Lingering Signs of Fall as Winter Approaches

Rain drops washing fallen mountain ash leaves the other day, 

but the sun's out again. 

Not all Canadian geese have left for warmer climes.

 And the water flows freely along Campbell Creek as it tumbles wildly under one of Anchorage's most busy roads - the New Seward Highway.   Cyclists have to negotiate the rocky banks to get past this spot still,  but a memo from Rep. Berta Gardner tells us that a real bike path is scheduled here by September 2013.

 The Seward Highway Upgrade Project, Dowling to Tudor, will also go to bid in October with groundbreaking in spring 2012 and scheduled completion in September 2013.  We continue to confirm that sound barriers along the freeway are included in the plan, as well as the long-awaited connection of the Campbell Creek Bike Trail under the Seward Highway.   This connection will give neighborhoods safe and easy access between east and west portions of the trail, opening up miles of trail to surrounding neighborhoods.

"We continue to confirm" sounds less than certain.  And I've ducked my head negotiating my bike over the rocky and sometimes wet path under the highway often enough that I might just miss it when it's paved and civilized here.  And will it be open the year they are building?  Who knows?

But we can be certain that winter is on the way.   It's the end of October and so far the snow's stayed in the mountains.  But the word is creeping into the weather forecasts for us lowlanders.

Bike Trail Slasher

Just last fall I wrote about the opening of the Campbell Creek bike trail under the Seward Highway.

Today, when I went to see Chong Kim, the Department of Transportation Project Engineer who was in charge of that project so I could ask questions about the three final options for 36th and Seward Highway, he was very upset because someone, over the winter, slashed the screens that are used to protect bikers and pedestrians from debris falling off the highway.  Other places these are also to keep snow plowed on the road above from hitting people on the trail.  Here, along Campbell Creek, they aren't allowed to plow snow into the creek, but I'm sure it happens once in a while.  Chong had worked hard to get screens that were both functional and decorative.   He's clearly upset about this.





Here are some pictures of what's happened.

It was a little hard taking pictures because the screens are see-through to a certain extent.  But on the near left side you can see a big rectangle cut out. 

This project goes under four different roads - two frontage roads and then the north and south parts of the highway.  So there are a bunch of screens and parts of most of them have been damaged.

Here's Chong Kim, the project manager on video.  I've talked to him about a number of projects over the last few years and he's always been very candid and passionate about the projects.  The kind of public administrator who gives this member of the public confidence.

These aren't cheap screens.  He said the fabric for all these screens cost $10,000.  The material, with the images of a skier, runner, and biker were specially ordered.

Chong was truly upset and trying to figure out how to fix these in a way that will still be attractive, but harder to destroy.

Another.



















Here they just slashed it.

And here they made a long narrow peek hole.

There's more, but I figure that's enough to get the idea across.




Of course, I wish I could talk with the person(s) who did this.  What was he thinking?  (Research seems to indicate it's almost always a male.)  I looked for interviews with vandals on google, but that got me to a talk with a rock group. 

A brief google search for research sort of confirmed this, but the research was old. It suggested that the need for

• love and security
• new experiences
• praise and recognition
• responsibility

were the basic causes for vandalism and violence.  From The Roots Of Vandalism and Violence:

Anger, hate and lack of concern for others are common reactions to being unloved and rejected.  Vandalism and violence are an expression of these feelings. 

I tend to believe this is the case, but while it said the findings were based on research, it didn't show the sources.

It's not a simple problem.  It's about getting parents training on how to raise their kids.  It's about schools making sure all kids' strengths can find expression and be rewarded.  It's about funding good pre-school programs and good day care.

It's about governments that put money into the education of young kids.  Our current legislature isn't going to decrease vandalism.  

Biking Good and Bads

First the bad. Dimond Blvd. between Old Seward and King Street. The shared trail along the street was thick with dust, sand, gravel and whatever else they used on the snow this winter. This makes riding - particularly if you have to make a sharp swerve or sudden stop - hazardous.





