End of the summer

It's almost time to start my next adventure! The season for us to be on the ice on the Herbert is down to less than 6 inches in some places!
But lets go back a few weeks. I gave a tour to a family that was going really well until the end. The family had three kids, and the oldest son was a typical boy and not listening to anything the parents were saying and was horsing around. Now we have a few dogs that have a lil bit of a diarrhea problem... Now this one dog named Bluto was having a really bad day and it was sorry bubbling out in spurts like a hose with air in it. The Kid didn't see it and was down on the ground with him sticking his face right in Bluto's. I was just about to go over and tell him to stop forcing the dogs face's into his face when we all turned around to see the kid standing up and his once yellow raincoat is now brown.. He was covered head to toe in dog $hi% !!! It was the end of a very long day and none of us could hold back the laughter!!! We just about burst!
Then came the clouds.. and the rain... We had 5 weather days in a row! three days of tours, the third day was half cancelled, then two more weather days where all we could see was white... nothing but white clouds, we became known as cloudcamp instead of dog camp...By the time the weather days were gone we had gone from 4-6 feet of snow to 1/2-2 feet of snow! and Cravases all over the place! IT was way past time to get the dogs off the ice and pack up. Robert and Jess left and we got a new girl named Anna who came to work for us. And then the calls began... Getting everything to fall into place to get the dogs off the ice and start breaking camp down. So wednesday the 26th all the dogs got off the ice in only 4 flights! We had 21 dogs in one helicopter load! wow that was a heavy load! Once all the dogs were gone we got to work with breaking camp down starting with unscrewing all the dog houses (79 to be exact) and getting them packed up in gravel bags, then we started tking apart and gathering everything else up and getting it ready to go. Around noon the sun came out and clouds cleared and the glacier was beautiful!!! we worked until 7 that night and then got up at 6 the next morning and continued to take apart the tents and gather everything else up and stage it so its ready to go. However at about 10 am the wind started to really pick up and the rain started coming down in sheets. it was blowing about 20-30 mph with gusts up to 70!!! it was so windy at one point, Anna and I were in the Kitchen tent that takes 4 adults to move inches at a time with poles, that the kitchen tent moved about a foot!!! just with the wind! Rick came on the radio and told us he was gonna send someone up to get us! Rescue time! Wow the ride back was... interesting I thought i was gonna lose the peanut butter sandwhich... But now we're just waiting to go back up to the ice to finish breaking stuff down and sling it off the ice with the helicopters! we just need the wind to stop blowing so hard... keep your fingers crossed so that we can get up soon and get everything off so that I can catch my flight to Anchorage on Friday the 4th!!! :-)

So the season is coming to a rapid end. We have 4.5 feet of snow in the dog yard witch means we now have to flip the dog yard witch is going to be a huge pain in the you know what! We also have a lake that has formed on our trail that is getting bigger and is going to be hard to get around, its also dangerous and I don't really feel that safe no matter what anyone tells me about it... The cracks have been opening up like crazy as well! The rest of the month should be interesting thats for sure! Rick is saying that our last day will be on the 3rd of Sept. then it'll take about a week to break down camp and sling it down with the helicopters. Jess and Robert are leaving on the 15th and we have a new girl coming up though to help with the end of the year break down. She's a supermodel from Norway, and apparently a knockout... yay I'll get to deal with drooling boys for the end of the year! So this week (the 3 days that i was actually on the ice, we're changing the schedule) we had an unscheduled tour with three Indian men. Now typically Indian (dot not feather) people are very nice, then you get the people from India... and its a completly different story! I went to unload the helicopter and before i got there they opened the door and when i offered my hand to help them out they batted it away because of course I am female and they are men... they didn't listen to Robert either, because they were "from India where men are men!" at the end of the tour I was switching dogs on Matt's team and I got called over to one of them who handed me two jolly ranchers and proceeded to pat me on the cheek.... ooooh I was pissed... That night though Rick sent us up a note that said thanks for all of your hard work have a nice dinner on me. He sent us up steak, corn, strawberries, mushrooms, chocolate chip cookies and beer, it was just what we needed :-)