Hiking in Hawaii is great fun. Especially when the President makes a surprise appearance.

When you and your gf meet the President of the United States #POTUS #Hawaii #bucketlist @sandi_jo

A video posted by @dtmad3it on Dec 22, 2015 at 5:53pm PST

There were several other folks out hiking that day who also took notice of the President.

Okay well you know I am not usually one to criticize the President very often, but I have to say that I lived in Hawaii when I went to college, and I cannot imagine why he would be wearing a black t-shirt and long black sweatpants while hiking in that heat.

It is no exaggeration to say that would have killed me.

I did a ton of hiking while I lived there, and unless it was raining, I was stripped down to as few clothes as possible without risking an arrest for indecent exposure.

Still somehow he looks cool calm and collected, even in that muggy heat.

New CNN poll has convinced Sarah Palin to triple down on impeachment. "Come on dead horse, I'm beating you as hard as I can. Move!"

Courtesy of Nannie Nannie Boo boo's Facebook page:

A new CNN poll reveals that one in three Americans agree with my call for President Obama’s impeachment. That’s a huge number – especially considering how misconstrued the issue is when relying on media to explain impeachment. Let’s go around the media filters and acknowledge this ourselves: many Americans haven’t heard what impeachable offenses really are; but when they do, more citizens will rise up to hold their government accountable. (Actually most Americans already know that the President has not done anything worthy of impeachment, just like the Republicans in Congress realize that pushing the issue would destroy their party in the upcoming elections. As for the CNN poll? Well there's a reason we call them "Fox light." And even a Fox poll only showed that 36% of respondents favored impeachment.)

On the heels of this new poll, The Hill reports that the Obama White House is now taking talk of impeachment very seriously. They can’t poo-poo this as liberal followers want them to because they know they’ve done wrong. (No, they don't. Because they haven't.)

The article states, “Dan Pfeiffer, a senior advisor to Obama, said Friday that the White House is taking the prospect of impeachment in the GOP-controlled House more seriously than many others in Washington, who see it as unlikely.” Pfeiffer then noted that a large block of the conservative base favors impeachment. (I truly think that Pfeiffer is trolling the Republicans here, and attempting to bait them into making the attempt to impeach Obama because he knows that is our best bet for holding the majority in the Senate, and possibly capturing it in the House.)

Okay everybody's favorite outlet for batshit crazy goes on, and on, and on about impeachment, tries to tie it to the current "immigration crisis," and pimps that CNN poll like Todd Palin with a bevy of beauties at an oil executive retreat.

But I have no intention of posting the whole thing and then picking it apart on such a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

Especially since I just returned from hiking on one of my favorite trails, and came inches from stepping in a pile of steaming hot bear scat, which as you may imagine convinced me to take an alternate route in order to avoid becoming the ingredients in the next pile of steaming hot bear scat.

(I mean seriously, could you imagine the irony if I were to end up being mauled by a mother grizzly protecting her young in Alaska? That would be a bit much to take, even for me.)

However I will say this.

If Palin is so impressed with a poll that suggests only one third of the country supports impeaching Obama (By the way the headline for the CNN article about the poll is "Majority say no to impeachment and lawsuit."), then how does she feel about the Wall Street Journal poll which says that a full 52% of Americans would like her to shut the fuck up?

Now THAT is a poll in which the numbers are guaranteed to grow as time goes on.

Another bear mauling less than twenty miles from my house. It must be summer time in Alaska.

Courtesy of ADN:  

The second grizzly bear mauling in less than two months on the outskirts of Alaska's largest city has sent another runner to the hospital with serious injuries. The attack this time came in Bird Valley, just south of Anchorage. It follows on an attack at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in mid-May. 

Both attacks involved people surprising grizzly sows with cubs. The JBER attack involved a sow with small cubs of the year. The latest attack was launched by a sow with two nearly grown cubs, probably 2-year-olds. 

Runner Suzanne Knudsen, who lives in a roadside community called Indian south of Anchorage, was less than a mile down the Bird Valley Trail near her home on Monday morning when she encountered the sow and cubs, according to Jessy Coltrane, area wildlife biologist with the Alaska State Troopers.

This poor woman was hit from behind by the mother after almost running into her two cubs. 

The bear really did a number on her, and after it left she still had to wait an hour before she was rescued. Not too many things I can imagine that are more frightening than that.

Like I said in the headline this is only about 28 miles from my house and it is very close to one of my favorite hiking trails near McHugh Creek. (Which itself was the scene of one of the most brutal attacks in Alaska history.)

I take kids into the woods all of the time to go hiking, and these stories always send a chill up my spine.

