Another day at work

What's more exciting than commuting by helicopter to work? Absolutely nothing. If you think there is then you've never been in a helicopter, and until you've ridden in a helicopter, you can't argue with me. Period.

Donlin Camp from the helicopter

I've neglected my blogging because a) the Internet is slow b) I've been working crazy hours and c) eating and sleeping are more important than blogging. Sorry. On a typical day, I wake up at 6am, eat breakfast, catch the helicopter, hike around and dig holes all day, get picked up around 6:30pm, eat dinner, and then sync our GPS units which takes until midnight. Tonight I was relieved of my GPS duties and I already gorged myself so you get the pleasure of seeing more pictures and hearing about how it's been out here.

Most of the hiking has involved following the proposed pipeline project along ridge tops, but in order to get a representative sample of all of the soil and vegetation types along the proposed route, we do a lot of bushwhacking through alder thickets. After hiking for about 1/4mi, we (I) dig a 2ft deep hole and my field partner characterizes the soil while I walk around and take pictures of the area. Digging a hole every 1/4mi might sound easy but the thing Alaska has that we don't have in the city back home is permafrost and seasonal frost. Imagine trying to dig a hole through a cinder block and that's about what it feels like. After about 6-8in you hit a layer of ice and have to slowly chip away at the ice until you break through (seasonal frost) or sometimes you never break through at all (permafrost). In a lot of instances, I can't get any deeper than a foot. Needless to say, I think every muscle in my body aches, especially my back and arms but I'll come back just that much stronger :) (try to pick on me now Casey!!) hehe

We've had one day of off and on rain but the other days have just been overcast. Haven't been stranded yet but the weather is really iffy around here - fog seems to roll in pretty quickly and if the fog bank is too low, the helicopter can't see to pick us up. Turns out that we still get paid to work even if we're not able to go out in the field due to bad weather. The mosquitoes are definitely in full force but fortunately today there was a good breeze that kept them at bay.