Winter Comes

Post long overdue!

Winter is here, and time to have our annual post from the Chugach
mountains. This was the first of the year. It did not last long! Only a few weeks. But more is forecast on Friday. A few troubles have kept me away from the shop. I will be back.

Winter Scenes

One of the greatest pleasures of the Alaska winter is skiing. I go out nearly every day. The weather has been clear, which means cold. Day breaks at -20C, but by noon it is above freezing, so out I go then. The snow has been beautiful. Long glides! Love it. I have beaten out a loop in the woods. Note the conspicous absence of straight lines. There are no straight lines in the woods. Too many things in the way. Deadfalls. Brush, early in the winter. You detour. The trail gets beaten out early in winter, after that I just follow it. So the loop never takes the same course each year. Also I have a tendency to turn left too much! Must have something with being left-handed. Furthermore there are no "landmarks" in the woods. When the sun is out you have a built-in compass, but sometimes the sun is shy. I could of course carry a compass with me; in fact my watch has one built-in. But then I'd have to take off my glove. A pain. So my trails will break a snake's back. There are no snakes in Alaska; we do have bears to make up for it.

It takes me about 45 minutes to complete the loop. First I warm up on my backyard oval. Then I do the loop. Takes about an hour. Great exercise. If my hands do not freeze. But a dear friend gave me some marvellous gloves, made in Norway by Swix, sold by L.L. Bean, a byword in Alaska. My hands have never been so warm. Thank you, Kathy.

After we have done the loop, the house is in sight and the track is clear. Oh happiness! We have worked out, we will soon be inside, and will get back to clockmaking. I bet you were glad to get a respite from clockmaking, too.

And now for a coda. Composed by Alaska Weather Enterprises. Performed by the Alaska Weather Machine. Yesterday was as clear as the photos above. This morning when I got up it was snowing. My official snowpole says +10 cm. as of 1400 local time. Of course, what the snowpole says bears no relation to what it may be elsewhere; John says there was all of 30 cm (a foot) of snow in the driveway;  He plowed the thing.  Now I realize that by some standards this ain't much. Thing about the Alaska snow is that it stays put, and this distinguishes it from, say, Syracuse NY where it can put down a meter in 24 hours. But it does not last. Ours does. All winter, in fact. Hmm. Today is the equinox, isn't it? Start of spring. Couldn't prove it by me. But if you don't like snow, you should not live in Alaska!  If you do, cross-country skiing is your friend.

There is a place called Cordova, AK. Gets four or more meters a year, and it never goes away. They have real problems. I consider my problems minor compared to theirs.

A Winter's walk

In winter I ski. When I can, that is. Sometimes it is just too cold. Even with hand-warmers, my hands freeze. This apparently is due to the fact than when one skis, one clutches the poles as hard as possible. It impedes circulation of the blood. We have no prepared tracks here at Chalupy. Do it yourself all the way. If it is really cold, my feet freeze too. So I have decided -25C is the limit for skiing. When it gets below that I walk. I wear my bunny boots, so my feet do not freeze. I wear my down parka with the fur hood (and a cap underneath that) so my head loses no heat. I wear my padded Carhartt overalls, wool shirt, long underwear, the works. Today it is -33C or so. At these temperatures, if you are having problems with C and F scales, it doesen't matter. Same thing, for practical purposes (the scales coincide exactly at -40). So it's cold!

Nice thing about walking: I can take pictures. Camera must be kept warm at all costs, or the batteries default on their duty. And I have both hands free. I can fish the camera out of the clothing and take a picture before my hands freeze to death. I have to remove super-mittens, though. No sacrifice too great for the blog.

So here is a winter walk in the Alaska bush. It is about 10AM -- just after sunrise in January. We walk down Basargin Drive. The first thing we see is...
... a couple of birch trees, young'uns bent double by the snow load. If it were spring we could make a greenhouse of of them! Alas, it is January. Maybe 70 cm of snow on the ground. Major project getting to these babies!

