Winter Blahs

It's been a year since I last posted! Where did the time go?
Well, since this blog is just a hobby, I never feel obliged to blog if I don't feel like it -- so, yes, I got bored with it (as often happens after a year or two), and, well, LIFE got in the way. This last year was busy, crazy & full of stress factors (health and otherwise) -- perhaps someday I will blog about them, and perhaps not...
We're past the Spring Equinox, but it still looks like winter. Everybody is TIRED of SNOW. We've had near record-breaking cold and snowpack this past winter-- anybody who doubts that spring will ever get here -- patience! THE SUN IS OUR FRIEND and always wins this time of year. Just look at the clear blue sky and feel that solar power: it's bound to melt all that snow before long-- June, July?!!!

I leave you with a picture of a bunch of kids (my own plus a few borrowed ones) on a Nature Center outing several years ago: we're on the frozen Eagle River in mid to late March -- the peak in the middle is Polar Bear Peak.

BRRR!!! Midsummer Cold Front

BRRRRR!!!
We just had the longest day of the year, and this morning it was 34 degrees Fahrenheit (that's barely above freezing -- around 1 degree Celsius for you Europeans) at the river below our house (we woke up to a balmy 38 here!) Needless to say, I put on an extra sweater --staying in bed was not a choice this morning, but that's what I really wanted to do!
The mountains across our valley were covered tonight with a fresh dusting of powdered sugar /nay, snow.
Note: the mountain is Eagle River Overlook, the same mountain as on the Borealkraut header above, photographed from our front porch (poor us, having to look at that every day!) -- the rainbow picture was taken another year, later in the summer.
Cheechako (or newcomer) Alaskans call this kind of snow "termination dust", because it typically occurs around September "terminating" summer -- but let's not call it that! This is merely a cold front in mid-summer, and there is still plenty of summer left!!!
It was really quite beautiful today, and it did warm up to somewhere in the upper 50's -- yeah, I know that some of you may not exactly consider this summer! One of the Out-of-State visitors on my guided hike today asked if we even knew what an 80 degree summer day feels like. I said, yes, that's what I call too hot!

Winter Sunshine -- and nearly all is forgiven!

A rant, of sorts, about the weather

The sun is shining! This may not be news-worthy where you live, but to me, this is BIG. You see, since mid-November I've not seen very much of the sun at my house or my workplace. This is a beautiful valley, but valleys have mountains, and they do have an annoying tendency to block out the sun.

I've often thought about getting a petition getting going where either the month of January or February is abolished -- I'm not asking too much, am I?

This weekend I taught an outdoor class at the Nature Center, and the sun ACTUALLY shone on us during the whole walk. Even though it was barely above zero Fahrenheit (-17 Celsius) when I went to work, the sun managed to warm the air up to the teens! One month ago there was NO sunshine in the low-lying areas, and daytime temperatures did not vary much from the night.

I saw a coyote crossing the road on my way in, a bald eagle was perched on a tall cottonwood when I took my group outside, and the snow just sparkled in the sun! It felt great!
Later I'm sitting on the couch in the living room, and sunshine is streaming in and illuminating all the dust bunnies. Dust - Schmust! Right now I'd rather have sun than a clean house!

This winter has been cold (duh, it's Alaska!) But really, here on the coast there are some years where we get rather mild temperatures, AND, our bane, warm winds and rain!
We did get some of those warm rains briefly in mid-January, right when we returned from out vacation to sunny California. We had left right after New Year's Day and it was something like minus 20 degrees F, but when we returned to Anchorage in the upper 40's with wind and rain. As you can imagine, all that rain over snow and the road were TERRIBLE. Like most Alaskans, we have 4-wheel drive and studded tires on our cars, but we still could not get up our driveway when we got home. I took a picture of youngest pulling a sled of groceries up the driveway a few days after we got back. Not to complain, but it was impossible to walk on that driveway without some sort of grippers or crampons!
But then, thankfully, cold temperatures returned, and we got some snow to cover the nasty ice, and now I can walk and drive up and down without risk of injury. Sooo, as much as I can complain about the lack of warmth in Alaska during the winter, when we get unseasonably warm weather in the middle of winter, then I complain about that even louder!

Here's a children's book by Elsa Beskow, an author I remember fondly from my childhood. I was so tickled when I found a couple of her books at the local Waldorf School.
This one is called "Ollie's Ski Trip": after Ollie received a pair of skiis for Christmas, he wants to go out and use them. He meet King Winter, who's responsible for nice cold snowy weather. But along comes Old Mrs. Thaw, who threatens to melt all that snow away. King Winter manages to chase away Mrs. Thaw for now, and Ollie gets in some more skiing. But eventually, when Spring comes, Mrs. Thaw is welcome to chase away Winter.

Wolf has felt a bit like Ollie under house arrest. When he injured his lung in December, he was told not to exercise for at least 6 weeks, which included no skiing in Tahoe! Poor kid. By the time the doctor cleared him for skiing, we had had that visit from Mrs. Thaw... It did eventually snow again, but not enough to build up much base until this weekend. So my Ollie will finally be able to strap on his Cross-country skiis and get out there -- and hopefully it will still be a while before Mrs. Thaw shows up again in our part of Alaska.

And I guess we don't need to abolish February --it's a short month after all!

Our yearly Thanksgiving Cabin Trip

We wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving!



The sun is now hiding behind the mountains all day, but we do get beautiful pinkish Alpenglow.


Every year our family takes a Thanksgiving Holiday by skiing to the Nature Center's rental cabin: it's a great way to give thanks to what we have -- the simple life revolves around keeping warm and fed: hauling and splitting firewood to keep the woodstove going, getting water from the pond (or melting snow), and dry socks are the basic necessities of the simple life.

