35th Anniversary

Its the 35th Anniversary of the first Christmas which I skied. For 36 Christmas', each and every year since the first one, I've gone cross country skiing. Always after opening presents and before dinner, its usually a couple hour event where we can celebrate the day. No Food, no commercialism but outdoors with ourselves and our dogs. After all these years, its a special event or tradition of its own. It started as a way to blow off some steam before going to dinner with some friends, when I first left home to go to college. At one point I think we had something like 30 folks skiing with us. Nowadays, its just Nicki, myself, the dogs and either some close friends and neighbors.





Two happy Christmas skiers.


Its a great time, too bad it only comes around once a year :)

Powder Burns

We had a great snow for about a week. Four five days, every day we were on the receiving end of 3 or 4 inches of fine light powder. The kind that falls at temps below 10degF or -11degC. Some folks would call it champagne powder. We'd get home from work, eat a quick dinner, harness the dogs and load them and the skis up and head to the state park about 5 minutes from the house. Going to work Dead Tired was fun.

The best was Thursday evening where it was snowing so hard the headlamp was worthless. 12 inches of powder on a hard base. I couldn't see and both Valley in lead and Rocket were pulling me out into the darkness. They stopped, I wondered why but with the headlamp on low I could see enough, that this was our normal stopping and turning around spot. They knew exactly where they were, how they got there and were ready to head home. Without them I wouldn't have known how I got there. They didn't seem to care about the deep snow, the darkness or the falling snow. They were out to have fun. Fundogs they are.

Then the wind kicked up. 55 mph winds for a few days. I am not sure where our powder went but its gone.

Our neighbor Amy slicing a turn on our new found hard snow.


And Valley disappearing in a 55 mph wind gust.


Wishing you, a very merry holiday season, and a healthy 2010.

Menage a Trois

Happy Thanksgiving!

We decided to run the dogs today before our big feed. We both hooked up the three of them and gave them a run. 45 mph winds and I am not sure if it was snowing or not, since 4 inches of snow fell last night and it was blowing around pretty good.

Here I am behind the 3.


Nicki behind the 3.


Menage A Trois

Fun Runner

Babe loves to run, even with somebody behind her attached to her on a leash. There is probably nothing more enjoyable to her.






and despite that face, Nicki is not about ready to drop.


She's a great dog to skijor with :) Looks like a great season ahead for us.

Polar Bear Dog

Rocket encounters a Polar Bear on a frigid Alaska night lit by the full moon. Malamutes were used by the Inupiat to hunt sea mammals including polar bears on the ice on the Northwest Coast of Alaska. Instincts play out in an age old tradition of Malamute vs Polar Bear.


Rocket eyes the Polar Bear and judging by the look on his face he's not happy its around.


Rocket makes the nab.


Taking the bear back for some punishment.


I have seen this behavior for decades now, the Polar Bear is doomed.


gut Shot


Ouch, that has to hurt. You can almost hear the bear bellowing.


Sniffing to see if there is any remaining life. Its The End for this bear!

Weathering Heights

We helped the friends of the Chugach National Forest Avalanche Information Center by hauling a weather station up to Fresno Ridge, pulling the old one off and putting the new one on. They made this real easy for us to do. A clap on the back to Crane Johnson.

Here's Rocket supervising our work. The main controller box also contains the temperature, humidity, and pressure gauge on on this unit. Its found in the middle of our crap, I mean packs. We put this unit on after taking the old unit off.


This is Thomas bolting the main unit on the tripod.


This is Thomas attaching the anenometer wire to the pole. We don't want anything flapping in the wind.


Taking a break after finishing the work.


Heading home. Rocket carried the tools, about 10 pounds, in his pack. Thomas and I alternated carrying the weather station up in my pack. Thomas carried the old weather station down. Thomas has the old weather station in his pack.


It was foggy or cloudy all day but only enveloped us at the weather station. Fun day, and glad we could help folks out. We'll be watching the weather in the Summit area for skiing this winter :) Now were talking fun~!

Pineapple Express

What's a funhog to do when he wakes up and finds its 61 deg F outside? What a sock in the chops. Those gosh darn blocking highs and fronts moving in from the south put an end to our early ski season. Well, we put on the hiking shoes, make up a lunch and take the dogs out for a hike.




The place was empty besides a few moose, a bunch of Dall Sheep up high, and this Raven. Just a fifteen feet off the trail. He watched us walk by. Valley was interested in him but I just couldn't see the Raven letting her sniff his rump. I don't know Ravens too well but I don't think they act like dogs very often.




The pretty girl on the last break of the day.

Mother Nature teams with Old Man Winter

Mother Nature teamed with Old Man Winter last night and produced the goods. 3 or 4 inches of snow on my deck. Well what's a funhog to do? Grab the skis, a fundog and go skijoring.







this would have lasted longer but my skis slipped out from underneath me and I ended up on my back LOL

Season opener, game on!

In the Throne Room of the Mountain Goat

We saw a goat way down low and thought we might want to check it out. So we crossed the creek walked a ways then saw him again on the ridge. So we moved one gully over and climbed about 1500 feet give or take. Valley ran to the end of the line. I peered over and snapped the photo on full zoom


Same "pic" but with no zoom


It sure is great hiking in their realm, peace,quiet and beauty. What a lucky day to happen upon a goat.

Here Valley is on the return back in the valley off the ridge.


Another spectacular day in the mountains.

Last Weekend of Summer

We decided to spend our last weekend of summer east of Denali National
Park in the Alaska Range soaking up the sun and fall colors.

Here's Valley right before our camp:


Two Lovebirds in Camp:


Jago(Babe) out on patrol around camp while we are cooking:


Rocket with his turn checking things out during our breakfast


Out on a day hike from camp, entering a hanging canyon:


Valley settling down for lunch:


Here are some caribou we scared up.


Happy Valley at the head of the hanging valley.


View out the opposite direction:


All things must end, here we are on the way out.


Big dogs are really small dogs in the big picture. Looking out into
Denali National Park and the Parks highway.


It was one of our best summers ever, we are looking forward to an
early winter season with lots of skijoring.

Tincan Garbage Can

Tincan is a place where we backcountry telemark ski. I was there once last year skiing and once cleaning up. Its a very popular place so every year I make a trip in with a big pack and pickup garbage. Its easy to hike into, with a bit of chest high "grasses" to wade through before we hit the alpine. This year there were lots of brown bottles, but before you jump to any conclusions, they were all budweiser ales. I also snagged a good snow shovel, so if you know anybody who is missing this one, let me know.

on the north side of Tincan, where we headed so the dogs could get some water.


Looking over at the Eddies ski site, not too much frost action going on in Turnagain Pass


Looking up Ingram Creek


On a hot day like today, we were happy to find a snowbank to chill on.


Looking up at Kickstep.

Antimony Creek

For 30 years I've wanted to hike in these mountains. I finally struck gold after looking at topo maps, a road atlas and google earth. I picked a few likely candidate places for hikes with minimal bushwacking and hit a home run with my first road stop.

Our objective:


What it looks like at the head of the Valley.


Partners:


I wonder what Rocket was looking at?


It was a smokey day from the fires in the interior of Alaska. There is a whole other mountain range across the valley, we might even be able to see Denali on a clear day.