The ExploreNorth Blog

Every now and then I come across something that triggers “man, I’ve gotta see that!” This morning it’s the Aleutian Islands again, prompted by a couple of photographs at the Museum of the Aleutians Web site. I’ve always been fascinated by the Aleutians war – by the difficulty and the brutality of it – and that was brought to the surface when, a few weeks ago on the Infinity, I met a man who fought in it.

There are many challenges to doing a “proper” visit to the islands – weather, logistics, money and time. The weather is seldom conducive to touring, transportation is difficult and expensive, and it would take weeks to do more than skim the surface of what the region has to offer. If you’ve never thought about the Aleutians, have a look at the Unalaska/Port of Dutch Harbor Convention & Visitors Bureau site – intriguing?

Some of my regular readers know or at least have met Dan Pakula, owner of the Stikine Riversong Lodge in Telegraph Creek, British Columbia. Dan died on Monday, July 26th – my understanding is that he was unloading a 45-gallon drum from his truck when it slipped and crushed him. This is a huge loss, not only to his friends and family, but to the entire region. Dan was a tireless promoter of the Stikine River, the river that brought him north 30+ years ago. I’ve talked with him many times, by email and in person over the past 20+ years, and to say that he was passionate about it is an understatement. There’s an email from him sitting in my Inbox that I hadn’t even had a chance to answer yet.

My sincere condolences go out to everyone affected.

Contemplative thought – What if there isn’t anymore?

I’ve been saying for a few years that I’m semi-retired – although I have to work, I can pretty much do what I want, when I want to do it. I’ve just discovered, though, that to be truly semi-retired, a guy needs a toy or two. The motorcycle is the first toy I’ve had since selling the airplane 25 years ago, and I love it!

On the first day (Friday), all I did was ride it from the dealer’s to my garage. Day 2, my friend Amanda, who just bought a new Kawasaki Versys, invited me to go riding, and we went out to Marsh Lake and back – 125km. Day 3 was the first major road trip for both of us – to Skagway and back – and we had a ball. Here we are in my driveway Sunday morning.

Leaving on our little adventure…

A brief stop at Emerald Lake.

We had lunch at Glacier Smoothies in Skagway, and a look at the Seven Seas Navigator, a small ultra-luxury ship that I’d love to see the inside of for a week or so

I’ve decided that on sunny weekdays I need to work in the morning and then reward myself with a ride in the afternoon. Yesterday, it was time to get my portable garage set up properly. It’s not level, it’s not anchored properly, and it’s a mess.

The first step was to anchor it properly, with a 4×4 at the bottom corners.

I built an overhead tire/wheel rack in the barn, but it requires carrying the wheels up a ladder – it seemed like a good idea at the time but didn’t work out that way. A chest-height one over the snowplow storage spot will be much better. It just took a few minutes to figure out the right measurements for it.

Much better – I have to add a shelf for the tarps and finish levelling the garage today, but the job is largely done.

The Whitehorse-Tagish-Carcross loop is very bike-friendly, so that was my reward. This is looking east on the Alaska Highway at Jake’s Corner, where you turn right onto the Tagish Road.

The eastern end of the Tagish Road – sunshine, lots of curves and virtually no traffic!

I stopped in to see a cousin and her family at Tagish – it was good to see how the bike handles on a mile or so of gravel.

Passing Crag Lake, near Carcross at the west end of the Tagish Road.

My initial summary of the bike is that it fits me like a glove, but does have some issues that have solutions except for one. That one is the range – with a 4.5-gallon tank and getting 44 miles per gallon, you can’t get very far without a fill-up. I used the reserve tank yesterday to complete the 225km loop – the reserve is 1.2 gallons.

I’ve got a lot to learn about motorcycles. Not only am I surprised by how many manufacturers there are now, there are a lot of dealers online with great deals on accessories and gear. I’m keeping track of them on my new motorcycle page

I wonder if the cliche about men past “a certain age” buying a red convertible to regain their youth (and perhaps adding a young blonde in the right seat) was ever true? In my world in the past couple of decades at least, the red convertible has been replaced by a big cruiser motorcycle, preferably a Harley. I got mine yesterday

It’s a 2009 Yamaha V-Star Classic Silverado. It only has 15km on it so far, as the weather last night wasn’t conducive to any more than getting it home, into my garage (yeah, I know – “wimp” ).

