Redoubt Boom...! Maybe?

(PHOTO ABOVE BY R. CLUCAS April 21, 1990)
The past week has been full of local news reports about the possibility of an upcoming eruption of the Redoubt Volcano about 100 miles west of Anchorage. This post is for my friends and family outside Alaska wondering what's going on and what could happen. (I'd like to issue a disclaimer that Alaskans are free to make fun of me for my preparedness if you feel that I am over-reacting, but, if things get complicated and my typical over-planning pays off, I get to make fun of you.). Ok, so the sum of the situation is that there is this volcano, it's big, and it may erupt and cause some ash-fall on Anchorage. This can be bad for cars and other machinery, and may lead to a temporary loss of electrical power and or telephone communication. Brook and I are totally prepared with enough food and water for a few weeks, about 35 gallons (not all shown in pic) of fuel for our generator that will power the house intermittently for a couple weeks, and plenty of dust masks, goggles, and air filters (for the cars). So seriously, no one worry about us, even if you can't get a hold of us for awhile. If it does erupt the most this will be is an inconvenience and an excuse for everyone to stay home and not go to work. The eye candy is as follows... the sweet eruption pic at top is from the last big eruption in 1989-1990 (Photo by R. Clucas). The next shot is through my little spotting telescope the day after the increased activity began this week. The next is a sunset shot from this past summer, followed by another sunset shot from a few years ago in the winter. Next up is the filters masks and washer fluid shot, then our gas cans (because you didn't know what gas cans look like) our food supply (note the 6 cases of cheerios. essential!) some recent activity of the volcano (it was very active just awhile ago!!), and finally an estimate of ashfall trajectories. Keep an eye on the Anchorage Daily News (For fear-mongering and drama) or the Alaska Volcano Observatory for updates!

Anchorage Wedding - Lauren & Phillip

How do you pick a few photos for a blog when there were 3 photographers, over 10 hours of coverage totalling 61gigabytes of Raw files and over 5500 photos? I don't know, but I somehow figured it out. Nick and Philip-photo joined me to cover the big day for Lauren and Phillip (groom) and after it was all done, we were all excited with the results and Nick and Philip-photo made sure to point out how much editing and color correcting I had ahead of me. I am trying to figure out some incentive to get Philip-photo to do the editing for me, but it's going to be so much work that no dollar figure moved him. Anyway, the wedding was nothing short of sweettacular and one of the most energized weddings I've seen in a long time. Phillip is part of the band Pamyua, which is one the top Native American bands in the world. The whole evening was filled with great live music and lots of dancing. The ceremony was not to be missed as Lauren and Philip's mothers married them together. Philip's mom performed the ceremony in traditional Yup'ik which was cool to see.
In the photos we've got the start of the day with Lauren at the hair salon, then we went over to their condo for makeup, then on to the Dena'ina Center for the ceremony and reception. I included a few extra photos showing the benefits of having multiple shooters on big weddings like this so there are a few that look similar. This post doesn't really do justice to everything we got.

Glen Alps Engagement - Michelle & Don

Another Glen Alps Engagement shoot! This time we were thrown the challenge of shooting as much as possible in non-windy areas. Michelles hair was blowing around a bit so it was a constant battle to fix it. We did manage to pull it off and ended up with some great stuff! Michelle and Don will be getting married in Colorado next August and are here for a few years with the military. They were even cool with climbing up onto the giant snowpile at the Glen Alps parking lot despite it's icy-ness and steep ascent. I almost had to bring ropes.

Glen Alps Engagement Shoot - Lauren & Phillip

After it was decided that Girdwood was going to be clouded-out for engagement photos (the ceiling was only a few hundred feet so you wouldn't see any mountains) we decided to do Lauren and Phillips engagement shoot at Glen Alps because it was above the clouds all day and you could still see the mountains. A few of these are actually in our backyard, literally. They are getting married this Saturday at the new Dena'ina Center and we are looking forward to shooting it, lots of cool stuff we hear! In the meantime, check out their sweet engagement pics and enjoy!

Dena'ina Bridal Show!

Thanks to all the folks who stopped by our booth at the Dena'ina bridal show! Philip and I had a whole bunch of nice people to talk to, including some of our previous and future brides. If you want to join the cool-kids club, make sure to give us a call!

Chugach Electric is Awesome. So is the Wind!

On Wednesday night we had quite an experience with mother nature. I knew it got windy up here, but I didn't realize what the difference was between 75-80 and 105. It turns out our house vibrates and shakes past 85 and things become more interesting. As I type this we're at 70-80 which is a nice relief. Last night at around 11:00pm we had a 105mph+ gust that knocked out the power. Without going into full detail, the linemen who came out to replace it were awesome and hardcore Alaskan old-timers. The guy with the big beard in the picture was up in the cherry picker at 2:00am fixing the transformer as the wind blew at 85. It was so nice to see that big alien mothership-looking truck parked in the front yard. I would have offered them a beer but that's probably not safe. :D Thanks guys! You rock! Yesterday part of the roof on our old rental-house down the road started peeling back. Nick and I tried to help nail it down but we had to abandon the effort after we were all repeatedly tossed across the roof like ragdolls from the wind and it became unsafe. Brook couldn't get down to work in the morning because of a 10-foot snowdrift. There's a few pics of that after the plow finally came in. We went to Home Depot and got a generator so when it happens again we're covered. During the day Nick and Madeleine came over and we decided to enjoy the balmy weather and have a beach party. Check out the video for proof. Hopefully this is the last wind update for this storm.

