Wow, its been quite a while since I put words up here. Since the last post authored by me, I’ve retired my other humble blog, and decided to amalgamate all e-wordyness to a single space. So, a quick update:
I’ve been spending most of my time travelling lately. After arriving in Juneau from down south, I began work as a glacier guide for TEMSCO, a run-of-the-mill southeast (AK) evil-empire helicopter/tour company. This was pretty much to make enough cash to go on a float trip down the Tatshenshini and Alsek rivers, one of the more remote places on can make their way to in the region. Two weeks of floating through UNESCO world heritige material, yum! Pics are up on flickr.

Immediately after returning from the Tat, I popped into school for two short days before flowing up to Anchorage and the Kenai peninsula (pics on flickr, link to the right) to participate in the AK cell of Friends of the Pleistocene. Drinking with geologists from all over the state, talking geologic history, hanging in Homer, and planning next years get together in juneau were all integral portions of the weekend.

Finally, last weekend was the International Klondike Road Relay, an 10 leg relay between Skagway, AK and Whitehorse, YT. We placed 17th in our category out of 46, not bad for a first time team. More suprisingly was my personal results, a decent 7:27/mi average over 13.9 miles and placing 14th out of the 116 runners on leg 5. Also not bad for an untrained run at 1am after beer, the consumption of unhealthy amounts of pasta, and a 6 hours of cheering & supporting. The night went on and on until we were the third runners into the finish (though the race is done in heats and starts @ 7pm with everyone running through the night). Large quantaties of alcohol and several manic hours of dancing later found us soaking our headaches in the Takhini Hot Springs and grilling spectacular burrito sandwiches in the parking lot before retiring back to the car for the long journey home. Pics are still forthcoming for this event.

Onward and upwards, the first weeks of school have brought the rain in typical september fashion, nothing to do but work, organize, house-seek, and maybe make a few strides in the saturated trails…

-P