don sheldon in black and white

one night of work down, 2 nights to go so i thought i'd toss in the black and white shots i took out there on the trip. everything just always looks so different in black and white. my thanks to tanya for handing me a few rolls of black and white film on the first trip out to round island years ago. it's easier now with digital to just flip it over to black and white mode and see what happens. always fun though. loved this one above.
shelly enjoys the sunshine.
we really had amazing weather and as i dwell on my anxiety i guess the up side is that if that is the worst incident we had on this trip we did okay. there is always risk when you travel out in the middle of nowhere. we could have had a fall and all that goes with that. i also was, with thier help able to move through the anxiety and didn't have to be helicoptered out of there. of course, i've never been in a helicopter and the idea of being put in a basket and hoisted above this space would have made it necessary to immediately put a straight jacket on me and load me up with haldol or ativan or something. i'm sure i could have been convinced to just slide down the sides over risk a helicoptor ride out there.
was perusing others photo's on the internet from the don sheldon. must have been much earlier in the season. loads more snow. tents pitched on the snow behind the cabin. seemed a bit unstable for us to do that. there were trails dug in which do look like they would have been more of a comfort. still that last bit up was a 30-35 degree angle up. being that i'm not a mountain climber i don't really see that number and relate it to what a mountain looks like. i hike trails. was interesting to see how different the place looks in a different month. the place is unpredictable and many of the journal entries spoke of white out conditions and snow drifts. when the place gets 3-5 feet of snowfall, which was noted to occur even in july at times. whoever is at the cabin must hoof it down to the runway in their snowshoes and try to pack down the landing strip for the planes to land.
enjoying reading about don sheldon. he did lots of other work before getting his crack at piloting. trapping, working on planes and building runways. he also had some crashes in the early days. totalled a few planes.
liked this of mack, i think he's taking a photo out there.
often we look at a great pilot or anyone who becomes great at anything for that matter and we forget that they started out green and through trial and error learned thier trade. you never start out at the top of anything. you learn lessons and build upon it. you just have to be willing to pick up after you fail, analyze, forgive yourself and move forward. often people quit when they suffer a loss or failure, but that is not where greatness is made. we all have weaknesses but greatness comes from pushing through our weaknessess not from giving in to them. obviously, don sheldon was a man who was able to get beyond that which would have delayed or stopped others. he isn't ashamed to accept a certain amount of luck that comes to all of us in this lifetime. we can't always take credit when things work out, sometimes you just get lucky. his crashes saw a loss in machinery, but life wasn't lost.
hoping i have a change of assignments tonight. some patients are just annoying. no way around it. we are all humans and some humans just annoy other humans. patience is a skill i continually work on. as i drive to work i tend to say a prayer, i generally ask that i have patience with both the families, the patients and my co-workers. 12 hours is not that long a stretch but it can seem like forever some days.
our time out there went very fast. trying to work on next weekends trek with my neice out to byers lake. should be less of a production. just haul stuff to a cabin. then the big round island trek. need to contact fish and game again and let them know we will be a party of 7, which is fine, and that we'll need that day permit. hopefully, they will have heard from our water taxi and we'll find out how crowded or not the island will be that first night.
below mack has walked out to the lower part of the rock outcrop. this is where tents are placed when the snow is more packed.
remnants of snowfalls.
tourists enjoy the amazing weather. hoping this weather returns and my neice and her friend can take this flightseeing trip next week. it's cloudy rainy the past few days here. perfect for sleeping. was happy i got the lawn mowed before the weather came in.
loved this photo of gail out reading in front of the cabin.
i think i'm peeling a bit from my sun exposure out there. i have raccoon eyes. not the most attractive tan.
a plane takes off.
still trying to see if my brother and his wife are coming late in the summer/early fall. has been a busy year so far. haven't gotten that many big hikes in. will probably be able to try that more after round island. july and august are pretty open right now. have never done lost lake or the trail off exit glacier to the harding ice field. could be great if the weather holds. blossom could do the lost lake, but the exit glacier one is not really dog friendly. still have to sort out the dogs while i'm off on round island. think i'll leave rio with michelle and see if i can split blossom up a bit. don't want to take advantage of anyone so wouldn't feel good leaving them again this summer. rio is fine at home while i do day hikes with blossom. the summers really do fly here though.