Deciding to buy it and making it happen was a very quick process. It’s been clear for the past few weeks that some toy was going to arrive – first, the new Camaro turned my head, then it was the Century Flight 2010 fly-in. Both rather pricey toys. The third thing that’s always been on the “back-into-my-life” list was a bike, and I started shopping in the past few days, focussing on cheap bikes that I knew weren’t really what I want. When Cathy and I discussesd it in detail and when I did the research, the V-Star Classic very quickly rose to the top of the list. AutoTrader showed a few for sale down south and I went to Yukon Yamaha yesterday morning with that information. An hour later, we had made a deal. A trip to a couple of insurance agencies for quotes, to Motor Vehicles to get my Class 6 learner’s licence (I’ve had a few bikes, even a 1958 Harley, but never got around to getting a bike licence), back to Yukon Yamaha to sign the deal, back to the insurance agent to buy insurance, and finally to Motor Vehicles to get the registration and plate for the bike. In less than 4 hours from walking in the showroom door, it was done. A quick trip to Lister’s for an armoured jacket and gloves, and at 4:30 I picked it up! And I even put in a few hours at the cruise office!

The first job after getting it home was removing all the safety decals from it – from the windshield, the gas tank and the frame. I HATE those things, but they’re tough to remove. It wouldn’t be so bad if there was only 1 of each, but to have them in both Canadian and that other language is just adding insult to injury.

It’s mostly fingernail-scraping so you don’t scratch anything. Masking tape then gets rid of the remaining glue.

Less than an hour later, the bike looks like the designers thought it should, without any garbage glued to it. Much better!

Now I’m just waiting for the rain to stop. No problem, though – I actually do have a lot of work to do while I’m waiting

For the past 3 days I’ve been surrounding myself with little airplanes. Whitehorse is currently hosting “Century Flight 2010“, the largest gathering of airplanes in the Yukon since Word War II. The is the 2nd event organized by John Lovelace, who for 10 years was host of the television series “Wings Over Canada”. A total of 103 aircraft made it to the Yukon over the weekend and are now doing day trips around the territory.

Cathy and I spent an hour or so at the airport on Saturday afternoon, watching the early arrivals. I had my air-channel scanner with me, which greatly increased the fun of it. Heading downtown to run some errands while still listening to the tower/aircraft conversations, though, I heard an aircraft with the registration “Whiskey Delta Mike” on the radio. I used to own “Whiskey Delta Mike”, so I did a u-turn and headed back up the hill. However, when the plane taxied in, it was C-FWDM, not C-GWDM which is the one I owned. Just as well – I had a knot in my stomach about seeing it again.

With the gates to the aircraft parking area open on Sunday, it was great to be able to have a close look at not only visiting aircraft, but also some of the very interesting aircraft owned by Yukoners. This is a 1946 Ercoupe. Unfortunately, many of the planes parked at YXY haven’t flown in a long time.

This plane sports a decal from last year’s Century Flight tour as well as this year’s.

When this Piper PA-22 Tri-Pacer was built in 1957, many aircraft still had tailwheels, which are much harder to land and somewhat harder to take off in (my first 44 hours of flying were in “taildragger” Fleet Canucks). The landing gear configuration is largely what led to the popularity of the Tri-Pacer – 9,490 of them were built before production ceased in 1964. This beautiful example is from Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.

Detail on a 1967 Beechcraft A23-19 Musketeer.

Looking down the line to the active runway. While most people think of flying as a rich man’s sport, anyone who can afford a motorhome could afford an airplane. As with motorhomes, you can spend pretty much any amount you want – you can get a Cessna 150, for example, for around $15,000. From there, the sky’s the limit

The Lions Club did a great job of feeding everyone during the official Open House from 4-6 pm on Monday. Everything was by donation – I hope that they did really well.

Another Yukon plane, this beautiful 1978 Cessna 185 is worth $200,000 or so.

This is what $2 million will get you! This 1998 Cessna 208 Caravan is from Lloydminster, Alberta.

Of the 11 flying aircraft based at Vernon, BC, 5 of them are in Whitehorse. The Snowflakes are a precision flying team.

This is an RV-9A, a high-performance homebuilt aircraft from Vernon that took the pilot about 3 years to build. Homebuilts seem to get more popular all the time – there’s a lot of it going on in the Yukon (see the Yukon homebuilders’ Web page).