So on we go. We stop to look at what Little Lonely Lake is doing.
It looks rather blue. Maybe it's too cold! No, it is a camera problem. Too much contrast for proper color recording. It is really white, but it's in the shade. Very few snow machine tracks. What a pity (cynical smile). So on we go.
The rising sun is lighting up the roadside trees. Deep shadow elsewhere. Stunning, I think. After a while we reach one of the houses alogn Beryozova road. The name of the road is Russian (natch. It leads to the Russian village). It means "of the birches" road, very apt. So we come to non-village, but sometimes inhabited territory.
Lot of snow on the roof! The residents are not in residence. Perhaps they are snowbirds. But mysteriously their driveway gets plowed, no doubt by divine providence. Wish my driveway got done that way. Well, we turn back eventually and get home. We are glad to see our driveway.
We note that it is plowed (actually snow-blowered), but regret that Divine providence did not favor us. Sigh. Do it yourself, again. Note that the sun is just now clearing the trees. It must be 1100 hours. Nice thing is that the days are getting longer.

And so, home. Have a cup of tea, enjoy the warmth (if, that is, you remembered to start a fire that morning) and on with the rest of the day.

The snowman cometh

Winter has beset us all of a sudden. It usually snows around the first of November, buy this time we got it in spades. First it was a 28cm (by the official snowpole which I stick in the middle of the yard in October) -- an unprecedented snowfall for November. So I blew it out. The good part is that I can now ski, so one gets a reward for each snowfall. And off we went to Anchorage for the weekend. Had to lay in those Costco groceries! Upon returning we found it had snowed in our abscence -- another 30 cm. The snowpole records perhaps 61 cm as of today, but it snowed last night too! So we couldn't get in, much less out, of the driveway. We trudged in and fired up Horatio snowblower.
This time -- an unbelievable luxury -- John got to do the dirty work. But life is never simple. If you look at the picture carefully, you will perceive that there is a lot more snow at the left of the feed screw on the left than on the right. When you are on the business end of a snowblower you can't see this. Indeed, the left (as you look at it) side of the snowblower had broken a shear pin. This is a sort of ordinary-looking bolt, calculated to break before you ruin something really important, such as the transmission of the machine. There are two of them, left and right. But without the shear pin, that side of the screw is inert. Not so curiously, it was very difficult to blow snow! In effect we had only half a snowblower. I had this experience before. My driveway is extremely rough; one big stone will do the shear pin in. I probably broke it when I sucked up a the big log I couldn't see. This is not suburbia. Fortunately I had one spare left. So, with some difficulty we replaced it. After that, John blew out the driveway in no time.
Note the huge plume from Horatio. We had a full snowblower at that point.

But the story does not end happily. It snowed another ohhh 10cm overnight, so we decided to blow out again today. Guess what? We broke another shear pin. I am fresh out of shear pins. I must regard, obviously, shear pins as as an essential winter supply item. Tomorrow I must go into Wasilla anyway, so I must trust to the foresight of Home Despot, er, I mean, Home Depot. If not I must make do with hardware store bolts, but that is really not a good idea. I'd rather rely on a puspose-built shear pin. But happiness is (a) a fire in the stove and (b) a cleared driveway so's you can get out. Remarkable how BMWs do not enter this equation. A beemer may be the terror of the autobahns, but it cannot cope with my driveway. A Unimog, now, might be a different thing; but they cost as much as my house.

Breakup, episode II

I am almost afraid to say it. Breakup seems to be here. I walked down Bery road today and beheld the following sight:
Bare ground! Haven't seen that since last fall. Could it be that breakup is really here? When I went out, the temperature was -5C so everything is frozen. But by 2PM it was +12C! Amazing. You could not really prove it by the state of my driveway, though, as the following image shows.
I am an avid thermometer-watcher (also barometer watcher; after all, I am a sometime meteorologist) and I have noticed the dramatic rise in temperature in the afternoon. So, being a trained scientist, I developed an hypothesis. (Those readers who think the "h" should be sounded may read a hypothesis. But Sir Isaac Newton wrote "an hypothesis" and so do I). To wit, my snowblowing troubles might be diminished if I blew snow in the afternoon, say around 2PM. Then the sun would melt the surface layer, and the snowblower would not rise up on its legs and try to ride over the crust. I hate do do strenous things in the afternoon, preferring the early morning for all exertions; but this seemed worth a try. So out came Horatio. To my never-ending surprise, my hypothesis was correct. The scientific method strikes again. I blew out the "loop" -- the place where I get the car headed out the driveway again -- with only minor troubles and no breaking up the crust with a shovel. One more bit of edging to go. Tomorrow's job.