didn't notice the monkey in this picture before i loaded it.
these are all from the flight back. i got the thought to just switch over to black and white for the flight. see what came out. thought a few came out nice.
we had another superb flight back to talkeetna. can't complain. turbulence was low and the scenery spectacular!
will plan on taking black and whites out on round island again. always interesting returning someplace with different camera gear. often when you buy new stuff you long to go places you've been and see what happens. most places up here i don't get the opportunity. still hoping all will be a go for round island. it aint' over til it's over and alaska travel can be very unpredictable.
still have at least one more post full of photo's from this adventure and then on to the next thing. winters i have to be more aware of my surroundings in order to scout out shots, summers photo ops are everywhere.
these glaciers go on for miles and miles and it's sweet to see the progress of them as you go from the nexus to the silt filled rivers and terminus.

still need to get my shower in and it would be nice to at least get the dogs walked in the neighborhood. looks a bit windy out there, but doesn't seem to be spitting just yet.
cloudy days are always good sleep days.
silt filled river. the silt will gum up your water filter. we melted some of the snow up there on don sheldon and i noticed little worms in my cup at one point. happy i brought those dramadery's so that i knew the water i drank was ice worm free. i'm not keen on ingesting worms.
i'm sure we all did at some point though. hopefully, there is no fall out.
better get moving on the day. another night of work headed my way.

more don sheldon cabin photo's...

