One Man's Alaska

A friend sent me this link to a map that shows all the earthquakes in Alaska. As of today's date, there have been 329 earthquakes in Alaska in the last seven days, wow!

The image changes every day, but here's a look at today's picture, with the latest 329 earthquakes:

I missed this yesterday, but a "light" earthquake hit Southcentral Alaska, including Anchorage yesterday. Before my interest in Alaska was piqued several years ago I had no idea Alaska had this sort of seismic and volcanic activity.

I really enjoyed this blog posting titled "I miss the ocean" by a woman named Yaari Kingeekuk. This short blurb tells what her excellent blog post is about:

Here I am living in two worlds, the St. Lawrence Island Yupik and western way. I live in a city which to me is big; and that’s Anchorage. I struggle as I try to survive in both worlds.

I was wondering about bears the other night, about things like how they hibernate, if they ever wake up during the winter, things like that, and then I found this link at NOVA Online where they write about hibernating animals, including bears.

If that link is right, it's interesting to me that bears don't hibernate in the same sense that other animals do. They refer to bears as being in a state of lethargy (kind of like me in the winter), as opposed to hibernating like the other animals do.

I just found these great Iditarod 2009 photos on the Sports Illustrated website. The black-and-white dog in the first photo reminds me of one of my dogs (Zeus).

In the most interesting news of the day -- okay, besides wondering about Mount Redoubt -- an avalanche closed down the Seward Highway for several hours today. The avalanche occurred in an area just south of Girdwood. Here's a link to the rough location on Google Maps.

Mount Redoubt erupted twice again this morning, with a blast at 9:24 a.m. that went up to 65,000 feet. (That's over 12 miles, straight up.) Commercial airline flights in southcentral Alaska have come to a halt, or a near halt. The National Weather Service is saying that there might be ash-fall of up to an eighth of an inch in Homer.

For full details, the Anchorage Daily News has the story and some incredible pictures.

Mount Redoubt erupted very early this morning, and continued erupting five times during the early morning hours. Ash has now been detected as high as 60,000 feet above sea level, and the ashes have headed north and northeast, towards the towns of Willow and my former home, Talkeetna.

If it's March, it must be Iditarod time. Here's the 2009 Iditarod page at the Anchorage Daily News with all your update information. Before I go, here's a cute picture of Larry the lead dog. He looks a lot like a husky I used to have named Indy.

As I read a story about Lance Armstrong working on his comeback in Italy this morning, I'm reminded of the bicycle riders I used to see in Alaska and Canada. Back in May of 2007 I'd be driving down some rural road, see a couple of bike riders, wave as I passed them by, and then anywhere between 1-5 minutes later I'd see a bear on the side of the road. I always wondered what became of those bike riders? Did they really become "Meals on wheels" for the bears, or did they just wave and ride on by?