See Marc's trip to Nome 18-19 November.

Sunday, November 20
So I tried again to get to Wales, after another hearty breakfast at Fat Freddies.  I was a little disappointed with the service.  I ordered hot chocolate, and the waitress brought me a packet of mix and hot water.  Come on.  If you are going to overcharge me for something, at least have the decency to make it for me.

Anyway, Frontier Flying Service was nice enough to schedule a flight for about 1 pm to Wales.  And we made it, after a slight delay.  Wales school teacher  Eric Lowry met me at the airstrip and snowmobiled me to the school.  It was my first time on a snowmobile in over four years. 

I quickly ate lunch and changed from my traveling clothes to my field clothes, and then we set out to set up the site on a large pond near the airstrip.   We had an exciting moment when the snowmachine tipped when we started to go.  Luckily, we both jumped off in time. There were no injures, just injured pride.  Like Nome, the pond was almost bare of snow and made up of only congelation ice.  It too had some nice thermal cracks.

A view of Puvragik Lake. The near bare ice is due to the persistent winds in the region.

Wales teacher Eric Lowry drills the holes for the 5m stakes along the 100m transect.

Unfortunately, with such cold ice and just the two of us, it took us over two hours to set up the site.  I never realized how much the extra five or so inches Martin has in height (over me) is an advantage in using the ice auger. Just that little added ability to get more weight pressing down makes all the difference in the world.  But we did eventually get it done, though it was hard to get enough chippings to pack the stake holes.  There wasn’t enough snow and the wind kept blowing away the chippings from the hole we had just drilled!!!  But we managed.  The ice was ___ cm thick.

We returned to the school where I would be lodging for the night.  I took some pictures over the playground and the ocean of a gorgeous sunset.  After Eric  took leave of me, I boiled up some bagged potato spinach something or other (I was not impressed), did a little work, watched a bit of TV, prayed for calm winds, and went to bed, lying comfortably on the classroom floor.

Sunset over the Bering Strait.

Monday, November 21
Being Monday morning, the students weren’t in any mood to listen to a lecture first period, and second period was mandatory reading period, so I did not give a talk in Wales.  I just spent the morning starting my presentation about lake-effect snow on the Great Lakes for my class, Climate and Climate Change.

The trip home was luckily uneventful and without complications.  Just a stop in Nome and then straight to Fairbanks.  Luckily, it was a much shorter trip than the one on Friday.