Another homebuilt, an RV-6. One of the things that I really enjoy about fly-ins is talking to the pilots – pilots never get tired of talking about flying and their planes

This new (2009) 2-seat Chinook Plus 2 is one of the very few ultralights in the Yukon. While I think they’re a great way to get into the air, the odds of me getting Cathy into this machine are about zero – she thinks that a Cessna 172 is too small.

This is Chinese-built CJ6A Nanchang is certainly the most unusual of the attendees. For warbird enthusiasts, this is an affordable way into the hobby/sport.

The detail on the Nanchang is extremely good.

These decals from fly-ins, all in the North, go back to 1988.

An Aviat A-1B Husky, built in Wyoming.

The lovely little Grob G-115C Bavarian is built in Germany. This is a 1999 model from London, Ontario.

The cockpit of the Grob.

A 1976 Rockwell Aero Commander from Midhurst, Ontario. These planes are as fast as they look, and can be picked up for around 100 grand.

The tail of the sweetest Cessna 170 I’ve seen in many years. This 1952 “B” model is from Medicine Hat, Alberta.

What can you say about what it takes to make huge sheets of polished aluminum look like that?

Alkan Air’s Cessna 208B taxis past an RV-6 from Rocky View, Alberta.

The air traffic controllers seem to have had some fun with this event, but there have also been some frustrations keeping aircraft sorted out. This Air Canada flight departed (a bit late) in the middle of a lot of planes coming back from a day trip to Haines Junction.

The Yukon has put its best foot forward to greet these flyers – everyone I’ve talked to is amazed at how beautiful it is.

While most of the pilots and passengers are staying at hotels, many chose to camp right at the airport.

It’s now been almost 44 years since I started flying – but it’s also been 17 years since I’ve flown in the left front seat. For financial reasons, I quit flying not long after moving to the Yukon, but the past 3 days has convinced me that I need to get back in that seat.

My first plane was a partnership – I put up $7,300 to buy 1/3 of Whiskey Delta Mike in 1983. Airplane prices are at a low ebb right now, and a comparable machine can be picked up for $30-35,000 (and there are a lot of them for sale). Because of the current drop, I think that a good plane is an investment – not a great investment perhaps, but certainly a lot better than any other toy you can buy. To get my commercial multi-engine licence renewed will be a fairly long process, but that process will start in a few hours. Once I get Cathy up in the air for a few hours we can decide how much further to go…

Cathy and I are fairly good about getting out for a walk with the dogs at least once a day. Just short ones, a loop around the property, but it’s something. When we lived in town we used to go to the airport for our walks quite often, and last night we went there again, I think for the first time since we moved to Mary Lake. Although the Centennial Trail is the popular trail in Whitehorse, I prefer the airport for several reasons.

First, there are airplanes – sometimes really good action, sometimes just airplanes sitting off in the distance. We lucked in to Air North’s 7pm departure just as we walked by the runway on the way to the trail along the top of the “clay cliffs”.

What a beautiful evening to see the Yukon from the air! Yes, I did just get home from a long trip, but I still got a twinge that I’d like to be going somewhere

This is the furthest-north point of the trail along the cliffs – it’s a long, dizzying way down! I love seeing the city from this perspective – it’s a great reminder of how beautiful the setting is.

It was a fairly slow night at the “WalMart RV Park” – some nights there are more than twice this many rigs. This may seem to many people like an odd way to “camp” but some of the local RVs parks that you pay a lot of money for are even worse, jamming motorhomes in on a gravel parking lot. I wish that the Yukon and Alaska would use New Zealand as a model of what to offer campers – few people camp at malls there.

Looking across downtown to Grey Mountain. The largest building, with the green roof, holds government offices. The furthest line of buildings is the hospital complex – with the hospital on the left and the new (under construction) nurses’ residence on the right.

The airport trails range from a paved path to this ATV-enhanced route along the airport fence, to wide open meadows full of flowers.

We encountered the 2 immature bald eagles from the nest along Robert Service Way. A couple of women we met had just seen them arguing over a ground squirrel one of them had caught!

