Where is Tommy Lee Jones When We Need Him?

I'm sure you remember the kinder, gentler days of Redoubt Volcano from an earlier blog post?

Sun, fun, surf.

Ah yes, beautiful, serene Redoubt, silhouetted along with your humble host against calm Alaskan skies:

Or, raining hellfire down upon us all!!!

As I'm sure you've heard, after threatening to blow up since January, Redoubt has erupted double-digit times in the past couple weeks. Credit for the above and below pictures goes to the people at groundtruthtrekking.org, who apparently have been able to get some pics and footage that have eluded the major media outlets.

Did you know volcanic eruptions can spawn lightning? I didn't until I saw these. If you visit their site, they also have a couple of cool time-lapse videos, including one of an eruption - I highly recommend it. Also , if you google "volcano lightning" you will see some amazing images from other volcanos, especially in Chile.

The first several eruptions sent ash north, sparing Anchorage. And these eruptions spew ash into the atmosphere up to 50,000+ feet. This satellite image from Asia shows Redoubt asserting its place in the universe.

And speaking of "Ash Expected Over Anchorage," we are no longer expecting. It happened. I went out to dinner on Saturday and thought "Wow, it looks really dark south of town - it must be snowing down there." When I got to the restaurant I learned Redoubt had erupted again that afternoon and what I was seeing was the approaching ash cloud. I think I was in the restaurant the whole time it went through, and never actually saw anything in the air, but when I got home the snow had CLEARLY changed color.

Now I can officially say we got hit by the volcano, and I think we'd all be happy not to have it happen again. It was about as mild as it gets, outside of closing down the airport for a day along with some other businesses. It had actually just snowed the day before so we had a nice, fresh coat of snow on top of the blanket of snow we've had since October. Check out the difference after the volcanic ash cloud:

Yeah, everything looked really dirty around here for a day, but then it snow again so it's all white again! I wish I could have gotten a more dramatic picture of the difference in the snow, but it was really cloudy that day. Or was it?

Running of the Reindeer

It's Fur Rondy time (Fur Rendevous), and that means of course, along with all kinds of events all over town, it's time for the Running of the Reindeer! I went downtown on Sunday to check it out, and it was well worth it - like laugh out loud worth it. They keep a corral on one end of the course with a female reindeer, and walk the male reindeer down to the other end of the street for the race, then cut 'em loose along with all the racers. There were a LOT of people out to check out the second annual event:

Reindeer are basically farm caribou (think reindeer sausage, and the skilled artisans who make it). I'm not sure how a caribou becomes a reindeer, but they are smaller than the real thing:

Still, reindeer/caribou have some of the best antlers in the business - moose are also way up there on uniqueness, but reindeer are really impressive too:

Check out this poor one-antlered fellow at the left:

I guess all hooved animals get that crazy look at some point:

The funniest thing was in the first run of several (men, women, couples, groups, etc), one of the reindeer completely wigged out and ran BACK up the course the wrong way looking for a hole in the fence/line of people to break out and go wreak havoc on the town! He kept running back and forth, looking all crazy, and the wranglers couldn't catch him and no one really knew what to do - it was classic.

You may have noticed if you enlarged any of the pics above that people tend to dress in costumes to run in this thing - not any sort of "theme" or anything, but just random craziness.

You may recall my earlier reference to hair as "lettuce." These people take it to a whole new level:

Yeah, I don't know either. Another interesting move is this dude, who apparently made his axe safer by placing duct tape over the blade. Uhhhhhh - I'm no so sure an axe becomes less dangerous through the application of tape - and I'm a person who knows his axe. I would not recommend running through snow within range of this guy:

By far the winner - this chick. Let me tell you, it was COLD out that day with a solid breeze, enough that I had to cinch up the coat and get out the winter hat after being out for a short time. This takes moxy!

Okay, Okay, I know what you're thinking - what about the actual RUNNING of the reindeer??? I learned quickly it's tough to get a picture with all the oncoming people, but if you go against the grain, you can get a better picture of them going. So here you go (you can see three scampering reindeer if you look closely) - overall a pretty fun event:

Now THAT'S something you don't see everyday!

Bad News: Bears

In another powerful example of "the gooch," I mentioned the freedom to hike without fear of bears last week, then this past weekend two grizzly bears and a black bear were spotted on the trails near town. D'oh! That is WAY TOO EARLY! According to biologists, they'll go back to their dens because they really shouldn't be up until April at the earliest, but that doesn't make me feel any better. Nothing like grumpy bears that haven't eaten in months! I guess it's time to launch the summer hiking protocol early...