Of course if you wait long enough, Mother Nature will do the job for you. But I like having the driveway clear, and it will clear up a lot faster if it's blown out. Less snow to melt for Ma Nature. Ma is definitely on her own schedule, and we mortals must adapt.

Maybe real soon now I can get back to making screws in wood.

Stormy Weather and a moose

Yesterday we had the worst snowstorm of all the winter. In April, no less. It dumped 30 cm of snow, or one foot if you prefer, in the course of a day. The Weather Service was right on the ball (this time) and called it with ample warning. This morning I looked out my front porch.
The mountains in the foreground are caused by snow sliding off the roof. When it does so it makes a noise very like an earthquake. Ouch -- but it is just snow. The snow is right up to the level of the porch railings. The temperature at the time of the picture (8 AM) was about 1C -- above freezing. So the snow is wet. Grrr. I went out and started my snowblow routine, and sure enough I had great difficulty. Wet snow is terrible. The machine, heavy though it is, can't get traction. I need chains for the snowblower. Sigh. I worked two hours, by which time I was exhausted and had done maybe 20 meters. Only 150 (?) to go. I must get the GPS out and measure my driveway. Tomorrow we will go again. Just like January. Such is life in the Alaskan bush.

While I'm here, I might as well post a moose picture.
This guy -- I assume it's a guy because (a) it is very large and (b) it has no offspring in tow -- was munching near the airport, twenty meters from the Parks highway. I love moose. But don't get too close to them. They could get upset with you and tromp you to death. They weigh far more than us humans.

Liquid water!

Today I got out and visited a couple of parking lots. To my utter amazement I spotted a puddle of liquid water in each parking lot! Furthermore, the temperature was +4C! As we know, that is above freezing, so it should not really surprise me; but it did. This happens around the time of the equinox, which according to my calendar ocurred on the 20th of March. Just a little after the Ides of March, fatal to Roman Emperors. Not being a Caesar, I did not worry much about the Ides. But could this be the harbinger of the long-awaited breakup? We had a long succession of very cold days in March, -20C in the morning, although it did get up above zero in the afternoon. The barometer was sky-high, 1040 mb and steady. But about a week ago the high dissolved. Temperatures rose. Clouds came, but no snow. I tried asking that well-known bird of omens, the raven, what this meant. Raven said: "cark!" Very difficult business, soothsaying. I wonder what cark means in Raven. At least Raven did not say "nevermore!" Plenty of snow on the ground still, although it has compacted down to about 50 cm. Well, we will have to see.

About this time of year everyone in Alaska is fed up with winter. Can't ski, too icy. The lakes will be too dangerous to walk on soon. Bicycling is downright dangerous. So it's walk on the roads. but at least it's warmer. And then comes breakup, mud everywhere. As I have said before, such is life in Alaska.

And the secret project is ready to be revealed. But I am a bit too tired today, so stay tuned.

