KICY Staff Retreat.

0Josh • 20th Sep 2004 • blog entries, nome., travel

I’m Josh Rogers, and I approve this message.

Paul Harvey introduced this morning’s news that way… a man of such class. I rolled my eyes, but also laughed out loud, the exact reaction that I trigger while on the radio, so I thought I would give you a sample.

Yesterday evening Lydia & I got home from Serpentine Hotsprings! We had a great weekend on our staff retreat. It all started Friday afternoon, we left our house around 3:45 and drove in the van with Dennis & Candice Weilder, the station manager and his wife. We drove for about 2 hours to “quartz creek” where we met up with Donny Olsen, and he took us in his 4 seater C-180 out to Serpentine. Donny had earlier flown in the rest of the staff directly from Nome to the retreat. Serpentine was very remote, and very secluded. We didn’t fly in because we wanted to, we flew in because that was pretty much the only way in (besides a 15 hour hike from the end of the road). There was a bunkhouse, a bathhouse, and an outhouse.

The water coming out of the ground was about 170 degrees, however it was routed into the bathhouse via two pipes, and there was a third pipe with freezing cold river water. You could control how hot the ‘bathtub’ was by plugging the pipes. It was a pretty nifty deal.

Friday evening after everyone arrived, we pretty much just hung out, and relaxed. I went for a ‘soak’ in the tub, some people played UNO. Saturday, most people slept in until 9:30 or so. We had breakfast, and then after some more relaxing and talking we decided to head out on a hike. We hiked for about 4 hours, and covered about 5 miles. Tundra is *very* hard to hike on in spots. We would be walking, and come into a patch of land that would have these six inch high tussocks of grass, sometimes with marshy water below. The problem was that whenever you stepped on one of these tussocks it would bend over, and you would be in the water regardless. One really fun part was finding all the tundra blueberries, most all of these are out of season in Nome, but it is colder in serpentine, so we were able to find a few handfuls of good berries. A few times while I was kneeling to pick all the berries I could find, I got stains all over my pants (you’ve got to make sure you aren’t kneeling on berries while trying to eat them). ! It was still a great hike, and Lydia & I got tons of great pictures.

On our way back from the hike, we saw some planes land on the airstrip. Most everyone’s initial reaction was “oh man, these guys are going to ruin our private weekend”. About three minutes after we noticed the planes, one of our team members, Luda was attempting to cross a small river and slipped resulting in a broken ankle. We carried her back to the bunkhouse, and found our newly arrived guests in the bathhouse. Fortunately KICY knew the people who had flown in, and they were planning only to be in for an hour or so. They were able to take Luda out with them, making sure she got medical attention at the hospital. What a blessing in disguise. If it wasn’t for the chance visit of these people, she wouldn’t have been able to get to the hospital for another 24+ hours.

Saturday evening we did more eating, napping, and talking. Very relaxing.

Sunday morning we woke up to bacon & pancakes. We then had a short worship service outside, and then started packing up. Our plan was to be picked up at 2:00pm, however after a few hours of waiting, it was around 4:30 when our plane came in. Everyone was dropped off at quartz creek and we drove back in the van.

We had an amazing weekend at the hotsprings, and were very glad for the opportunity to bond with our new co-workers. Again, pictures can be found in the gallery, or by (clicking here).