We visit the Alaska Coffee Roasting Company often, but never before have we been there as early as 7 am. We were there to fortify ourselves for a trip down the Parks Highway to Denali National Park, where we would help set up the ALISON study site at Horseshoe Lake.

Thanks to good weather and good road conditions we arrived at the Murie Science and Learning Center (MSLC) at 9:15 am, where we met David Tomeo. David runs the MSLC, an educational facility that is a joint venture between the National Park Service, the Denali Institute, the Alaska Natural History Association and the Denali Borough School District. The doors of the MSLC have been open only about two weeks and once everyone is moved in and the facility is in full use it will be wonderful addition to Denali National Park.

We were joined at MSLC by Pam Sousanes, a park scientist, and Larissa Yocum, who created and maintained the ALISON Web site and made many lake ice and snow measurements at Poker Flat between fall 2002 and spring 2004. And then we were off to Horseshoe Lake, David and Pam on snowshoes breaking trail through the deep[-ish] snow on the occasionally steep trail through the spruce forest.

Working on 15-21 cm thick ice under grey skies at an air temperature of about –11°C, we had the study site set up in no time at all doing all the drilling and cutting by hand. Because Horseshoe Lake is located in a national park, we are not allowed to use noisy, dirty mechanical tools like generators and chain saws. Last year, in late October 2003, it took us probably 30 minutes to install two ice thickness gauges, cutting slots in the ice with pruning saws. That slow, hard work prompted me to go looking for an aggressive ice saw, a hand-tool that could do the work of a chain saw in as little or less time without the noise and contamination. This year, with the help of my new ice saw (http://www.icesaws.com/) we had the ice gauge installed in probably five minutes.

By 12:15 pm we were eating lunch at the MSLC and by 1:30 we were chatting briefly with Patty Gallego at Tri-Valley School in Healy. Unable to meet with Patty’s students until 2:05, we occupied ourselves at “Donna’s”, a gift and coffee shop with an espresso machine. Fortified again with caffeine, we were ready to spend 75 minutes with a group of 3rd, 4th and 5th graders, the students of Patty and Mrs deBlauw, who share the responsibility for making the measurements at Horseshoe Lake. Because it is a mixed grade group there were many familiar faces, plus a few new children who will be making lake ice and snow measurements for the first time.

It was fun to meet the kids again and talk about Horseshoe Lake and making ice and snow measurements there. I was impressed with how much they remembered about the equipment they will be using and the measurements they will be making again. Horseshoe Lake is in good, energetic and enthusiastic hands.