After visiting Shageluk I arrived home soon after 7 pm on Saturday 11 December, but not before my car needed a jump start at Fairbanks International Airprort, where it had sat in deep cold not plugged in for three days. I must replace the battery. By 5 pm on Sunday 12 December, Kim and I were in Wasilla after a 5 or so hour drive down the Parks Highway.

Tuesday, 14 December was a very interesting day. It began at 7:30 am in the dark on the ice at Lucille Lake, Wasilla. It was a familiar situation inasmuch as we have twice previously (January 2003, December 2003) met Cheryl Abbott (Wasilla High School) and her students at Lucille Lake in the dark to show them how to make ALISON measurements with the aid of flashlights.

Our day on the ice ended six hours later in broad daylight, clear skies and an air temperature of –15°C. In the meantime we had worked with four different classes and a total of about 80 students ranging in age from 15 to 18. We had also seen sunrise and a temperature change of –9°C, from –6°C to –15°C, as the radiation balance changed. The latter was also manifested by the appearance of fog over the ice. This gave the lake and the study site a mysterious, ethereal quality as the fog gently moved around, sometimes enveloping us, sometimes clearing.

The fog on Lucille Lake moved around gently and occasionally obscured the view

We had met all the students the previous day, Monday. We were in school at 7:30 am (an unfamiliar time for us to be at work) and then talked to five different classes about ALISON (purpose and measurements) and snow and ice evidence for recent climate change in Alaska. After being let out of school at 1 pm we went out to Lucille Lake to set up the study site. The snow was patchy with many dunes separated by bare ice – snow depth varied between 0 and 11 cm. It was also very warm – barely below 0°C.

On Tuesday morning the patchy snow was gone, thanks to a moderately heavy snow fall on Monday evening. The snow fell thick and fast in a fashion that we don’t often see in Fairbanks. Lucille Lake was transformed by the 8.5 cm thick layer of fresh snow.