6 July 2011 Setting Forth to the Firth

As I write this while I sit in my tent, the sun is shining, Mancha Creek burbles gently nearby, and it's almost 10pm! It was quite a journey to get here today to our study site in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Our journey started at the Fairbanks Airport, with a flight run by Wright Air Services. Before we loaded the flight, everything had to be weighed--including us! Our crew of 3 and all our gear weighed in at 740 pounds. It's amazing how it all adds up. Maybe we shouldn't have gone out for delicious Thai meals the past two nights!

We flew from Fairbanks to Ft. Yukon, stopping there to let off 2 passengers. Then we continued north to Arctic Village, we met up with our pilot, Kirk, for the next leg of the trip. After a few hours' delay in Arctic Village due to some plane maintenance issues, we were ready to head out to the Firth River area. Kirk grumbled a bit as he found places for all our gear and us in his plane, but it all managed to fit and, apparently, was not too heavy for us to get off the ground.

We flew for over an hour over the most amazing tundra scenery. Ponds, lakes, rivers, and soggy boggy areas passed below us. To the north, the first peaks of the Brooks Range appeared. It was a stunning flight.

As we approached Mancha Creek Kirk pointed out his 2 markers--a couple of small piles of rocks in the middle of an otherwise featureless piece of tundra. Somehow he knew exactly where to land. We set down, bouncing a few times on the special squishy 'tundra tires with which the plane was equipped, and rolled to a stop. We were home. The gear was unloaded and, with a quick bounce off the tundra, Kirk was airborne again.

We set off in search of the perfect campsite. What constitutes perfection? Access to water for drinking and cooking, dry ground or a gravel bar for mosquito abatement, someplace with a nice breeze, and a stellar view. We have managed to achieve all of those goals. Our camp is perfect. We have a screen house for bug-free cooking, eating, and lounging, and plenty of room nearby for our sleep tents. Of course, it was kind of a walk from the 'landing strip' to camp--but we managed to haul all that gear in one trip.

All that heavy lifting made us hungry. Tonight's meal was freeze-dried Tofu Pesto. A culinary masterpiece in a bag--just add boiling water. For desert we had to have some of the cookies sent along by my friend Shan. Yum!!