Archive for August, 2009

Another quick ireland update

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Another quick post from Ireland.

Most of the biking would be best described by a single word, “Wet”.

The scenery has been fairly interesting, with lots of stone fences, hedges, sheep paddocks of all sorts, and lots of small towns. The traffic has been fairly intense but all the drivers have been quite nice and very friendly.

Outside of Ennis we spent some time exploring a small castle. The twins had lots of fun climbing the stairs and wandering around.

The view from the battlements was quite stunning.

The twins have enjoyed the travelling for the most part. They do get cranky after more than a couple of hours of riding in the trailer. When its raining hard things get a bit worse, as we have to batten down the hatches and it quickly gets all fogged up, taking away their view. The other major problem with the trailer in Ireland is the roads are almost always lined with hedges and since it sits so low to the ground the occupants cannot see much beyond the side of the hedge.


We also rented a child seat that goes on the rear rack of the bike. This allows a little more variety, letting one kid enjoy the trailer alone and the other the child seat.

The child seat is a major hit – the view from it is much, much better.

After Ennis we travelled though the burren which is a strange desolate rocky area. Its quite scenic, but very hilly and was quite a workout hauling the trailer with its occupants.

We stayed at several bed and breakfasts, hostels, and one night camping. Most of the places we stayed had character – for example the Kilfenore hostel came complete with a resident kitten.

Cats of all sorts seem to be everywhere in Ireland, much to the twins delight. On the Aran Islands we ran into a huge family of cats outside the one and only grocery store.

The Aran Islands was a very interesting place to visit – lots of old structures of all sorts and a number of very old church ruins.

The Aran Islands also had fantastic black berry picking, which kept the twins busy. They are now major black berry snobs – only the most ripe berries free of any defect or blemish are acceptable.

One of the bummers about biking Ireland is that there are lots and lots of small roads, which are only occasionally signed. When they are signed, life is still not simple – in sections of Ireland the signs are only in Gaelic, or in Gaelic and English with a different spelling of the place names than was on our Ordinance Survey maps. This led to lots of looking at standing around at intersections consulting maps and occasionally accosting the random bystander for directions. Fortunately everyone seemed quite used to this and where mostly quite good at giving useful directions.

Sheep – did I mention sheep? Sheep where everywhere.

For a place whose country side is mainly devoted to sheep production there did not seem to be a lot of sheep related road side attractions. We did stop at a small wool museum where the twins got to play with wool and wool spinning appliances.

The food in Ireland was a mixed bag, probably because we spent most of our time in rural areas. It quickly became apparent that, unlike our bike travels in Australia and New Zealand, trying the random meat related pastries available at gas stations and small grocery stores was a bad idea. The burgers where generally quite good, as was the soups. One thing that was a definite stand out was the bacon sandwich – apparently it is common to get a bread and bacon sandwich in Ireland. This was quite refreshing, as when I try to get a bacon and bagel sandwich at Lu-Lu’s bagel shop at home I am given a round of “Only bacon? Are you sure?” and once “That’s the weirdest thing I have every had anyone ask for.” Alas, the twins are major bacon high-graders, and often steal most of the bacon. We did find wonderful Indian and Chinese food, hurray!

That’s all for now!

Ireland – On bikes, though briefly

Saturday, August 15th, 2009

A quick update from Ireland – We got our bikes today, and got about 1 mile before one of them developed a frighting sequel, as if it was attempting to grind coffee beans in the hub. Fortunately the owner of the bike rental outfit drove out to where we were staying and replaced the rear wheel. Hurray!

Otherwise, it was quite a fun day.
We spend the morning in Dublin, then took the train to Ennis where we ended up for the night. Dublin is quite a beautiful city, though quite busy. We were very glad we didn’t attempt to bike though it.

The twins enjoyed the train.

In particular they enjoyed the full length (for a three year old) bed seats.

We had our bikes delivered to us at the Ennis train station.

Down town Ennis has a number of very tight one way streets that are very interesting to explore – lots of random shops and places to eat. Unfortunately we spend quite a bit of time walking our bikes on the side walk as we where going the wrong way on a one way street, alas.

At this point it became apparent that my bikes rear wheel was at war with the rest of my bike. This did not prevent Lizzy for taking a very long and determined nap. Even going up and down some large curbs did not wake her.

Ireland!

Friday, August 14th, 2009

Nancy, the twins and I are off on a Ireland adventure – we hope to spend the next 3 weeks hiking, biking, and generally having fun in on the Green Isle. We made it to Dublin intact via Condor’s over the pole Fairbanks to Frankfurt flight. More (real) updates soon!

