A Pleasant Stroll

Actually, my day started out with another little surprise. When I let the dog out this morning (at 6:30 in the AM), I saw my first little tweeter bird; I haven't seen any all winter long. I know the harsh cold had to have taken a hit on them. I found a little frozen body some years ago that looked like it had been blown out of a tree. I didn't find any such thing this year, but the absence of their cheerful chatter said that either they had migrated (I hope) somewhere further south, or that something much more dire had happened to them. I have yet to hear them twittering to each other so this one little guy doesn't have anyone to sing to yet.

But in other pleasant news: Since we have been expecting to need to babysit the boats through breakup, I have been doing my best to make it down to the boats from time to time. It's been unnaturally warm over the last couple weeks, and the snow has been melting fast. I have also kept in contact with the lodge for river news. Since the entire winter was so abysmally cold all winter long, we expected breakup to come with the roar of an ice dragon (note, I didn't say 'lion'). Instead, unless it somehow isn't over yet, it came rather like a kitten, leaving the water quite low.

I walked down there on the 30th of April to discover that pretty much all of the portion of river I could see was clear leaving only our runway floating free but still in one piece. Surprise me, but if I didn't know that there was probably a lot of intact snow still blocking the narrower channels further up river, there might have been enough water to drive the boat completely out. But I say that just as an indication of what the level of water was, not that it was at all drivable.

Knowing the snow on the trail was soft (it hadn't frozen at night for several nights in a row), I wore my snowshoes. I took the dog with me too; she does take her duty as guard dog quite seriously and gets upset with I take off without her. She is getting old and she was having some trouble with the soft snow. Where she was having the most trouble, the snow was only around knee deep for her but she's kinda stiff now and she wasn't at all anxious to trot on ahead.

There's a place along the trail that fills with spring snow-melt every year. This time there was only the highest ridge of left-over trail above the water. I side-stepped across that part, managing to break it down for her to walk across, but she didn't follow me, opting to wade across the icy water that was nearly neck deep for her.

When I went down there again day before yesterday, I left the dog behind. I was planning on trying to find a way around all that water and I knew the walking would be that much more difficult for her. I would likely be going through deeper snow and it wouldn't have been packed before. As it turns out, going around the water wasn't as easy as I'd hoped, so I'm doubly glad I decided to leave her behind.

The river day before yesterday was a surprise. After only two days, the runway was completely gone, leaving behind only a handful of truck-sized chunks of ice stuck along our side of the river right in front, and the water level about two feet lower than it was before. I called the lodge to learn that most of the main ice was still there, so breakup wasn't over yet.

Planning to walk down there again yesterday, I called the lodge for another river update to learn that he already had a boat in the water and had made the drive up to Skwentna. Was breakup over already??? and without the normal water levels rising and lowering three or four feet (if not more) four or five times as jams shoved their way down the river, getting stuck from time to time. Well, okay so I didn't bother to walk down there today. I had dug out a pair of waders to wear and I didn't relish walking in them. I don't get along with waders very well.

So, I headed out this morning wearing only my snow boots, figuring I'd turn around if I couldn't get across that spring run-off spot on our trail. Much to my surprise I could step across where the water was running in one spot and in another spot, I made it across water that was only ankle deep. Surprise, surprise. When I reached the river, it was to see that I had missed another bit of breakup. More ice had been shoved up onto the island out front and some of it was stacked up on other chunks. There was even one spot where a third piece of ice was on top, though I can't imagine how it got there unless it was already on top of it's perch before it all got deposited down here. The water had also gone down another foot or more. Sigh - I can't go anywhere until the water comes back up. Not to mention that the water is so unnaturally low. That is an indication that one or more of the rivers upriver from us has yet to cut loose, but it could also be an indication of just how dry the snow was this year. Who knows; it's still early. I don't NEED to go anywhere (work) for another two or three weeks at least.

Bummed

As some of my long-term readers may recall, I tried to get into town last winter too. Mostly poor planning was the reason for the delay last year. This year, Mother Nature is purely against the idea of us getting out of here.

For the last many years, getting out onto the river before December has been one of the 'gee-I-wish' things, so I was thrilled when the river froze in November hard enough to walk on and soon to be hard enough to drive a machine on, all that remained was for there to be enough snow to shovel in a ramp down off the bank.  That happened soon enough and we were planning to be in town by Thanksgiving. I was excited, not that I like town, but I had plans to talk to people and get my book on some shelves, maybe have a book signing or two. Don wanted to get some firewood laid by for when we came back out and needed to thaw things out again. No sooner had we a couple standing dead trees in and were looking for something more dense than the temperature plunged and Don ran out of tobacco. He gets so dizzy and even ill when he's trying to quit.