But there was an exception on this strip - all along where the Red Robin was. Someone from the Red Robin came out as I was taking the picture so I thanked him and confirmed that they did clean the sidewalk/trail. He said yes they did. Then added that he rides a bike. A little reminder that we see what we know and that people who bike see the parts of the world differently than people who don't. Again, thanks Red Robin for cleaning the path.


And now the good. I rode over to the Alaska Mac Store near the Dimond Mall (it moved from Old Seward and Tudor) for a Garage Band class via Lake Otis because I was cutting the time a little close. It took about 25 minutes from right near UAA. The trail along Lake Otis was nicely cleared of grit and sand, though on Lore Street and other streets much of the sand/gravel has just been pushed into what ought to be the bike lane. Also, to be clear, there are four Apple stores I know of in Anchorage. There's also the Mac Haus across the street from REI on Northern Lights, the Tech Zone upstairs at the UAA bookstore (their website is particularly lame), and the Apple Shop at Best Buy (their website is marginally better than UAA's, but it's not local) on Dimond.

After the class, I took the Campbell Creek trail home. I got on the trail from King Street at Taku Lake.




The feasibility of biking places is really in people's heads. If you're like most people, you just assume it's not possible. If you have two kids and a dog and need to stop at Costco it probably isn't, but if you're by yourself and need to go five miles or less each way and don't need to carry more than you can fit in a backpack (or bike basket) it is feasible. OK, if you haven't ridden a bike in ten years, maybe you should take a weekend leisurely ride to get your body accustomed first. But in Chiang Mai, we didn't have a car and it was bike or walk for most things. We even got good riding in Chiang Mai traffic. There are almost no bike paths and the sidewalks are hard enough to walk on let alone ride on. And back in Anchorage we've moved into assuming we're going by bike unless we have a good reason why that won't work.

In Anchorage, if your trip is in the right direction, you can do part of your ride in the woods. Mentally, riding along Campbell Creek, listening to the birds and the water, is much better than driving on any street in town. It's like a hidden wonderland, no cars allowed.

And for these short distances - even on the way back with lots of stopping to take pictures it was only about 35 minutes - it's not that much slower than driving. And definitely faster than waiting for the bus.

1 is near the Red Robin on Dimond.
2 is where I got on the trail at Taku Lake
3 is the Seward Highway. Here you get on a dirt trail and have to walk - even carry - the bike to get under the four bridges (a frontage road on each side and one bridge for north and one for southbound traffic) (This is scheduled for a real trail, but I don't know when.)
4 is Lake Otis where I left the trail and headed home. (The map is a creek map, not a bike trail map. 3-4 you don't go along the creek, but at 4 you get back to the creek.)

It then goes on a loops around over Tutor at Bragaw and connects to the Chester Creek trail and downtown. I'm hoping to post a guide for how to find the trail at the missing parts to do the whole loop including the Coastal Trail.

Campbell Creek Path Under Seward Highway, Yellow Pond Lilies, Moose in Cow Parsnips and an All Around Beautiful Day

 I can't remember so much warm (into the 70s) weather over a summer.  We've had good spells, but nothing like most of June and a good start in July.  So when B suggested a bike ride today to the Coastal trail, I readily agreed.


I wanted to see how the bike trail they're building under the Seward Highway is doing.  It's blocked off for now, but here's what they've got so far.

It seems the basic trail pad is done, now they just have to pave it.

Though they've taken a perfectly charming path through the bushes and made it as much like freeway as you can do for a bike path.

This could be done by the end of the summer as the project manager told me last year.

You can already ride UNDER Dowling Road.  Though this big black thing adds nothing for me.  Again, superhighway bike trails.   Yet we don't have money for school lunches. I know, the money comes from separate budget allocations from the feds, but still.  [UPDATE 9/10/13:  I learned these are to keep snow plows on the road above from dumping snow on people on the trail.  See this updated post.]

