Skiing Akutan

 

Summit caldera and cinder cone

Back in the late 1990s I'd go to Dutch Harbor with my dog Katie for the end of the summer. I'd finish with my Kodiak archaeological fieldwork and then would go on vacation to Dutch for more fieldwork. The last year (1998) I took my skis along with me. I did some skiing near town during July, but then got invited to ski and climb Akutan Volcano. 

So a group of us took the commercial goose to Akutan. Katie dog rode in my lap. One guy was guiding a lady who was creating a film about volcanos while me and John Picard intended to just ski the volcano. The first night we slept in the church and the next day away we hiked to the base of Akutan where we set up a base camp.

The next day John and I set out to climb the volcano. It is about 4300 feet high, and I realized it would be the most vertical from bottom to top that I'd ever done.  So I asked John what was the most vertical he'd ever climbed.  And he replied, 'I guess that would be Denali'.

We got to the caldera but it was super windy and a total white out. So we decided to quit and ski back down. But then on the hike back to camp, just as we got to about where the picture just below was taken, it totally cleared off and got nice. So we decided to give it another try and turned around and climbed up again. And this time we made it.

The volcano had recently erupted and I remember that there were bubbling springs of hot water and often bright yellow or red. Also the snow was very icy and covered with volcanic grit.  I remember that we got in something like 2000 feet vertical with each ski run.

Patrick

That's Akutan and the snow we skied down on

On the summit - it was a sheer cliff down into the caldera behind me and I held Katie Dog tight!

Looking back towards where we started hike in the distance on far right is the village of Akutan

Cooking for an empty nest

 

Gyro donair leftovers (click here for recipe)

Stuey and Nora are both off to college and it is just the doggies and I here on Cliffside Road. These days I am cooking meals just for me. Initially, at the end of summer, I thought this was just great. This Summer and Fall I did all the cooking in my hunting and archaeology field camps, and I was tired of preparing meals for other people. So I was happily heating up 'TV dinners' and frozen pizzas in the oven for my own consumption. I particularly like Marie Collender pot pies.

But this is not very healthy, and it's also expensive.  Then consider that I have something like 200 pounds of prime game meat in the freezer in addition to all the carrots, garlic and potatoes from my garden.  I also like to cook. But with no one to cook for I have discovered an immediate problem - leftovers. I'll cook up a recipe that Stuey and Nora would finish in a sitting, and I'd be eating it every meal for 3 days.

So I've been thinking of new ways to cook. I talked to a friend of mine who also cooks for just himself and he says he cooks lots of soups, and sort of mixes and matches. I've tried cooking things that I can eat in different ways.  Like the gyros shown above.  I made gyro wraps for the first meal, and then put the meat on a greek salad for another meal.  I could have also frozen the gyro 'meatloaf' and saved it for another day.

I am also thinking of making smaller meals.  Maybe thaw a big deer roast and have half as a stir fry and then use the other half for steak and eggs for breakfast and another steak the next night? The last 2 days I ate deer chili because I do not mind eating that multiple times. Anyway, I don't have the answer yet, but I am bound and determined to not go the lazy TV dinner route!

Patrick

First tracks of the season

 

Yesterday the weather was very much Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - at times awful and then sunny. There were  big thunderheads overhead and nasty squalls with lots of rain and wind periodically moving through town.  You could see new snow on all the mountaintops so I grabbed my backcountry cross country skis and the dogs and head up to the pass. 

Just as I got to the golf course it started to pour rain mixed with sleet and blow and it was so nasty at the pass that I was about to just turn around and go to Abercrombie. But then suddenly it stopped raining and just like that the sun came out. And so I headed on up with the dogs.

There was actually less snow up there than I expected but there was just enough to scamper around a bit on the cross country skis. I did a few short 'sled' runs with the dogs chasing me, and then we headed back down. It was gorgeous with the sunshine, the white white snow, and the fog whipping past in the wind.

And then when were almost to the car it started to pour rain and blow!

Patrick

Moments earlier it had been pouring

Dog Ice

 

Yesterday morning I was shocked to see that it was 21 degrees outside.  That's way colder than any of the frosts so far this fall.  I am not even sure if we had cracked 30 degrees here in town prior to yesterday. The day before yesterday none of the ponds around town had even the barest hint of skim ice. It had been too warm.  But temperatures in the low 20's have a way of jump starting winter.

On my way to the car I found that my garden hose had frozen solid.  I tried to drain it and left it as a long line on the lawn to hopefully thaw and drain downhill. Then I went with the dogs to check if there was any ice on the 'seismic' pond.

I expected maybe some skim ice or 'cat ice' - instead I found a sheet of ice 3/4 of an inch thick. Way more ice than I expected.  It even held up the dogs. Bode is too smart to go out on thin ice but Rey and Red did, and it held them up. .. barely. The lake is super shallow so even if they did fall through they could walk right out. I was actually sort of hoping that they would learn about thin ice. But the ice just bowed and cracked and held.

Hopefully it stays cold for a couple more days and the ice thickens up so I can get in some skating!

Patrick

This is a VERY shallow lake and the water level is low so falling through ice does not have a high penalty

First dusting

 

Yesterday when I took the dogs up Pyramid I was surprised to find it covered with a dusting of new snow. The first snow fall of the year on Pyramid. It was a very localized storm and did not even make to nearby Barometer. Unfortunately, even by my low standards, is not enough snow for skiing. But it certainly made everything pretty, and the dogs loved rolling in it, and sliding down the hill on their backs.

On the way up I noticed fresh bear tracks in the snow going down. At first I was a little alarmed but I closely inspected the tracks and determined that they were made just after the snow fell and before the ground froze hard. So the bear walked down the mountain in the evening the day before we went up. What I found a little funny was that the bear was slipping and sliding all over the place. I have always thought of bears as very nimble and sure on their feet, but this bear was having issues.

Patrick

Bear tracks in the new snow - I noticed that he/she slipped a lot

Late October

 

The elk hunt is over, it's late October, and hunting season is done for the year. It's time to get ready for skiing! And this week on my dog walks I noticed ice in the puddles, and back in the mountains a thick mantle of termination dust.  I even experienced some flurries. Winter is coming!

In my yard my Cotoneaster berries seem huge this year.  I even contemplated making something out of them, but it turns out they are poisonous - not fit for human consumption. But I do know that birds love them. In the past I have seen big flocks of waxbills descend on the bushes and eat every berry.  This is usually in late November/ early December. Birders tell me that the waxbills eat all the ornamental tree berries in Anchorage and then fly south to eat Kodiak's berries. You only see waxbills on Kodiak in town and only in early winter. I wonder where they go after they eat all of Kodiak's berries? How did they find out about Kodiak's berries? Questions to ponder.

Patrick

The bear in these photos was fishing for salmon near the outlet to Buskin Lake. As I was driving home from a dog walk I saw him/her downstream from the car as I drove over the bridge.  I stopped and took a few pictures before he/she noticed me watching, huffed, and discretely disappeared into the bushes.

Cotoneaster berries - in a few weeks the waxbills from the mainland will come down to Kodiak and eat all of these and the Mountain Ash berries

Termination dust on Sharatin - it looks like enough snow for skiing!

A mountain ash without berries