I am very cautious and make very careful choices as to where to hike, how big of a group to take, and how to behave on the trails, but of course there is always the chance that my precautions will not be enough to avoid a confrontation.

Living in Alaska has been described as being surrounded by terrifying natural beauty, and I think that about sums it up.

I love it here but part of living in Alaska is also living with the fact that the state is almost like a serial killer waiting to take me out if I ever let my guard down. (By the way we have a lot of serial killers too.)

This is what we are dealing with right now. Fire!

Courtesy of KTUU:  

The effort to extinguish two large wildfires is nearly a week old. While hundreds of firefighters from across Alaska, around the Lower 48 and Canada try to get the fires under control.

The fire that has covered Anchorage in a blanket of smoke is the Funny River fire:

The Funny River fire has grown to 106,000 acres as of 9 p.m. Saturday. Fire officials say 20% of the blaze has been contained, and the evacuation advisory is still in effect. No major activity is expected overnight.

The smell outside is pretty strong, and the skies are overcast with this nasty grey haze.

I had planned on going hiking tomorrow, but I think I will wait until this all clears up.

I am too far away from the fire to have to worry about the flames, but the smoke is pretty nasty here in town, and I have noticed that I have been sneezing a lot and have had occasional coughing spells.

Which is no surprise considering the fact that just two days ago the air quality was considered unhealthy for everyone.  That does not make hiking or camping terribly attractive right now.

So much for Memorial Day weekend.

It has been a particularly dry spring, and I have little doubt that the fire season is just now getting started.

Guess who just woke up.

Picture taken yesterday morning in Denali.

Courtesy of the Fairbanks Newsminer: 

Bears that wake up hungry after a long winter’s nap aren’t as big a problem in Fairbanks as they are in other bear-infested cities like Anchorage and Juneau but state wildlife officials say it’s still a good idea for Interior residents to do some spring cleaning around their homes to dissuade any ursine intruders. 

“We haven’t had as many problems in Fairbanks as Anchorage,” Alaska Department of Fish and Game spokeswoman Cathie Harms said of Alaska’s largest city 360 miles to the south, where it’s not uncommon for bears to be shot each spring for getting into garbage, tearing down bird feeders or ravaging neighborhood chicken coops. 

“With that many bears in urban areas and bird feeders being such an attractant it’s a pretty big deal,” she said. 

The department issued a press release on Tuesday noting that Gov. Sean Parnell has declared April “Bear Awareness Month” and reminding Alaska residents to take down bird feeders, clean up garbage, and store pet and livestock foods indoors or in bear-resistant containers. The release “was written from an Anchorage perspective” but applies to the Fairbanks area, too, said Harms.

As a lifelong Alaskan living in Anchorage, I have a few hard and fast rules in the spring.

A Palin sighting in the wild. Update!

This was taken by a friend of the blog last Friday atop a small mountain commonly referred at "The Butte" in the Mat-Su Valley.

Though it may be somewhat difficult to tell from the picture I have it on good authority that the person on the left is Bristol Palin and the one on the right is a girl whom she called "Britta." That would lead me to assume that it is Track's poor abandoned wife and that the little one in her backpack is the grandchild of Sarah Palin's that she rarely ever refers to, Kyla.

Britta in happier times.

To tell you the truth I was somewhat skeptical and kept asking if they were sure that was who it was. And that was when they sent this photograph.

And then kept talking to me as they passed right on by, climbed into it, and drove away.

So I guess we know for sure that Bristol now drives a Camry.

Just in case you are wondering why Tripp was not with them, he spent the weekend camping with his daddy and new baby sister.

So this is not explosive news by any means but it is kind of interesting as Sarah Palin sightings are virtually nonexistent in and around Wasilla and even the kids are only seen sporadically.

It really WAS really nice last Friday. In fact I also spent several hours hiking around Campbell Creek myself that day.

Update: Apparently Bristol's hiking buddy was Kandice Palma.

Hmm, I wonder why Bristol kept calling her Britta?

Here is your feel good story of the day. Gabby Giffords on top of the French Alps.

Courtesy of Mail Online:  

Smiling at the camera and with the mountains providing a stunning backdrop, these photographs of Gabrielle Giffords atop the French Alps provide one of the clearest signs yet of the remarkable recovery the former U.S. Congresswoman has made since the Tuscon shootings. 

Leaving the U.S. for the first time since she was shot in the head by a gunman in January 2011, Giffords today braved the elements to join her astronaut husband, Mark Kelly, hiking in the mountains near Mont Blanc. 

