More dogs on ice

 

Not much snow around here lately but there is plenty of ice.  Anchorage has been getting tons of snow which is a little funny because we have not even been getting all that much rain.  But it is supposed to get snowy this week - just in time for Christmas.  Fingers crossed.

Anyway, I've been cross country skiing on the crust at the pass and taking the dogs ice skating.  Yesterday, Nora and I took them to Lake Gertrude at Abercrombie.  It was pretty good ice.  The dogs followed us all around the lake.  I'd skate backwards and take pictures of them as they chased me - turn quick and they slide away.  

Patrick

Doggies can't corner on ice like I can!

Ski Chalet Rope Tow

 

Back in the day there was a pretty fancy ski chalet at the pass.  The Army built it during WWII and then the Navy maintained it until the Coast Guard took over.  There is a pretty good website on all the old ski areas in Alaska if you want to read more and see lots of pictures from back in the day (Click here for website link). Anyway sometime between the 1960's and 1980s the ski chalet burned down. The Coast Guard did build a new chalet on the old spot but it is nowhere near as classy as the old one.  When I started skiing up there in the mid 1990s the Coast Guard was still operating a ski tow, but they stopped operating it and now that tow is disappearing into the brush.  

Anyway, yesterday the skiing was pretty bad so I went exploring in my cross country skis with the dogs.  I went and checked out where the WWII rope tow went up the hill.  I've known about the tow towers but had never carefully checked where the tow started up the hill.  So I beat into the brush and checked it out.  I was surprised to find that the rope for the rope tow is still there!  As is all the old machinery that used to pull skiers up the hill.  Pretty cool!

Checking out the website linked above I looked at the map they made of the area (see bottom photo) and I was struck by how they had their own names for all the little hills and lakes etc.  We have our own names for these places today.  They were doing the same things we do today.  I must say I'd love to meet Jeanette Griswold the lady who made the map. She'd clearly have some pretty good stories, and she knew her plants too.

Patrick

The machinery is in the brush and you can see the tow towers going up the hill

Inside the old ski chalet

An old map from 1947 - it shows all their names for the places they knew and loved

Hunt Videos

 

Hunting season is LONG over and it is the time of year when we grind burger (on an upcoming weekend) and watch hunting videos. I don't like to post hunting videos until after the permit draw lottery is closed - no need to get other hunters excited about say elk hunting on Afognak and having them put in for the same draws I want to get.  It would lower my odds.  So at 5PM today the lottery draw closed, and now it is time to post links to both a south end deer hunt, and to our annual elk hunt.  Philip made the elk video and as usual he did an amazing job.

I took some stills from my deer video and posted them here.  I kind a liked the top one - it is a double exposure as the video blends from one clip to the other.  Kinda artsy.  I looked closely at the deer in the video and realized it is what is colloquially known as a 'steer deer'.  These are male deer that for some reason do not have testicles.  They tend to be very fat - best eating deer there are! - and never lose the velvet on their antlers.  They also tend to have wacky antler configurations.  As you can see in the 2 pictures below this deer still had velvet in late September, was VERY fat, and had multiple eye guards.  I strongly suspect he was a steer deer.  We should have harvested him!

Anyway you can see him running away on the video - we had already shot a deer and had no interest in harvesting him.

Here are the links to the videos:

South end deer hunt 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juXsy6tx8YQ

2022 Afognak elk hunt:

https://vimeo.com/760677406

Enjoy!

Skating before the storm

 

Saturday was cold, yesterday was warm, and today it is cold again.  But tomorrow it is supposed to be warm again. And so it goes all week - oscillating between warm/wet and cold/icy.  And every day the weather forecast seems to change - one day they are calling for snow on Thursday, the next they are calling for rain. It's going to be a wild week of weather and no one seems to know anything except it's going to be unpredictable.

