Backcountry Madness!!

I just finished a week of snowboarding in the backcountry and I am soo pumped! My good friends Louis and Rachel put me up at their place in Moose Pass and showed me the powder goods! Here are a few shots from those truly epic days.

Rachel spraying ridiculous amounts of powder on Mount Billy Mitchell. We started skinning up this peak from Louis and Rachel's driveway!! Although the trip up this peak was pretty long and tough, the 4,000 ft. of powder were well worth it.

Louis flying down a perfect powder shot up in Summit Pass. Despite the perfect conditions we saw a grand total of one other person making tracks the entire week!

This is my old friend Brad getting ready to drop in on almost 4,000 vertical feet of untracked, fluffy, hero powder snow. The moon hanging behind him added a nice touch to a perfect run.

Here's another one of Brad ripping right through the gut of the chute. It is always fun to get out with my old friends in the backcountry.

This is a new friend of mine by the name of Jon Turk. He skis with an effortlessness that is a pleasure to watch. This run was a celebration of sorts for Jon because just a few hours before this shot was taken he inked his latest book deal! He's a very talented writer and story-teller extrodinaire. Jon has a great website that can be accesses at www.jonturk.net

Fairbanks Visit

Well, my first stop on my whirlwind return to Alaska Tour is Fairbanks to visit friends. I've been staying with my buddy Martin for a few days and we have been out and about hanging out with friends, drinking good beer, and freaking out at the unseasonably warm weather. It hit 46 degrees here yesterday, which is just not right for Fairbanks in March!!! My friend Phil just finished the Yukon Quest sled dog race a few weeks ago and fortuantely he didn't run into too much weather like this on the trail. He did hit one spot where the temperature was BELOW -60F!! By the time he made it into Dawson, in the Yukon it warmed up to a high of +40F. That is a 100 degree temperature swing! Crazy.

Here's a shot of Martin's little bachelor cabin in Fairbanks. He shares it with his semi-hairless cat, Tupac. I'm sure the cat doesn't mind the 46 degree weather at all!!

Very Accomadating Curlew

Another fantastic bird crossed my path over the weekend. This guy is a Bristle-thighed Curlew. They are magnificent animals, and I hope my humble image does this great bird some justice. He and four of his friends were hanging out on the beach on Sunday and they were good enough to let me photograph them. Most curlews are usually very secretive and don't let you get too close but these birds actually seemed pretty curious. Two of them even came towards me to check me out, in my hiding place behind a Sceavola bush. If you look closely you can see the wispy bristle feathers above the leg that give this species their odd name.

Red-footed Booby

Here is a shot of an absolutely incredible looking bird I came across the other day. Most Red-footed Boobies are somewhat colorful but this guy is really spectacular. He was very patient with me while I snapped away, image after image.

Midway Monsoon

We had a brutal rain storm hit the island today. It brought high winds that toppled trees and broke limbs of others. Once the winds backed off we had to go out and clear the downed barnches away from albatross nests. Although we lost several nests only one adult was killed. This is a short video of the storm, taken from the safety of our office.

Dance Fever!

Wow, today was a great day here at Midway. For seven years a single male Short-tailed Albatross has been coming here during breeding season and staking out his territory waiting for a female friend to show up. Short-tails are one of the rarest albatrosses in the world and easily the most endangered seabird in the Pacific. Other Short-tails have been sighted here in the past but none have stuck around like this guy has. Well, the big fella must have dusted off his mojo because he has finally scored a lady (well, we think it's a lady anyway). A sub-adult Short-tailed Albatross was seen hanging out with him on Friday so I got a few people together and we went to the neighboring island (where he hangs out) to see if his friend was still around. We weren't prepared for what we saw. The two of them were getting into it, doing their full courtship dance for us. It went on for about twenty minutes and I was blown away. These birds are so rare that few people have seen them at a nesting colony and even fewer (a handful at most) have been fortunate enough to see their courtship dance in all it's glory.

The Laysan Teal

Midway is home to the rarest species of waterfowl in the world, the Laysan Teal. Although, they may look like a hen Mallard (superficially) on closer inspection these little ducks are very striking and unique. Despite their small stature they are tough customers, often fighting with their neighbors for no real apparent reason. Up until just a few years ago this bird existed only on Laysan Island, which is several hundred miles east of Midway, towards Oahu. Fortunately, several ducks were translocated here and released. Now they are doing great. Although wetlands were not a native feature here at Midway several were created for the ducks, to provide a freshwater habitat. Now, almost any open water on the island has ducks in it and the wetlands that were created specifically for them are often overflowing with birds. The best part is, we had to trap one of them the other day to remove a radio-transmitter that it was carrying and I got to hold it! It was really great to see one up close.

Friday Sunrise

This morning we headed over to the neighboring island before dawn to do our work. We were fortunate enough to catch an amazing sunrise. I got in a bunch of great pictures and then a rain storm moved in and soaked us! Despite getting soaked and cold in the blowing rain, the experience was fantastic because the rain was pelting us, coming out of the north while the sunrise was still gooing strong in the southeast!

Keeping Track of the Birds

Well, it's been a solid few weeks of work here on Midway. So far the tax payers are getting their money's worth out of me and my all-star crew of volunteers! The birds are such a joy to work with that we hardly notice when they rip into the skin on our hands, wrists and arms. Lately we've been busy deploying archival data loggers on selected birds (picture on the right). These little devices are pretty slick. We use them to record the position of the selected birds daily when the animals are out at sea foraging. During incubation these birds will take several trip to sea, lasting anywhere from a few days to three weeks, and ranging to the Bering Sea and the Coast of British Columbia. The data logger has a light sensor on it, and it determines the bird's position from the timing of sunrise and sunset (via a pretty complex algorithm). Each tag has enough memory and battery power to collect data for over two years, which enables us to gather data on the birds movements throughout the breeding season (Nov. - July) and through the non-breeding season as well (Aug. - Oct.). These are data logging devices though, they are not transmitters, which means we have to get the logger back to get the data! Fortunately the birds nest in the same area year after year, so this time next year we will be searching for our birds to get our logger back. I have to admit to a little bit of anxiety each time we put one of these tags out (we have 30 of them). I keep thinking, "Well, there goes $750 of my budget. I hope I see it again next year!" Putting these tags on is a three person job, and my crew has been awesome. That is Matt holding one of the Black-footed Albatrosses that we put a logger on yesterday. He and McKenzie have been doing a fantastic job so far. They make my job a lot easier.

Medical Evacuation

Well, my first week back on Midway was, long, full, and eventful. Thursday night we had a medical evacuation of a crew member from a Japanese fishing boat. I was part of the crew that headed out to retrieve the patient in one of our Fish and Wildlife boats. This is actually the third medical evacuation that I've participated in at Midway so I'm getting to be a pro at it! Fortunately this fellow was in pretty stable condition and we had no problems getting him back to Midway. It was a little intense though, given that this was the first night evacuation that our crew has done together and the fishing boat is just so much bigger than our boat. Shortly after we got the patient to the dock and off in the ambulance to the airfield a Coast Guard C-130 flew in to medevac him out. Unfortunately the plane experienced mechanical problems in one of their engines and they could not leave that night! It wasn't until the following night that another C-130, this one from the Coast Guard air station in Kodiak, AK, was able to come in and get the patient and the crew of the other C-130 out to Honolulu. Then they flew back in last night with a spare engine and mechanic crew who are currently working to get the new engine attached to their plane and ready for departure.