The mountains are calling

I said goodbye to a lot of great people in Galena two weeks ago. Corrie and I are moving to Anchorage where she will start a new job in August. I started Alternate Solutions to provide engineering design services about 18 months ago now and have done pretty well with it part-time. Once we settle in I will work on expanding that to full-time. First we're spending a couple of months in the mountains and traveling. We've spent the first two weeks of summer hiking in Alaska and traveling around the state. The short time in the mountains has already provided photos and inspiration for a new post. I've always been drawn to mountains more than their mass alone explains, but I missed them more than I expected to in Galena.

I've been driving past this mountain thinking I should climb it for nearly 30 years, but I was always in a hurry. My niece decided she wanted to climb it too, so we made an attempt on the way to Tok. 

Taking a break with my sister, niece, and their new puppy. (Photo by Corrie)

We made good progress, but we'll have to make another attempt at the top later. None of our legs were ready for that much climbing. 

We spent several nights camping in Denali National Park riding the bus out to the end of the road that was open. We didn't see Denali, but there were lots of animals out. 

Sunset on the Teklanika River.

It's much easier to reach the tops of mountains this way!

Corrie and our friend Bizzy, who joined us for the Fairbanks to Anchorage leg of the drive instead of flying on her way home from Galena for the summer.  

Glacier Creek in Girdwood walking back from dinner.

Corrie had a conference in Girdwood and I have two perfect days of hiking in the Chugach. The is looking down along the Crow Creek valley. I got a decent sunburn with all the reflected light and fell through the snow into a creek soaking my feet. An all around fantastic hike. 

Looking towards Eagle River from the top of Crow Creek Pass.

The mountains march on to the edge of the sea behind the valley I hiked up. 

The hand operated tram across Glacier Creek on the Winner Trail.

Upper Winner Creek Trail. I didn't spend as much time above tree line the second day because of the sunburn.

Life Below Zero

Happy Spring! I expected the dark winter months would be slower and an excellent time for blogging, but they seem to have flown past since my last post in November. I launched a business offering mechanical design services about the time of my last post. Alternate Solutions, LLC is doing well with one long-term client and several smaller jobs. I even spent a couple of weeks in December and January providing on site support in NM.

After returning to Galena I accepted a part time position with the city managing the long-term recovery efforts stemming from the 2013 flood. The first couple of months have gone really well with lots of interesting projects to work on including several involving renewable energy and efficiency. The position with the city should last through at least the end of the year. With the city's recovery work, Alternate Solutions, and a couple of ideas in development, 2015 is already looking pretty full. 

Photos of Galena life the last few months:

This was likely our low temperature for the year in late Jan. I like the weather channels optimistic assumptions about spontaneous warming. Maybe their computer can't accept a temperature that low.

At atmospheric pressure, propane boils at -44F. Ours stopped working properly a little bit above that, but the wood stove worked great.  We had squash soup and quesadillas for supper. 

Making pancakes on the wood stove 

To warm the propane up enough to work properly I wrapped it in my fleece blanket and a tarp. I also added a magnetic oil pan heater. 

Corrie coming in from a walk at about -30F.

This box processes our sewage since a community system isn't practical here.
That icicle is a probably exactly what you think it is. The permafrost the house is built on moved and pulled the insulated pipe apart.  

At -40, thawing the pipe took a few hours even with a 35,000 BTU heater. 

The pipe actually separated at both ends.

Moose watching the sunrise over  the Yukon

The frozen Yukon in mid-February 

Another shot of the Yukon.

After 51 below, this is T-shirt weather in February. I felt a little sorry for my friends in TN when I heard they lost power to a severe winter storm the same day. 

The Iditarod came through town. The race was supposed to take the southern trail and skip Galena this year, but there wasn't enough snow in Anchorage so they moved the start to Fairbanks. 

The lows each morning were near forty below while the Iditarod was coming through. I think it was about -35 this morning. I saw several mushers tending their dogs with bare hands. This is not a sport for me.

Corrie on a much warmer walk at about zero.

We bought a snowmobile! There have been enormous technological advances since I last owned a snowmachine. 

We bought a used 600cc Skidoo with a 136" track, and it really moves. I am going to have to do something about the lack of windshield though.

There's an old song about springtime in Alaska being forty below, and it was last week.
It seems we missed the memo today though.

The warm temps do make excellent riding weather!

One of the projects I've been working on will replace an antiquated distributed heating system at the boarding school with a more efficient one. It should save the school about 60,000 gallons of heating oil a year. The second half of the project will include a biomass boiler that should reduce oil use by another 140,000 gallons. I took advantage of the recent warm weather to climb into and inspect the existing utilidor. It looks like it's been there for fifty years. 

The Time Value of Moose

Hanging in a local kitchen.

