J. Jason Lazarus Blog

So this last weekend I took off with a student of mine and did the Granite Tors hike. Do not look at the picture to the right or any of the other 75 pictures that I posted from the hike and think for a second that it was a easy romp through burned forest and fireweed fields.
Oh no, you would be so very wrong in those thoughts.
Starting out, both of us had very little, if not any at all, recent experience pack-hiking. The plan was to do the 15-mile loop in 2 gentle days, packing a tent to stay in somewhere near the halfway point. Although our packs were a little on the heavy side because of our rather insane amount of camera equipment (I had my Minolta Maxxum 70, a Canon Digital Rebel from work, Holga 120, Yashica-D Twin Lens 120 & a 35mm pinhole camera while my student only had her Canon with two lenses, a Holga and a compact digital), we were assured by the gentle flow of the trail for the first three miles that no problems truly laid in front of us.
How wrong we were.
Although the trail continued to gently wind through what used to be thick black spruce forests (yes, I know that’s a contradiction), because of a recent fire (2005) greenery and literally fields of fireweed covered the hills creating amazing pink-hued hills. Even as we climbed off of the 750ft valley floor past 1500ft, we thought nothing of it. The weather was wonderful, the sights picturesque - this was a perfect hike.
Until the happened along a lone caribou leg in the middle of the trail - just chilling there as if it were ordinary to see a torn limb in the middle of a fireweed field of pink perfection. Oh, and then the rest of the body about 40-50 feet away. Obviously at least 1-2 months old, it still didn’t help the fact that we just realized we were in chest-deep fireweed and couldn’t see any predator coming least it was on the trail we were on. And then the hill. That God-forsaken hill of death. Rather than actually building a trail up the hill, zig-zagging a slow path up the mountain, the trail designers decided the path-of-least-resistance (thus, the path of highest resistance as we were going up it) a.k.a. dried stream bed would be a perfect trail up to the Tors. Two hours later we sat dead tired at the top of what seemed a gentle hill in the distance some two hours previous.
While sitting we met various other hikers all wearing little day packs rather than full-out packs for a stay on the mountain. After a while of talking and joking around we make the last 20-minute push to the first rock formations before it decides to rain.
After an hour or so of hunkering between two huge rock structures and wasting a good portion of our film there for fear that worse weather was on it’s way, we ventured out as storm clouds dispersed and laid a heavy mist on the surrounding valleys. Absolutely stunning.
The next rock formation, oddly enough, we get cell service at - 50 miles out of town and 25 from the nearest tower which was nested in a deep valley - so I decide to call Deanna and assure her that me, my student, and my gun are safe.
The hike really started going downhill then - at this point it’s 6pm and we’re beginning to realize we’re around 5 miles into a 15 mile hike and we’ve been going since 10 in the morning. This doesn’t mention that the next few miles go through dense forest with the keen smell of scat, a endless vertical ascent toward other less interesting rock Tors (mainly due to our lack of sleep) and through a 2 mile strech of boggy swamp above the treeline where we basically kept on loosing the trail through various sets of ponds. After 2 hours of sloppily hiking through the swamp and glaring at this shelter in the distance that marked the halfway point and mockingly never got closer until the very end, we stumbled into the shelter at 11pm - a full 11 hours worth of hiking with, admittedly, over 2-3 hours worth of breaks within there. Here we were, 3500 feet up.
After 4 hours of sleep, we get up and out of the structure by 5am because we know if Saturday is going to be anything like Friday we’re going to need the early start. After about one mile of loosing the trail in rockslides, we decide screw the cameras we’re too damned tired to even take any pictures - and so they get packed away. Heck, my student was even trying to convince me to leave the $20 3-person tent we hadn’t used just so I didn’t have to carry it - and it was a sound idea.
By 12:30 we were 1.2 miles from the end. The next mile somehow took almost 2.5 hours to do - in fact, I think this hike is a hell of a lot longer than 15 miles - somewhere in the neighborhood of 18-20. In fact, I’m convinced that the mile markers are as the crow flies and by far not how the trail winds. The last 0.6 mile was the worst of them all - swarms of flies, mosquitos and bees hovered while we walked through more swamp (this time with boardwalks), we both started becoming obviously dehydrated (even though we both had brought about 3/4-1 gallon each) and cursing the trail each time it took even a 3-foot incline. We got to the car, drove to Pleasant Valley and loaded up on liquids and carbs. By the time I got home I had lost 5 lbs in one day, even with the loadup, and the next day, had gained 4 lbs back in water alone. So extreme was the loss that I had visable salt deposits on the back of my shirt.
With that being said and ignoring hindsight, the hike was wonderful and well worth it. The rest of Saturday I moved as least as possible as I couldn’t convince my body to actually move. Later on this weekend I’ll hopefully post more pictures about the rest of the weekend - where we went to the Chatinika Dredge, Davidson Ditch, McCarty and Hi-Yu Mines.

YAY! Click it to watch the trailer - trust me, it’s worth it! I might be a big nerd but damn does this ever look sexy.

So I’m sitting in Titlewave’s Kaladi Brother’s Coffee Shop and they’re one of the few places I know, short of Wendy’s, that has free wireless. Anyways, this is just a quick post of current realizations:

I hate rain.
I hate rain on camping trips.