A different look at Main Street, at 7:35. One of the things I really do like about Whitehorse is that Main Street is still the main street instead of a nearly-abandoned backroad as in many cities. Malls and superstores hurt downtown for a few years but the vitality has returned, perhaps even stronger than before.

On the drive back home, we came upon this very “Yukon” scene – a floatplane being returned to Lake Schwatka after spending time with a mechanic up at the airport.

In the hour that we spent on this walk, we saw a total of 5 people and 1 dog. That’s one of the main things I like about the airport trails – the fact that they get very little use.

I’ve been back on land for 8 days now, and am, of course, up to my neck in projects of all kinds. One of my pet peeves is paying good money for what turns out to be junk – just yesterday I returned a junk shoe rack ($40, on sale for $20) to Canadian Tire and a junk iPod dock ($140, on sale for $80) to The Source. I like sales, but I do try to buy the best of whatever it is I’m shopping for, in an often-unsuccessful attempt to avoid the “junk” issue.

Some things that look like possible “gimmicks” do work, though. The acrylic headlights on my Outback were trashed – too many miles on roads with dust, gravel and ice crystals hitting them had left them dull and no doubt with a reduced light quality hitting the road. When I got the front-end bodywork done on the car this Spring I asked about getting the headlights replaced but the price was $660 (!!!) so that didn’t happen. The shop said that they “might” be able to polish them up but didn’t for some reason. I keep seeing ads on The Speed Channel for Meguiars Headlight Restoration Kit but couldn’t find anything locally when I looked a few months ago. I finally found a similar product by 3M and over the weekend put it to work. It actually works! About 45 minutes work saved me over $600 – that’s the sort of ROI I really like to see.

The photos below show the “before” and “after” of the project.

My 21-day adventure on the Coral Princess is over. I’ve now been home for 27 hours and the ship is already so far gone from my mind that it could have been months ago that I was on her. At some point I’ll write up a full review and post it at YourAlaskaCruise.com. Here’s what the last couple of days with Princess looked like…

I was disappointed that we sailed far out to sea across the Gulf of Alaska after leaving Glacier Bay – the views of the Fairweather mountain range and its glaciers can be spectacular. On this sailing, there was nothing but water to see until we reached Kayak Island and Cape St. Elias – this photo, with a tug and barge passing the cape, was shot at 05:58 am.

Approaching the Hinchinbrook entrance to Prince William Sound at 11:00.

Being buzzed by a Coast Guard helicopter surprised many people! It made a couple of circles around the ship and disappeared – I was on the bridge at the time and they were apparently just “showing the flag”.

The historic Cape Hinchinbrook Lighthouse.

There were lots of rain showers around us as we entered Prince William Sound, but the ship stayed dry.

A great deal of ice could be seen in the water between Bligh and Glacier Islands – Columbia Glacier is continuing its dramatic retreat.

Wells Passage is a particularly scenic area, and a group of half a dozen Dall’s porpoises swam right beside the ship, directly below me, for a few seconds there. If I would have had my SLR I could possibly have gotten a photo but the little Fuji reacts too slowly.

Here’s what the “secret” viewing areas at the front of Decks 10 and 11 of the Coral and Island Princesses look like from the bridge (which is on Deck 12).

That’s me, hard at work in my office as we transitted Wells Passage These talks from the bridge are rather odd in that you get little or no feedback except occasionally from someone on a balcony – you often have no idea whether or not anyone is even listening to you. Theatre presentations are much more fun.

The MV Taku in Wells Passage.

As we crossed Port Wells, I had to get back to my cabin and pack my suitcase, then grab a quick bite to eat before getting back to the bridge.

The approach to College Fjord is impressive. Glacier Bay in miniature! This was shot at 5:00pm.

We got extremely close to this seal. Just before this, we’d sailed through a group of perhaps 60 sea otters and were close to many of them, as well as 2 bald eagles on a particularly fine-looking little iceberg.

The Wellesley Glacier.

Rain somewhat obscured the views of Barry Glacier as we left College Fjord at 9:15pm. We arrived at Whittier, our disembarkation port, at about midnight. Some people think when they see that time on their schedule that they have to get off the ship then but you do actually get to wait until morning!

A final look at the Coral Princess at 07:00.

The view out the motorcoach window as we approached the Whittier tunnel. We sat there for 45 minutes waiting for it to open at 8:00am – this train went ahead of us.

