Alaskan Showers

Yesterday (sunday) was our day off work, so we all had the option of going hiking. Although it was raining, I decided to go with the group hiking up the rouch montinee valley. We didn't increase altitude much, but hiking through the terrain was exhausting. I have never hiked on tundra before...it is quite an experience. Imagine hiking through a hilly valley full of giant soggy cottonballs mixed with rocks and mud. The ground is so unstable. My "water resistant" boots were soaked through early in the trip and my ankles were not particularly happy on the unstable ground. I was happy to have the rain though, it chases off the mosquitoes. Every time the rain broke for a few minutes, out came the swarms of mosquitoes. I decided I'd take the rain! After much trudging we made it most of the way up valley and were met by blue ice! Apparently the color of the ice is related to how tightly the ice crystals are packed. When the ice is really tightly packed, it gives a beautiful blue color!

By the time we got back to camp we were all soaked and pretty cold. I had a bunch of little tasks to do before I finally got a chance to change into dry clothes...Which felt wonderful. Afterwards I stopped by the lab to chat with Dan a little about what I needed to get done on monday... I was still kind of cold, and Dan started weedling me about the sauna.

Down by the lake is a sauna, which we can go to on mon, wed, fri, sat, and sun! I finally broke down last night and joined everyone. It felt wonderful after being cold all day. There is a little window where you can sit and look out at the lake (which still has ice on it!). To clean up after sweating in the sauna, you have two options....use a jug of lake water that was heated in the sauna to rinse off, or you can jump in the lake. After a half hour in the sauna, I decided to go for it and my co-worker aleah (sp?) and I went for a very brief dip in the 4 deg C water! It actually felt amazing. Afterwards, we went running up the dock to jump back into the sauna. I curled up in my tent last night squeaky clean!