Grounded Until Further Notice

Commander Sullivan reporting from the dark and wet regions of Alaska. Since our last update we have spent an unearthly amount of time locked in our stationary living vessels. The Pan Pacific jet stream has taken aim directly at our crew and has barraged us with storm after storm. We have seen the stars come out a few times at night, but the clear skies are gone by the time we are set to depart in the helicopter at dawn.
The best chance we had for a flight mission was the morning after my rock and roll concert in the guide school at the Pioneer Bar, when, after going to bed at 3:30 a.m. with raining skies, dawn broke to clear skies for miles. There is some truth to the saying “drinking it blue,” especially here in Alaska. Someone must not have done their share of self-sacrifice, though. Justin Hostynek, the commander in charge of the video division, had opted out of the ceremonies that night, so maybe blame could be placed on him for the clouds rolling in as we approached the helipad. There’s no arguing with Mother Nature up here. You get what you get.
Avalanche conditions are now at an all-time high after a series of storms that packed copious amounts of precipitation and winds. So even if the sun does come out for 24 hours, intrepid is the soul that first sets foot on some of the bigger exposed slopes.
My sarcastic favorite of this past week was when Camera Technician Jake Price and I stood atop one of the funnest lines we had ever planted our flags on, 2 feet of pow, ready to rip it until the Video Squad leader forbade us to ride it so as to save it for the “real” riders. The lookdown on that one was one of the hardest ever to walk away from. At this point our tracks would have been well covered as there is most likely upward of 6 feet of snow on top of it. I will attach some visual proof of Jake looking down it so one might have a taste. Can I have some cheese with my whine?
During this earthlocked interim we have been keeping ourselves busy in various manners. Gigi has been having lots of arts and crafts time, building snowmen/women and doing lots of stop frame photography and Super 8 filming for the new movie he is working on with Jake Price. Jake Blauvelt has his femme-bot, Kristin (who is also working as a guide with one of the outfits), so we don’t see too much of them on the down days (wink , wink). The rest of us are just lonely Cosmonauts awaiting our next deployment and wishing that our femme-bots were here, too.
We recently had some communications with base and it appears we will be having some new arrivals by early this week from the European Sector and the Seattle Satellite. Officers Blair Habenicht, Wolfgang Nyvelt and Nicolas Muller should be arriving by Tuesday if the launch shuttle can penetrate the thick clouds of this viscious storm cycle.

scottout

Spiny

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