete with swinging doors, and also internet. But I need to get off now because my time is about to expire. I promise proofreading at a later date.
Tombstone Mountains, Dawson CityAugust 13, 2006
I have just arrived in Whitehorse, YT. From Dawson Creek, I got a short ride to Ft. St. John, and then a long ride northward with two guys from Alberta who were heading to Atlin, BC, in the far NW corner of the province to do some mineral exploration. Good guys, Jim and Cary; they were looking for gold, just like the old time prospectors. We must have traveled together for about 900 clicks (Kilometers), about 20 hours, before they dropped me off at "Jakes Corner", their turnoff, which was about 50 clicks shy of Whitehorse. A cafe there offered showers for $3, which I took. Then I got a ride with a big rig truck into Whitehorse; he was hauling a load of lumber to the local hardware store in Whitehorse. He was an interesting fellow who spent most of the ride complaining about other drivers cutting him off.
Yukon TerritoryAugust 12, 2006
So I have left for my voyage to Alaska. I was going to write something here before I left, but I was too busy
packing.
Enroute to AlaskaAugust 2, 2006
Following up on my server conversion project, my website has been fully transitioned onto my new Linux server. This website is now Microsoft-free and runs completely on open-source software. I can do a lot more now, like log in anywhere via SSH and edit my website or server configurations remotely. This will allow me to easily post reports while I'm up in Alaska, as long as I can find a computer with internet.
Website Linux Transition CompleteJuly 26, 2006
Planning a Voyage to the Arctic
It's too hot here, so I'm going to head up north to the Arctic in a few weeks. Actually, I have been planning this trip for a while now, I got clearance to take 5 weeks off of work, and I am going to spend it in Alaska.
July 4, 2006
This is a post-dated blog entry. Amie and I went on a 4-day hike over the Independence Day weekend, culminating at the lovely Ida Lake. I would love to write all about the trip, but I don't like to sit in front of a computer screen during all of this nice weather. However, you can enjoy these pictures. There are 138 of them; that's worth 318,000 words, right?
Independence from CivilizationJune 25, 2006
My web/email server is an old fart; it currently runs on WindowsNT 4.0, which is no longer supported by Microsoft and updates are no longer available for it. My options to modernize my server at this point are to a) buy a new Microsoft Server package for a ridiculous sum of money, b) find a pirated/hacked version of the above item and hope that the updates work, or c) find a free open-source alternative. I am choosing the latter option, which means that I need to become friends with Linux. This is like learning a new language; Linux at its core is a fundamentally different operating system than any of the Microsoft systems that I become so familiar with over the years. For example, take the concept of assigning letters to drives (C drive, D drive, etc); that's just a Microsoft convention and Linux uses a different disk identification system that I am still trying to understand.
Creating a New Server, with Linux!June 6, 2006
Tattoo Upgrade
By the way, I had my tattoo upgraded a while ago. My old tattoo (just the circle with the symbol inside) was about 3 years old, but I had wanted to add another layer onto it. So I designed a pattern in AutoCAD and had it installed by the family tattooist, Tina Bafaro. This new layer resembles a circuit board interface of some kind, I think of it as like an engine that drives the older symbol in the center, which appears to be in a state of motion. It could be thought of as operating in reverse too, collecting energy from the motion and distributing it outwards.
Tina did a good job of taking my design and transferring onto my skin, as it was difficult to get it aligned just right. The original tattoo is on my right thigh; I located it there to be aligned with the horizontal axis of my center of gravity. Turns out that it's a sensitive part of the body and the installation process was no picnic.
To continue into the past of the 0K Blog, click here: [2006.1].