 

Ducks at Taku Lake

The lily pond is in Pamela Joy Lowry Memorial Park - at the north end of Arlene from Dimond High.  A little gem of a neighborhood park. 

The National Park Service  gives some background on the Yellow Pond Lily (Nuphar polysepalum) 

. . . Another interesting metabolic adaptation found in Nuphar is anaerobic respiration, which is respiration without oxygen. This process allows the plant to respire using no oxygen in the process, which is a very useful adaptation in the oxygen-poor environment found in standing water such as ponds and lakes. Anaerobic respiration is a complex chemical process that results in the production of ethanol (the same alcohol that you find in mixed drinks) within the plants cells. Ethanol is a poisonous substance in the plant and must be excreted away quickly in order to avoid harm to tissues. One way this toxin is removed is by evaporating the alcohol back up through the balloon-like aerenchyma cells to the surface of the water. One common name for a closely related yellow pond lily in Europe is "brandy-bottle" because of the strong smell of alcohol coming from its flowers (which are at the end of long, tube-like stems filled with aerenchyma tissue). This plant forms large tubers that sprout new clusters of leaves in the spring when ponds and lakes thaw after the long winter. These tubers are storage organs for the sugars that the plant produces each summer – they can be eaten after roasting or boiling, and are quite tasty!

 We passed this bench inside Kincaid Park.  A nice way to remember a young man who liked the guitar.

This is for Jeremy who likes all things electrical.  I liked the quality and message of the graffiti.  We're not sure what this was for, though there was a long trench out toward the inlet on the other side of the trail, and B speculated it might have something to do with the windmills out on Fire Island.

 

There was a bunch of spruce grouse chicks and then I saw the hen between the trees.

Nothing special here, I just like birch trees.

I continue to be amazed at how well moose can hide in plain sight. These are huge animals, yet they can merge in with the scenery.  I would have gone right past this one without seeing it if B hadn't called it to my attention.  Even though its hind quarters were practically sticking out onto the bike trail.

 

Would you know there was a moose in there amongst the cow parsnip?  Still can't see it?

Here's a closer look.

 The cow parsnip must have been really good, because he didn't seem to mind all the bikes zooming by with a few feet of his behind.  

Biking In Anchorage In Full Swing

 First off, I should say that for the fat tire and studded tire bikers, Anchorage is a year round biking town.  For folks like me, biking doesn't really start until most of the snow is off the bike paths.  The paths along the main roads have been clear since April 1 at least.  Here's Dowling on one of my early April rides.  

But as of the past weekend, the trails I've tried - and from reports of others - the bike trails along the greenbelts are now snow and ice free.  This was the trail from Goose Lake along Northern Lights and then over the the Alaska Native Medical Center last Friday.  The shiny stuff on the trail is melt water from the snow on the edge of the trail.  

Goose Lake, last Friday was still covered with ice as have been other small lakes I've been by.  

I still can't imagine the folks that designed these bike paths on the roads that bulge into the street at the corners.  The biker has to move left into traffic.  What were they thinking?  OK, you can have space marked off from the cars, but only most of the way.  Then we push you into the roadway.  I'm guessing this wasn't a biker.  Or even worse, an engineer who hates being forced to add bike lines, so he (a she wouldn't have done this) does the trail part way and then gets revenge at the corners.  (Any engineers reading this - I'm just being playful, like the person who designed this.)

On Bainbridge Island, where they have a similar design, they have curb cuts so bikes go on the sidewalk instead of the street.  

But this is a fairly recent improvement for the bike lanes on Bainbridge Island.  

Saturday I explored the Campbell Creek trail going south.  It was mostly clear, but there were still a few stretches with ice/snow.  So coming back I decided to explore along Old Seward Highway.  I didn't realize how grimy some of the streets between Old and New Seward are.  This was 66th I believe.  There was a fire in the old barrel in the middle.  