The cold hung on and on, and it didn't look like we were going to make it to town anytime soon, so we ordered an airdrop of tobacco and continued our struggle with the cold temperatures. Those of you who are my friends on Facebook know from a couple comments I've made, that old folks and machinery tend to break when it's so cold, so we don't move around much.

It's been in the -20s for the last couple weeks, or at least it sure seems so; I'm not kidding about the temps though. And now that it finally warms up some (+8 this morning; +11 earlier), it's dumping snow by the foot. I bet we've accumulated two feet since this morning. By the time it stops snowing I'll be snowshoeing the trails again - back to square one, and we haven't even been able to pack a runway yet. We did make it down to the river, finally and Don has driven out, made a turn-around and made it back up the hill. The worst part is, Don's out of tobacco again.

We went down there day before yesterday to get gas and he spun on the switch-back coming back up. When it snows at these temperatures, the snow doesn't have enough moisture to pack well. It's like packing sugar. It'll pound down solid enough, but the moment you disturb it, it shifts around and becomes sugar again.

The thing about going to town is, what do we want to leave here for the frozen months? What can we leave and what will be ruined? I ordered supplies to last until December even though Don said November would be enough. Past experience said November would never work. Now, here it is January and we are running out of everything, and I do mean everything. The contents of my freezer now fits in a cooler sitting outside on the picknick table. I have like a quart of cooking oil left. Vegetables have been gone for a while now, as have anything that resembles fresh food like potatoes. We're down to assorted Romin, various kinds of noodles, an assortment of gravies, canned fish and chicken, dehydrated hash-browns, and bread baked on top of the wood stove so I can stretch the propane as far as possible.

At this point, I'm so bummed. It's snowing my favorite kind of snow - all pretty and fluffy - and yet it's another set-back to us getting to town. For two winters now I've been looking forward to getting together with a few of my readers. I even started an event on Facebook offering my book on sale for $10 giving an address for a check or money order to be mailed to and I'd mail back a signed book. It looked so good for us to get in by the first of the year.

Ah well. So much for spending any quality time in town. It'll all be a rush once again. I've books to order, and maybe even NEW books to order. Here in a couple months, I'll have a new book coming out, and if I can, I'd like to have a box full out here to sell. Who knows, I might even have a third book published, or close to it. Just click on the sword tab to the right and you can read it. It'll be finished in April, but I'm not sure how long the publishing part will take. I'm looking into getting a cover made for it now. That's not all I need to do. Since I lost 50 pounds last summer, I need clothes for work this summer. Last spring, I bought three pair of pants - I so needed something. They now fit only because of the elastic in the waist. I also want to set up a PayPal account, but I don't trust my computing skill, not to mention my understanding all the paperwork wrapped around doing that.

My trip to town will happen even if I have to go by myself. I simply have to go. The worry now is, what with all the really cold temperatures, breakup could be really bad, meaning our boats might be in danger if left to their own devises. A few years ago I had to spend breakup down there in the boats watching the ice grind past (wishing I had a camera with me), keeping the boats from turning sideways and drifting half off the bank. The water was well over our bank. I paddled a tiny boat out to the other boats. Don came down at dark to check on me and he couldn't even wade half way to where I was in the boats and he was wearing chest waders. So that concern means we'll have to be back out here sometime in late March or early April.

I love my life out here, but planning a winter in town is such a pain.

The Sound of - - - - Break-up

I bet you thought I was going to say 'music'. Well, keep that in mind, break-up is rather musical.

My sister sent a message to much of the rest of my family, telling them of my post about when my brothers came up here to visit. One thing she said was that, to me, my life seems mundane, even boring. Though not boring, to me my life is mundane. This is my life. These kinds of things happen all the time - sort of. That said, I love my life, and if your questions can prompt me to examine some part of my life in such a way that can allow you to share the experience, then I'm thrilled. In reply to that email, which included me this time, my brother wanted to know what breakup sounded like. So let's see if I can make you hear with words.

I've been hashing this over in my head for hours and the best word I can come up with is 'Pow'. That's Pow with a lot of emphasis on 'P', and the 'ow' rather foreshortened. Say it in your head with lots of 'P' and the 'ow' really short and you have most of the sound. Now, the next step is to imagine that sound coming from a drum, and that drum is in a large empty room - think echos and acoustics. Yeah, I'm getting into music.