Gates of the Arctic, Day 7 and 8 – Into Wild Lake and out!

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

Day 7 started fairly smoky. Tom and Marsh only noticed after packing up camp that they had a wardrobe malfunction.

Yes, they both had brought their bright green equinox marathon shirts, and didn’t appear to notice that they both put them on that morning until after camp was mostly packed. Life is tough sometimes – they spent the next two days in matching attire.

The hike out of the Tinayguk and into the hills around Wild Lake was the only bit of the trip though hard core swamp. The swampy section was brief but unpleasant.

The swampy section quickly gave way to wonderful ridge hiking and stayed that way for the rest of the trip.

During our lunch break Tom and I compared the quality and quantity of leg scratches – Tom won I think.

The hiking was truly spectacular as we followed a ridge surrounded by a series of high alpine lakes. As the day progressed the smoke blew away and it cleared up, giving us wonderful views of the surrounding peaks.

Eventually we reached our high point for the day and got our first sight of our final destination, Wild Lake.

In the evening we camped on a alpine lake, complete with a flock of loons and a two large families of necrotic ducks. The ducks spent much of the night acting like marines training for a amphibious assault – randomly panicking and zooming across the lake, sporadic diving under water with loud quacking, and swimming up and down the one side of the lake in a strait line. Perhaps the mother ducks where drilling into the ducklings the proper predator avoidance strategies. It was quite interesting to watch – one second they would be quietly bobbing on the lake, all by them selves, the “quack, quack, quack” the mad panic drill would be begin. At first I though they were afraid of the loons, but soon it became apparent that they did this even when the loons where on the other side of the lake. The camp site was very beautiful, and I went to sleep with the sound of the loons calling to each other. And of course panicked quacking.

Tom and Marsh where not content to simply hang out, and inflated their boats for some flat water paddling. They did discover a large school of pike though, again making me wish I had brought a fishing pole.

The lake also had some very small fresh water crabs. When I first saw them I mistook them for spiders, but on closer examination they where actually crabs of some sort. The lake had a surprising amount of wild life for a apparently landlocked lake about a quarter of a mile across.

Day 8 began with a short but intense ridge climb, then a several hour trek along a very smoky ridge top. The visibility was quite poor and at its worst was less than a quarter of a mile.

When we finally dropped down into Wild Lake the wind changed direction and the smoke blew away. Alas, our final destination was on the other side of the lake, so the wind also made the lake difficult to cross, so we walked up the lake in order to get a good position to hopefully blow across. Marsh decided the paddle while Tom and I hiked the shore. It was a refreshing chance of pace – completely flat hiking with almost no bush.

After a quick dinner the wind died down and we crossed the lake.

We spent the night at a friends cabin – thanks Trustin and Margette! It is on a edge of a 2006 vintage fire and went from a view of a dense spruce forest to a lake view with a nice patch of fire weed. The cabin was a great place to spend the last night on our trip.

The next day we where picked up by a Beaver from Brooks Range Aviation. The folks at BRA are truly super! They put us up for the night in one of their bunk houses, gave us hot showers, and even made us pizza! I cannot say enough nice things about these guys – if you are planning on a trip in the brooks range or Gates of the Arctic these are the folks to fly with.

After a hours flight we were soon over Bettles, back in civilization of a sort. Bettles is a pretty small town which appears to mainly serve as a hub into the back country. Its road accessible in the winter when the ice road is in, but in the summer the only way in and out is by boat or by plane.

After a night in Bettles we flew into Fairbanks via Warballows in a Cessna 2008 – quite a contrast with the flight into Bettles. The plane was at least 45 years newer and was packed with two archeologists from the National Park Service and a father son group who had floated one of the forks of the Koyokuk. After a hour or so we where back into town and back home!

This trip was truly fantastic and highly recommended!

Gates of the Arctic, Day 6 – the Tinayguk

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

Day 6 started and ended on the Tinayguk. We floated from camp, starting with a wonderful little rock garden, and floated for a couple of hours, then stopped for lunch to consume our snack rations. Or more correctly, I consumed my snack rations while others had lunch.

The Tinayguk was quite fun, going from riffle pool to little rock gardens and a fairly mellow canyon section.

We decided to have some practice with the throw bags while stopped for lunch and had some fun with practice tosses.

I had some fun with Marsh’s boat and discovered it is much too small for me. Its hard to imagine, but if I understand it correctly the first packrafts Alpacka make were this size and folks i know who are taller than me still use them for trips.

