Hikes & Skis

Not much of a blog post here.  I noticed that I have some pretty pictures to post but not much to say about them.  They are from the last couple of days.  The top 3 are from a weekend hike in Abercrombie State Park and show the ice in the lake starting to break up - oh so sad!  There will be no more evening skis or skates on Lake Gertrude with the dogs this winter.  Spring is slowly arriving and these days it is light out to 7PM.

The bottom 3 photos are from yesterday's skate ski up above the ski chalet.  It was not windy when I left town so I decided to go high.  Then it got very windy!  It has been getting windy a lot of late.  One Tuesday we lost trees all over town and even on Cliffside Road.  During the evening dog walk to Abercrombie I counted 5 on our road and another 4 in the park - just from Tuesday's storm.  And this happened in January too - why so many windstorms this year?  And why do the trees seem to falling more often than usual?
Patrick

Lake Gertrude is starting to break up - no more close to home skiing

It was windy up at the pass when I went for my XC ski!

Ground blizzard

Salonie Creek Canyon

Salonie Creek Canyon is pretty big

I have not skied up Salonie Creek and into the canyon in a few years.  These days I generally do the 'quick-and-conveniant' and go to the Upper Buskin.  But yesterday I decided to try something different and so returned to Salonie Creek.

After I got out of the car and checked the snow I was a little worried.  The snow is thin and icy out there - there is actually more snow on the Buskin and nearer to town.  But I persevered and skate skied on up the valley anyway.  I had to take my skis off a bunch and do a lot of double poling.  It is around 4 miles to the canyon from where I parked my car.

The floodplain before the canyon is covered with gnarly old cottonwoods and surrounded by steep sided mountains.  The twisted trees reminded me of the old Arthur Rackham illustrations from the fairy tales of my youth.  It seemed like a good place to find a Faerie or Ogre - maybe even Little Red Riding Hood or the Wolf! The sunshine lit up the hillsides and made a good backdrop for the 'Rackham' tree silhouettes.

Then I got up near the canyon and suddenly there was a lot of snow cover and the skate skiing excellent.  I skated up into the canyon and walls rose sheer above me on either side.  I went a couple of miles up the canyon and the walls got higher and higher and more rocky - the bottom got more and more narrow. I got to the rocky gorge and the start of the waterfalls and turned around.  Columns of blue ice on the sides of the canyon.

The way home down the canyon is slightly downhill and very fast.  I flew home in the sunshine and got back to the car in half the time it took me to travel up the river.  Sunday morning adventure complete. Patrick

Cottonwood tree on the floodplain outside the canyon

That's the canyon in the distance on the right - it is 3 or 4 miles of floodplain before you get to the canyon

The Canyon is very deep too - that's Center Mountain ridge on high

This is where I turned around - at the blue ice falls

View back down the canyon from near where I turned around

Cottonwood tree trunks on the way home

Pictures from Around the House

Nora and the results of her experiment with meat

Nora often complains that I post too many snow and skiing pictures.  So here is a post with absolutely no snow pictures!

At first I could not think what to title the post, but I realized the pictures pretty much document what is going on these days at or near the house.  Evening walks in the parks with the doggies, sunrises almost out of the ocean (in a month we'll see the sun rise out of the water!), and science fair projects. Stuey and I have also been doing a lot of puzzles out on the living room table but I do not seem to have taken any pictures of this activity.

I figure the top picture needs some explaining.  Nora did her science fair project on the effects of temperature and moisture when cooking meat.  So we cooked meat at high and low temperature with and without water to the same internal temperature.  We ended up with the above photo.  I actually liked the high heat dry cooked piece of meat best.  Funnily enough I cook my meat at low temperature and dry (but for a lot longer than we did in the experiment).  Patrick

PS The bottom 2 pictures of the sunrise were taken by Nora.  I looked out the window and there was Nora in the sunrise gloaming taking pictures of the sunrise.  I think she did a pretty good job!

Nora's Mill Bay sunrise picture 

President's Day Snow

I made the most of my President's Day time off.  After my morning ice skate with the dogs and co-worker I headed up to the pass with my quiver of skis.  At the outset, I was not sure which style of skiing I'd choose - so I brought the gear for classic, skate and alpine disciplines. The plan was to choose which style after seeing the snow conditions at the pass.

Once there I chose skate skis and went up above the ski chalet where I went with Nora and Stuey the day before. I was hoping for the powder on top of a firm crust that we had experienced the day before.  And I did not find it.  The warm day that had made it such a pleasant ski with Nora had also created a crust on top of the snow.  Also there was ice fog - the same ice fog that made for such amazing scenics while I was up there - had added to the crust.