And not all the paths along main streets are great. This is one of the worst.  36th Avenue west of the Old Seward Highway on the south side of the street.  The big gravel lot north of New Sagaya feeds rocks and gravel onto the sidewalk.  There are big holes in the sidewalk.  This is just east of the little mall that has ACS and the Pita Pit.  The sidewalk has disappeared under rock and broken asphalt.  

And here's a picture in Spenard.  I can't quite believe this was the first moose I've seen since we got back into Anchorage early March.  It paid no attention to me.  I was biking back from the Providence branch in the old REI space.  No one had bothered to tell me that my doctor had recently moved from their to Building S over on the main Providence campus.  But, I got to see the moose.

Why I Live Here - Meeting Friends On The Bike Trail

I was biking home.  Just got under the first bridge under Seward Highway (going east), along Campbell Creek, when I see this moose coming in my direction.  I pull out my pocket camera and shoot a bit of video.  Then back up.  Then back up more - this time to the bike trail bridge over the Creek.  It's still coming.  But then it veers off into the bushes below the bridge.

This is why people can't move away from Anchorage.  These encounters are just too cool.  The greenbelt cuts through town.  About 10 minute bike ride from my house.

I Made It To Uttaradit Today On Anchorage's Campbell Creek Trail

 I mentioned in an earlier post that last summer I biked from Santiago, Chile to Conception - all while staying comfortably isolated on Anchorage bike trails.  About 700 kilometers.  This year I wanted to go a little further so I'm biking from Chiangmai to Bangkok.  

The first destination point was Lampang (120 km) which I got to a while ago.  Today I hit km 269 which gets me to the next stop, Uttaradit.  As I rode today, I was wondering if I have ever been to Uttaradit.  Probably the train went through it when I first arrived in Thailand in 1967 and the Peace Corps volunteers headed for the North all took the train to Chiangmai.  

But I knew that I must have been at least near Uttaradit in 2009 when I was a volunteer with the Northern Thai Farmers Association in Chiangmai and we went to a meeting in Petchabun for Thai farmers from all over Thailand.  

I found a couple of pictures of the trip on a post from then.  It was January and there were record low temperatures.  It even snowed on Doi Suthep.  

On the road somewhere between Lamphun and Uttaradit.

In Thailand, there are always great places to eat along the way.  

It was putsa season.  And a few days later, on the way back to Chiangmai we stopped at a tamarind farm.  Petchabun is said to have the world's best tamarind and I bought enough fresh tamarind to last our whole trip.  Until you've had fresh tamarind in Thailand, you haven't really tasted tamarind.

So these are the landscapes I've been imagining myself biking through for the last couple of weeks.  But actually, I've been on the beautiful bike trails of Anchorage enjoying the greening of the trees and grasses and shrubs and the various colors and gurglings of Campbell Creek and Taku Lake and Goose Lake.  

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal tweeted an article about making friends with a tree.  That it's good for your health.  I've known that a long time, but hearing the WSJ dip their toe into such touchy/feely water is a surprise.  [Of course, I say touchy/feely ironically.]  My bike rides last summer and this summer have been regular forest bathing experiences.  

And Anchorage temperatures are so much more conducive to biking that it would be now arriving in Uttaradit.  

Taku Lake this morning.  Everything's soooo green right now.

Red necked grebe amongst the water lilies at Goose Lake the other day.

Riding under the Seward Highway bridge today.  This really is better than drugs to energize me.

I've got 90 km to get to Sukhothai - an ancient capital of Thailand and directly north of where I lived in Kamphaengphet for two years in the late 60s.  Back then, there was no direct road and I remember riding on the back of a motorcycle through rice paddies.  

And then from Sukhothai to Kamphaengphet.  The bike tour I found online does this trip in ten days.  There's no way I could do that now.  My knees can't take that much biking in such a short time.  But I can spread the 750 or so kilometers more slowly over the summer in Anchorage. Another several weeks to Sukhothai.  I'll let you know when I get there.  

Bike Trail Confusion

As I was near the end of my third mile today, near Lake Otis and Chester Creek, probably the corridor used by the bear hit on Gambell yesterday morning, (Wow, as I searched for the link to that article, I found out that everybody is carrying that story. It was an AP story even in the Anchorage Daily News), I saw a couple with bikes, stopped and looking at a map.