With all that in mind, I need to talk a little about the ice. The river is a pretty big river I guess. Having grown up in the Great American Desert, my experience with rivers is rather limited, however, The Yentna is probably about as wide as your eight-lane highway and that's including the meridian in the middle. And as rivers go, there's a give and take on that width.

As we all know, ice expands as it freezes, and as rivers go, as ice freezes the water that's creating it is also going down - running away faster than it's freezing and faster than new spring water can feed it. However, the water doesn't run away too fast, else the ice would be left high and quite dry and very dangerous. During the course of freeze-up, as the ice builds in mass, it follows the dictates of gravity and eventually sags. If it sags enough, water is pushed up through cracks, if there are any, and around the edges. This water pools on the top of the ice and freezes, creating yet another layer of ice. This happens to some extent every time the temperature warms up. Warm temperature somewhere means some snow melted somewhere upriver which puts more water under the ice, but now that the ice is thick and heavy, the water has nowhere to go but on top. More ice is added on the bottom too during the coldest days. Ultimately, during the course of the winter, upwards of three feet of ice has accumulated. There's more some places and less some places but three feet is a good average.

Needless to say, three feet of ice is a lot of ice, and it takes quite a bit of force to break it, and it is exerting that force on itself all the time. That volume of ice trying to expand as ice does, creates a lot of force.

Along comes spring, longer days, warmer days, days that stay warmer longer, and along with that comes more water. As you all know ice floats, even huge volumes of ice like I've just described. However, by now all that ice is really stuck to the banks and leaking around the edges, though it happens quite a bit, can't happen fast enough. The ice breaks.

Now back to our sound and those drums. Have you ever watched a crack develop across a windshield? It starts with a rock thrown up by someone's tire, and then this line creeps across the glass, maybe it's a single line, maybe it grows fingers that also creep and grow. Ice does the same thing only pretty fast. In your imagination, place one of those drums along the ice at every potential corner, crinkle, and finger and at every joint of said finger. As soon as the first crack gives way, at the first drum's Pow, a domino effect occurs, and by the time the sound from one drum reaches the next one, it sounds off, and then the next, and then the next, all in a row, all echoing, and each one of them a tiny fraction of a different note.

Here we get into sound-waves. As sound travels away from you, the note gets lighter. If it is coming toward you, it gets heavier.

Standing on the edge of the river when the 'drums' sound off, whether it starts in front of you and runs off away up or down river, or whether is starts somewhere away from you and travels toward you, it has a profound affect on you. That echoing PowPowPow (the series may be as few as a handful or take as long as a minute) will enthrall, thrill and frighten you all at once. You are enthralled at the amazing sound, though no visible change took place in front of you. You are thrilled by the magnitude of power so displayed though you can scarcely grasp what that power really is. And you are frightened as the sound sends chills up your spine and goose-flesh down your arms.

All of this brings me to a story that happened to me during my first winter out here. We were care-taking at a lodge up Lake Creek and we'd made friends with the care-takers at Riversong across the Yentna. Now eventually both the care-takers at Riversong and us got snowmachines but I don't rightly remember if either of us had them yet. We probably did since there was a trail and it was more than a foot trail. Anyway, I like to walk, and for a reason I can't remember anymore, I was walking back from Riversong one nice day. I was out in the middle of that river, walking on upwards of likely more than three feet of ice and at least another several feet of snow - it was a REALLY heavy snow year that year thanks to Mount Readoubt - when the drums sounded off. PowPowPowPow - the sound traveled directly across in front of me, and then the ice under my feet dropped about six inches. In the front of my mind, I know that nothing the ice could do right now was a danger to me, but to have that much ice just go down, no matter the inches, under my feet was heart stopping. Needless to say, I froze in my tracks. A few feet in front of me I could see the crack - the trail now had a very visible step up.

The ice didn't break because of my presence, my weight was as a feather when compared to all that ice. The break would have happened whether I had made my trip five minutes earlier or later. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. There was no water, no danger at all and no further drum-roll, yet it took me what seemed like forever to start breathing again. No, I didn't hurry off the ice, I was in no danger, it was all so very awesome and I've never been so scared in my life. It is one of those experiences I will never forget.

I hope I was able to help you hear break-up. It really is something worth the experience.