FLYING SNAKE!

Busy with science in a tropical tree, 200-feet off the ground, I heard a squirrel. Looking, I saw not a rodent, but a 3-foot serpent, dangling in a long, lazy S. Gently swaying, it leapt free, its body flattened and sinusoidal as it sailed away, wiggling like it would in the water. 

The flying snake crossed 50 yards of empty air, approached a smooth trunk, reared up, straightened out, and stalled. After sticking its vertical landing, the reptile inched up the distant tree and disappeared. 

Quite a feat for the beast famously condemned to crawl.

A Good Place for FREE Downloads of USGS topo maps to look at on Google Earth from the USGS

For old-school, old-dog, old-farts like me, nothing beats the crutch of USGS topo-maps. Perhaps it sounds heretical but I'm not really a fan of Cal-Topo: too gimmicky with bad naming conventions for many features in Alaska as I've found many times when people write me for route beta in some obscure mountain range of AK.

For route planning I download .kmzs of USGS topos FOR FREE (no subscription) from here: https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/viewer/#4/40.00/-100.00, unzip them, and open them up in Google Earth Pro (GEP). If I'm lucky there's some good Maxar/DigitalGlobe half-meter resolution imagery hosted by GEP. If it's crappy old Landsat underneath, then I much prefer the topo. Call me what you will, but, boy, do I love those old maps, especially the 1:250,000 scale for not just planning but travel.

And by the way: why not leave the phone and Gaia home next time and just go paper?

More on The Adventurer's Son

Steve Rinella hosted me as a guest on a recent "Meateater Podcast." He's a pretty intense guy, and having read his book American Buffalo I really looked forward to meeting him. Here's the link

https://www.themeateater.com/listen/meateater/ep-204-it-should-be-difficult-to-get-lost-forever

My publisher has released two chapters from Part I of The Adventurer's Son as they gear up to release the book in a few weeks. Not much need be said about these chapters; if I wrote them well, then they should speak for themselves, right?

https://aerbook.com/books/The_Adventurers_Son-242817.html

Book Release Event: February 19, 2020 at Bear Tooth Theatrepub, Anchorage

On Wednesday, February 19 at Anchorage's Bear Tooth Theatrepub, Title Wave Books will host the release of The Adventurer's Son. 

Luc Mehl will MC.

Admission is free.

From 5:30-6:30 I'll have a presentation and maybe make a few short reads, followed by a question and answer session, and then a book signing until 7:30.

Please come.

The Adventurer's Son

My book about raising our son, then losing and finding him, is done. William Morrow, an "imprint" of Harper Collins, is releasing it Feb 18, 2020 a few days before Cody Roman would have turned 33.

It is an important (to me) book that I needed to write and took great care in writing.

If you look at this blog, you might consider reading this book. It's a memoir along one thin line leading to my son.

If you can't wait until then, you can take your chances with a free early version, a so-called "Advanced Reader's Edition" given away by lottery at Good Reads.

They already gave 100 away, and they will be giving 100 more. If you win one and read it, then let me know what you think here, in the comments.

The Sun is a Compass

Caroline van Hemert and her husband Pat made an epic journey from Bellingham to Kotzebue in 2012. Pat made their boats that they rowed Jill Fredston-style up the Inside Passage to Haines, where they have a cabin Pat built. From there they skied and packrafted across the boundary ranges then hiked and packrafted some more to the Arctic Ocean where they headed inland and traversed the Brooks Range to Kotzebue.

Now, I don't read much adventure, but through good fortune of mine I got an advanced copy of Caroline's memoir of this trip: The Sun is a Compass. It's an amazing book, great stories and neat scientific tidbits, too—she's a bird biologist.

If you liked Erin McKitrick's A Long Trek Home and the biography of Dick Griffith, Canyons and Ice, then you'll like this book, too.

The book comes out officially on March 19 and there's an event at the Anchorage Museum on March 20 at 7 PM where Caroline will sign books and tell stories, I hope.

Maybe we'll see each other there.

Academic Job at Alaska Pacific University

Hard to believe but after about 25 years, Carl Tobin is retiring from APU, and the school is looking to hire a PhD ecologist to fill his position.

So if you, or anybody you know, would like to live and work in Anchorage, teaching at a very small, private liberal arts school, then check this out.

While the posting says "Completed applications should be received by February 18th, 2019, for full consideration," please submit a CV and a letter of intent to APU if you are interested by Feb. 18, and send in the other materials later....