Permafrost outreach 2009

Another very rough day on the trail.





Russian Missioin sits on a hill side where it's protected from the wind. The new side of the village is on the in the hills, and the older part of the village is closer to the river.




Kenji talked to the upper grade kids at Russian Mission school. Principle Jason was a great leader at the school and the students were very enthusiastic about our visit. The whole class came out to take a quick picture as we were leaving.







Thanks Jason Melanie (her mom) and Joe.












The trail condition was pretty much the same as it was yesterday, with fewer signs of other snow machines. We were told that there's a trail, but we didn't really see it... No trail markers, and occasional snow machine tracks that disappear in the sand or the ice.

Just like it was yesterday, if it wasn't ice, it was sand. Even less snow than yesterday with blowing sand this time... It's no wonder people don't travel this way. But in the summer time there must be quite a bit more traffic. We saw many fish camps along the river.








Although the trail conditions were crappy, the scenery was the best we had so far. There were hills right up to the river with many colors of rocks. That's probably why the ice is so bad around here.






















As we got closer to Marshal the sand was blowing harder and hard to see where you were going.
We saw one reamins of a fish trap left in the ice. Where there's open water it's marked well. And theard that that everything froze up with this cold weather.







Similar to what happened in Russian Mission, as we rode into the village we got stuck as we were going up a hill. We were warned about the lack of snow, but the road conditions were far worse than expected, with ice covering the entire road. Some of the people watching us helped to get our stuff to the school.






At the school Woody was waiting our arrival.
After we brought some of our gear in the school, Woody invited us over for moose stew. On this trip, we've been eating mostly frozen microwaveable food, so it was goot to eat real food.
Soon after supper, he showed us around where we might be able to drill.



At 8 PM, Kenji started drilling.
It was a preferable spot so we were hoping that it wouldn't be too difficult. Even with above zero temperature, the wind chill factor made it feel much colder. Hands were getting cold and equipments were not working right.
Despite the difficulties, by night fall Kenji had another monitoring bore hole.
The thermister and data logger will go in tomorrow.