The lunch break also involved figuring out where we would emerge from the Tinayguk to begin the walk to Wild Lake, our pickup point.

Once we were back on the river we were treated to a very unusual sight – the river was undercutting a hill with permafrost, cutting completely under the bank into a permafrost supported cave. We went around in a side channel. The smoke was starting to move in again, taking the views away. The smoke at times smelt like a very wet campfire, which left us wondering how close the wildfires were. Much later we were to find the closest wildfires were quite far away, on the other side of the Dalton Highway.

After the permafrost cave, we encountered a number of “tussock gardens” were huge clumps of turf and soil had fallen into the river and ran aground. It was a strange sight.

Shortly after the tussock garden we reached our take out point and made camp. The Tinayguk is very recommended!

Gates of the Arctic, Day 4 and 5

Monday, August 10th, 2009

Day 4

On day 4 of our trip we switched from hiking along Publituk Creek to hiking the ridge above it. The canyons where getting tighter and we feared we would soon be “cliffed out” leaving us unable to proceed. So, we switched to walking along the side hills above the creek. This gave us better views but harder walking with brush and tussocks.

Smoke from the wildfires in interior Alaska started blowing in about midday, and the views disappeared.

After 4 miles or so the creek flattened out and left the cliffs behind, so we dropped back down. When we meet back up with the creek we found part of a old dog sled sticking up from a washed out section of the river bank. It was very difficult imagining what travel would have been like in this area in the winter – the creek we had been walking looked like it would be prone to overflow and I expect it would be difficult traveling. It would be been a very unfortunate place to have a sled fall apart on you.

We continued hiking up the drainage and made great process on the wonderful game trails paralleling the creek. We passed a number of old and not so old hunting camps, probably for late season caribou hunting. We were now well above tree line, with only the occasional poplar tree grove and low brush. Just before we made camp for the night we spotted a very blond brown bear with two cubs. The cubs were very bouncy, jumping around and playing. They stayed a comfortable distance away, much to our happiness. The end of the day was rainy, foggy and generally wet.

Day 5

Day 5 started of quite well, and only got better. We awoke to a clear sky and while the sun was blocked by a set of peaks it looked like we had some good weather ahead of us. The hiking was quite easy as we where now well above tree line and the bush was getting progressively shorter as we moved up the drainage. After a couple of miles we left the Publituk drainage and started up a ridge on our way over to the Tinayguk. The ridges in this area are completely free of brush, with only a thin layer of moss, which makes for fantastic hiking.

We had quite a bit of elevation to gain in the morning so there was lots of uphill hiking.

After lunch we where finally at a point where we could look into the Tinayguk. We aimed to hit the Tinayguk river near a section that is covered by overflow ice. We where told that the area covered by the ice was quite large, but where not expecting it to be that large – there appeared to be a quarter mile of ice still remaining, and the gravelly area without vegetation appeared to be several miles long. In the winter this area must be a real mush fest of overflow. In was very fast walking once we made it to the riverbed.

The area around the overflow ice was completely vegetation free. It was also completely mosquito free, as was our entire time on the Tinayguk.

The river appears to completely disappear under the overflow ice and when it reappears it is too braided with many shallow channels, so we walked the river bed until they formed into something that might be floatable.

Once the channels joined up we inflated the rafts and got floating!

The Tinayguk is a really fun river – its fairly mellow with a number of smaller rock gardens that are not all that difficult. Its just exciting enough to prevent boredom but not so much as to be stressful. Folks floating the Tinayguk in anything but a packraft might was to reconsider – there are lots and lots of shallow riffles with lots of basketball to baseball size rocks, so avoiding running aground and getting stuck requires a fair bit of work. I am not sure how well a folding canoe or kayak would take all the scraping.

After a hour or so of floating we made camp in a wonderful poplar grove.

We spent the evening exploring and doing camp chores. Tom decided that it was time to fix his seat which never seemed to hold air for very long, which on inspection had a valve installed incorrectly from the factory. Marsh and Tom attempted to fix it with aquaseal and tyvek tape, but alas this was not effective. After looking at the rest of the valves on Tom’s boat, at least one other valve was only partially glued on.

Our camp fronted a large pool, which had a school of burbot. Marsh spent a fair bit of time reminiscing about how burbot tastes just like lobster. One of my regrets about this trip was the decision not to take a fishing pole – in addition to the aforementioned burbot, I saw lots and lots of grayling and later on in the trip pike. The fishing looked to be spectacular.