Crash

Last weekend Stuey and his friend Elias got out the old blocks and built houses and towers.  It turned into a game of 'how high can we build the tower'.  And then once built, 'let's see it crash down'.  They would get it built up super tall and then stand on the stool and drop blocks down into the core of the structure.  Sometimes it still would not collapse and they would pull a leg at the bottom.  

CRASH

Hours of entertainment - or at least a couple anyway.

Patrick

Bombs away

Here is goes . .. .

Red, White and Gray

Yesterday was supposed to be gloomy and wet, but when I woke up it was a glorious sunny day.  Nora called and asked if I would take her skiing.  It looked like it would be a perfect day.  But first we had to wait until the afternoon and let the sunshine warm up the snow.  I was hoping for sun warmed corn snow.

Then just before I picked her up to go skiing it clouded over and got gloomy.  Away we went anyway. Up at the pass we found that despite the clouds the sun had done its work and the snow was soft.  Later, I talked with some skiers who went early in the sunshine and they had encountered rock hard conditions - ice and ruts.

So it ended up perfect - we skinned up the hill and did one long run.  Nora carved her turns in the deep corn snow.  When we got to the bottom she wanted to go back up for another run.  I was tempted, and while we were contemplating putting the skins back on the skis it started to rain.  Time to go home!  Patrick

100 Days

My snow shadow on the 99th day

My New Year's resolution was to go skiing 100 consecutive days, and do well in the Tour of Anchorage ski race.  I figured activity would keep me happy.  Yesterday (with the last 4 days of 2017 included) I achieved the 100 consecutive days goal, and earlier in March I did well in the Tour of Anchorage.  So I guess I've completed my New Years Resolution!  Actually I still intend to stay active and focused on hobbies which was the whole point of the resolution.

Nora has been taking my 100 days consecutive thing more seriously than me - last weekend she was sick on Sunday but she wanted me to leave her at home and take Stuey to the pass so I could keep up the streak.  Now she wants me to make 150 consecutive ski days, and as soon as I finished skiing yesterday she had me post a ski picture celebrating 100 days on Instagram.  At the Film Festival last night she was telling everyone that I had just skied 100 consecutive days.

My daily ski routine is to get off work at 1PM and go skiing.  Then I rush back and help Nora with her paper route.  Before she gets home I bag up all the papers and have a snack ready and waiting for her.  Stuey does his paper route with his mother.  Nora walks/bikes the Cliffside portion of her route and then I drive her around to the stops further afield.  It is good daddy/daughter time.  We talk about all sorts of stuff - 45 minutes that I spend with Nora every day.

Patrick

Ski tracks with me in them from the 100th day - it was a little soft for good skate skiing

Downhill ski tracks from the 99th day 

Kodiak Outdoor Film Festival

In just an hour the doors open for the Island Trails Network Kodiak Island Film Festival.  It is at the Kodiak Convention Center and the films start showing at 7PM.  It is ITNs big membership drive and the event is free for members or you can become a member at the door!

I submitted a film about an archaeological survey I did of Afognak Lake for the Afognak Native Corporation way back in October.  It shows what I do while on an archaeological survey.  You can watch it on Youtube at the link below.

https://youtu.be/fW7AGw1xTYs

Tilting at Windmills

The windmills on the hill behind town look small from down below, but when you get up close they are HUGE.  Gigantic and most definitely not natural features on the landscape.  Whenever I see them up close I think of the Cervantes character Don Quixote.  The guy from literature who is famous for mistaking windmills for giants and jousting or 'tilting' with them.

I looked up Don Quixote on Wikipedia and found the following quote:

Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, "Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless."

"What giants?" asked Sancho Panza.

"Those you see over there," replied his master, "with their long arms. Some of them have arms well nigh two leagues in length."

"Take care, sir," cried Sancho. "Those over there are not giants but windmills. Those things that seem to be their arms are sails which, when they are whirled around by the wind, turn the millstone."

— Part 1, Chapter VIII. Of the valourous Don Quixote's success in the dreadful and never before imagined Adventure of the Windmills, with other events worthy of happy record.

'Tilting at windmills' has become synonymous for fighting off imaginary foes - a romantic cluelessness.  In college I took a class about Medieval 'Romance' Literature where we learned all about knights etc - Don Quixote was the last book we read.  By the time it was written Chivalry was dead and 'Knights in Shining Armor' were very much obsolete. They had become a joke. The longbow, firearms, and mass infantry tactics had long since made knights obsolescent, but they still saw themselves as important.  Anyway, that's the point of 'Tilting at Windmills'.

But when I look up at those windmills I can see why Don Quixote was so confused.  They do look like giants.  Giants grinding away to turn wind into electricity - no longer used to turn the millstone and make flour.  But their arms are still 2 leagues long, and up close there is the whirring whoosh of the blades cutting the air, and every once in a while the cranking noise as gears engage and turn the heads of the giants.

I really do believe they are giants.  But rather than joust with them I am content to let them grind away and keep the lights on.  Patrick

Landscapes with me in them

This winter I have been taking a lot of 'snowscapes'.  I go out for my afternoon ski and take pictures.  And the scenery just happens to be gorgeous and snowy.  Nora tells me I take too many snowscapes.  She claims that I post so many to Instagram that it is getting boring.  She exclaims, 'No more pictures of snow daddy'. I like snow and I like to look at snowy landscapes.  That said, I understand how to the untrained eye they might all start to blur together.

So yesterday I tried to put myself in the landscape photos.  Not self portraits of me skiing, per se, but more like of me in the landscape.  Put me in there for scale and maybe make the landscape photo interesting in a different way.  Optimally, I'd have someone else to put in the landscape, but since it is generally only me skiing with me on my daily skis I had to put me in the landscapes.

So yesterday I tried balancing my camera on a rock and using the self timer to catch myself out in the landscape.  I had mixed results.  My best landscapes did not have me in them. Since the view from a camera on a rock is so low to the ground I could only get good views of me looking down into shallow bowls.  I found that most of my best landscapes had to be taken from high up off the ground.

So next time I think I am going to start bringing a tall tripod.  Patrick

Nora's First Tour

Yesterday was Gorgeous.  So was today.  We've been getting a lot of bluebird days of late.  Hard frosts at night and mid 40s and sunny during the day.  In the afternoon I took Nora for a ski tour with Shanna.  Shanna is off to Utah to become a Physicians Assistant and yesterday was her last ski.  So it was Nora's first tour and Shanna's last ski.  We expect Shanna back so it is not her last ski on Kodiak ever - just the last time this year.

Nora has climbed up the mountain and skied down quite a few times over the last few years, but yesterday rather than just climb up a mountain and then go back down we went exploring.  We skinned up into the hills and did a long loop with no backtracking.  This entailed removing the climbing skins from the skis and then putting them back on a few times.

This is backcountry skiing at its best - touring and exploring!  Nora was in Heaven.

Patrick