Edward's stuff

yes it has been a while since my last blog post, but with the weather up here so nice i couldn't spend the day only in front of my computer updating this when i could be out doing something. so to compensate more pictures have been posted. the first group is from a visit to two of the COOP weather observation sites here in SE alaska. the two sites were Snettesham (not sure about spelling but i know i am close) and annex creek. both of which are hydroelectric power plants for juneau.  as with any place in se alaska you can't get to it by road. the easiest way is by air, specifically float plane. for my first time in a small plane let alone a float plane, i could not have picked a better time. the weather was perfect, so the view was fantastic. and with the weather so good we could fly up and over the mountains to our destination rather then sticking to the channels. as for what i saw i will let the photos speak for themselves. the photos are in the "annex creek and snettesham" folder.

group two is in the juneau folder and shows pictures of the Herbert glacier and of last chance basin. Herbert glacier is another glacier you can get to see in juneau yet unlike the mendenhall glacier you need to hike or bike 4.5 miles from the road to see it. at the end of the main trail, if you feel adventurous enough you can hike nearly up to the base of it as well (though you will need to do some bushwhacking to do so). you also need to watch for wildlife like bears (me and the friends i was with ran into one on this hike. second time i have seen a bear since being in juneau. the first time was in early may up in the forest behind where i live). the last chance basin is the basin that is a little less then a mile n of downtown juneau. it is hard to believe that you are so close to downtown yet it feels like you are miles away from it. this is where the perseverance trail starts and is also where lots of gold mining in juneau's history took place. it is very nice back in there. the last few are of waterfalls and lake views seen near the mendenhall glacier.

other things i have done since last post. went to DLOC training in oklahoma in march, hiked the treadwell ruins and treadwell glory hole trails, visited the last chance mining museum, hiked the salmon creek trail, hiked a few other smaller trails, tried and liked playing disk golf, and found at least seven geocaches in juneau. if i described all of those this entry would go on for ever. animals seen so far include 3 bears (all black bears), 5 deer, 5 porcupines, and numerous birds and eagles.

Since my last post, repairs have been made to the power lines connecting juneau to the hydroelectric plant at senettisham. they did it by bypassing the downed tower altogether and rigging up the surrounding towers so they can better handle the load. it was completed ahead of schedule and under what they thought it was going to cost. the good weather we had for awhile after that avalanche helped a lot as well. so we only have to endour a one month doubleing of our electric bills. this has not been a good winter for avalanches. in addition to the one that took out the power lines, there was also another avalanche in early febuary that cut off thane from the rest of juneau. (thane is a small community of about 30 residents that live about 5 miles south of downtown down thane road that runs on the small amount of flat land that exists between the steep slopes of Mt. Roberts and the channel.) About a mile of thane road just south of downtown is in an area that has a very high danger for avalanches, with about 19 known avalanche paths. this paticular avalanche plowed down one of the bigger chutes, buried the road to a depth of about 20 feet and went all the way to the channel. thankfully no one was on the road at the time of the slide. took about a day and a half for road crews to clear the way again. another line that runs from senettisham to juneau runs through this area as well. the above ground lines were damaged but an underground line remainded undamaged so the diesel generators remained off for this event. news artical from the juneau empire can be found here. thane road is not the only place in juneau that is in danger of avalanches. several areas around downtown at the base of mt. juneau and mt. roberts are at risk and thunder mountain is not called that for nothing.

in other happenings, january was a weird month for weather here. we had in juneau near record cold (-9 degrees which is one degree away from setting a record low for that day at the airport), record highs (reached 53 in mid january), record snow for the month (75.2 inches at the airport), near record liquid precip (9.28 inches of rain and melted snow for the month), a little bit of flooding, and of course avalanches. you can imangine that with all that snow the piles are getting rather large and the city is running out of places to put the snow. they are used to it though. the schools up here as far as i know have only closed for the day once and the city crews do a fantastic job at keeping the roads clear (even when we get about a foot or more of snow in 12 hours.) i have had only one time where i could not get all the way to the foot of my driveway because the snow was too deep, and that was way back in november.

on the day that we got up to 53 degrees here, i had it off so i went out to douglas island and hiked the treadwell mine ruins trail and hiked the tidal flats nearby. lots to see in that area. several abandon mine buildings and some really good views of the snow covered mt. roberts and mt. juneau. didn't do all of the trail since it was still snow covered and slipery. will hike more of it when the snow has melted away. another hike i did was today. went out to the mendenhall glacier and the weather was great, mostly clear skies, temperature just below freezing and no wind. weather has been cold for the last week so the lake was frozen over enough that you could walk across it and right up to the foot of the mendenhall glacier. it is amazing how the edge of the glacier didn't look that big from the visitors center, yet when you got right up next to it you have these towers of blue ice poking out of the lake ice at the glacier's edge. at this time there is a very large creavass in the side of the glacier that goes a few hundred feet into it. almost forming an ice cave farther in due to overhaning ice. i didn't go into it but you could tell others had by the well stomped down path in the snow. it was just increadable that you could get that close to the glacier. pictures from these two hikes as well as a few other pictures are in the juneau photo gallery.

not much else to report. i have started working solo on the long term desk at work now. still training on short term but will be solo on that some time in march. also in march i am being shiped to Norman, OK for training. will be down there about a week. still waiting for redoubt to blow its top. that mountain has been shaking for a month now and so far has done nothing but steam and melt the glacier covering it.

