The Whole Wide World

So, about last night…After the walk back from Hut Point, I got warm and cozy in bed and two minutes later my pager went off with an aurora alert. The pages come from our firehouse and it read, strong auroras in the direction of AH. There are two alert lists you can be on, one is daytime hours, when we are likely to be awake and the other is overnight and will most likely wake you up from your sleep. I was only signed up for the daytime one, but just this past week I had myself added to the overnight list. I figured the first time I see some auroras I will have myself removed from the overnight list, but this way I increase my odds. So, when the page went off last night I jumped out of bed and put on all my extreme cold weather (ECW) gear all over again and set off to find the lights.

It was late and my brain was sizzled for the day. As I set off I had no idea what AH stood for, but I figured I would run into people and/or figure it out. I didn’t run into anyone and for the life of me I could not think of what AH could be. I decided to head uphill and out of town to what is known as our fuels pass, which is where I have heard of many people spotting auroras. The thing with auroras is that most of the time, with the naked eye they are kind of just grey, it’s the camera that brings out the colors. I saw some streaks of grey and kept heading towards it further and further away from town. It was cold and I could barely manage to take a couple shots of what I thought were auroras before my fingers would freeze and the gloves would have to go back on.

After snapping a couple shots, I made my way back down into town. I was still unsure of what AH stood for and not seeing anyone else, I figured I was probably looking the wrong direction. I was too cold and tired to go venturing in the other direction so I went inside and got back in bed. I was so dang mad at the stupid page for saying AH rather than spelling out ARRIVAL HEIGHTS. Ice brain. I can’t believe I couldn’t put the puzzle together, but then again I can believe it. My brain has a way of turning to mush sometimes down here. I am going to chalk it up to ice brain…or more scientifically known as polar T3 syndrome, which supposedly will only get worse as the winter months continue. Hopefully I don’t forget my name.

It turns out I was looking at auroras, just not the good ones that were on the other side of town and visible right in town. The picture above isn’t great, but it is my first ever aurora picture, so there is that.