Falling In

One of the nearby mountains is named "Holy Mountain". It has several large bowl depressions that look like God took his fingers and pressed down to make the bowls. These bowls also are great to ski. Most years there is enough snow cover to take snow-machines to the top of the mountain, but this years extremely low snow fall made it impossible to even get to the mountain on snowmachine. That is where a ski-plane comes in handy, plenty of snow on top (or so we thought), plenty of adventure to get there.
The plan was to pile all three of us in the plane, fly up to Lake Kontrashibuna, drop our extra gas and one person. The remaining skier would ride to the top and bail out, Leo (the pilot) would then go check the landing zone for pickup and finally go back, get the last skier and drop them off at the top. The plan ended up working great. I was beginning to wonder if maybe we should have checked out the pickup spot before being abandoned on the top of the mountain, but as it turned out, there was nothing to worry about. We got two good runs in, one from each side of the bowl, watched the plane trigger several small avalanches while taking off, and enjoyed some awesome scenery.
Upon returning home I was informed that my youngest daughter was quite distraught about her Papa skiing Holy Mountain, "I don't want Papa to fall in the holes!"

The Mountain




The Bowls


The Top


Making Tracks


Leo and I on the way up


Getting Dropped Off


Our "Lift Ticket"


At the Top


Waiting for a Lift


Headed Home, Holy Mountain in the background

Learning to Fly

Putting skis on an airplane may seem like an absurd idea to some, but to others it means unbridled freedom. The snow magically transforms uneven terrain, brush, and trees into a suitable place to land, unlocking miles of inaccessible wilderness. I never have flown skis, so it seemed about time to learn how. With the help of an instructor friend and his trusty Stinson 10A, I discovered why ski flying is so much fun.

47X


First successful ski landing


Leo and his plane

The Old Man Down the Road

As Spring tries to emerge from what has turned out to be a rather mild winter in both temperature and snowfall, we find the ever increasing amount of daylight being offered to us a welcomed change to the blanket of darkness that is at the heart of an Alaskan winter. We decided to take advantage of this new daylight by hiking up to see Tanalian Falls. After dropping the kids off at AWANA, we had an hour and a half to get there and back. We made it back just in time to greet the kids as they came out of the church.

The trail home


Tanalian Falls


Bran and I

Dear Agony

A brief stay in Palmer for dentist checkups allowed us to put a perfect Saturday to good use and take the family sledding in Hatcher's Pass.
Driving the familiar switchbacks brought back memories of learning to ski on second hand boards and going for the biggest air we could imagine. If it looked like there was a chance for some serious bodily injury, it was fair game, and the more insane the better. It was a good indicator that I was getting older when I would find myself standing at the top of a run wondering what this would feel like in the morning. In my later years I would get a little wiser and start the morning with and Ibuprofen cocktail and end it with ice packs.
Today however was all about sledding, armed with a picnic lunch and a trunk full of sleds and inner-tubes we ventured out to play in the snow.

View from the Top


View from the Bottom


First Run


A Beautiful View


Taking a Break


Waiting our Turn


Ready to Go


Money Shot!


The below picture is unofficially sponsored by Advil.
"Advil: All of the fun, with none of the pain"

Ice Road Truckers meets Mad Max

It is already the middle of March and only now do we finally have good enough ice and semi-adequate snow cover in the woods to get firewood. With spring now quickly approaching and the weather being highly unpredictable we need to get as much wood cut and hauled from up the lake as quickly as possible. The little Nissan truck can hold the equivalent of two snowmachine sled loads so it was the obvious choice to try first. It is only two wheel drive, so with chains as required equipment, and speed giving the ability to persevere through deepening snow drifts, off I drove, pedal down. The vehicle required constant correction to maneuver the truck around the deepest parts of the snowdrifts as the rear wheels were almost constantly spinning on either glare ice or powdered snow. Add a stiff cross wind into the equation and it was quite a ride, sashaying back and forth, trying to impact the snowdrifts straight-on rather than sideways, and keeping the speed up to punch through the drifts with and explosive plume of powder. Most of the time my windshield is covered in snow and since the windshield wipers don't work I am driving with the window rolled down and my head out to be able to see.
This system worked quite well for awhile, the poor little truck however, happened to be missing the inner fender-well on the left-hand side, and why not? it doesn't have a bumper, working headlights, or half a rear window either. The missing fender-well is not a big deal, except this is where the air intake was and soon the air filter and the intake hose were clogged with snow. Evidently when this unusual phenomenon happens it creates enough suction from the throttle body to suck engine oil into the throttle body. This results in a giant cloud of blue smoke (burning oil) and a complete loss of engine power. So, there I sit, exactly halfway from nowhere, cleaning snow from the air filter and disconnecting the hose from the fender inlet. As luck would have it, the truck started, once again allowing me to rocket across the frozen lake with a rhythmic spray of powder with each drift I conquered.
On occasion a snow drift will have a hard enough center to actually drive the truck on top of without sinking into the snow. This is desirable unless you are traveling at a high rate of speed with a load of fresh cut logs on the back, then it becomes a launch pad. Murphy's law comes into full force and the heaviest, largest log you spent the better of 5 minutes wrestling up on the truck, jettisons itself off with a complete disregard for the impending pain and agony you will now endure loading it again. To make matters worse, I realize only to late that the seemingly small snowdrift the truck came to rest in is actually another larger drift with a hard center of which the truck is now high-centered on. Lucky for me I have a load of sticks to use to dig myself out with........

One of the other wood haulers (using a snowmachine) eventually came along and we went back to get the tractor and pushed it out of the drift. Needless to say, I quickly switched to the snowmachine and sled.

1990 something Nissan whatchamacallit


Me and My Ride