Well, they wanted to do the Loop - Chester Creek to Campbell Creek to Coastal Trail back to downtown. It's a great ride, but there are these gaping holes in it as well as unmarked turns. The visitor trying to patch together these three great trails really faces a challenge. They even said they tried it from the other way, but eventually gave up.

And I feel bad. I tried to explain to them how to





1) make sure they turned right so they could cross the Northern Lights bridge,









2) then turn the right way to get around Goose Lake, (the sign is all backward)













3) past the construction at UAA




and find the 4) connection after the Tudor Bridge, then 5) find the Campbell trail from there, and 6) refind it after it stops at Lake Otis, then












7) get under the Seward Highway (which I have posted here),










then 8) turn the right way on the dirt trail to get to Arctic Road Runner where they'd be home free.



Except, after they left, I realized that, of course, they weren't home free, because that trail doesn't have an obvious connection to the Coastal Trail and they would be lost at the same break they were lost at coming the other way.

Maybe someone will tell them how to get to Kincaid from there. They have till 9 tonight to catch their plane. Sorry, I left out the end. But by Arctic Road Runner I already figured they'd have to be pretty smart and pretty lucky just to get there.

We need:

1. A bike trail map that gets people through the gaps
2. Signs on the trail to help people do the Loop
3. To have the gaps filled in

It's a great ride, but finding it is a much bigger challenge than riding it.


I'll try to post some instructions with pictures when we get back from our trip.

June Ends, July Begins - Cottonwood, Construction, Contentment

 A breeze blew the cottonwood seeds from our big tree in the afternoon.  Fortunately, we don't have cottonwood allergies.  (For a lot more on cottonwood, here's an old post on this untapped Alaska resource.)

Later we went got onto the Seward Highway at Tudor.  The highway is being widened and the four bridges over Campbell Creek are going to be raised and a real bike trail constructed under the roads (including the frontage roads on each side.)
This is the on-ramp merging into the highway.

We had dinner with old friends who moved to New Zealand but are back in town visiting.  They are staying above Potter Marsh and the time flew as we talked about many things.  It was after midnight as we went home and I stopped for this view of Turnagain Arm, Potter Marsh, and Mt. Susitna.

AFFER Presents Revised Plan

Mayfield (l) and Ruedrich

The presenters have gone through lots of details and I couldn't keep up with things, but this should give you at least a sense of what was covered.  I'll take advantage of the break (until 2pm) to clean up the typos and add pictures.  So check back.  The public presentation starts at 2pm.]

[AFFER is Alaskans for Fair and Equitable Redistricting - apparently headed by Republican Party chair Randy Ruedrich.]

Randy Ruedrich with AFFER, Thank you for your incredible work - reports from people all over the state saying you'd been there.
We want to update our basic plan.  David Mayberry will do that.

We've revised our map after hearing public testimony.  Complies with board principles and respect Native and cultural differences.  Cleaned up boundaries to match drainages... and improved some district compactness.  Focus on VRA, which requires us to protect as best we can rights of Natives, converted one district into Majority district - 37 from influence to majority.  Minority District 2 reinforced and is at 35.65% and % of all Natives in 2 is 36.??%

Dist. 37 is blend of Athabascan, Aleut villages?  others stay more homogeneous.

Adding non-Native residence in D6 reduces ???

Specifically SE map
Districts 1-4 - Overall objective to protect Native VRA district in SE.  Reassigned Cordova, D 5 is 6000 short and basis for D2,  Several camps removed to, and from D5, got new 2 with 37.8%, we're calling it the fishhook district, heir to ice worm district.  Adds Juneau airport and Switzer district.
Dis 3 starts at 3400 under, adding Gustavus, Tanakee Springs, ....  gets to 2.2% deviation.
[Can't keep up with all the details.]
For comparison, 1972 map used over 800 miles of water to connect Kodiak and Adak so feel our water connections ok.  SEn A pairs 1 and 2 has AK native% of 28.19%

Interior Dis. 5-10
Reduce District 5 AKMinority to 2?% = Eilson AFB available for NSB district.
6-10 not changed from original AFFER map 3/31.

