Checking Out Anchorage's Water Supply... A Glacial Lake!

I've been itching to go on another hike, so despite a steady rainfall much of the day, a friend and I went for a hike and were treated to some beautiful views. This hike is at Lake Eklutna, which is where Anchorage gets its water supply. Glacier water... yum! It's a beautiful lake... I've heard a lot about it since I moved here, but this was my first time actually seeing it.  There is an easy trail at the edge of the lake, but we decided to take a trail that goes up into the mountains around the lake. I admit that I was thankful to see that this trail is rated "difficult" when I looked it up later... much of it is quite steep! That made me feel a little better about being sore for the next couple days. :) All in all, we traveled 4.5 miles and climbed 1600 ft.

There's a lake out there, can't you see it?  Trust me...




Some mountains on the far side of the lake start to come into view...




See?  A lake!  Not the whole thing, but at least you can see there IS a lake there!




While we were standing there taking in the view, it was starting to clear out pretty quickly.  This is about as clear as it got... but still, what a view!





Lupin... Love it!




Another view along the hike...





So many layers of clouds... :)



Bluebells... another great abundant flower around here.



Weather Balloons!

Since this is the first National Weather Service office I'm at that does a weather balloon launch (twice per day, everyday), we had to make it a point to go see how it's done. There's more to the process than we saw, but we joined in for the actual launch. When the wind is from the south (like it was this day, planes take off right over the launch site. We're just south of the airport, so many of the planes (especially the 747s) are sitll pretty low when they go overhead. Pretty cool.

The balloon is filled with hydrogen, and then a weather instrument called a radiosonde is tied underneath the balloon. Once we got the go-ahead from the airport control tower, the balloon was released. For the next hour or so, it collects data on temperature, relative humidity, and wind and sends it back to our office. This gives us a snapshot of the atmosphere right at our office (basically overhead, although the balloon does follow the winds as it ascends), and the data goes into weather models. Several (50-ish?) offices around the country launch these balloons everyday, and everywhere around the world, these balloons are launched at the same time. Then we get a snapshot of the weather across the globe! Pretty important and useful stuff!



The balloon is ready and waiting for the "all clear" from the airport tower. Wouldn't want the balloon to hit a plane on the way up!



The plane we were told to wait to take off before the baloon was launched.  Always fun to see them taking off right overhead.



Up, up, and away!



You can see the whole thing here... balloon... parachute... and the actual weather instrument (the black rectangle hanging below the parachute).



Turnagain Arm Views... and Some Views From Alyeska...

On Monday, June 6th, we drove down the Seward Highway to Girdwood. It was a beautiful day, so we had to take advantage since several other days during my parents' week here were more cloudy and/or rainy. We stopped several times along the way to take in the views of Turnagain Arm, and then when we got to Girdwood, we took a tram up to a restaurant/viewing platform at Alyeska Ski Resort and took in more amazing views.



You can tell which way the wind typically blows through here... and how strong it is!





Mom and Dad enjoying the views...





The view from the ski hill... at the top of the Alyeska tram.



The Famed Alaska Railroad Brings Us To Seward...

My first visitors since I moved to Alaska were my parents, who came for about a week at the beginning of June. To help celebrate their 45^th Anniversary gift, my sisters and I made a reservation for the Alaska Railroad train to Seward (on the southeastern side of the Kenai Peninsula, south of Anchorage). It’s a very scenic trip, complete with mountains, glaciers, rivers, flowers, and wildlife. We didn’t see any moose or bears, but we did see 2 eagles at their nest along the way.

Lupin...

AK Railroad Scenes from Mary-Beth Schreck on Vimeo.


After we got to Seward, we took a shuttle to Exit Glacier (not far from Seward) where we hiked right up to the glacier. That’s the closest I’ve ever been to a glacier… pretty neat! Then we had some awesome lunch at the Smoke Shack, which happened to be a few steps walk from our lodging for the night. We did some walking around Seward, checking out their quilt shop and stuff along the way.

We spotted this little guy coming into the harbor as we were walking back to our lodging after dinner. He was swimming over to the fish cleaning station at the harbor, and he got this nice big piece of salmon for dinner.

The small boat harbor in Seward...


Our lodging... which is right on the harbor.

On the second day (Friday), we went on a cruise around Resurrection Bay. The fog and rain moved in Thursday night, so the scenery wasn’t what it could have been, but it was still very interesting to see the cliffs and stuff we COULD see. And there was still plenty of wildlife out there for us… porpoises swimming alongside our boat a couple times, sea lions, puffins, and lots of other birds too.

See the 3 mountain goats on the cliffs? Two are easier to see than the 3rd... the 3rd is with the goat on the right and is a baby.


Lots of kittiwakes (like sea gulls) and sea lions at this spot...






A rainy day on Resurrection Bay... pretty common, actually.