Realizing Liqour stores close at 11 in Anchorage and 12:30-1 in Eagle River would’ve helped BEFORE driving from Eagle River to go to Gold Rush Liquor only to find it closed, driving all the way back, way after midnight, to find something less than 2 miles from where we were camping, open.

The reasons to go to Anchorage are steadily decreasing. Even though Anchorage is a MUCH bigger city and has much more to offer for shopping, my main digs are beginning to either pop up in Fairbanks or aren’t really worth going to anymore.

Investing in catheters might be a good idea during camping trips. Apparently Deanna’s bladder doesn’t like mine, or vise versa, and we continue to only need to “go” once the other has been back from “going” for an hour and is JUST falling back to sleep. God bless driving around Anchorage on right about 3 hours of sleep.

When you open up a Taco King in Anchorage, don’t call it a Burrito King just to convince the people to visit this location rather than the Taco King locale 5 blocks away.

Being an Uncle isn’t all it’s cracked up to be especially after you come to the realization that the kid won’t know who the hell you are, whether the triangluar-shaped telletubbie or Uncle Jason, for a good two years. So ask me in two years if I’m proud that I’m a uncle - cause it’s pretty much on the same level as calling a Presidential Nominee a Presidential Nominee - it don’t mean shit until you win… or someone cares enough to recognize you as one - and in this case, the second situation applies. I don’t think I “won” anything.

Rain really, really, really sucks. Make it go away. I am soaked through and through.

Got *some* of the pictures from the last month online - I’ve been dealing with some interesting issues with my digital camera - Windows complains that it’s already installed no matter how many times I install/uninstall, restart, say abracadrabra, pull a rabbit out of it’s processor, no dice. So, I’m going to have to break down and buy a actual real card reader rather than direct USB to the camera. Funny - don’t have that kind of problem with my…Mac.
Anyways, new pictures in the gallery for Savage River 2006 with students and the Midnight Sun Baseball game. I swear I really am trying to get my negatives online but I’m currently looking at my gallery options - considering actually building a gallery rather than using a pre-made one like the one I use for my “junk” digicam pictures - although that “junk” gallery has over 2300 images…hmm..Nonetheless, enjoy.

So for the last few weeks I’ve tried to frequent local baseball games - and so, I’ve been going to the Alaska Goldpanners games held just down the street from me in Growden Park. Starting with the Midnight Sun Baseball game held at 10:30 on the solstace a few weeks ago, I’ve already gone to three games and enjoyed the hell out of it. I just wish that the games would continue into August as there isn’t much time for me to manage to catch as many games as I’d like to. Although they’re not the greatest team - at least not this season - they’re the home team and you’ve gotta root for them. I’ve been dragging some friends along to some of them (Mike and the recently visiting Ashlee one night, Joe and Becky last night) and I think they’ve enjoyed it as well. Least it breaks you away from the day-to-day duldrums that the summer becomes - one day you’re baking in the sun, hiding inside from it, the next you can’t do anything outside cause it’s raining cats and dogs.
But, with all the rain we’ve had, I can’t complain too much - at least it’s not the Summer of 2004 (i.e. almost 7 million acres of fires all around Fairbanks). In fact, the Nenana Fire has been the only one to really treaten us this summer - and that was less than two full days of mimimal amounts of smoke that, of coarse, the tourists still complained about.
Someday here I’ll post pictures for the last month - I’ve got 5-8 rolls of film to develop from Savage River (x2 trips), Livengood and Chatinika as well as the Midnight Sun Baseball game… someday, I swear, I will.
I finally finished my work on the UA Press website - a website that, for all intents and purposes, I finished last August and finally got it online, due to their request, only weeks ago. I’m pretty darned happy with the outcome - and so are they. That has taken up a HUGE amount of my time lately, although not time-consuming in nature, it has been stressful putting up such an important site and worrying alone has dictated much of my time wasting.
I’m ALMOST done with Steinbeck’s East of Eden after almost two months. I’ll be re-picking up Narnia afterwards, I believe, to finish the last two books in the series and then, or possibly before that, picking up yet another Steinbeck. I have never, I believe, throughly enjoyed a book as much as this one.
In the last few weeks the Wood Center has finally, after years of saying they’re going to do it, sell off all their photo supplies. I managed to pick up quite a bit and have been working a lot on my photography. Still hoping for something in a gallery by end of the year. Yeah… didn’t I say that last year? Heh.
Going to Anchorage this weekend for a SCA Event with Deanna - I actually went to an event and stayed for it this last weekend out at Chena Lakes and really enjoyed myself. This one, although I do plan to hang out for a while, is mostly for Deanna and I’m just the driver - as well as it providing me some opportunity away from Fairbanks and enjoying some photo-taking in possibly Whitter and Hatcher’s Pass *crosses fingers*. We’ll see.
A lot of new info about the Fairbanks Area on the Forum, worth a look - Fairbanks really is booming right now. Although the “big” building season doesn’t match last years, there are some things that look like they’re going to break ground soon (Best Buy, Lonestar) as well as some pretty interesting rumors.
Anyways, that’s it for now. Enjoy!