Taking Advantage of Early Snow

We have enough snow now to do a little skiing in the park. We have been getting a little bit of snow every day. The temperature has been in the 20's lately. Jen is doing good, we have doctor appointments almost every week now, which means we do the 2.5 hour drive up to Fairbanks often now.

Jen did good skiing at over 36 weeks prego. Scott didn't do so good, he needed the dogs to help him get around.

We saw a Grizzly Bear in the park yesterday on the side of the road foraging in the snow; sorry no picture, we didn't have the camera. We also saw a red fox in the local round-about, he seemed relatively friendly; he had a slight limp, hopefully he will be okay for the winter.

Snow in September

We got about 2" on the ground last night. Jenny and her Isabelly are doing good, they were going to be done with work for the season, however Jen still feels good and work needed some more help, so she is going to work intermittent for another week or two. Five more weeks to go!

Autumn on the tundra

Fall has arrived in Denali. Jen is hard at work bossing motorists around, while Scott is running around in the woods looking for poachers. The top photo is courtesy of Kris while sitting atop his excavator.

Brad and Trish kept Jen company while Scott was out in the woods, spending the weekend at our house while preparing for their voyage back to Hawaii. The three of them took a nice fall drive out to the Savage River in their new VW bus.

Shower

Friends planned a shower for Jen that involved paddling across a lake and having a picnic. Due to weather showers and Jen not feeling up to paddling that day, due to a fainting spell, we decided to take advantage of the good weather at home and have the party at Matt and Jaime's. We got all kinds of gifts for Isabel and had a good time. Jen and Isabel are both doing fine, they just got a little too excited about going for a paddle and got a little light headed.

Jenny's Isabelly

By popular demand we have been instructed to post a picture of Jenny's belly. The photo was taken on Aug. 16; week 29 of 40.

Mystic Pass

Scott did a week long patrol in a remote area of the park recently. The sheep hunting season has opened up here and he was out checking the hunting activity in the park preserve. The weather was mostly rainy with the occasional rainbow (which

meant it was going to rain in about 5 min.) He was about 90 miles to the nearest road; probably about a 10 day walk out. Luckily the helicopter was able to pick him up as scheduled and he didn't have to walk out.

Some work pics

Since we have been employed up here our jobs have allowed us to do quite a variety of different things. Scott has been Rangering around and Jen spent a season working with the wildlife in the park and is now on her second season on the road crew. The first picture was taken a couple weeks ago as Jen was headed off to work.



The second picture is Jen riding
an ATV while assisting Scott during one of his patrols. For those of you who are concerned about Jen riding ATVs with a "bun in the oven", you'll be happy to know this picture was taken our first year here.

We use a variety of different
transportation methods while doing our job. The picture at the right is a self portrait of Scott while flying in a small 2-person plane. If you look closely you can see the green skin tone Scott often aquires during flights.




Sometimes we drive the park
ambulance around. This picture was taken during a rescue were a visitor took a fall and had to be flown out by a military medical helicopter.

During the summer and fall Scott does a lot of patrols by ATV during hunting season. This photo was taken recently while scouting hunting camp activity around the park.








Once in a while we both get to drive the park dog team. unfortunately we don't have any pictures of Jen with the dogs.






These two photos were taken while Scott was doing helicopter training with the high altitude "Lama" helicopter that is used for rescues and other work on Mt. McKinley. The first pic shows Scott stepping into the helicopter while it is hovering just off the
ground. The second pic he is hanging on a rope under the helicopter, this technique is used during rescues to pull people off mountainsides when the helicopter is not able to land.






This picture was taken during a rope rescue training Scott attended in Moab Utah. The course had him hanging on a rope off 100' vertical cliffs (at one time upside down due to improper technique).




In the winter we patrol by snowmobiles. The bottom picture is of the "Into the Wild" bus that was written about in the book and was recently featured in a motion picture. If you don't know the story, a young man set off into the wilderness of Alaska and lived
in this bus for the spring and summer. He was found dead in this bus by a hunter in the fall. He died of a combination of starvation and poisoning from a local plant he misidentified as edible. The bus is just outside the park in an area Scott patrols regularly.