Nanuq

You guys missed the Big Event, held right here in our quaint town over the weekend. The Championships And I think I saw Miss Understood in the competition...........

What great responses! And all over-the-top jaw-dropping gorgeous, EXCEPT for Dems' fishing shot at The Confluence. Ahem. Are we to believe he was THE ONLY person fishing The Confluence? Yeah right. It hasn't been that unpopulated since, oh, the late 60s. Unless... was there a bear standing behind you as you snapped the photo?

I love the watch too, but don't think I could stand the "Incredibles" logo on the dial...

I would normally vote "smart" but bears know how to swim, too...

BINGO!!! And the stuffed animal goes to Ubi!!

What think ye about this recently closed transaction??

I usually wear the Bond Sub for things like this, it's been everywhere and done everything with me. But for the rotten ice and crevasse fall potential, I thought I'd leave the valuables at home and I wore a Seiko OM. The Monster is a heck of a good watch, plenty tough, and it doesn't mind freezing.

I'm home from a backpacking trip up on Spencer glacier, and it was the most strenuous thing I've ever done. It was spectacular bluebird skies, howling wind, ice and cold... it just doesn't get any better than that. I promised Lani that I'd write about it, so here goes. We got dropped off by the Alaska Railroad at the Spencer whistlestop and decided to try the new taped-off "trail" to see how well it connects the whistlestop to the hut up above at Grandview. This is an ongoing project by the Huts association to make it easy to connect the dots in the backcountry of Alaska. I did some quick scouting around and found the orange surveyor's tape, and went off up the "trail" for a quick looksee to see what kind of shape it was in. My pack was only about 70# but it was my tall and wide external frame pack, and the "trail" was set in the previous winter when the snow was deep and all the alders were laying down. First mistake. The meathead that set the trail just went in a straight line on XC skis tying tape to branches, not knowing what was under the 10-12' of snow. Turns out there are terrain features like bog holes, downed trees, muck, hills and hussocks that get snow blown in behind them, etc. So the "trail" was nice in winter but it was incredibly tough to get through the alders as thick as your forearm, with hip-deep drifts, buried sprung branches, and more bear scat than you can shake a stick at. Half of the tapes had fallen off the trees so I'd have to set down my pack and go scouting for the next tape, usually lying on the ground tied to a broken twig. Then I'd tie it up, backtrack, get my pack and keep going. Much of the time I was standing on branches buried in the snow, getting flotation like snowshoes, to get across huge drifts in amongst the alders. I finally decided it was nothing the rest of the group would be able to handle without breaking an ankle or worse, so I started to backtrack. Then I looked over to the side through the alders and saw some of the group walking ON THE RIVER ICE heading upstream with their packs on. I hustled over cross-country as fast as I could through those bloody alders and got them off the river, and made them walk the shore ice. Good Lord, it's a miracle nobody went through. We got to a beautiful wide (exposed) snowy river bar and had a perfect view of Spencer glacier. The wind was just blasting down off the glacier, and they thought we should set camp there. I smiled and said no, and they kind of gathered around and I explained it's like a metaphor for life: it seems beautiful and easy and relaxing but it's really danger lurking in wait to bite you. I said "what happens when the glacier calves and sends a huge wave down here, or the wind comes up in the middle of the night after the sun goes down, and blows us off this bar, or anything worse than that? Where do you think the bears are going to walk, through those alders or down along this shore?" and they saw the danger that was disguised as a sunny day on a riverbank. So we packed up and went upriver further, then bushwhacked some more up around a knoll and across a few streams and eventually found a high cleared area with grasses and stink elders. It was dry dead grass, with solid ice 1" beneath the surface. By the time we got there they were exhausted. We all pitched tents and cooked some dinner, and everyone climbed into the feathers by 8PM. Next morning I was up early so I drug my tarp out and laid it in the sun and had a nice snooze for a couple more hours till everyone else got up. We roused the lazybones and everyone got some breakfast, then broke into groups. We wanted to accomplish 3 things: 1) scout the tape trail some more (yeah good luck with that) and 2) pick 3 potential sites for a new backwoods Hut on the moraine, and 3) map out where this river flowed from the hillside up above us down to the Skookum river. I volunteered to do #3 so my group got ready to go and off we went for hours more bushwhacking through more alders and bear poo. We fought our way north and east toward the sound of the falls, and the snow got deeper and the alders got thicker. I found lots of good teaching moments, since some of the group hadn't spent much time in the backcountry. I was asking them things like "why is there more snow in here" and "why are the alders lying over like this?" and stuff. They were really good sports, and didn't realize I was giving them chances to rest up as they argued and came up with their best answers. We eventually ran into flooding where an ice dam had choked the river, and the water was deep in the trees. By that time we could see the falls through the trees so I took a GPS reading and we used my watch to figure out which way was north (this is why God made mechanical watches) then they all decided how far away the falls were from our position, and drew maps in their notebooks and estimated the falls' position from the GPS lat-long. Then I decided enough was enough, and headed off toward higher ground to get out in the sun and find the better path for the return. We crossed a few beaver dams and found a near-vertical climb up through the alders and devils club, and came out up on the high flats. They all laid down in the sun and gasped for awhile, and tried to pick the devils club thorns out of their forearms and hands... some of them had grabbed for a hold as they slipped, and grabbed the wrong stuff (ouch). We packed up again and headed south, and eventually we could see our tents off across the flats. I told them the story of the tent with the lamp inside that Scott used to tell at scout camp, and how a glow in your heart is what people see when they look at you in a crowd, and how we could see our tents glowing in the sun, and it really clicked with them. They were really dehydrated by that point, and starting to get headaches and get cranky. We found a nice stream coming right out of the hillside and falling down some rocks to our trail, and they were concerned about drinking it without filtration. I told them about a study I'd read about Alaska's clean water, and why I believed that water was plenty clean enough to drink, so they all filled their water bottles and stuck their heads in the streams, and had a nice cooldown. I went off scouting for a trail to camp the easy way, and found something promising, so I got them all going again and we scrambled down a bank, over a beaver dam, and then had a nice casual walk along some grassy flats back to camp. It was the perfect ending for our bushwhack. We were exhausted and scraped from stem to stern, had bear poo all in our boots and had several close encounters in the scrub, but got back safe. A few more days of that, exploring and adventuring, sleeping on ice and sharing good food over a fire... getting completely sunburnt... it was a fantastic trip. We saw tons of bears and moose, iceworms, fell in the river a few times, lost some gear and made do sharing what we had left, and on the way back out we found a much faster and safer trail than the alders full of bears. We stopped for the biggest ice cream cones you've ever seen in Girdwood, and now my garage looks like an REI store with all my gear hanging up drying. It was incredibly hard, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat. My feet hurt so bad I can't bend my toes, and my forearms look like I shoved my arms in a blender. But wow was it a GREAT trip! The "trail" through the alders Our campsite Avalanches up the mountainsides Resting on a riverbank