it has been an eventful few weeks here. especially in the weather department. se alaska has just recently broke out of a cold snap that was over the area for the past few weeks. temps at one point got near zero at my apartment and as low as -17 at the nws office. the same day the nws office never got above zero for a hi. we also have been getting dumped on for snow. since january 1st we got just over 51 inches at the airport and 55 inches at the office. after compaction and melting that gave us a snow depth of 38 inches on the ground. temps now are aproching 40 degrees for highs and our lows are expected to remain above freezing for the next few day. concequently all that is leading to some problems with melt water runoff and avalanche danger.

you may have already heard about it but one of the towers for the power line from the snettisham hydroelectric plant was taken out by an avalanche yesterday. juneau is now running on diesel backup until the tower can be repaired. second time in less than a year that this has happened. last time a mile wide avalanche last april took out several of those towers. this time it was only one tower, but it was one of those that was taken out last time and it was the tower that repair crews were last safely able to get to because of the danger of more avalanches. oh well, i guess that is the risk of living up here. which is more than i can say for some people up here. as soon as the news came out, the juneau empire artical online had so many whiny responces about it it was unreal. good greif people. steep terrain plus lots of snow equals a risk of avalanches. the power line was placed there because the risk was deamed exceptable compaired to other alternatives at the time, and even with the avalanche prevention that they are doing now, it will not prevent all avalanches on those slopes. relocated the line will still take months if not years to complete. so toughen up and except the risk of where you chose to live. (sorry, had to get that off my chest).

i am doing fine up here. my truck is running ok again after fixing a minor coolant leak and replacing another o2 sensor on it back in december. as for the roads up here since the warm up i can finally see the lines on the road after quite a few weeks of snow covered roads. also as a xmas gist to myself i broke down and got a Wii. currently only have mario kart for it but i plan to get super smash brothers and the latest zelda game

ok so i haven't updated this thing in a while. so sue me. i just didn't feel like doing it. anyway, winter has made an appearance here in juneau. our first snowfall here was about a week or two before Halloween. over the course of two days we got about 4 inches of snow. learned some very important things about winter in juneau. one, they don't use salt on the roads here. they plow and spread sand, dirt or (in the case of parking lots) gravel. two, the road up to where i live is low on the list to get plowed. and three, my truck with the plane tires was not going to cut it going up these hills to my appartment. that first snowfall, i was working mids so i got off work when the snow was at its deepest. i barely made it to the culdasak where the driveway begins. didn't even attempt the driveway and that was with only 3 inches on the ground. needless to say, i went out a few weeks later and got studded tires for the truck. after that our next occurence of snow was not until today. what a difference studded tires make. with 1.5 inches of snow on the ground the tires didn't really start spining out until i went up the driveway, and even then i still had some traction to work with. i still think i need a little more weight in the back though.

a few other interesting things about winter here is that we get black ice on the roads really easily. just about every time the roads were wet and the temp dropped below freezing even for a little bit, you got black ice. another thing is that we get frost here like you wouldn't beleve. it gets so thick sometimes that it looks like you have snow on the ground, and at work we have to scrape the frost off the snow board so it doesn't give us inaccurate snow accumulations.

speaking of work, that has been going fine so far. when i first got here they put me on training on the public desk for about a month, and then threw me to the wolves, almost literally, working the public desk. my first shift solo was a mid shift where we had wind advisories up and down the panhandle. that was fun with advisories being updated or cancelled. then on the last mid shift of the string, the Yakutat WSO lost their internet. when that happens, Yakutat is ecentually blind and the public desk here ends up becoming the Yakutat WSO in addition to the regular duties that it performs. this includes issuing their short-term forecast, issuing and updating the marine forecast for Yakutat Bay, and sending in the data from their ballon launch. this happened again about two weeks later. right now i have started training on the long and short term forecast desks. will not be set loose on those until after new years.

not much else to say. i have gone out and done a few things here. the NWS has a team in the sunday night bowling leauge. they roped me into doing that. i also got lured into being the ex-checker for the local SCA shire up here as well. all in all things haven't been boring. views are still very nice when the weather clears. it is very interesting on some days when there is fog in lemon creek. my appartment is just high enough on the hill that on some days it is above the fog making for a very interesting view out my window.

well, one of the first things that you notice about Juneau is how wet and cool it is here. i have been here two weeks so far and i have only seen the sun once. and all the other days it rained at some point during the day. some times it was just drizzle other times it was light to moderate rain. at no point have i seen a day where the roads have not been wet.

apartment is nice. it is somewhat bigger than what i was expecting. has a living area, computer room off of that, a small kitchen, and bathroom and a bedroom. there is also a balcony and the view when the weather is nice is great. my only compliant so far are the hills driving up to this place. the initial hills going up to the place are a little less steep than the one to get up to my apartment in rapid city, but the hill that the driveway is situated on is rather steep. it is going to be interesting driving up to that in the winter.

Juneau has i lot of stuff here. i have seen several restaurant (most are local places the only chain places i have seen here are mcdonalds, subway, and a few pizza delivery places like dominoes.) a walmart, fred meyers, two small malls, home depoe, costco and safeway, a small bowling alley, there is a ski area on douglas island, and several gift shops and jewlery stores near where the cruse ships dock. so far in exploring around the area i have visited the mendenhall glacier and hiked a few trails around it. i have also gone down the main road to its northern end which is 40 miles north of downtown. i have also looked around the downtown area. there are several trails i would like to hike down someday.

work so far has been good. they mostly have me on a training schedule right now. learning the ropes and doing all of the various web training modules that we need to do. so far it looks like it will be interesting.

i did manage to meet some of the menbers of the local shire up here this weekend. the shire is the shire of earngyld (Earn-Guild). two of the members are the current prince and princess of the princapality of Oertha (A-Or-Tha) in the Kingdom of the West.

more next time. more pictures have been added to the "moving to alaska" album and a new album has been added titled "Juneau"