Monday March 10, 2008 - Day 50

Today is 50 days that Willie has been out there...We both are experiencing spring fever! With all the daylight and warm temperatures we both have been getting out. This has caused a lack of blogging on my part. So please forgive me! Willie has been camping out in his arctic oven tent in the Cabin Woods area. There has been lots of wolf activity out there. The area where Willie was going to set up his tent back in the end of January, is still active with the wolves bedding down, and being around. Willie is glad that he never "moved" into that area, he feels that camping is a bit less intrusive. Willie is amazed at the weather this month. It is melting out there! There are flys outside and the Pussy Willows are already blooming. It is weather that is a good month ahead of time. This might sound good, but the warmth is causing other challenges for Willie. One is that with no snow he can not haul his sled around, which is what he uses for hauling his gear around. So he is having to haul things without the help of his sled. This has made for longer days & harder work. It has also made it clear that he will be walking out of the Toklat area, as there is no snow to snowshoe out on. Again, his sled will be useless. He will have to pack what he needs in his backpack and travel lighter. Conditions could change, but at this point it does not look like they will. Willie has also been busy taking 100 year later photos of the same spots Charles Sheldon took photos. Tomorrow Willie is planning on heading out to an area called Ice Cream Gulch. It is about 2 & 1/2 miles to this area, then about 1 & 1/2 miles to the base of the ridge line he wants to climb, and photograph. Our last 2 satellite phone calls have been terrible. We get a few words in and then the phone goes dead. He calls me back just to have this process repeated. We are going to try again later tonight. If we get a good connection he has journal entries to share on the blog. I will add these as soon I can hear them. Today he also told me he could hear the wolves howling near by. He was off to try to film them...Hopefully, I will have more to share later tonight.