Holy Wind!

Here's a brief video showing some of our winds. It's been blowing all night at 60-75mph. Thanks to Erin, Joe, and Beth who ventured up the mountain to check out our wedding photos despite the crazy wind :D On their way out I had to use my jacket to block Erin's Mom, Beth, from the full fury of the wind. I went down the road with them to make sure they didn't get stuck in any of the 3-5 foot drifts covering the road. Oh, and for my Aunt Barb - my toes are ok!

Placer Valley - Frostbite - High Pressure - Inversion

On Friday, Bryan and I again were crazy and picked an even colder activity to enjoy the minus 20 temperatures. We had never been out to the Placer Valley, and with Bryan's new (to him) snowmachines, we went exploring with ice climbing gear and I ended up with frostbite on a few of my toes. We were on the river before the sun had even come up and came back after sunset. The trip was almost an epic. We started off by checking out the glacier, riding around the lake very fast, then went looking for ice climbs. We stopped to talk to an Alaska Railroad guy who was sort of helpful in telling us where we were allowed and not allowed. Turns out they were doing a bunch of work on the tracks near the area where we wanted to climb, and we didn't want to get fined so we avoided that area. We did hike up the canyon a ways and saw a couple decent climbs but we were running low on time and didn't get any climbing in. On the way out, Bryan's throttle cable broke. That basically is the equivalent of your gas pedal breaking on a car. It left us to Macgyver a throttle with wire and a screwdriver which was awkward but got us home. On a big downhill I rolled my machine over top of me and after we returned realized our climbing ropes that were bungied-down and fallen off. Bryan saddled up again and went back 8 miles to the rollover spot and retrieved them. Lastly, upon taking off my boots I realized something was wrong with a few of my toes. They were bright blue and purple and very numb and cold. I googled "Frostbite Treatment" and followed their recommendations by submerging them in hot water. Doing better now but they are very painful.
The cause of all this cold is a stubborn high pressure over Alaska keeping us cloud free and in one of the longest negative temperature periods in recent history. There's a picture of Brook at the bottom after one of her runs in the cold. She has still managed to get out most days for at least a couple miles. The last image is an interesting screenshot showing the crazy temperature differences at our house and in town. Because of a Temperature Inversion, where the cold air settles at lower elevations and warm air rises, we have been spared much of the worst cold.

Anchorage Wedding - Stephanie & Royce

On Saturday I photographed another cool couple in freezing temperatures! about 10 to 20 below was the norm across Anchorage. Stephanie & Royce were married at Central Lutheran Church followed by a reception at the Bayshore Clubhouse. It was a pretty laid back group that was easy to work with. Philip stopped in after the ceremony and photographed the reception with me. I got a good shot of Philip as he was standing in for the foggy-window shot. I can't put my finger on the actor he looks like there...but he reminds me of someone. hmm. We set up all the lights and made the often-dark bayshore pop out with all it's nice wood tones. Royce apparently has a small license plate collection and was unable to keep that influence out of the wedding, so an appropriately designed wedding-cake topper was picked with a personalized-style plate reading "YOU N ME" - Perfect!

Turnagain/Backyard Ski Day

On Friday Bryan convinced me that going outside in -15 to -20 temps (with 25-30mph winds up high) to do a winter activity was a good idea. In retrospect, it was a good day and we had a lot of fun. Waking up at 6:30am to drive down to Turnagain Pass and battle for survival took some serious self-motivating. Bryan initially wanted to do a 6-pitch ice climb, but the thought of hanging from a rope, idle for 8 hours with a few minutes of sweat and effort here and there seemed horrible, so we opted for a ski day, which kept us constantly on the move. We did a run up Sunburst, which Bryan had yet to ski, and ran into only two other brave groups on the mountain. Both of which I knew. The first was John Schwieder whom I skied with in November. The next group immediately below was the parents of two of our previous brides Emily and Katie (no post). We stopped in Girdwood at the bakery, had one of their awesome ham and swiss croissants, and then drove back to Anchorage. After we got back to my place, we were feelin the need for one more run, so we actually skied from my patio! It was an awesome 1200 vertical-feet run through open meadows and nicely-spaced trees down to the road (with a few alders here and there). I think it might actually be an Alaskan first descent!... but Bryan thinks someone must have done it before. Because it leaves from my backyard, you'll need permission to ski this run, so if anyone is interested, I will guide you for $15. That price includes Brook picking us up at the bottom of the road so we don't have to skin back up. Not many road-to-road 1000 foot plus ski runs near Anchorage, if any!