Inversion

 

The last few days have been pretty foggy down in town.  Planes to and from Kodiak have been cancelled and it's been pretty dreary - driving along with the headlights and using the wipers every once in a while to clear the mist off the windshield.  But above the fog it has mostly been sunny or not foggy anyway.

On Saturday when I went skiing it was just above freezing at my house and you could not see 100 yards.  Even the Pyramid parking lot was socked in. But when I climbed up the mountain at just about 1200 feet it cleared off and got warm.  The higher I went the warmer it got, and the softer the snow.  

Since it had been freezing overnight at my house I expected ice on high.  I was shocked to find spring skiing conditions and tee shirt weather.  This is a classic example of a temperature inversion.  Cold and foggy in the valley and warm and sunny on high.  Overnight it was warmer on Pyramid than it was at my house by the sea.  

When I skied down I went into the fog and it was like skiing into a wall of cold air.  And the snow got icy!

 

Patrick

Red's Getting Big

Red's still a puppy but bit by bit she is getting bigger and bigger.  I recently noticed on walks that she is now darn near Bode's size.  And these days she can keep up with him running.  Just a month or so ago Bode would take off running and Red would be left far behind - not so anymore!  And when they wrestle and play Bodi can dish it out as well as she can take it.

Pretty soon she will be a grown dog, and still just as cute!

Patrick

Dawn at the museum on my way to work

Racing Sunset

 

After school on Thursday Stuey and I got a late start climbing up Pyramid.  Like Wednesday the front side was all icy but in the South Bowl there was sun-warmed corn snow.  We got up to the top just in time to do a South Bowl run before the snow started to re freeze. But it was practically sunset.  The top photo is what the sunset looked like when we got to the bottom of the south bowl.

The sun was still shining when we got to the bottom of the south bowl but it was setting pretty quickly.  It crossed my mind that at the equator it takes something like 2 or 3 minutes for the sun to set.  But here in Alaska in the dead of winter the sun goes more sideways than up and down.  I wondered whether or not Stuey and I had enough time to climb back up to the top of the bowl before the sun set.  So it was sort of a race.  Stuey and I against the setting sun.

At first we were pretty far ahead of the sun and the snow was all sunlit down below us.  But as we climbed we watched the shadows climb higher and higher.  Pretty soon the bottom of the bowl where we had started the climb was in shadow. But we made it to the top just before the sun set.  And then we watched the sunset shadow continue to climb up to the top of the mountain behind us.  There was a brief moment of alpine glow and then the sun had set.  All the sun warmed corn snow quickly froze up and it was an icy ski in the gloaming of the evening on back down to the car.

Patrick

State of the sun when we initially got to the top

This was the sun (and Stuey avoiding camera) while we skied into South Bowl

Halfway back up out of the bowl - the sun is gaining on us!

Racing the setting sun as we climbed out of the south bowl

It's a dead heat - the sun sets just as we get to the top

The last of the sunshine on the top of Pyramid above us

January Thaw

 

It's been pretty warm lately and I've even heard talk that it is almost spring or that 'it's too bad' we're not going to get more ice and snow in town.  What people do not seem to realize is that this is absolutely normal January weather.  There is typically a thaw in late January.  In fact it happens so regularly that there is even a slight bump in the long term temperature records for late January.  It even has a name - the 'January Thaw'.  Here is a link to a good article about it in the Farmers Almanac (click here).

So this is normal weather for late January.  It does not mean that the rest of the winter will be mild.  Nor does it portend that the rest of the winter will be harsh.  It's just normal.  Meanwhile the east coast and Lower 48 are getting severe winter cold.  I hope they appreciate it!  And I can't wait for winter to return here - fingers crossed.

These pictures are all from Wednesday.  The sun warmed the snow in the South Bowl and it was spring skiing conditions with corn snow.  But only where the slope was steep and facing south - everywhere else it was still frozen.  I was the first one to ski down into the south bowl and it was perfect.  I love it when I can look back and see only my tracks - a great big 'Patrick Squiggle'.

Patrick

If you look closely you can see my ski tracks on high

I could not stop looking at my tracks on the mountain as I drove home

More Sunstars

 

Some recent pictures from the park and dog walks.  I have been kind of infatuated with capturing sun stars of late.  Put the aperture of the camera to the highest setting (f16 or f22) and sunlight turns into stars.  These ones did not turn out as good as usual and I am wondering if that is because I was using a really wide angle lens?

Red is getting big now and can keep up with Bodi on walks.  She runs side by side with him and checks out the same things he does.  She chases him everywhere except when he goes too far afield.  Then she comes back to me and waits for him to re appear.  Then when she sees him coming back she rushes off to join him again.  This cycle is repeated over and over on hikes.  She certainly is getting a lot of exercise.

Patrick

Good views Terrible snow

 

These are Tuesday's spectacular sunset pictures.  I headed up very late with Stuey and we climbed up through a marine layer of fog and into the sunshine.  In town and down below it was misty and grey.  But up high it was gorgeous.  Like really spectacular.  And we were the only ones on the mountain.  There was not a single car in the parking lot.

Of course we paid for our sunset.  By the time we got above the marine layer the crust was starting to freeze.  So we took our pictures and snowplowed down the mountain.  It was awful breakable crust and terrible skiing.  In the jibber bowl we had to do what I call 'Zorro' turns - long traverses back and forth with turns at the end.  This is what I do when I descend on XC skis and can't turn very well.  And it is a good trick in downhill gear for when the conditions are terrible and turns difficult due to a breakable crust.

But then once we got back into the marine layer near the bottom of the jibber bowl the snow was still soft with no crust on top and the skiing was good. 

As we drove into town in the gloomy mist with the windshield wipers on it was hard to believe that it was clear up above.  I thought that while the skiing had been terrible at least the price was worth the view.  

Patrick