Basically, a jet of warm air has set up from Hawaii to the Gulf of Alaska - a 'pineapple express' - but it is whipping back and forth like a weed in the current.  When Kodiak is to the west of the jet it gets the cold polar air, but when the jet moves west then Kodiak gets all the warm air from Hawaii. Unless it goes really far west and takes all the warm air to the Aleutians! I just hope it stays more East than West or goes really far West.

When it was still cold Nora and I took the dogs ice skating at Abercrombie.  The ice was very smooth and we did a few laps around the lake with the doggies chasing us.  Then yesterday I took Bodi up Pyramid to go skiing.  It seems we got a few inches of slush before it warmed up into the 40s.

Patrick

Yesterday on Pyramid - warm and wet right up to 2000 feet

Slush and fog

Moon over Pillar

 

Driving in to work Friday morning I noticed that the nearly full moon was setting behind Pillar Mountain above town.  Back in the day I repeatedly tried to capture this image but never actually managed it.  I was always just a little late, no or wrong camera, or the day it was to happen the weather would not be right (click here for post, click her for another). Finally I just photoshopped the moon into one of my attempts (click here for post).

Anyway, Yesterday I had my chance!  And I sort of blew it again.  I forgot to change my camera speed setting down from 1/1000 of a second so the pictures ended up really high ISO and look very grainy.  I had set the speed high while skating with the dogs the night before.  Oh well.

In any case, looking back at the pictures I did take back in the day I think I did pretty good.  I also like the ones where I went further across the bridge and could see more of town.  I'll go for that view the next time I drive to town and see that the conditions are right - like once in a blue moon.

Patrick

=

Afternoon light at the house

Sunsets on the Lake at Abercrombie

This week in the 'evening' I've been taking the dogs for walks on the ice at the park. The sun has been setting behind the trees at around 3:30 so it's an early evening. Then it's followed by a long sunset and does not get dark until around 4:45. This week the sunsets were particularly spectacular because they coincided with a full moon rising out of the ocean.

 Earlier in the week there was enough snow that I skate skied while they trotted along after me.  But later in the week the high winds blew all the snow off the ice and I switched to skates.  It's been a windy week, but the trees around the lake keep it mostly in the lee.  It's been one of the calmest places around.  

Nothing like skating in the sunshine with the dogs trotting along beside.

Patrick

Things we saw

 

'Teddy bear' Cholla 

This is my final Arizona vacation post, and it is mostly pictures of plants and landscapes we saw on our various hikes.  I am not much of a botanist but I knew most of the common cactus names off the top of my head.  But the yellow flower seen below did stump me and I tried to find it on the internet.  

I also was not sure of the fishhook pincushion cactus and looked it up too.  We ate some of the fruit on that one, and I wanted to check on this.  It turns out that the fruit is fine - the barrel cactus supposedly has good fruit too.  So next time I'll try that one.  Here is a link to commonly eaten cactus fruit (but does not include the small fishhook pincushion)  https://matadornetwork.com/read/can-you-eat-cactus-edible-cacti/

Here is a link to the Fishhook pincushion cactus and and their edible fruit.   https://skyislandalliance.org/2021/10/friday-flora-feature-arizona-fishhook-pincushion-mammillaria-grahamii/

What's ironic is that while we were in Arizona we bought a few dragonfruit at Safeway.  It turns out they are a cactus fruit!  I had no idea.

Saguaro and Ocatillo 

Hedgehog cactus

Not sure what flower this is - Narrow-leaf Goldenbrush? Ericameria linearifolia? 

I did not look very closely at the rest of this plant while taking the picture.  But it does seem to have narrow leaves and the little bristly seed pods (see upper right in photo), blooms in the fall, and it is in the right habitat.  Here is a link where I found it described:  http://www.arizonensis.org/sonoran/fieldguide/plantae/ericameria_linearifolia.html

Barrel Cactus close up

Cottonwood trees

Date palm tree

Greasewood, Staghorn (in middle) and Palo Verde trees

'fishhook' pincushion cactus (Mammillaria grahamii) - we ate some of the red fruit

Blue Tank Canyon - That's 'Red Peak' peeking up behind hill in middle

Wickenburg Mural