Word: ptarmigan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...goes 40 miles and stops. Take a plane. Take a ferry; in Alaska, the ferries are part of the highway system. Taylor Highway, a gravel track passable in summer, heads north from the Alaska Highway through Chicken (so named, according to local lore, because its founders could not spell ptarmigan) and eventually reaches Eagle, where it stops. The most self-indulgent and leisurely way to reach Alaska is to head for Seattle or Vancouver, board a cruise ship and eat your way north. For its 625 passengers on a recent seven-day voyage from Vancouver to Whittier, a seaport near...
...over by a long shot. Last week more than 400 British Royal Marines from 3 Commando Brigade were helicoptered to 11,000 ft. up in the mountains around Shah-i-Kot in eastern Afghanistan for a five-day operation dubbed Ptarmigan (after a type of Scottish grouse known for its ability to camouflage itself and thrive at high altitudes). The objective: to sweep the area where Operation Anaconda, the biggest battle of the war, was fought last month. Though it was the third major ground search since the end of Anaconda, the Marines found previously undetected caches of ammunition...