So it was breakable crust skate skiing - ughhhhhh.  That is NOT crust cruising.  I did go to the top hoping that at elevation there would be powder, but it was not to be.  So I headed back down, and negotiated the downhills.  This was not fun because I would be going along super fast and then suddenly dig down deep into the crusty snow and come to a catastrophic stop.

Back at the car I changed out gear and put on the trusty downhill gear.  And on up Pyramid I went.  It looked awful all frozen ski ruts, ice and windblown drifts.  I even saw people who had given up on the skiing carrying their gear DOWN the mountain.  But I persevered and climbed to the top.

Since the front was so awful I decided to ski the sun warmed south facing slopes.  Good decision!  It was all deep sun-warmed corn snow.  And no one else had skied it.  I had a glorious run.  On the drive home I looked back up at the mountain and admired my tracks - a good ski day complete.  Time to pick up the kids from school!
Patrick

Skate ski tracks in breakable crust - Pyramid in the distance

Nearing the top of Pyramid - drifts and ice

Pyramid close up!  And ski tracks in sun warmed corn snow - Glorious!

My tracks in the south bowl from afar on the drive home

Morning Skate

Yesterday was President's and while the kids had work I did NOT!  My favorite Holiday. So in the morning after I dropped the kids off at school I went ice skating at Abercrombie with the doggies and a co-worker.  Amanda is from Texas and had never gone ice skating on a lake before.  Earlier in the winter I had promised to take her skating when there was good ice.  Yesterday was the day.

The ice was not great - grey and a little bumpy - the ice in a rink is definitely smoother.  But there are no ocean views, trees and sunshine at a rink.  I don't think they allow dogs either.  Patrick

Adventures Above the Ski Chalet Part 2

Nora and I left the boys on the lower mountain and climbed to the top.  For a while we could hear their muted screams of joy, but that faded and soon there was just the sounds of our skis on the snow.

It is clear that Nora has been watching the Olympics and she asked if Mikaela Shiffrin or Lindsey Vonn ever climbed up mountains to go skiing.  Nora also wanted to go really fast.

We got to the top and Nora had her milk box and snack.  It was warm in the sunshine with out a breath of wind.  And then we skied down.

Initially Nora had some issues with the powder.  She is used to skidding her turns like you can on ice and corn snow.  But in powder you got to carve your turns.  Pretty soon Nora got the hang of it, and we glided on back to the boys.  Mission Complete.

Nora wants to go downhill skiing next weekend too.  Patrick

Adventures Above the Ski Chalet Part 1

Yesterday it was supposed to rain, and it had gotten so warm on Saturday that I feared the worst when we drove to the pass to play.  Stuey brought along a friend to sled with while Nora and I took skis.  On the drive there a light rain spattered on the windshield.  It was not looking good.

But as we climbed up it cleared off and got spectacular.  No wind and there was 5 inches of powder snow everywhere!  We had hit it perfectly.  Another Great snow day on Kodiak.  Three of them in a row!

Stuey and Thor did some serious high speed sledding and built a fort.  Nora and I climbed to the top of the mountain and skied down.  More on that in a moment.  See part 2 for photos.

Patrick

Another Snow Day

Yesterday we did back-to-back snow adventures.  First we went to Lake Gertrude with the dogs to XC ski.  At 4:30 Friday evening the whole lake had been covered with snow and I knew the ice was safe because I went skating on it Thursday night.  But by Saturday morning half the lake had turned to grey ice.  I guess it stayed pretty warm Friday evening a little too long before it froze up hard.

Still the South end of the lake had a thin layer of well adhered snow on the ice and the skate skiing was pretty good.  Albeit there was not a lot of room for exploration!  Stuey flew around on his skate skis and I towed him around a few times.  But the classic XC skiing had not been good enough to keep Nora on the lake very long.

So for the afternoon we sojourned to the golf course for our second ski adventure.  Friday's wet snow had frozen up hard and the skiing was VERY fast.  Stuey and a friend went sledding and climbed trees.  I did a little classic but quickly switched to skate skis and did laps.  Nora practiced her downhill speed in the classic tracks.  She'd XC ski up the long hill and then rip down in the track whooping.

Later at home we watched the Women's Nordic relay at the Olympics.  The women were flying and Nora could relate.  Both Nora and Stuey puffed up my head big time when they agreed that when I ski my technique and pace looks very much like that of the women in the relay race.  Thank you guys! Patrick

I asked them, 'pretend you just won the halfpipe gold at the Olympics' - that's Nora coming down the hill in the distance on the right