It's a Snowshoeing Day

Yep, started snowing late last night, and sometime during the night it warmed up to +26F (-3C), where it has hung for most of the day. When I got up this morning it was still snowing and by the time it got dark again this evening, there was a total of a foot of new snow. But what to do before the sun went down. Dishes? Groan - yeah those need to be done up too. But, it was such a nice day out there, and I do like walking in the snow, so as soon as my computer's battery abandoned me, I went out and dug up my snowshoes.

At first I was only going to walk my assorted paths around here around the house, but I just couldn't resist; I headed on down the trail. I tried to resist though. This was my first time on snowshoes this year, and it is a quarter mile or so one way down to the river. Sigh - Knowing full well I would be plowing a new trail both ways on purpose since I wanted to make it wide enough for the snowmachine.

Walking with snowshoes is a study in patience, and walking in foot-deep snow is like walking up stairs every step you take only you don't go up. Walking uphill or downhill, you need to be extra cautious. Going up there's the chance that your foot might slip back, taking away part of your stride. Going down there's the chance your snowshoes might try to turn into some clunky skis. Fortunately, nowhere along my trail are the ups and downs so drastic, but care still needs to be taken. Up or down, shorter steps are mandatory.

When I finally made it back to the house. Yeah, I was really tired. I discovered my husband working to get our snowmachines broken loose and moved over in front of the house. Groan - I had 0 energy left in me. Long before the house came in sight I was anticipating waffles, but no, snowmachines first.

He'd already brushed them off and was getting one of them started. I pulled at the skis, getting one loose easily enough but I couldn't move the other one until I gave it a good kick. Shoulda turned the machine on it's side and scraped the frozen grass and mud off but he took off anyway, scarcely able to turn and getting stuck once, which meant I, now snowshoe free, had to go up there and try to give it a pull and ended up stomping a bit of a trail in front of it.

Lesson learned, we scraped the skis before moving the second machine. While Don did a few laps around the house, I carried the assorted tools, snowshoes, tarps and covers up to the house. Walking in a freshly snowshoed trail isn't easy. That snow might be compressed to more than half its depth, but it is by no means packed. That takes time. Did I say I was pooped? Ah but a fat hash-brown patty later and a little time to recover, I'm rearing to go tomorrow. hahaha (not really) I doubt I'll be sore, but I don't think I'll be so venturesome.

Oh, river news: I did not venture out onto the river down there, but I didn't see any signs of overflow. That's a good thing. However, here at the house it is not the same. There was a foot of new snow on the pond out there and it is soaked with overflow. Ice that was flowing over the low spot we have has filled the gap to the point of just looking like a flat river has run through there - all frozen of course, and down in the little creek beyond, all manner of icy waterfalls now covered with snow. No water that I can determine is running past here, but that doesn't mean much. Last I could hear there was still some water flowing under the ice, and there has always been an underground trickle, no matter the time of year. However, I think the -11F temps we had for like three days in a row sure made a lot of ice and froze the ground down a good space. I don't think a foot of snow is going to get us down onto the river with the snowmachine, but it's a start.

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.

Winter Snowfall

If anyone was watching the weather, you all know that night before last and most of yesterday, Mother Nature decided to dump a bunch of snow on us. A neighbor just up river from us reported an official measurement of 19 inches. I woke up yesterday morning to find 4 or 5 inches piled on top of previously cleared objects, like the snowmachine and it was coming down in huge wet flakes - my favorite kind. By the time I finished my advertising and other Facebook sidetracks, a healthy foot or more had accumulated. Since my battery had run out, and since we didn't REALLY need to start the generator yet, I decided to enjoy the day and shovel off the bedroom roof. Of course, I also needed to brush off the eye of our satellite dish - again.

When I shoveled off a spot on the roof big enough for me to stand on, I discovered that our total, disturbed only by gravity, snowfall for the winter was nearly waist deep - funfunfun. Actually, I did have fun. When I got the last crumbs shoved off the roof and was nearly ready to step off onto the ladder again, I looked back - our house is only 12 feet wide plus a few odd inches, and over there on the other side of the roof, already about an inch of fluff had accumulated. No worries though, it wasn't long after that when it stopped snowing and warmed up enough to sprinkle a little of the liquid stuff, fortunately not very much.

Today's task was to shovel off the other nearly flat roof we have here and to snowshoe some of the trails. By the time I was done with that roof, Don was starting up the snowmachine with some dread. Sometimes this much snow all at once can make packing trails a bit of a pain if not a total nightmare. Today, it ended up being a pleasure. The snow stayed where it was packed and it didn't suck the machine off the side or sugar away from under it and sap all traction and steering.

For me on my snowshoes, it meant I only had to lift my feet boot high most of the time. All this snow did cause one problem for me on my snowshoes. A couple years ago we decided to move the outhouse. When it was first built, it was nested on a bit of a hill. Nothing tremendous, but the ground in back was a handful of inches higher than in front. To compensate this, we put the little building up on logs. It's new home was more level and leveled even more by the gravel dug from the hole so we decided it didn't need a log foundation. Take my word for it, if you live somewhere where snow falls by the foot, you want your outhouse up on something. Today, as I was shoveling the snow away from the door, I was standing at least a foot off the ground on my snowshoes. The task was awkward to say the least.

Trails to the outhouse, the dump, and to where I dump our compost all finished, and the day was rapidly waning so I hitched a ride on the snowmachine to the top of our hill so I could pack the trail out to the river before it got any colder than it was. The day was in the upper 20sF (that's barely below freezing C), but it was clearing off and it was best to take advantage of the warmth and get the snow settled down on the trail down the hill and on the ramp out onto the river, even if only by snowshoe. Tomorrow's plan is to brave that trail with the machine. Going down is the easy part, it's the coming back up that could get interesting.

Once again today, I was thinking about winters past plus my fifty pounds, lost but not missed this summer. What with my night-owl husband keeping me up until the wee hours of the morning every night, I still wake up with daylight, which is around ten in the morning these days, and I still have energy even now after shoveling snow and snowshoeing trails. It's just awesome. Thank you HCG!!!