Boots on the Ground

You know how you notice something, then wonder if it's just you, then someone else says exactly what you were thinking? I can't explain the science of it, or lack thereof, but some of us have noticed that somebody has flipped the light switch on up here. Last Friday, for the first time, it was literally hot in my office because the afternoon sun was so intense. The sun is easily twice as high in the sky as two months ago. And we've picked up over 4 hours of light per day already (which is kind of a big deal when at bottom you hit 5.5 hours).

What does it all mean? Time to come out of hibernation. But rest easy bears. Me first!

A couple weeks ago I hit the nearby, much celebrated Turnagain Arm. Sun, snow, moose - the perfect February vacation destination!

It was nice to see a couple moose along the way. I've seen snowshoe hare up in Denali in summer, when they are all brown, then in fall, when their legs turn white. By winter, they are all white. Moose legs, as you can see, also turn white during the fall, but that's it - the rest stays brown all winter. I wonder what the purpose of that is? I really don't know.

Anyway, it was pretty nice out (supposedly in the teens, but with the sun & a little physical exertion I only had a thin long-sleeved T and a regular T on). It looks almost solid, but all of that ice is flowing in and out with the tide:

I like all the giant ovals of ice out there - I think of them as Alaskan lilypads:

And, at risk of redundancy, it was AWESOME out this past weekend, though colder with the wind, so I was back at it - same trailhead, opposite direction (so I guess not that redundant).

We're headed up to the top of the peak on the left - well, almost to the top. It got too sketchy on the steep side trail to the top with snow/ice over loose, shattered rock. Close enough though.

Not surprisingly, there was a nice bull moose on the trail. With that schnoz and hump, reminiscent of camels, aren't they?

Moose are warriors. There is NOTHING green to eat out there all winter, so they walk around in the freezing cold and eat wood. Wood. They have persevered here for a long time. They are to be respected. And they always keep their eye on you:

They stayed out there unsheltered all winter, while a lot of us cozied up indoors. But now, it's time for more boots on the ground, with my ice-gripping Yak Trax courtesy of my pops:

So, a little huffing and puffing aside, you've got a good spot to just sit, relax, listen to the wind, and watch the ice go by. And how about that blue sky?

It's gotten so bright and pretty warm out (upper 20's), I'm trying not to get spoiled. I remember last year it was FREEZING at the Iditarod, and that's still over a week away. It is gorgeous here now, but I think maybe winter still has a few tricks up her sleeve.

Our Shadows Taller Than Our Souls

The sun has set on the winter solstice.

On the count of three, everyone lean south...

One...

Two...

Three!!!

Did you feel that? We tilted back toward the sun!!! It may not get too light too soon, but today was the darkest it's going to get, and we're headed back from hardly any light to more light than we know what to do with. I know it's going to take a while to really feel, but every day for the next six months will be longer and brighter than the last, and that is a good thing.

I took that picture after lunch today - that's pretty low/dim sun for 2:15 pm!!!

Out of the Blue, And Into the Black

Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean toward each other, black and ominous, in the fading light.

A vast silence reigned over the land.

The land itself was desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness - a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the Sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility.

It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life.

It was the Wild,
the savage, frozen-hearted Northern Wild.

Jack London,
White Fang

WINTER SOLSTICE.

SUNRISE: 10:14 am.
SUNSET: 3:42 p.m.

Hibernation

I swear there will be blog.

But when the sun only seems to come out while you're at work and never on weekends, and it stays only a few inches above the horizon, and otherwise you get 3:15 p.m. lighting like this (along the obscured Turnagain Arm at the onset of a major snowstorm):

...it ain't too easy to photograph & post!!!

Fifteen days 'til Winter Solstice! Only fifteen days!!!

"Justice Delayed is Justice Denied"

Well, not always.

You can go ahead and put your hands down - no glove to try on this time.