The group made it to Deering on Saturday and headed to Kotzebue on Sunday. They plan to fly back to Fairbanks Friday evening.

Kenji, Tohru and Ned are in Shishmaref today after another gorgeous day of snow machine travel. Tohru reports sunny conditions with some wind. The trail to Shishmaref was bumpy so they are happy to have made it without mishap. The drilling went well and they have just completed their final deep hole drill. Tomorrow they will head for Deering.

More photos and current information is available at: http://www.uaf.edu/permafrost/

News from Tohru:

We arrived in the village of Brevig Mission, almost at the tip the Seward Peninsula. The temperature is somewhere in the single digits (roughly about 5F), and it is mostly cloudy. Brevig Mission is about 70 miles from Nome.

In Nome we saw Lance Makey, gearing up for the Alaska Sweepstakes race. It’s about a 4 day race and the winner gets $100 thousand dollars!!! I guess they only do this one every 25 years.

Tomorrow we head to Whales. That’s at the point. The trail, if any, will be much less traveled and we are expecting it to be rough. But we never know, it could be flat ice most of the way.

News From Tohru:

We arrived in White Mountain this afternoon. Today was the first day that felt like spring. We started from Elim around 9:30 am and stopped at Golovin for a few hours to visit the school and install the monitoring stations. Tomorrow we are going to Nome.

More photos and information is available at: http://www.uaf.edu/permafrost/

News from Tohru:

Today we traveled from Unalakleet to Shaktoolik. It was sunny and the temperature was warm as we left Unalakleet. From here we were on the Iditarod trail and the markers left behind from the race were still visible and helped us navigate through some rough and windy terrain towards Shaktoolik.

In Shaktoolik it the wind was blowing snow around like a blizzard. We asked the locals “How long has it been this windy?” And they replied “It’s always like this here.” We couldn’t quite believe it so we asked some other folks and they all had the same answer. One teacher said that it had been the same for at least 5 days but also that it is usually windy like this.

So we worked in the blowing wind and installed some sensors.

News from Tohru:

We are in Unalakleet today. The trip from St Michael to Unalakleet was great. This is one of the best days we’ve had so far with warmer temperatures and no winds.

The school here is on Spring break, so no talks to the students. We are going to head to Shaktoolik pretty soon. Our gear did not make it here either so Kenji is trying to improvise the plan to make it work.

The Permafrost Outreach team made it to St Michael yesterday afternoon after a short 12 mile journey that felt cold at -10F due to the wind-chill. They are staying at the school there and are scheduled to go to Unalkleet at around 10:30 this morning. It’s -17F at St. Michael at 7:49am.

News from Tohru:

This morning we left Emmonak around 10:30. The sleds did not arrive by the time we left, so we decided to have them flown to Unakleet by Thursday. We borrowed a sled from the locals and lightened our load.

The weather was nice but the wind was cold. We saw a lot of fish camps along the way, but we didn’t have time to stop at everyone of them. We did stop at Kotlik and drilled a hole there, and then, 105 miles later, we arrived in Stebbins at 6:00pm. Again, we are staying in the school.

For most current updates please visit
http://www.uaf.edu/permafrost

Photo: Emmonak, by Tohru Saito

Watch their progress on Google Maps:

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News from Tohru:

After arriving in Emmonak, we successfully installed sensors for the permafrost station. In the evening, we prepared our packs. Unfortunately the sleds did not make it here, so we are forced to find a way to continue the expedition. We found one person who might be able to lend us his sled. We may borrow it for now and have the rest of the gear sent to Unakleet. We’ll see if we can get all the gear on the one sled.

Kenji talked to the students in the morning and Ned talked to them in the afternoon. While we were waiting to get more information, we ate at the school cafeteria.

It’s a little windy here but the sun is peeking through.

This years Permafrost Outreach Expedition starts from Emmonak. The expedition is led by Kenji Yoshikawa who is joined by Ned Rozell and Tohru Saito. They will go from Emmonak to Kotzebue by way of snow machine.

Along the way they will install permafrost monitoring and frost tube stations at Alaskan village schools during this ongoing international outreach project.

News from Tohru:

First we flew into Bethel by Alaska Airlines to meet Kenji. In Bethel, Kenji’s friends let and fed us well. The weather was snowy with a little bit of wind. We were worried that the plane would be canceled because of bad weather. Luckily, it got better overnight and and the planes were flying today. We had some trouble checking in on the flight to Emmonak, but finally we were able to get on the plane and take-off.

For most current updates please visit
http://www.uaf.edu/permafrost

Photo: Emmonak, by Tohru Saito

Watch their progress on Google Maps:

View Larger Map