Wrapped up and wearing hiking boots, the couple were snapped at an altitude of 3,842 meters (12,605 feet) with incredible views of rest of the Alps behind them. At times, Kelly turned to help his wife, who still uses a wheelchair much of the time, reach the impressive summit. 

I thought it would be nice to take a break from politics for a little bit and celebrate this amazing woman's remarkable recovery, as well as this breathtaking achievement. 

I swear that if they could bottle whatever it is that is running through Gabby's veins, we could completely do away with coffee and energy drinks altogether.

P.S. There are more great pictures at the mail online link.

Taking time away from my computer to visit a glacier, and to remember why NO Alaskan should ever doubt the effects of global warming.

I probably have mentioned before that I am an avid hiker and try to get out on the trails around Anchorage at least once a week, depending on the weather of course.

However I have been in sort of a rut for the last twenty years and essentially keep going back to the same trails over and over again. One of the great things about Alaska is that the wilderness is only about ten minutes away in any given direction. So I have a few favorite places that are not so far away that I can't both drive to, and hike up, them all in about a two or three hour span of time. Which by the way is usually all of the time I have available during the day.

Essentially I just don't want to spend more time in the car driving to the hike, then I spend on the actual hike.  So these places close to town have always been perfect for me.

When my friend Dennis Zaki heard about my hiking habits he was horrified and said that this year he wanted to take me to some of HIS favorite hiking locations to expand my repertoire. "Sure why not?" I said.

So yesterday we went on the first of these new location hikes.

However as it turned out, it was not so much a new location, as a long forgotten location.

All Dennis told me was that we were headed to a glacier that was only an hour away.  He never mentioned the name, and I did not think to ask.

So we left Anchorage and after an hour we arrived at the parking lot of a huge lake where there was absolutely NO sign of any glacier.  "Don't worry." Said Dennis. "It is across the lake and on the other side of that outcropping of rock."

Well, though it was a beautiful, pristine day outside (with temperatures hovering around 7 degrees.), I could barely see the outcropping of rock he referred to from where I was standing in the parking lot.

But I am always game for a new adventure so off we went across the frozen lake.  At first it was just Dennis and I, and a few other friends, who were out on the lake.  Later we would be joined by quite a few other people.

Though there was no wind to speak of (Thank goodness!) the chilly temperature soon managed to make my face numb and my fingertips start to ache.  I had worn my super heavy down filled Glacier's Edge jacket (Think George Costanza"s "puffy jacket" only not so ugly.) so my torso and arms were pretty toasty, but anything sticking out of the jacket was on its own.

As we walked we noticed that in some places the snow had been blown off of the ice and you could look straight down to see cracks, fissures, and bubbles that extended as far down as six or seven feet. Essentially the ice appeared to be so thick that you could have driven a tank across without fear of breaking through.

The walk across the lake seemed to take forever, but just when I thought perhaps Dennis was screwing with me about a glacier, we passed the rock outcropping mentioned earlier and we were greeted with this amazing spectacle.

Yes that's me in my cozy down jacket just taking it all in.

The ice formation below the glacier is where parts of the glacier has calved off and fallen into the lake.  The splash from the impact has then frozen. (I told you it was cold out there!)

Here the sun could be seen shining through the glacier, which made for a truly beautiful effect.

Here is a closer look at the frozen splash.  When we stood silent, without making any noise at all, we could hear the glacier creaking and rumbling as the ice shifted and moved. It was pretty amazing.

Even my giant noggin looks small next to the glacier.

It took us almost an hour to hike from the parking lot to the glacier, so of course it took about the same to get back.  All in all from the time we left Anchorage to the time we arrived back in town we had been gone about five hours.

Now here is the funny part.  As it turned out I HAD visited this particular glacier before, in fact it was Portage Glacier perhaps our most famous local glacier, but that had been FORTY years ago!

I literally did not recognize it as the glacier I had visited when I was eleven or twelve years old, because when I had last seen it I had been able to stand in the parking lot and hit it with a rock.  You heard me, the glacier that it had taken me an hour to reach by foot was once so close it could not be missed.  Even by a rock thrown from a child's hand.

So in forty years time this magnificent spectacle of ice had melted so far down from it once overwhelming size that, not only was it not within an arms throw, it was so far away that it required an hour to hike to where it was now hidden from the prying eyes of the humans who helped usher in its demise.

So when people ask me if I believe in Global Warming, I say yes. 

If they ask me if I think it is mostly man-made, I say of course. 

And if they ask me how I know, I say "Come with me, I have something to show you."

I really doubt there is much we can do to save Portage Glacier, but if we do not start taking climate change seriously and get off of our dependence on fossil fuels we will soon have far more to contend with the simple loss of a once magnificent tourist attraction.