September 28, 2009 – West Side of Mount Saint Helens

We woke early, packed a lunch and off we went.  It was a little cloudy and we hoped to see everything before the rain started.

Here is the Toutle River Valley – this is where the river of mud and ash came thru on that fateful day:

  This bridge was reconstructed after the blast.  This area is also at the edge of the blast zone.   Most of the area here is owned by Weyerhaeuser Company (logging) and they suffered massive losses.  But their recovery of the forest has also helped the animal habitats recover.  At this point we are 14.8 miles from the crater:

Castle Lake - created by the blast:

The mountain is in the clouds – :-((:

Coldwater Lake – also created by the blast.  We were here in 1995 and what a difference!  There was very little vegetation then.  We had lunch then took the trail by the lake.

The high walls by the river is a combination of the mud, ash, and parts of the mountain.

The view from Loowit Point:

And the view from Johnson Ridge Observatory.  When the mountain slid, all that dirt, etc. rolled down the valley and up and over this point – can you imagine:

More views from the observatory:

We spent some time in the observatory, taking in the exhibits and the movie – WOW!  This happened on May 18, 1980.  The first time I was here was in September of that year.  I could not get near the area but was able to see some of the blast zone with the trees down and where some of the mud flow happened.  Andy and I were here in 1995 and it was great to see some of the areas opening up.  This time, we were able to see even more and it was good to see everything coming back.

The good thing about this blast is that scientists have and are learning how to predict when a volcano will happen – which is critical with the number of active volcano’s around the Pacific.

What a great trip!!  The rain did not start until we were almost home.

I now have Andy’s cold and not feeling well – :-((( - so we will see what happens tomorrow.

June 9-12, 2009 – Domes, Satellites, Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Pipeline, and Cold Climate Housing

On Tuesday morning, I woke at 5 AM to the smell of smoke.  I looked out the window and saw lots of smoke so out the door I went to check out the farmhouse, buildings, and field.  By the time I was fully awake, I realized that the whole valley was filled with smoke.  Turned out there is a forest fire burning about 100 miles away and the wind was blowing just right to bring the smoke into Fairbanks. It is very dry in the interior right now and there are a number of fires burning.  Very scary.

So this morning, I washed all our rugs and went grocery shopping.

This afternoon we took a drive to Murphy Dome:

The views of the area from the top of the dome hill are beautiful although with the haze/smoke it was hard to see the Alaskan Range:

 

We made a stop at Wal-Mart to get Andy’s glasses fixed and found out that there is a line of Sophia Loren frames now out – remember the big eyeglasses she use to wear – :-))  That will be my next pair!

We then stopped at the American Legion and supper at the VFW – had a great time.

The day continues to grow:

Wednesday, 10th,  we took two tours at the University of Alaska.  Our first tour was at the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center in their virtual reality Discovery Lab.  They have a number of HUGH computers and we had a number of 3D tours of their labs and various places of Alaska.  WOW!

Our second tour was at the Geophysical Institute.  There were three parts to this tour.  In the first part of this tour we learned about the Alaska Satellite Facility.  This is where they monitor and download information on a number of the north-south satellites.  They showed us a number of satellite images – it was incredible.

Here is one of their receivers on the roof of the University:

In the second part we went to the Alaska Earthquake Information Center where they monitor earthquakes throughout Alaska.  Here is one of the control centers:

The Earthquake Center works closely with the Tsunami Center and the Volcano Observatory and NOAA to help warn the public and emergency personnel as well as scientific research and predictions.

And from there we went to the Alaska Volcano Observatory.  Here is one of their control centers:

For Andy and I who love science and are tech heads, these areas were a highlight.  We learned about the various volcanoes and of particular interest was Mt. Redoubt which has had 19 eruptions since March and possibly more on the way.  (And yes, we are still heading that way this summer.)  It was so interesting to see the satellite images of the various eruptions in the ring of fire.  They also follow ash (from the volcanoes) in the atmosphere to warn planes and the public (and the supercomputer center helps model the ash predictions).

It was one of those times where we had information overload.  I have listed web pages at the bottom of this blog – check them out.  For the AVO, there are 3 webcam’s pointed at Mt. Redoubt – Still smoking and the lava dome is still growing….

What a great way to spend an afternoon.

On Thursday, 11th, we continued our touring.  Our first stop was at one of the overlooks for the Alaska pipeline:

When permafrost was detected, the pipeline was built above ground on VSMs (Vertical Support Members).  These VSMs are filled with Anhydrous Ammonia, which boils at 33 degrees F. This allows the heat from the ground to be absorbed by the Anhydrous Ammonia, which rises as a gas and dissipates the heat from the thawing permafrost through the metal fins located atop the VSMs.  This maintains the ground’s stability year round by keeping the permafrost frozen all year round.

We then headed up the Steese Highway to the Poker Flat Research Range which is the largest land based rocket research range in the world and the only high latitude rocket range in the US.  The one brochure we had said that there were tours on Thursdays but everything was shut down..  so we went back to Fairbanks to the tour at the Cold Climate Housing Research Center.  The center was created to facilitate the development and use of energy efficient, healthy, and cost effective building technologies for Alaska and other cold climate regions.  As our guide told us - “what works for the lower 48 does not always work when the temperature is minus 25 and lower and there is little or no light for a length of time”.  They do a lot of testing of building materials, windows, heaters, water and sewage systems.  With the permafrost and temperatures, sewage systems can be a real problem.

Here is their lobby’s centerpiece – a large masonry heater:

“The masonry heater features local river rock and weighs about 12,000 pounds.  A single firing of dry wood is all that is required to heat throughout the day.  The masonry heater returns 80 percent of its heat to the building with 98 percent combustion efficiency.”

This was another great tour and I have also included their web page on the bottom of the blog.

Then this evening, we had dinner with Pennie and Dave, fellow Escapees that we met last week on the Discovery Boat Tour.  They came back to our MH afterwards and we all had a great time chatting.  Hopefully we will meet up with them again on this trip.

Today, Friday, was a take it easy day.  This morning I did laundry and some cleaning and Andy did some cleanup around our site.  The next three days we will be working so stay tuned.

Here are the sites…

http://www.avo.alaska.edu/

http://www.arsc.edu/homepage.html

http://www.giseis.alaska.edu/

www.asf.alaska.edu

http://www.cchrc.org/

Have a great weekend.