At 8 am on Thursday 30 October, just 24 hours after I had left Fairbanks for Denali National Park to set up an ALISON observatory at Horseshoe Lake, I was on a plane bound for Barrow to meet Tim Buckleyand set up the ALISON observatory at Imikpuk for a second consecutive winter of measurements.

The plane arrived on time, 9:30 am, and after a short walk to the hotel to check in I continued to Barrow High School to meet Tim and help prepare the equipment and supplies. Tim had already assembled one of the two ice thickness gauges. The other gauge was soon assembled, the wooden stakes that mark the measurement transect were prepared, and lunch (turkey) was eaten.

Then we drove out to Imikpuk Lake, on the way picking up a generator and chainsaw from the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium (BASC). BASC provides logistical support to scientists and promotes science research, education and collaboration between scientists and North Slope residents. We also met up with Clayton Lambrecht, who helped Tim and me to set up the observatory in early November 2002. Clayton operates the Ukpeagvik Iñupiat Corporation freshwater distillation plant that draws its water from Imikpuk Lake.

Conditions at Imikpuk Lake were significantly different from those we suffered in November 2002. This time it was warm (perhaps too warm; the temperature hovered around 0°C) with only a modest breeze and light snowfall. It was also broad daylight. Consequently, we completed the installation of the observatory in 90 minutes: two ice thickness gauges installed, 21 snow depth and ice thickness measurements made, 21 wooden stakes put in holes drilled in the ice to mark the line of the measurement transect, and three snow samples taken to be weighed and density calculated.

We thanked and said goodbye to Clayton, and returned to school to determine the snow density and enter the data into the computer. That done we sat and talked in the computer lab that Tim supervises between 4 and 7 pm for the benefit of students. A room full of computers allowed me to go online and check the status of the cricket Test match between Bangladesh and England in Dhaka. Tim is familiar with cricket after Peace Corps work in Botswana and travel in southern Africa, and I found myself having a conversation about some of the finer points of the game with an American in an Iñupiat community in northwesternmost Alaska!

I was back in Fairbanks for lunch on Friday 31 October, Halloween, pleased that two teacher/student-operated ALISON observatories had been set up in just two days. That pace would not be maintained. Freezing rain that left my car glazed in ice in the airport parking lot was a reminder that the weather had turned very mild in the Interior and was worse elsewhere. Would I be traveling to Wales to visit Sue Yates on 4-6 November? Click here (trip report to be written) to find out.