Darkness comes early, and by candlelight/lanternlight/flashlight we spend much of our time reading aloud (whole Harry Potter and Artemis Fowl books have been heard by these log walls), and crafting: mom is usually knitting while kids are whittling wood or drawing...
Here are some pictures of our 2 youngest at the cabin from years past:

Skiing with my kiddos

It's definitely winter here, and the skiing is great!
The kids have been skiing right here at home on their home-made ski-jumps in the back yard, but I wanted to venture out onto trails.

So we went to the Nature Center, even though I did not have to work today -- just getting to enjoy an outing with my kids. (I admit, I did work a little bit while the kids had a snack after skiing -- can't help it!)
The trails are freshly groomed and PERFECT!!! We got about 5 inches of new snow on my birthday, making for perfect cross-country conditions. Temps were in the mid 20's (Fahrenheit), which is pleasant enough.



It's less than 2 weeks until Thanksgiving when we'll be skiing into the cabin, and I wanted to make sure everybody has ski gear that fits, which is never a given with ever-growing children. And sure enough, youngest had outgrown her boots and been conveniently slipping into mine (with an extra pair of socks) this past week...so that leaves me with ??? It turns out I fit into son's boots from when he was in 7th grade -- perfect, EXCEPT those bindings don't fit MY skiis. Aaargh, and both kids need longer skis, too. (On the trail today, we actually switched skis around, and at one point I ended up on the shortest ones!)
There are lots of outgrown skis in the garage, some still with the old 3-pin bindings... but the boots are the biggest bottleneck! Looks like we'll be heading into Anchorage this week for some shopping: there's REI, of course, and a used-sports-equipment store called "Play it Again Sports". We missed the ski swaps this year!

I had borrowed a pair of skis to fit the boots-of-the-day, and off we went. We wished the pater familias could have joined us, but his back was bothering him. So the 3 of us went and enjoyed some Winter Wonderland along the historic Iditarod Trail that passes right through the Nature Center. Our favorite trail, the Albert Loop, is still closed. Amazingly enough, there is still bear activity: grizzly tracks were reported again today. This is very late for them to be staying up (way past their normal time for going into dormancy) -- but until recently there were still a few salmon left in the creeks. And as long as there's food, why go to bed?

SNOW: The Case For It and the Case Against It

And now a guest column from the Prof, my dear husband:

FOR—There is no denying it, the stuff is pretty in a wholesome, clean baby, fluffy kitten sort of way. I have seen 3 inches of fresh snow cover up the horrid remains of a month-long midwinter breakup like a clean bottom sheet covers up the worst mattress stains. It even smells fresh – not like the in-your-nose way that a thunderstorm does, but rather so softly, like a tentative Chopin nocturne. And in the ultimate testament to the possibilities of evolution, the boreal forest ecosystems nurture themselves on the seasonal snowpack in a life-giving thermodynamic Dance of the Hours.



Acoustically, snow is again a wonder substance. It is eery(sp) to wake up in camp in the morning and find all the noises strongly damped by five inches of snow where there was none the afternoon before. Someone seems to have gagged the squirrels, and the monotonous highway whine of tires that kept you awake last night is now just a whisper of places you haven’t seen. And the Leatherman you accidently left out overnight has disappeared just as efficiently as the raven’s cries.


And then there is skiing. Ah yes, skiing! The infinite wonders of physics adapt crystalline water to the vagaries of ski base, producing a ski/snow interface that is balls-to-the-walls, gut-wrenching, gonzo, totally tubular. Well… if said snow is on a steeply sloping surface, that is.


AGAINST—Snow feels COLD, no dodging the fact. And it is not just that winter is cold anyway. Actual contact with winter’s snow brings out the real meaning of the phrase “butt cold”. For example. Sometimes I get up to “check the stars” as men are sometimes wont to do (a rural living experience only, I’m afraid) in the middle of the night. My version of this sport typically involves a quick jaunt across the deck in bare feet, summer or winter. Let me tell you, the trip is a vastly different experience when there are 4 in. of fluffy new snow. The old dogs cool down mighty quick as those flakes melt like bacon grease on a hot grill. One gets down to business real quickly! No dawdling to actually check the stars. No way, no how!

And then there is that darn downside to the slipperiness thing. Due to an under-regarded phenomenon known as “regelation” (whose derivation is well beyond the scope of this course), ice and snow get a LOT more slippery when subjected to high pressure. Ever wonder how ponderous glaciers can move or why ice skates glide so fast? Works with shoes too, sometimes, wouldn’t ya know. And bare feet on the deck, too. Not to mention car tires. (I warned you not to mention them).

DENOUEMENT— White, clean, wholesome. Cold, slick and dangerous. How to reconcile such disparate properties of a single substance? In Alaska, one tends to be in the FOR camp, at least for most of the winter. Or else why in the world would one live here? “Outsiders” (that is, Lesser 48’ers, those that hail from outside the “Last Frontier”) frequently fall in the AGAINST camp. Not all, mind you. There are several Outsiders that think they are in the FOR camp, but that is because they do not have to live the FOR life 24/7 for 6 months. And then there are those Outside who truly prefer flakes over snakes (as do we). This group rightly comprises honorary Alaskans, even if their values are a bit skewed.
And then there is this last group—the AGAINSTERS-- who only like their flakes frosted and drenched with a dose of cow squeezings over the whole mess. No time for snowblowers and roof rakes for them, they have a golf date with the front 18. The only thing slowing them down is that bowl of increasingly soggy flakes.
I’ll take my flaky problems over theirs any day.