Alaska Interlude

So when I went and skied to the Iditarod, a post ot two ago, I did not ski any longer than I usually do. Thing is, I cooled off in the middle. And the snow was so nice coming back that I went all out. Disaster. My legs hurt and due to all the complications of old age and the rather convoluted human nervous system, I hurt. A lot. So I have not been skiing until today, almost a week. Instead, I walk. I am learning to toe in. Thanks to some very clever therapists, I can walk without my back aching. All I have to do is toe in! Try it sometime. American Indians toed in; in fact they could tell whether tracks were made by palefaces or one of their own kind . Most Europeans toe out. Guaranteed to give you backache in your old age. So I am learning to walk again, strange though it may sound. So out I went to what I call "Polushkin Pond," retracing my ski route. And there he was...
Aloysius X. Moose, browsing on the ur-Reutov birches (or alders). Totally unconcerned. Now mind you, I have moose tracks one meter from my house, but they are nocturnal tracks. Seldom do you see them in the daytime. Now how do I know that it is probably "he" and not "she?" Well, the ladies are usually accompanied by calves. No kids? Probably a male. Also, the attitude. Females will usually vanish. Protect offspring at all costs, even interrupt a tasty meal. Not the blokes. Their attitude is "if you get any closer I'll stomp on you. Now go away!" Not wishing to be stomped on, much less interrupt a moose at breakfast, away I went. By the way, Aloysius is probably either Ricky or Racky. Those are my two resident males. In the fall, they pal around together, with their splendid racks of horns. Racky's rack is a bit bigger than Ricky's.

In other climes, March is spring. Things start to bloom. But my driveway is still rather snowbound:
Car tracks outside, ski tracks in the middle! This is actually not my driveway. It is a road, known to the Beneficient Bureaucracy of the Mat-Su borough as "North Basargin Circle." I cannot understand this. It is not a circle. Not even approximately. Perhaps the Russians who cut the road were conversant with Lobachevsky's geometry, where circles can become straight lines. It goes the wrong way to be North. You are looking South in the picture. Not even Lobachevsky can get away with that. However, the beneficient bureaucrats regard it as a "private road" and don't clear it. So I have to do it myself or I can't get in. My driveway actually starts where the picture ends. Bless all bureaucrats. May they spend their time in the afterlife shovelling snow in Jehannum. Dear me. Maybe it's too hot in Jehannum for snow. Never mind, if Dante could imagine many Hells then I will imagine one where bureaucrats get to shovel snow. Politicians will go there too. They will shovel snow with garden trowels.

Termination Dust

In the old days of Alaska, there was gold mining and little else. The sourdoughs, as the old prospectors were called (what we call "newbies" were called cheechakos) would work a claim, panning or placer according to your means; it was all well as long as nuggets came out in the wash, as it were. But sooner or later you would get nothing but a thin sprinkling of gold dust. This meant your claim was worked out; the dust was called termination dust. No more gold; time to go somewhere else.

In modern Alaska, the term "termination dust" now means the first snowfall on the mountaintops. Fall is officially finito. Today I drove down to big Lake to do some grocery shopping; as I drove over the hill there it was -- termination dust. The storm that put it there didn't have enough horsepower (or wattage, if you prefer) to push over the mountains, but it left a new coat of snow. It means winter is here. Having put the snow tires on the car yesterday, I have completed the essential chores. I only regret I didn't take a picture -- I even had the camera, but didn't think of it. Blast. Maybe tomorrow I can return and do the picture.

Added next day: I did.
The light was awful -- flat and washed out. But you can see the Chugach mountains south of me. This was taken from about mile 60 on the Parks highway, which connects Wasilla with Fairbanks. My new camera needs a while to focus and the shot is not so good, but at least you can see t6he dust on the mountains!

A ski through the woods

A couple of days ago, I went out for my morning ski. It is wonderful excercise and gets you out in the open; an essential ingredient in fighting off "cabin fever," or the malaise caused by staying indoors. This time I took my camera with me. So we're off. Our objective is to extend the Westbound trail through the woods west of the house. First, however, we warm up.
This is my warmup piste, or track. It goes around my "backyard." Temperature is about -15C. There are 40-something cm of snow on the ground, under the usual for this time of year. The snow is nice at -15C, we get a good glide. I think -10 is ideal, but you takes what you gets. Four laps, and all gear secure, my boots are not coming unlaced, don't need the hand-warmer today. OK, onwards.