me near the edge...up there one is always near an edge of some sort. still beautiful. how can you not be amazed in a place like this.
i awoke at some point in the middle of the night on the second night. this is as dark as it got out there. loved the pink skies. i think it was some time between 1-2am.
one of the rock/avalanche falls. hard to catch them on the camera. you could hear the fall, but with it echoing it could take a minute to locate the actual fall.
the photo's are a bit scrambled, this is shelly making dinner on night two. bbq steaks, excellent!! we ate well out there. we didn't come near to eating all we brought, but you have to be prepared in case you stay out late. of course, there was quite a bit of food out there. we would have lived off of oatmeal and top ramen.
we had sunshine for hours each day. we were totally lucky weather wise. the clouds rolled in each night for a bit and the first night we also got a breeze. i can imagine how powerful the wind can get here. could make for an interesting night out there in storms. it also occurred to me that an earthquake could be rough out there. happily we never experienced either. i'd rather just see those things via a web cam. none are located there at this time. was thinking today about the guy who was up there to work on the roof in one of the entries in the journal. being on top of the roof out there...sounds pretty terrifiying to me.
mr sock monkey chills and listens to me playing guitar. he's an easy audience. can't expect any applause but he also doesn't throw tomatoes. besides, he is always smiling.
the walk to the "outhouse". never really figured out where the designated "pee spot" was supposed to be. we figured anywhere on that end of the rock. the cmc can went into a bucket in the outhouse and they had a toilet seat over that. i'll just say that as a female i generally just do all my business simultaneously. really not used to having to split up the job as it were. didn't want to pee in the poop can. could be a bit stressful at times. gotta work on those kegels.
probably alot of similar photo's. circle, shoot, circle, shoot.
we had a 360 degree view in the cabin. pretty awesome.
shelly is an impressive artist. i'm always in awe of people who are creative in these ways. i can write a bit, i can take pictures but beyond that i really have few skills. mr sock monkey looks on.
gail and mack take a short walk on our rock.
day 2, most of the tents are down below us. the stuff closer to the rock is the stuff we left down below.
leftovers from past ice/snow/rock slides.
posing with gail for a photo. we had fun despite my little issues. you have to laugh at yourself in these situations. best to just tell people what is up. i'm not one who likes to ask for help but sometimes we all do need a little. tough to lose control and feel like i'm not putting in my fair share of the work load.
a little post dinner domino's on night one. night two we played some nertz. i think they had both played a similar game but with a different name. they kicked my butt. i won once. we didn't keep score.
back to day one. pictures are backwards.
today was a recovery day. woke with a headache. lack of sleep, dehydration no doubt. it was another warm, sunny day here in anchorage so i rested on the deck, read and eventually got motivated to mow the lawn and take the dogs to university lake.
tourists on the glacier below.
more of the amazing views.
on to planning the next thing. my neice is coming and we'll head up to byers lake cabin next weekend. as i unpack from this trip i put stuff we'll need for that in another pile. it's amazing how similar and how different each trip is. you have a general list of what you need and then amend it. also need to do more house cleaning before guests arrive.
the cabin up there is pretty tight. gail and shelly work on dinner for night one. gail and mack packed up fajita's. shelly had also brought in some halibut. nummy! love halibut.
walking around ice barefoot. it was pretty hot up there most of the day. when the sun drops below the massive mountains it does get a bit chillier. we all got some sun. of course, it's not the sort of suntan i got in my youth while running around in a swimsuit on the beach. my face and neck and arms are the only tan parts of my body. of course, i also have the raccoon eyes which remain white. with so much snow and ice it was tough to go without the sunglasses.
gail pours out the wine. the place even had some old plastic wine glasses. as you can see around the cabin, lots of stuff in there.
mr sock monkey out working on his tan.
ladder to climb on the roof. may have been some great photo ops up there, but i was fine skipping that possibility.
denali is 10 miles from the cabin. relatively close. it took us a few to sort out which direction it was and try to orient ourselves with the maps that we found in the cabin. mooses tooth was prominent and almost always in veiw. denali came and went at it's pleasure, which is how the big mountain works. sheldon built the cabin over time. mostly using a cesna 180 to haul stuff up there. he would even tie 16 foot long pieces of lumber to the outside of his super cub.
played the guitar a few times out there. not too bad acoustics and the ampitheater is inspirational to say the least. meant to work on some poetry, but the time passed pretty quickly in our time on the rock.
according to sheldon, glacier landings are always tricky. they are not without risk. he used to carry birch boughs behind his seat and drop them on the area he thought to land for depth perception. he brought friends and family up to his little cabin up there. he was the second person outfitted with the retractable skies for landing in soft snow. he learned what he could from a scientist who he flew around as he mapped out the mountains around denali. at first the guy offered him $200 per glacial landing, which was a good sum of cash in those days. sheldon was trying to get his flight business up and running so it was a good way to make money. after he did like 8 glacier landings in one day the professor had to request a decrease in the price, no university is that wealthy.
love a place with history and i know i will enjoy reading this book even more after having been up there in the cabin. knowing he sat up there as we did with friends, drinking wine and taking in the scenery.
have to wonder what the place was like when he built it, was the strip of land wider, have rock slides altered it? the book doesn't seem to go in depth about the cabin itself, but focuses on sheldon's flying adventures, rescues and general life as a pilot. he's saved quite a few lives in his days and seemed fearless in what he and his plane were willing to attempt. it was a different time with fewer rules but still people like sheldon will always exist, probably just breaking or ignoring conventional rules and taking chances and pushing the envelopes.
lots of cool snow falls/formations all around us.
our refrigerator section. no bears to worry about. we were told to be wary of the raven population as they had a history of raiding anything they could find. we only saw one raven fly past. we saw several of what i believe were grey crowned rosy finches. not much green stuff growing up there, but a few small plants and flowers were growing. those birds flew a long ways.
lots of these pretty little flowers.
we'd stay outside and enjoy the sunshine til it got too hot and then head back into the cabin to cool off a bit in the shade.
the planes and tourists were our entertainment. there was a runway on either side of the rock outcrop.
we kept the door open until the sun dropped behind the mountains and it got a few degrees chillier. nice to have the cabin. down below they slipped into their tents early that first night as the wind blew.
no shortage of views no matter where you were in the cabin.

below is the plan A trail before you hit the part that loops up and over the rock.
this from the other side. it's probably a gentler slope and i think when the snow is more packed and less slushy a pretty easy route up.

our plane is gone, just another K2 plane out there as we make our way up the glacier.

gail started out without the snowshoes, but opted to put them on eventually. tough hauling stuff and getting your grip up there after a bit.
me hauling a sled up.
our pilot prepares to leave us out there on the glacier.

excited to get to bed and read more of the book about sheldon. what an interesting life some people live.
it's a trip worth taking out there. i guess i'd say go a bit earlier in the season, maybe late may, early june.

not as much to say today. will head off to read, just enjoy the pictures.