Driving along Turnagain Arm, up the Seward Highway. It’s too bad that nobody has explained to our driver (who is obviously new at this game) how to double his wages. There’s a lot to talk about on this route but he said very little and I doubt that he got any tips.

Swallows nesting in the APU exhaust of an Alaska Airlines jet! Luckily the jet is at the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum

A visit to the museum is great anytime but is a particularly good way to kill layover time, and I had almost 5 hours before my flight to Vancouver. Craig, a commercial pilot I met on board the Coral, had been to Anchorage a few times but never to the museum so joined me. The excellent museum is an easy walk from the airport terminal and has everything from little models (in this case the Lockheed Orion Sirius Explorer of Wiley Post) …

… to large models (a Douglas World Cruiser from the US Army Air Corp’s 1924 circumnavigation of the globe)….

to real aircraft, restored (such as this 1944 Grumman Goose)…

… under restoration (including this 1931 American Pilgrim)…

… and future projects (such as this 1943 PBY 5A Catalina Canso).

Even the long-term storage barn is interesting (and open to the public, which is in itself rather unusual).

The plane for my ANC-YVR leg arrives at 2:10pm – it’s an old (1997) Airbus A319.

Anchorage is a great airport for plane-watching, with both unusual aircraft and an excellent viewing area.

I got a center seat and it was cloudy in any case, so just watched movies all the way to Vancouver (just over 3 hours). I had time for a leisurely dinner in Vancouver (finally a good hamburger after 3 weeks without!), and left in the dark at 10:05pm.

Descending into Whitehorse – back in The Land of the Midnight Sun!! This was shot at 10 minutes past midnight.

I said on my talk from the bridge last night that I’d be on deck looking for whales at 04:00 this morning, and there were people there to talk to me – I love enthusiastic passengers! The first hour (around Hoonah) was sloow, but there were several humpbacks at Point Adolphus and many at the mouth of Glacier Bay.

Sailing past Haines yesterday morning at 04:55, I was more than a little surprised to see through the heavy rain that there was fresh snow on the highest peaks.

The view up Taiya Inlet from my table at the front of Horizon Court. Oh well, a morning like this makes hot coffee taste ever better

When we docked at Skagway, I was happy that I had no major plans for the day. All I needed to do at some point was walk over to a friend’s house to drop off a wonderful Haida talking stick I bought at Arctic Spirit Gallery in Ketchikan. It would have been difficult/expensive to ship, so I’ll just pick it up from Brian next week when I drive down. I haven’t taken a photo of it yet but will show it to you when I pick it up.

Cruise West’s little Spirit of Discovery, and the Norwegian Pearl – 2 very different ways to see Southeast Alaska. Some day we’ll give Cruise West a try – for those who want “up close and personal”, they’re reported to be worth every penny of the substantial extra cost.

There must be days like this when some crew members think about taking a contract on a ship that sails in the Caribbean year round. This fellow is pushing excess water off the walking area.

Looking down Broadway at the Norwegian Star. By noon when I left the ship it had almost stopped raining – this was shot at 12:40.

It was great to see that Soapy Smith’s Parlor is finally being restored.

I got ready for my sailaway talk early and went to Steve Hites’ 7:15 show. I’ve known Steve since I started running tours in 1990, and it was wonderful to see him again. He was, of course, very surprised to find another local working on the ship! Neither of us had time for a long visit, but I thoroughly enjoyed his music-and-history show.

A final look at Skagway from the bridge as we backed away from the Railroad Dock at 8:30pm. As you can see, we were the last ship to leave, having spent over 14 hours there.

A crew member walks out to haul down the Princess flag as we sail back down Taiya Inlet.

A final look out my porthole at 10:20pm.

When I looked at the GPS map on the TV at 03:45 we were just passing Hoonah – time to get out and start watching for whales!

As usual in this area, it was impossible to say what the day was going to bring. Weather forecasts really mean nothing. A few of us stayed under a canopy while we watched for whales, but by about 4:30 the rain quit.

A giant Canada Day cake was set up outside Horizon Court when I went down for coffee at 05:30.

The further we sailed into Glacier Bay, the better the weather looked.

As we neared the glaciers, the clouds once again parted for us!

Another amazing day at John Hopkins Glacier!

By 9am drink sales seemed fairly brisk – hey, it’s noon somewhere!

