On Monday 27 January 2003 I drove 520 km down the Parks Highway with Kim Morris to Wasilla to set up the seventh and final ALISON observatory of winter 2002-03. Setting up the Wasilla observatory had to wait until late January because fall 2002 was so mild and the ice formed and stabilized very late on the lakes in this region not far north of Anchorage.

We left Fairbanks shortly after 8 am and arrived at Wasilla High School at 3:30 pm. In between we spent almost 2 hours at Denali National Park HQ and stopped for lunch about 110 km south of the park. So, we actually made very good time thanks to the Parks Highway being very dry with only scattered icy and snowy patches. If there was any reason to be disappointed with the drive it was the fact that it was overcast and we did not see Mount McKinley. It’s a spectacular drive on a clear winter day.

We stopped at Denali National Park to meet Martha Tomeo (Education Specialist) and Lucy Tyrell (Research Administrator) and talk about having an ALISON observatory in the park. It certainly looks as though this can be achieved, perhaps in collaboration with teachers and students in Healy, which lies a short distance north of the park. We also talked about participating in the park’s Winterfest, perhaps giving a demonstration of ALISON activities as a prelude to setting up an ALISON observatory in winter 2003-04.

Not long after arriving at Wasilla High School to meet Cheryl McDowell, we were walking on frozen Lucille Lake to select a site for the observatory. Lucille Lake was selected because Cheryl has a grant from the Alaska Department of Natural Resources for a study of water quality in the lake. The ALISON observatory and the water quality study are a nice combination for Cheryl and her biology and ecology students. Cheryl has taught at Wasilla High School since she graduated from the University of Idaho six years ago.

On Tuesday morning we spent 70 minutes talking about ALISON and lake ice with the ecology class, which also had an opportunity to handle the equipment and guess its purpose. Then Kim and I went to Lucille Lake to set up the observatory, first measuring snow depth and ice thickness and then staking out the 100 m sampling transect. The observatory is located on the south side of the lake, directly across from the hotel where we stayed. We could have driven across the ice from hotel to observatory, like some people we saw in pick-up trucks. Needless to say we didn’t do that in a university vehicle.

The average ice thickness was 0.35 m, the same as the length of the bar on our chainsaw. This is significant because installation of the hot-wire ice thickness gauge requires a slot to be cut in the ice with a chainsaw. At the first site we chose for the hot-wire gauge we cut a slot but it didn’t go all the way through the ice. At the second site, we couldn’t cut a slot because the chainsaw had frozen.

This occurred at lunchtime, so it was a good time to take a break: the chainsaw was taken to our hotel room to thaw while we went for pizza before meeting Cheryl again at 2 pm at the school for a tutorial on making measurements and entering data into the Excel files. We were back on the ice again shortly before 4 pm with a functioning chainsaw and were returning to the hotel at 4:15 pm having successfully installed the hot-wire gauge. That was a great relief. I’m now thinking that perhaps I need a chainsaw with a longer bar.

We returned to the ice at 8 am on Wednesday morning for a field class on making ALISON measurements. Think about that. It was 8 am in late January in Alaska. Yes, it was dark, but, aided by flashlights, we succeeded in demonstrating the hot-wire gauge, took snow samples and measured snow depth and top and bottom temperatures. When the first class of the day is the only opportunity to work with the students, then that’s what you do. There’s never a dull moment for the ALISON program. The important thing is that Cheryl and her students made their first set of ALISON measurements. I was impressed that the students turned out and stuck to their task despite the darkness and keen wind.

As we left Wasilla to return to Fairbanks it was overcast, the sky a dreary grey. It occurred to me that Wasilla might enjoy more winter daylight than Fairbanks and elsewhere in central and northern Alaska, but it might not see the sun as much. And as we drove north the sun did indeed appear, as did the mountains, including Mount McKinley. Unfortunately, I was unable to take photographs because my camera had chosen the previous day to malfunction while we were setting up the observatory on Lucille Lake. Oh, well. C’est la vie. It hardly spoiled a successful and enjoyable visit to Wasilla, the location of the seventh and final ALISON observatory of winter 2002-03.