2024 Easter Egg hunt

Today Nora and I did our second annual Narrow Cape Easter egg hunt (for last year's egg hunt click here). Our annual Easter egg hunt is a little different from the usual Easter egg hunt in that instead of eggs we look for glass balls. It is a beach combing 'egg' hunt. Glass balls are old Japanese net floats that are cast up up onto Alaskan Beaches as marine debris.  They are blown glass balls used to keep the edge of a net on the surface, and they have not been made for almost 60 years. These days they are kind of rare, and are a beachcomber's dream find.

Late year we actually found one (see above link).  This year we tried hard but found none.  But I did have hopes.  I busted hard through the brush at the back the beach and looked intensively.  In the past I usually find one glass ball for every 10 Suntory Whiskey bottles.  Today I found more than 10 glass bottles but no glass ball.  So I feel we got a little unlucky.

But next Easter I plan to look again!

Patrick

Busy Week

 

It's been a very busy week.  At work I have been busy photographing modern Alutiiq art for an Alutiiq Museum publication.  I took hundreds of photos - all set up with lights and a white background.  So after work I did not feel much like taking anymore photos on my free time.  But of course I did take a few.

The skiing this week was actually kind of glorious - in the afternoon when the sun came out the snow corned up and we had spring skiing.  The snow has been firm enough that the dogs do not punch through and they can go VERY fast.  

A couple of days ago I skied into the South Bowl (see bottom picture of tracks).  The run is very steep and I basically pointed it and ripped.  Near the bottom I thought I'd stop and takes pictures of the dogs catching up, but when I looked back the dogs were RIGHT THERE behind me.  WOW!  We went around a corner and there were 2 other skiers skinning back up the mountain.  We flew by them and I wondered what the skiers thought of the racing pack of hounds churning up the snowpack as we thundered past.

Patrick

Ice free water in Abercrombie - dog magnet

Navy SEALs on a training tour

My tracks down into the North Bowl - with doggies racing along behind

Surprised by SNOW

 

All week long I'd been dreading the predicted weather for yesterday.  It was supposed to be a big storm and it was supposed to be very warm.  We were supposed to get 2-3 inches of rain - boiling rain.  I was worried we'd lose all our snow down low. 

And then yesterday I did wake up to hard rain and high winds.  But the temperature was not too bad.  I was hopeful that there would be some new snow on the mountain anyway. I was still pretty sure that I'd start my ski in the rain and that up high it would be wet snow.  Then while I was drinking my coffee and eating breakfast I noticed 'cats paws' (sleet) on the kitchen windows.  'Woah', I thought, 'definitely snow on the mountain'.  And then it actually started to snow at my house.

By the time I started to drive to the mountain the temperature had plummeted down to 33 and snow was sticking to the roads even in town. At the golf course it was a full on blizzard. I got to the pass and there was a 1/2 foot of dry snow, and it got deeper the higher I went.  A foot of powder in the jibber.  The dogs and I had a great ski.  Point them and giggle type snow.

Of course by late afternoon it did warm up and today it is 40 degrees in town.  But we mostly got snow on the mountain, and, more importantly, we never got the boiling rain.  

Thank you snow Gods!

Patrick

Last of the Sunshine

 

Rey contemplates Red chilling out in a tide pool

Yesterday was the last sunny day in a pretty good run of them.  We had a stretch of almost 3 weeks of cold weather without rain.  But that has changed today - it's already rained more than an inch and it is super windy too. You can tell not is a bad storm when the water moves in the toilet bowl in response to the weather outside.

Yesterday I went skate skiing at Abercrombie and then I took the dogs to the beach.  Based on the weather report I had a pretty good idea that that was it for the sunshine in the foreseeable future.  Indeed, as we were at the beach the clouds started to move in and the day turned grey.

Now for some stormy weather!

Patrick

Surf at 46 degrees

 

After skate skiing at Abercrombie I took Stuey to Track and continued on to Buskin Beach for a walk with the dogs.  By then it might have even been hotter than 46 degrees.  But on the beach the air was cooler and, with no snow to reflect the light, the sunshine was far less intense.  

The dogs did a lot of running and swimming.  Earlier in the year when it is below freezing the dogs do not like to swim.  But yesterday Rey swam far off shore chasing the sea gulls.  Who must have been laughing at the poor dog.  They'd wait until she got close and then take off. 

It's officially Spring.

Patrick

Red channels Tank

Skiing at 46 degrees

 

That's 46 degrees Fahrenheit not Celsius - not like the 45 degrees referenced in the Midnight Oil song 'Beds are Burning' which would be 113 degrees Fahrenheit. But 46 degrees Fahrenheit is pretty darn hot for Kodiak in March.

Stuey and I enjoyed the heat and sunshine skate skiing on Lake Gertrude at Fort Abercrombie.  The snow on the ice corned up and even where it was bare ice the surface was soft enough to edge in.  It was perfect.  And the lake is still frozen solid too.  In the shade of the trees at the south end of the lake the snow was actually still frozen and crispy.  It was nice to rotate between the blasting sunshine out on the lake and the cool shade under the trees.  We did a bunch of laps and it was MUCH easier than it had been yesterday at the golf course.  No hills and rocket ship fast.

This is what I call 'ego snow' for skate skiing.  Good technique is not required at all to go fast.  But of course you really fly and with no work at all with good technique.

Patrick