The Norwegian Pearl sails out of Tarr Inlet as we enter.

The Margerie Glacier has clearly been calving a lot in recent days – there was a lot of ice both in the water and stranded on the beach by the falling tide.

There are some very impressive cliffs along Tarr Inlet in particular.

Up close and personal with Margerie.

As the captain swung the ship so that the folks on starboard side balconies could see the glacier, many folks were down at the seafood buffet and a few were in the swimming pools and hot tubs.

NPS Ranger Emma on deck after doing the first segment of her bridge presentations.

The boat coming to take the NPS rangers off got a bit distracted.

Bye-bye, Rangers Emma and Kevin – thanks!

Passing Cape Spencer and its lighthouse at 5:30, we headed out into the Gulf of Alaska, which so far is very calm.

It’s our second and final formal night – classical music and portrait photographers are part of that. Time to post this and get fancied up for my 8pm dinner reservation

Even though I didn’t get to bed until well after midnight on Monday night, I was up at 4:30 this morning. My subconscious mind must have received a message about how beautiful the morning was. This photo was shot in Stephens Passage just north of the mouth of Tracy Arm at 04:52. I find it interesting that 95% of the other people up at that time of morning are always men.

Sunrise was at 03:59, but the sun actually came up over the mountains as we passed Port Snettisham at 04:54.

Time for coffee and a muffin in Hrizon Court to get the day started.

The view up Taku Inlet to the Taku Glacier and betond is stunning. I was out in the open on Deck 15 as usual. A guy I saw sitting in Horizon Court with a huge camera on his table came tearing up the stairs to capture the scene but by then the best was past. Some scenes give you time to react like that but most don’t. You’re either on an open deck or you miss it.

It really bothers me to see large quantities of food wasted for no reason. Can you imagine what it’s like for some of the crew members who come from some of the poorest countries in the world?

It seems to me that this yacht, the Shogun, belongs to someone very famous – a movie star perhaps. If I wasn’t paying 50 cents a minute for Internet access I’d Google it to find out. Lovely vessel!

I had a seat booked on a whale watch at 11:15, so took the tramway up Mt. Roberts to fill the time. On a nice day, getting into the high country quickly is well worth the $27 fare. The ticket is good for as many rides as you want all day, but I seldom go up more than once.

The twisting of these trees, called snowcrook, is caused by the gradual creep of snow downhill bending the trees when they were young.

I thought I’d be 2-3 weeks too early for great wildflowers, but our mild winter meant that I hit the peak time for many species.

Looking down on the Coral Princess.

This was as high as I went, to a rocky knoll that overlooks Father Brown’s Cross.

Beyond that, there’s no real destination for a couple of hours.

I came back down with time to kill, but I can keep myself amused on the dock for a long time. I love this statue of Patsy Ann, a dock who used to meet every passenger ship that arrived at Juneau in the 1920s.

And of course there are floatplanes!

Another of my favourite statues anywhere is on the Juneau doock – this one honours hardrock miners.

It was an off day for whale watching – none of the boats were getting anywhere near the humpbacks and the transient orcas that were seen yesterday have moved on. This humpback is seen in front of the Point Retreat Lighthouse, which was built in 1924. Rough seas didn’t help, but it certainly wasn’t an off day for scenery.

The buoy off Point Retreat was full of Steller’s sea lions as usual. A harbour seal wanted up too but was just getting lip from the sea lions instead of cooperation

Orca dropped many of us off at the Mendenhall Glacier and I hiked out to Nugget Falls again. The new trail is for some reason not open yet, and I was amazed at the dramatic change in the look of the face of the glacier.

Access to the Nugget Falls trail is back to being on this dangerous route. Very odd…

I’ve never seen so much ice in the lake. Apparently there was a lot of calving yesterday and in recent days a huge piece of ice had come off.

There’s a $150 fine for smoking anywhere at Mendenhall except at one of these canopies, which have stoves to put your butts into. I saw a guy smoking 100 feet away from one – he finished and threw his butt onn the ground. Too bad the fine wasn’t $1,000 and there were enough rangers to enforce it

We sail from Juneau at 9:00pm, just over an hour from now, so I’m going to post this and go for dinner. I’m not expecting anything photo-worthy tonight, but ya never know – maybe all the whales who’ve been hiding will show up!