This past weekend, my brother, Shawn, and I headed up north to the Mat-Su Valley to go hiking and check out the fall colors. South-central Alaska is being hammered right now by three weeks of (pretty much) non-stop rain. So much that the fish have spread their wings and started to swim up the water filled streets (no joke!). We had nothing better to do and Shawn had a couple extra days off, so we decided to go anyway. Amazingly, nearly every time we stepped outside the rain would stop and we even had a couple bouts of blue sky and sunlight. You are welcome, Alaska.

On our way up Thursday, we stopped to do a quick five-mile hike up to Russian Falls. For a second, I almost felt sorry for the fish trying to jump up the torrent of water. But then I remembered that they are vastly inferior creatures.

Friday we hiked nine miles out and back to Reed Lakes near Palmer. The day started out nice and blue skied, but the clouds of course rolled in and eventually started to sprinkle. What we didn’t know, was by the time we got to the upper lake, we would be standing more than knee-deep in snow. BONUS: Punching through the snow and discovering you were indeed walking over (and now in) a snow-covered creek.

Saturday, our dad joined us for a hike up to Eska Falls. It was an amazingly beautiful day. The sun poked through the clouds every so often, lighting up the orange and red shrubbery against the black mountain like good old-fashioned thanksgiving day witch burning. They did those, right?

We headed back home on Sunday, stopping in Girdwood to hike out to the hand tram 100 feet over a raging river below. I’ll tell ya what, if I ran out to that thing every day, and pulled myself and that insanely heavy cart over the river and back, I’d probably look like Popeye in… I’d say three days. I know what you’re thinking, three days is pretty quick, right? Well yes, but if you combine how freakin’ HARD it was to pull that thing across, with the physical godliness I’m at already, three days sounds about right. Right?

To see the full album from the weekend, click here.

I’m a little behind on this one, but a week ago, a large part of Homer participated in an annual Burning Basket celebration on the Spit. Since 2004, Homer’s residents have spent six days constructing a giant ten foot basket out of natural materials and plants.

People can write sentiments or personal notes and place them inside, or weave them into the outside structure. On the seventh day, the basket is given to the community, is set ablaze, and the thoughts and wishes of this quint town are released into the atmosphere.

Being that I had nothing else to do, the motivating factor for most of my outings,  I went. There was a drum circle, fire dancers, hot air balloon lanterns, and of course, a leather clad man with a feather poking out of his rainbow hat. You can’t get much better than that unless there was a dancing midget in a polar bear outfit. Burning Basket people, get on this.

I have to admit, it was a bit more entertaining than I expected (and quite nice having a massive fire on a cold and windy evening). However, as usual in this town, the event was mainly populated with a much older demographic, paired with the accompanying young kids. With my brothers, myself and maybe two other people aged 16-30, we were definitely a minority. Not that there’s anything wrong with that,  of course I wouldn’t complain if there were a couple more hot babes my age that just happen to need a buff, burly man to keep them warm.

Here are several photos I took from the burning.

For more info check out the Burning Basket Project facebook page.

According to Wikipedia, or as I like to call it, “The Truthtionary,” the Trail of Tears  “is a name given to the forced relocation and movement of Native American nations from southeastern parts of the United States following the Indian Removal Act of 1830.”

I (if you haven’t heard) am relocating to Singapore in October after booking the role of Donkey  at Universal Studios Singapore. So [not anything] like the Seminole or Cherokee, I am parting my ways with my homeland and setting up a new life anew. While they were forced,  I am going by choice and shall therefore call if the “Trail of Tears of Joy and Success of Great Futures and Prosperous Fantasies of Wyatt Eagle Biessel.” Or for short just “The Trail of Tears of Joy.”

So in the next year, hopefully you’ll be seeing some juicy stuff come out of this bloggery as I make my way from Alaska, through Los Angeles, to Singapore. There will be laughs, there will be cries, and god damn almighty, there will be Awesome you can drink with a straw.*

*straw not included.