Batteries....Batteries....And Guess what I forgot the cable to download data opps.

So the story beginning, another adventure into the wild once again. A journey from Fairbanks to Toolik Research Station south of Prudhoe Bay on the Dalton Highway at the North Slope foothills. The drive was amazing up there. When we arrived up there I forgot the cord to connect to the the datalogs. We have 4 - 75 lbs batteries at 1 km with the a transmitter, 6 - 75 lbs batteries at 600 m with a receiver and data logger, 3 - 100 lbs batteries with the two sonic anemometers , and at the road where the famous "Silver Bullet" is located there where 7 - 100 lbs batteries with the other receiver, transmitter, and data logger where located.

 We saw some hunters up there on horse back since they were not allowed to drive on the research site part of the DOT/NSF/UAF. The first operation was to take down the sonic anemometers. We arrived at the site at 4 pm. I thought we had the cord to download the data. So I opened the boxes to find no cord. I walk to the 600 m and found no cord to downloaded the data. So I thought to myself without disconnecting the datalogger from power, because somehow my advisor has it in his mind that disconnecting the dataloggers from power will erase the data. This is true from some commerical dataloggers. We completed taking down the sonics and hull ass back to camp were we proceed to call my advisor and tell him the bad news. We double check the manual and found that we could disconnect from the power source, but just to be sure we keep them connect to a power source.  We continued until 10:35 PM till the sun tips its hat in a kind gesture for the night to begin.

We arrived back at camp to watch a shooting star come down right over Toolik Lake. As night begin I got out of the truck and watched the aurora flow above and could see more stars above than even in Fairbanks. It was pitch black and amazing to see stars that many people never enjoy fully. You might be asking yourself right now how did we get the batteries and instruments up here at first. We hulled them up in a vehicle. My advisor, and three REU students, and myself carried, connected, and triple checked every connection. Anyways back to the real story. John and I went for a hike and took the batteries from the site. We forgot the cord.  

We had to be very careful with the connection on the BLS unit. Here is John carrying one of the 75 lb batteries and a sunset at Imnavuit Basin. The Institute of Arctic Biology Toolik Field Station (TFS) is a world-renowned Arctic climate change research station located in the northern foothills of the Brooks Range in Alaska at 68° 38' N, 149° 36' W, elevation 720 m. Toolik-based researchers have access to 87,000 acres designated by the Bureau of Land Management as a Research Natural Area. This research station was original built for the pipeline along the Dalton Highway in the 1970s. We carried the batteries out and that was that. We drove back to Fairbanks roughly a 6 and a half hour trip and arrived back in Fairbanks on at 8 pm on Saturday.