Wasilla
Location
Memory Lake (2007-2009)
Memory Lake is located in a residential area (61° 38' 0'' N, 149° 25' 0'' W). The lake is “8” shaped. Pike were introducted in the lake threatening salmon populations. AK F&G stock the lake with rainbows, kings and arctic char.
The ALISON observatory at Memory Lake has been modified. The TWITT is located in front of a former student’s home, so it is less likely to be a target for snowmachiners. The 21 stakes are not frozen in the lake to form a transect due to high snowmachine traffic.
Wasilla gets intermittent snow, with a lot of wind in the winter. Many weeks there is no snow, so only ice thickness and surface temperatures are taken. Usually Wasilla will have two or three warm weather events with temperatures above zero.
On the right is a bathymetric map of the lake produced by Fish and Game.
Lucile Lake (2002-2007)
The Wasilla Observatory is located at 61° 34.282’N, 149° 928’W on the south side of Lucille Lake, which runs parallel to and is on the south side of the Parks Highway. The lake is 1.75 km wide by 5 km long, and the water is >1 m deep at the observatory. The frozen lake is popular with snowmachiners and ice fishermen, and we even saw at least two pick-up trucks on the ice. The observatory was set up on Tuesday 28 January 2003 by Kim Morris and Martin Jeffries under cloudy skies in a brisk wind and a temperature of about 3°C. The mean snow depth was 0.09 m and the mean ice thickness was 0.35 m. To install the hot-wire ice thickness gauge requires a slot to be cut in the ice with a chainsaw. Since our chainsaw bar is 0.35 m long, we were fortunate to find a site for the hot-wire gauge where the ice was 0.31 m thick.
Lucile Lake lies south of the highway that goes through Wasilla, AK.
