It is the week of folkfest! Torsten has had a blast on both Monday and Tuesday evenings. You should be tuning in on Rain Country Radio. And we’ve got a short video trying to capture some of Torsten’s dancing.
Gram and Gramp visit
Still catching up in t-h blog. We enjoyed a great visit from Gram and Gramp. Lots of great grandparent time for Torsten, a good bit of snow shoveling, some good walks, lots of good house “puttering”/fix-ups (THANKS!), and even a little skiing for Matt & Carrie–woohoo! As always, if these pictures aren’t enough, all the rest are in the gallery.
Making sure Torsten understands the importance of ice cream as a family tradition.
Out for a snowy walk (at Dredge Lakes) with Gram and Gramp.
Lots of snow to shovel! Woohoo!
A new sweater Gramknit–showing Torsten how to fix a button.
Reading with Gramp (after playing with trains).
And a family photo:
yes, the snow is knee deep on skis
Catching up some more on t-h blogging. Carrie and Matt went up to Spalding Meadows on Monday, March 12. It was a great hike up (see the picture of Matt hiking up on skis above). We skied around a little up at the top (not enough–Matt ran out of fuel for the warm food for lunch (we still had chocolate and trail mix, etc), Matt ran out of steam a bit (and he had worked up quite a steam/sweat on the way up and had done a not-so-good job of managing moisture!), and the snow was “closing in” a bit (visibility was dropping and snow was starting to pile up quickly)–Matt had images of two frozen Torsten parents and thought the grandparents would kill us (if we weren’t already dead)). So we headed down too early. And that was still lotsa fun!
Need more? View the whole gallery (including the cooking fun…)
Auke Lake Ski
On a sunny day of yore (back on Feb 23.. we’re trying to catch up here at t-h blog), we went out skiing across Auke Lake with Abbey. David, Dylan, and Jill joined us. It was a glorious day of skiing, and several more pictures are at the gallery from that day.
Juneau Snow?
T knows snow.
This is all in our driveway, maybe 30 meters above sea level! Think of what an interesting year this will be for Mendenhall Glacier mass balance! And Eaglecrest (Juneau ski area).
Just hangin’ out with a big pile of snow:
That red house across the street has no hill between our driveway and their driveway–that’s just the piles of snow from the plowing.
It just keeps snowing!
We had a short gap (even blue skies this morning–it must have been really nice up at Eaglecrest), and the city snow removal tried to prepare for the next onslaught–they even came and widened our road back out so it is no longer less than one lane and almost two full lanes! (And anyone with an unbroken shovel was able to get a contract from the city to help with snow removal!)
The weather service tells us:
HEAVY SNOW WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 3 PM AST THIS AFTERNOON TO 4 AM ADT SUNDAY
Rest Of Today…Mostly cloudy in the morning…Snow developing in the afternoon. Breezy. Snow accumulation 1 to 2 inches. Highs around 35. East wind 15 to 25 mph.
Tonight…Snow…Heavy at Times….Diminishing late. Snow accumulation 5 to 9 inches. Lows around 29. Southeast wind 15 mph. Chance of snow 100 percent.
The perfect commute
Juneau is having a great snow year. (This is already the fifth snowiest winter season in Juneau. By March 6, there was 164 point 7 inches, according to Meteorologist Nathan Foster in the Juneau Forecast Office.) The ski commute home from the UAS campus across Auke Lake, a brief ski down back loop, and then breaking trail along the Montana Creek trail over to Mendenhall River, and finally home is probably only about 5 miles, but took about 2 hours and was exhausting. What a great way to shift gears from work to home! I did this on last Friday and again Monday (UAS snow day). These pictures are from my cell phone–the only camera I had. Some of the trees back there are almost 2 meters in diameter, so it is a phenomenal ski in the woods! Here’s a few pictures, and you can check them all out at the gallery.
The happy commuter.
Looking forward down the trail.
Looking back the trail already skied.
The home stretch (looking down our street–our home is down there at the end of the road, under all the snowy trees (with an 8 foot tall pile of snow on each side of the driveway!)).
Spring Skiing
Eaglecrest has some great skiing, and some great blue sky days recently. It is cloudy today, but with that we have the hopes of another foot of snow. It has been rather cool, so there is actually *gasp* powder! We hear reports of thigh or even waist deep powder on some of the ridges hikable from Eaglecrest (as Terry pointed out, they must be short people!). At any rate, Carrie is finding her skis (?), that is gaining confidence, and she made it up to the top of Eaglecrest on the Ptarmigan chair lift (see the map here) for the first time last Sunday (a blue sky day, and the wind didn’t kick up until the afternoon, and we were up there early). WAHOO!
Yukon Questing
We caught the ferry up to Skagway and then drove up to Whitehorse for the start of the Yukon Quest. I think it is amazing the great opportunities in Southeast, and we try to take advantage of as many as we can–I’m glad we were able to talk a few UAS students into ditching classes (mostly my classes that I canceled anyway!) to head up for the start of the Quest. Torsten liked the dogs, but really loved the Whitehorse Aquatic Center. Here’s a few photos from the start of the race.
Torsten did great all bundled up and enjoyed the start:
The whole Yukon Quest start photo gallery is available.
Fun in the Sun (Auke Rec)
We had a great, sunny, Southeast day that Matt escaped from the office to join Carrie and Torsten at Auke Rec (Recreation Area). Torsten loved the beach and the streams flowing down, as usual. Check out Mr. Cool on the beach:
We’ve got the whole photo gallery of the day up as well.