A short bit through the woods next to my driveway and we are at the Power Line Right-of-way, or PLRW for short. I spent most of my life in the computer business; acronyms are a way of life. We are facing north at this point, we will go right up the PLRW. I have beaten out a track there. Swish, swish and...
...we are at the northern end of the PLRW, facing west, about 150 meters from the last photo. Off to our left, the Reutov II house, beyond it, the Polushkin house. That's where we're headed, Still power line, but badly hacked by the hateful snow machines, or Satan Sleds as I call them. However, their unskiable tracks were dusted over by our last snowfall. So we head toward maison Polushkin.
About 40 meters behind Polushkin, we arrive at the West Expressway junction. The West Expressway is a semi-cleared track through the woods, going north-south, wide enough for a small car, a snow machine, or me. You can see my snowshoe tracks, going west like Horace Greeley. We will be back here, but for now we turn right, going N to pick up a trail I am hacking through the west woods. This is all track I have broken before, so it is quite fast.
We turn on to my Westbound trail, and as you can see, we are really in the deep dark Boreal woods. Deadfall all over the place. My track is zigzag to say the least; you can't go 20 meters without zigging (or zagging, as the case may be). There is usually a tree, a deadfall or brush in your way.

Eventually we reach the end of the broken trail, and it is time to break some more. I try for a few hundred meters a day. It is a big effort to break trail through snow. Your skis go down deep:
I have a pair of skis that were designed for Telemarking. I love them, not because I Telemark well (no hills for kilometers around!), but because they will float you in deep snow like this. They are really wide. Not bad for a $10 yard sale buy. Those narrow things they sell you as "cross-country skis" at high prices are good only on prepared tracks. Here at Chalupy, the only tracks available are those I make myself.

Eventually I run out of steam. Time to return. It is much easier going back because you are following broken trail. Eventually we arrive back at the Expressway Junction:
We are now facing due south. In the middle of the picture there is a small bright dot. That's the sunlight on the meadows at the end of the Expressway. We are going there, and we have about a Kilometer to go. It is easy skiing; we have a track and the snow machines have left it alone. This luck cannot last, but we enjoy it while we can.This is Moose Meadows, as I call it, at the end of the Expressway. There are often moose there, hence the name but today (because I have the camera) there is nary a moose. My tracks can be seen off to the left. Moose Meadows is a rough ski unless there is a meter or so of snow to fill in the bumps. In summer, it is a swamp.

So off we go to the left (previous photo faces south) and go some 400 meters, and we arrive at the desolate Ghost House:
The former owners of this place were killed in an automobile accident. There are a few vehicles, like the trailer at left, junked around the place; a hole in the ground. And no doubt ghosts. We ski on by. We come to the Ghost House driveway:
This leads right to my own driveway, maybe 400 meters, we're almost done. I like the Ghost house driveay, it's fast unless the moose have torn holes in my tracks.
And we're home. We have been out an hour and a half, but some of that was spent taking pictures. Taking a picture at -15C is not at simple as it sounds. If you let the camera hang around your neck, the batteries give up in the cold. So you have to stuff the camera down your warm clothes, So before you take a picture you unzip any number of zippers (and you have great big mitts and ski poles to deal with, too) and pull the camera out and check the mode and take the picture, and then reverse the process to put the camera away.

Alaska is wonderful. The dreaded winter is not so dread, if only you get out in it for a bit.

Antlers away!

About this time of year, male moose start shedding their horns, which they only sport during mating season. There are two big bulls in my neighborhood. I have named them Ricky and Racky. Racky has, of course, the larger rack. They are pals; they go about together. Unexpected behavior to me, but then, I am no moose expert. So I was out skiing a few days ago, and behold (and also lo!) what should I see by my feet but an antler, freshly dropped:
Couldn't tell, of course, whether it was Ricky or Racky. But it's big. The tape is pulled out to 95cm (about 34") -- a large rack indeed. I searched all over for ithe other one but couldn't find it. Amazing: in the snow, almost anything looks like a moose antler, but is usually a rotten log. Camouflage at work.

We had a moose convention in the yard today. I was out in the wilds, skiing, but my son recorded the jamboree. But that is another post.