Alaska Part IV

[leftyjew]

Monday - Tony Knowles Coastal Trail

So.... arctic_alpine points out that this is taking a long time. Yeah.... but since this was my first real vacation-vacation where I stayed in hotels and not with friends and did something completely different, I have a lot to say. And I'm relatively excited about it, still.

Anyway, back to our story. We came back to the hostel after lunch and asked the owner to rent bikes. We got two bikes and two helmets and one lock. arctic_alpine didn't trust the bike helmet she was given (no plastic shell) and fought to get a plastic-covered one. Anyway, one bike was an awesome Mongoose, and the other was a girls' bike with a weird gear shift, slightly deflated tires and a bad gear ratio. arctic_alpine took the girls' bike first, and I took it on the way home. Anyway, we wound up biking about 28 miles there and back and it was a fun ride (for me... but I had the Mongoose on the way there). We kept stopping to look at pretty plants and skies and mountains and the bay. There were really cool grasses that we learned were called horsetails, and amazing wildflowers. Earthquake Park was interesting. They really have a way of taking advantage of this event...
On Good Friday, 1964, G-d decided to remind a few million people the true wonder of Good Friday. So G-d had the North American Plate move against the Pacific Plate. When this happened, there was a huge (read: 8.7 but some are talking about upgrading it to 9.4) earthquake. It is the largest recorded in the Northern Hemisphere to date. So what were some of the results of this "Good Friday Earthquake"? Well, aside from your usual wanton destruction [my spell-checker tells me that I can't make a written pun about havoc in Chinese soups. It also tells me that spell-checker is not a compound word, but I think it at least deserves hyphenation.] including train cars welding together and tsunamis as far out as California, the land actually moved. I mean of course it shook, but things actually MOVED relative to, let's say, Fairbanks. Also, thanks to a lot of weak spots along the water, the coastline changed. A lot of the coast around Anchorage fell out, and lots of salt water came in. Trees tried to drink the water by their roots, and wound up killing themselves with saltwater ("Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink," works for trees, too). Many were cut down by the Army Corps of Engineers who spent some serious time cleaning up Alaska after the quake, but many stand to this day - bright white ghost forests - testaments to impermanence of the earth beneath your feet. Also, much of the land has become super-saturated mud flats. There are signs along the coast saying "Dangerous Water and Mud Flats," which is shorthand for: "If you step in the mud, you might get stuck. If you get stuck, the tide will come and drown you. If you can get to someone before high tide and they send a helicopter to rescue you, your legs might get ripped off as they pull you out." I'm not sure how much is urban legend, but my coworker out there says that every year some (or some two) dumb kid goes out there and dies.
Anyway, so there a whole park dedicated to the results of the earthquake and teaches about various local flora, and there's also a cool planet walk which we didn't look at at all. I think the Smithsonian has more thorough planet stuff, but a to-scale walking model is a pretty cool idea.
Anyway, the bike ride was really cool. We got to see some amazing views of the Chugach Mountains, and the Kenai Peninsula across the bay. Wow. We were so fascinated by the mountains in front of use that we just kept biking. We went through another park (Something Hill??) and saw a Cold War-era missile silo, and kept going. Eventually we saw this funny looking plane ahead of us which looked so ridiculously-proportioned, I thought it was the Spruce Goose, but it turned out it was a military transport plane. Oh, it also turned out that we had biked significantly off the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail trail and were now by the airport. Yes, Ted Stevens Int'l - the place where we came in. So much for renting a car, we totally could have biked to the hostel. Anyway, it was getting late (10 or so), so we were concerned it would start to get dark soon (and we hadn't eaten dinner). So we took a quick break for trail mix and to watch the mountains, swapped bikes and headed back. I understand why arctic_alpine was complaining about her bike on the way. It was NOT a good bike. It was okay, but not really good. Anyway, I rode quite a bit in low gears and made it through.
On the way back, we passed a family staring off into the distance. arctic_alpine sped through on her hot bike, but I came up slowly and looked off at where the 7 year old was pointing. (Lesson #3 - always look where kids are staring) There was a moose! She (no antlers) was laying down munching away, totally not caring about us staring at her. "arctic_alpine! arctic_alpine! Come back! There was a moose!!" So we watched for a while. We stopped at a few more scenic views on the way back (at one I took the opportunity to learn about natural TP and it's antithesis, spiky Devil's Club. I spent a while worrying whether I had wiped with poisonous leaves, but was relieved to find that I was ok).
Anyway, we got back to the hostel well before 11:30 sundown, ate, and I said minchah at about 11. According to arctic_alpine, "You can say minchah bidievet until sundown. You just have to wait to say maariv until there are three stars in the sky... oh wait. That doesn't happen here." I love weirdly long days. So I think eventually said maariv but maybe not.
And it was evening, and it was morning, the second day.

Comments

[queerrocket.livejournal.com]

you should use toyre-shprakh all the time.

[leftyjew.livejournal.com]

Actually, she didn't say bidievet, I did. She said, something like, "You can do it, you just shouldn't plan to do it."

[queerrocket.livejournal.com]

I actually meant the last line of your entry.

[leftyjew.livejournal.com]

Ah. Heheh cool

[alanscottevil.livejournal.com]

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mud flats urban legend

[(Anonymous)]

Hi, most of what you heard is urban legend. No one has died on the mud flats in over 15 years. Not many people even get stuck, but the potential is definitely there. As a firefighter who has worked the mudflats for years, most of the calls we get are for someone "out on the mud flats" who we approach and help walk off, all the while telling them that it can be dangerous.

No one that I have ever heard of has had their legs ripped off by helicopter. The last person to die out there got stuck at low tide and rescuers were unable to get her out in time before cold water rose above her head. They gave her an air bottle to breath from but she got hypothermic, weak, and drowned. They removed her body at the next low tide.

We now use a water-injection system which liquifies the mud and silt even more around a trapped person's legs, then we pull them onto a wooden board we lay nearby. Since we have used this method we have 100% success rate. The old air-injection system did not work very well.

Don't get me wrong, the mud flats can be very dangerous, but the stories of people dying every year and getting legs ripped off by helicopter are the stuff of myth - hopefully it will stay that way.

Hope this info helps.