The recipe for Bacon Apple Moose Meatloaf included a brief description of acquiring the required moose burger. Everyone I know in Galena use Moose as widely as other American's use beef (I don't think we've eaten beef since August). Moose hunting is therefore a serious endeavor each fall for many people. I was kindly invited to go along with a new friend Jason and his son Daniel one weekend last September in the midst of firewood cutting. I'd never been moose hunting (or really any kind of big game hunting) despite growing up in Alaska and was thankful to have an experienced local invite me along. 

We took Jason's boat to his camp on the river Friday evening. After unloading we took a short trip to this nearby lake to look for a moose. We didn't see anything, but we did hear something large in the woods and we saw a nice sunset.

Hunting is a bit like hiking, but instead of trying to be loud to scare away animals you're supposed to walk quietly so they don't hear you. It was a bit of a hard switch trying to make zero noise while walking in the woods. 

Saturday brought a beautiful morning to spend on the edge of a lake.

After a couple hours a cow moose came across the lake to me. Cows are not legal in this area so I just watched quietly and took a picture.

I spent a long time scanning the grass with as little movement as possible. 

Another sunset on the lake. No moose, but it was a great day anyway. 

Back at camp watching the fire and waiting for Jason and Daniel to return from their hunt.

I still amazes me how still the river can be at times. 

Sunday morning we all went to the spot I had spent Saturday. 

Daniel spotted a bull as he was coming out of the trees. He already had a good shot by the time I saw it and got his 3rd moose in 4 years. Though a little disappointed not to get my own moose, I was happy Daniel got one. Hunting itself is a relaxing day in the woods, the real work starts when you pull the trigger and have a moose to harvest.

Unfortunately the moose had just enough life to run into the lake. We pulled it out using the winch on Jason's 4-wheeler.

Daniel pulling the antlers to the side so they don't snag in the mud and Jason winches the moose onto the bank.

I was too busy helping cut a 600 pound moose into pieces that could be carried home to take any photos of the field dressing. This wasn't actually a large moose, but as Jason pointed out, even a small moose is still a large animal. It took the rest of the morning and all afternoon to get the moose back to camp.

Heading back up the river with a boat full of moose. We made it home just before sunset

I also forgot to take any photos of processing the moose once we were back to Jason's house. We hung the game bags up for a couple of days. Then we spend all of tuesday cutting it into steaks, roasts, and pieces that could be ground into burger. Corrie and Melinda came over after work and helped with grinding and wrapping the meat. Moose processing is hard work but enjoyable and we probably had about 300 pounds of meat in the freezers by the end of the day.

I've often heard people say how great it was to get "free" meat (mostly moose, caribou, sheep, or bear) and fish (salmon and sometimes halibut) in Alaska. My dad taught me long ago that this food isn't really free and although we did fish, we raised animals instead of hunting when I was younger. I think people forget that it takes hard work and often expensive equipment to go into the woods and bring back food. Then we mistake it as free because we didn't directly spend much money on it like we would buying meat at the store. Thinking about that while I worked at cutting up moose meat left me wondering* what my moose burger is actually worth. The following musings are not an attempt to establish an accurate fair market price, merely to have a ROM estimate to satisfy my own curiosity.

Costs:
Equipment - A lot of money can be spent on a boat, 4-wheelers, rifles and hunting camp. I don't have anyway of estimating the depreciation associated with hunting so I'm going ignore this even though it is significant.
Supplies (fuel, food and hunting license for the group) - I think this came out to about 300 dollars (mostly fuel) for the weekend or one dollar per pound of meat.
Time - I don't think the time spent hunting should be included. I enjoy being in the woods and have spent many days walking though the wilderness without getting any food. That leaves the time to field dress the moose haul it home and process it. I think the combined work of everyone involve probably exceeded 60 hours. That works out to about 5 pounds of meat per hour.

Before going hunting I was looking up prices for beef and found an assortment of beef cuts for about $5/lb plus $1/lb for shipping. If we equate moose to beef and trade supply costs for shipping that works out to about $25/hr (tax free). On one hand, even though I'm ignoring the cost of equipment and the time spent actually hunting the moose, all of the adults involved are capable of earning more at a "real job". On the other hand, although it's hard work moose processing, like firewood cutting, isn't quite the same as "working" in the corporate sense. There is also something about eating something you grow or hunt yourself that makes the work more enjoyable and moose is delicious.

Where does that put the time value of moose? There's a reason our ancestors traded hunting for farming and industry. If we're evaluating this from a purely economic sense, hunting might make sense for anyone who is unemployed or earning low wages and also already has the required equipment. If I'm a working tradesman or professional trying to justify taking a week off for moose hunting I should probably admit that I really just like going hunting** and the "free" meat is only a nice bonus.

*Seriously, I just naturally wonder about these things while I work. That's why engineering economics was probably the most influential course I took in college. Learning how to calculate and understand opportunity cost, realizing that the value of everything changes with respect to time, and discovering that the time value of money could be calculated is what pushed me from being a natural saver to becoming an investor. 

**I also did the math for Salmon fishing and the result is the same. It's more profitable to stay at work, but it's a lot more enjoyable sitting on the bank of the Copper River and Sockeye Salmon is also delicious.