I can't let a brother suffer, so these ought to hold you over.

Welcome Watchgal! You know, after you've turned into a longtime and well loved member here it's going to force me into finding a new favorite quote. For quite some years it's been the Speech of St. Crispin ... but maybe a little change is a good thing! Trying it on for size: "We few, we happy few, we band of WISsers..."

Sorry it would only be available if I put another in there.

Excellent! Let's have more photos as this progresses!

It's a looker for sure, but what's up with the spacing for the letters "L" and "E" beneath the coronet? That's what caught my eye right off, the logo all jammed together. But it IS a looker. Wanna trade for my stock MBW dial straight across?

Always happy to oblige, I have these shots. If you're thinking of building one, pay attention to the lume width on the hour/minutes hands. The early SUB had thin lume, and later SUBs are thick. "Before" "After"

Ahhhhhhhh, now we're getting somewhere! (rubbing my hands together) The newer ones a' la Pitt are made in China for the most part. Overpriced and boring. What you want is a Sub 300 with the domed crystal. That'll get your creative juices flowing!

There ya go... you neeeeeeeeeeeed a Doxa. Trust me on this one.

True, true... but it's still so pretty. Must have a Red Ranger. Yuki has a promising one on Fleabay but it's got a date and cyclops.

That Explorer is just amazing. All of a sudden (and after seeing Jocke's pictures) I'm getting the hankering for an old 1016 or a Tudor Ranger. Can it GET any better than this? @Freddy, what do you think of Yuki's Red Ranger on the 'Bay right now? Cheap, and the bezel is screwy. But such a good staring point.

Well, how long do you expect to wear it? I've got watches with cheap Asian no-name movements that have been running for years.

This comes to mind...

Just the one... and it's sort of an "almost" Breitling, it's what turned into the Navs we have now.

Did you say you're looking for a Shark? You can't go far wrong with a Sharkhunter 300.

You betcha, it's an honor and a privilege to be able to pray for someone.

I thought I'd dig out this old beauty today.