ice skating… Trusting Tustumena 20 Mar 202324 Mar 2023 Tustumena is the largest lake in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge (and one of the ten largest in Alaska), three hours south of Anchorage. The Dena'ina name is reported as…
instruction… Remote Weather History via visualcrossing.com 13 Feb 202321 Feb 2023 My preparation for outings benefits from knowing the recent weather history of remote locations. Remote forecasts are easy, but what actually happened? This time of year, I'm most interested in…
ice skating… Navigating Pressure Ridges at Skilak Lake 5 Feb 2023 We caught a brief window of skating on Skilak Lake last week. The prominent hazards turned out to be pressure ridges—zones of cracked ice under compression. This post contains: The…
blog… So that’s what varsity trip planning looks like! 19 Oct 202219 Oct 2022 I want to share a highlight from last year’s Start and End at Home trip planning course. Christian Appel sent a report after a paddling trip he planned during the…
blog… Risk Assessment for Rivers and Avalanches 15 Jan 202116 Jan 2021 Disclaimer: This discussion is based on my personal experience, collaborators' feedback on The Packraft Handbook, and publications (see references at bottom). This discussion benefited from the feedback of Trip Kinney,…
instruction… Route-Planning with ESRI Worldview 14 May 202018 Jan 2021 Whenever possible, I do route planning with Google Earth. Google Earth's 3D imagery allows me to fine-tune a route and identify features I might otherwise miss in two dimensions. But…
satellite imagery… Transferring Satellite Imagery to Gaia GPS 8 Feb 20203 Jun 2020 In November of 2019 Greg Mills and I pulled off an incredible trip. We flew to the Inupiaq village of Selawik, then ice skated 125 miles to Kotzebue. Our route…
satellite imagery… Satellite Imagery: Active sensors (Sentinel-1) 5 Jan 20208 Feb 2020 Active sensor imagery, such as Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), provides recent images that can be extremely useful for remote trip planning. SAR imagery penetrates through clouds and does not require…
equipment… Bear Awareness and Safety 1 Nov 201930 Jun 2022 Preparing for a three-week trip to the western Brooks Range motivated me to learn about bear deterrence. Specifically, I wanted to make an informed decision whether to bring my 5…
