El Sol Salio Anoche, Y Me Canto

The other night I experienced something I've long dreamed of. I finally got to see the Aurora Borealis (Latin for "northern dawn"), aka the Northern Lights, commonly referred to around here as simply "the aurora". It is caused by "solar wind", electrons from the sun drawn to the Earth's magnetic poles, colliding with oxygen and nitrogen molecules high up in the atmosphere, and creating light. Scientifically, it's like a big, natural neon sign. We've been in an "active" period for solar wind the last few days, combined with crystal clear skies for viewing. You wouldn't believe the stars.

The aurora occurs at the lower end about 60-70 miles above the Earth, so you can see it from a lot of spots in the Lower 48 in the right conditions. But being this far north, you get to see it not off on the horizon but right overhead, and even extending behind you (south). Below is the forecast from the first night I saw it. That green band is the active zone, and in full represents a halo around the North Pole. At AuroraCon 4 and above, it extends below Anchorage:

City lights are obviously not so good for celestial viewing, so I headed up above the city after sunset (which is nearing 9pm these days) to the Chugach Mountains. As the raven flies, I was only about 6 miles from my apartment. It was so dark up there I talked with three guys for a good hour or hour and a half while we were watching and could have passed them on a lighted street 10 minutes later and not recognized them.

After sunset, looking down to the city lights below:

The following three pictures are all courtesy of one of the dudes I was talking to up there - he and his buddies had some expensive camera gear, and mine just wasn't up to taking pictures in the pitch black. I set my manual settings to the same they were using, and even longer shutter speeds, etc., but my pics didn't come out at all. So, I was very lucky to run into this guy and that he hooked me up. Recall you can click on the pictures for full-size, which I recommend.

When I first got up there, there were long horizontal green bands in the sky, which is by far the most common color (from oxygen):

And several times long vertical spikes appeared all over the place extending from the horizon all the way overhead:

There was one point, around 11:30 or so, where the sky went completely crazy and there were green bands and spikes everywhere, and for about 6 or 7 seconds a reddish-purple section (I believe from nitrogen) started in the west at the base of all the green and shimmered all the way across the sky. That was really thrilling!

I got home around 12:30, stayed up for the hour or so it took to get the feeling back into my toes, and was so jazzed about the whole thing it took a long time to get to sleep when I finally went to bed. I went back the next night and there was some activity, but it was much quieter at least while I was up there (I understand it became really active later at night). The next "active" night is Saturday April 5, and if it's clear I'll be out there again. Soon the season will be over until next winter.

Oh, and if anyone can name the movie the title of this post is from, WITHOUT googling it, I'll mail you a nickle. Of course, googling is an acceptable method of discovering what it means. (One entry per person, payment to first 10 entries only. Offer expires 04/15/2008. See official rules. Offer not available in Delaware and Vermont).

The Long Journey to the Middle

LETTUCE [lět'əs] - noun:

1. A cultivated plant, Lactuca sativa, occurring in many varieties and having succulent leaves used for salads.

2. Slang. A dude's hair, generally of length.

Of course, these things are often best considered in context...


Twenty-two months have passed (May 2006) since I last bowed to the blade. Tomorrow at 2:00 pm AKDT, the reset button will be pressed.

The Red Lantern

Just a quick note, yesterday the 2008 Iditarod officially came to an end, with 62-year-old Alaskan musher Deborah Bicknell crossing the finish line in Nome. By my count that is 5 days, 17 hours, and 49 minutes after the winner.

It might seem a "last place award" would be somewhere south of a "participant" ribbon, but it actually is a pretty nice honor recognizing the perseverance of the last musher to finish the race. Considering that Ms. Bicknell finished 78th, meaning 18 of the initial 96 mushers scratched and thus didn't finish at all, it's still pretty cool. I'd be pretty darn proud if I just finished the race.

Congrats!

Iditarod

MACKEY WINS! GO CRAZY! To be honest, following the Iditarod over the last 10 days was much more exciting than I ever imagined. It was a back-and-forth race between four-time winner Jeff King and defending champion Lance Mackey, and Mackey pulled it out. These guys, and especially their dogs, are hardcore. I will resist going into detail, but it was epic. Bottom line: last year Mackey won the 1000 mile Yukon Quest, and a month later, the Iditarod. Many called it a fluke. This year he again won the Yukon Quest, for the 4th time in a row, and again won the Iditarod. That's unbelievable. He's a commercial fisherman by trade, and a cancer survivor.

