Snow Shock

 

Eaglecrest skiing with Nora and Leo

After Christmas Nora and I went on a ski vacation to Juneau with cousin Leo.  Stuey stayed home for basketball and the Joe Floyd Christmas Basketball Tournement and Leo took his place.  We had an amazing time and I will post on that vacation and on Juneau in detail in the next few days.  This post is about what we found when we got home - it's about our 'Snow Shock'. 

In the winter when I leave Kodiak on vacation it inevitably snows and is cold while I am away.  I'm always a little bummed out to miss out on the 'winter wonderland' side of things.  However, on this trip just before we left, Kodiak was socked with a super warm spell, and on the day we left it actually got up to 65 degrees (this broke the old record high by like 20 degrees - it rarely gets this warm on Kodiak even in summer!) So we weren't going to miss anything!

And we arrived in Juneau to temperatures in the teens and 3 feet of powder at sea level - a true winter wonderland!  We went cross country skiing thru spruce trees bowed down by snow.  At Eaglecrest, the local ski area, we skied the trees in deep powder.  It even snowed a 1/2 foot or so while we were there and Juneau was supposed to get another foot the day after we left.

So after four days of winter wonderland we returned to Kodiak to find . .. no snow and blah.  We stepped out of the plane to rain.  Total snow shock.  Nora opined that she actually would have preferred missing out on Kodiak 'winter wonderland' if it meant that we would return to a place with snow.  And I have to admit she's right.  So next winter vacation I hope it snows while I am away.

Yesterday we climbed up Pyramid to see just how bad the melt had been.  It was bad.  We had had good snow before we left, but really not a lot of snow.  It had just stayed cold, and so what little snow we had had stuck around.  But with no base, when it did get warm that snow disappeared quickly.  

Still there is hope - overnight the temperatures plummeted back down into the teens after over a week of temperatures above freezing.  And it is supposed to snow off and on all next week.  Fingers crossed!

Patrick

Pyramid yesterday

Hey where did all our snow go?

Pyramid fireworks