Matsu
11-16  - they should get five districts  Uses Knik bridge to Link S. Matsu and Anchorage.
Core= Palmer, Big Lake, Houston have been adjusted based on feedback
New 15 - Wasilla - Houston extends down the Knik Bay road to Prt Mc.
Dist. 11 reaches right size by dropping Eilson AFB on N.

Anchorage
Restores ER community to single district.  S Anchorage linkage gone based on complaints.
Campbell, Chester and Fish creeks used as Constitution.  Anchorage used for Assembly districts.  EAFB - added.
Adjusted to conform to CC and Assembly.  Segment of 29 rolled into D 27 - better conformance to fish creek.
29 Taku/Campbell has been simplified.  Irregular boundaries south of Dimond Mall unresolved.
D30 best for matching natural boundaries - n campbell lake, N. assembly boundary,  Western is Seward Highway,  and match D 32
Changed 32 - relatively compact - Girdwood to Huffman Road and Hillside. All remote areas reassigned to more compact options.

Kenai Map - Populations balanced by adding small neighborhood from 33 into 34 and moving 33/35 boundaries northward using local input

Rural and Western map -
D 40 - -4.9%   79??%  changed up to 88%
others reassigned to 38 - N 86.5%
37  has 5.15% deviation ????? -4.?% deviation

AFFER looks forward to answering any questions.

Ruederich:  Aerial photography of Anchorage.  Most CC splits we made captured majority of population.  If look at Campbell Park CC - most is in South, tiny part here - we added this small piece back side of road to Basher to this little area south of Tudor to 95% of the population added to Scenic Park?? 

Precinct here has core of NE CC  - below the rest of NE with Scenic Park and Basher.
Our basic premise early on that a solid 7 district map from VRA expert.  So we came up with plan for our group that covers a nine VRA districts.  One new Senate influence by going in and taking the d5, coming out of SE - different by adding Copper River Ahtna people and combing them with district to only Minority influence gives us 35.3 ANatives in thsi combined Kodiak and Aleutian district.  The people we used before are available to reconstruct the other three historical minority districts.  S1/2 of 39,  added Denali Borough, southern NSBorogh Salcha precint - creates two majority seats and most importantly a Sen majority.  78% in 7  and combined sen seat of 7 and 8 = 69%.  Goes ito NSB to Canadian border - that district when combined with 10 has Sen 68.1%.  We have created a paired Maj/Minority seate,  ??????  three senate seats and 4 majority/minority house seats, and minority influence district and the d2 David talked about earlier.
It's a nine VRA seats - only significant change, taken population out of Western Matsu and given to Eastern Matsu.  Awful fast sorry.

Torg:  We don't have copies.  You must have a non-contiguous Senate seat.

Ruedrich:  Minor House seat in SE not paired for VRA {Voting Rights Act] sen. seat.  Took a 28% seat and paired it with a majority seat to get majority influence Sen. seat.  Only complication is to reach over Salcha.  Went around N and S sides of Fairbanks.

McConnochie:  Which pairings

Ruedrich:
1.  North - 2 house seats and sen majo
2.  Pair of Yupik - both majority house and sen  = 6
3.  Min influence in D6 - the other influence is 2 in SE.
4.  Pairing of 5 and 6 gets Min Senate
Ten districts to get the nine entities.

White:  [Missed this looking for an outlet for the computer]  How Native reps paired?
Ruedrich:  Reason Wrangell is VR district because it has significant Native population.
 Kookesh would be in Sen A by himself

White:  For all groups - have you provide your GIS shape?? files to us.
Torgerson:  Next Fairbanks NS Borough.  From Fairbanks.  Just  a moment.
10:50am