As I said at the start (see previous post), these are Mackey's dogs, and they were kinda famous:

Now, they're legends.

There Will Be Blog

Ladies & Gentlemen, it’s time for the 2008 Iditarod!

It’s around 1100 miles (no two sources agree – even the official website and the sign above the race disagree), and usually lasts about two weeks, give or take a couple days on either side. Today’s Anchorage start was an 11-mile ceremonial jaunt, and they will restart tomorrow in Willow about 75 miles north of here (in case you notice the lack of gear in the sleds below and think they are all going to die). They used to restart in Wasilla, about 45 miles north of here, but I think those days might be over – thank you very much, global freaking warming! OK, maybe part of that is city growth, and don't get me wrong, everything is snow covered, just not as much as back in the day.

Check out that American Flag to the right of the sign above. Go on...I'll wait.

Add that…to this…


And you got some COLD conditions! I was nice and warm with more layers going than a Mexican bean dip, but after a few hours the feet ignored the “don’t fail me now” order issued early in the a.m.

The mushers started launching at 10:00 and I got down there about an hour early to check things out. A lot of the dogs were still in their trailers and such and you could walk around to get a look.

The crowds continued to grow underneath the many iconic grizzly bears of the souvenir shops on 4th Ave:

And pretty soon things were really cranking, with the smell of hot chocolate and reindeer sausage permeating the air above the international crowd.

Especially near the starting line:

Pretty soon some of the dogs were hooked up and ready to go, and the dogs came in all colors:

And some had amazing eyes:

And these dogs are no joke. They are smaller than you would think and extremely lean, which I guess makes sense as they live to pull sleds through the snow for over a thousand miles, some of them on more than one occasion per year (plus training, of course). Check out this tough looking customer, and note the dog behind him biting the metal chain:

And when these dogs get hooked up, they want to GO RIGHT NOW!!! The below pic was a common sight all day, as the dogs barked like maniacs and leapt with all fours off of the ground, raring to GOOOOOOOO!!! One dog even jumped right over the top of his partner, then back to his original spot. The dogs below are part of the team of Lance Mackey, who won both the Yukon Quest (1000 miles) and Idatorad last year (the first person ever to do so), and already won the Yukon Quest this year (his 4th straight). In other words, these dogs are kinda famous:

I also like that his little "booties" look like boxing gloves. And once they finally get going, they look like hounds from hell on a mission – click to enlarge and look at those faces, especially on the lead dogs!!!

Of course, the dogs are not the only ones relying on fur to keep warm – that guy in the back is wearing a full-length wolf, but by the time I was able to cross the street for a better look they had moved.

I took special care to get a picture of four-time winner Jeff King, who my dad met at a Cabella’s in St. Louis (funny that their sponsorship is everywhere on the Iditarod, but their store is nowhere to be found).

Each team that lines up has a “handler” for each pair of dogs to keep them from just taking off, especially with all the crowd distractions. This was a beautiful team of all Siberian Huskies:

And soon the handlers step aside and the dogs “dig in” for the start (as you can see the 4th pair doing just as they start forward). Viewed full screen this is my favorite pic of the day (and current wallpaper), with the beautiful dogs, the crowd, the starry night mural background on the side of the building... except for that extremely creepy guy in the dog costume. Terrifying.

This year there are a ninety-six mushers entered in the race, an Iditarod record, and they, like the fans, come from around the globe. There are teams from the U.S. (mostly AK, of course), Canada, Germany, Italy, France, Great Britain, and Norway, with the later making their presence known:

And a Norwegian musher proudly representing his homeland with his special helmet, to the crowd’s delight as he sped by:

So that’s it from this years Iditarod start. And, that’s another goal for my life here in Alaska checked off from my “roadtrip” blog. I never followed the race before (why would I?), but I’ll be following this year for sure, especially after getting to see all the teams. I even grabbed a “birds-eye-view” for you fans back in the LFE (lower-forty-eight), the only time it really felt like my face might fall off from being above the wind-breaking buildings below:

But “Fang” here and I will be back next year: