Solstice!!!

The solstice is a very happy time up here because the earth is officially tilting back towards the sun after the shortest day of the year! We got a good amount of snow finally and made it up to hatcher's pass. After the snow came a high pressure system which brought frigid temps though( like -20 F) in which backcountry skiing becomes difficult. If you begin to sweat at all while you hike you run the risk of getting hypothermic when you stop despite any layers you have on. That along with the high deep slab avalanche danger made it a tedious outing. But nonetheless it was good to get out.

Chasing the sun at 2:00pm

These guys were a bit more eager than us, kinda scary though with all the whumps and cracks we were getting from the snowpack.

A very frosty goose

Missed our window for sunshine today :(

 

There's sun over there!

This guy scared Kristen as he walked right by our big bay window.

Colorado bound on Sunday woohoo!!!!



Where's the sun?

 



We haven't been great at keeping up with our blog sorry!  It's gotten really dark and we've been going into hibernation mode.  It's been a weird winter so far, there hasn't been much snow and it's been ridiculuously windy.  Here's what we've been up to the last month or so.  Only 10 days until we fly back to Colorado.  Can't wait to see friends, family and sunlight :)

 

Way back in October we celebrated our anniversary in Anchorage. 

 

We stayed at the Captain Cook Hotel, it was awesome and we had a view of the ocean!

Walking around the property.

Thanksgiving cabin in Willow.

View of Denali from Willow.

Emily, Dave and Nanuq

 

Thanksgiving dinner, yum.

 

snow hike

 About 2:00 pm sun is going down...

 

Emily and Dale bundled up at high noon on Thanksgiving day.

Dog teams practicing for the Iditarod.

very cool.

 Perfect view of Denali!!! 

 

 

 

 

Wearing my dad's leather down jacket from the 70's at colony christmas. Hope you are proud dad, I'm bringing it back!

The sugary seven (after lucy ate one off the counter)

Christmas tree hunting

Found one, time to put it down.... haha give us a break people it's really dark up here. We gotta entertain ourselves.

It's a charlie brown christmas!

Finally! Yesterday we got hit with 18 inches of wet snow. We'll be headed up to hatcher's pass this weekend to do some skiing. Can't wait to get to sunny Colorado. We'll miss Chuck and Jan and wish them a Merry Christmas in Azerbaijan!

 



Hanging on to Fall in AK

At the beginning of September we had tons of rain.  You have to be really determined not to let the weather ruin your plans in Alaska, so nonetheless we drove up to Denali State Park to pick blueberries.  It sprinkled on us but we made it out with a few bags of blueberries, and then it started pouring when we got back to the teardrop. Our first snow was a few weeks ago, so we decided to go for a hike up at Hatcher's Pass.  When we got up there we realized there was enough snow for snowshoeing already!  Luckily we've had some nice sunny days and most of it has melted off in the valley.  The mountains surrounding us are covered with snow.

Pretty colors in Denali State Park.

 

Weird looking mushrooms.

Zoned in on blueberries!

 

Sunset at the house.

Moose!

 

Hatchers Pass 1st snow

 

It was a really clear day

 

 

 

Lucy chased the ptarmigan all over the mountain.  She had a good day :)

Nate was catching some rays before we lose the sun.

 

We're excited to get up here for some skiing.

 

Hiking up the Butte.  The knik glacier is in the distance.

 

 

Lola and Lucy.

It was kind of a windy day so there's lots of glacial silt in the air.

We've been getting back into the work routine lately so not too many pictures or adventures but winter is right around the corner and we look forward to exploring the backcountry on skis. Stay warm everybody!

Time seems to be speeding up! We haven't done a great job of keeping up with our blog since going back to work (sorry!).  Way back in August Josh and Chuck visited us for week.    

 

 

The Allton boys back together one last time before the old man ships off to Azerbaijan.

We drove north up the Matanuska valley for a day of lake fishing strangely with no luck.

 Spent a day hiking in Hatcher's pass, the blueberries were just starting to come in.

 After two days we headed out for the Kenai penninsula for some world class salmon fishing.

 I grew up thinking fishing was stupid and boring. My first Alaskan salmon made a convert out of me for life.

I think fishing in Alaska has that affect on you, even Josh...

 

 

 

 

Exploring the Talkeetna range on a gorgeous day.

 

 We headed north after a succesful Kenai trip and canoed down Willow creek.

 

 Saw thousands of spawning salmon, bear tracks and took home a few 16" rainbow trout.

 This King would have been a good catch!...if we had caught it a month sooner before it spawned and died.

 Willow creek was a tough float with a lot of sweepers and bottlenecks but the allton bros navigated it succesfully.

Picking Blueberries 

 While the boys were fishing down on the Kenai, I went backpacking with Katherine and her dog Lola.  We did a one night trip up to Reed Lakes in the Hatcher pass area.

 

 

 

Beautiful weather!

 

 Lola is a bit of a princess and she expected to be carried across the boulder field.  She would cry for Katherine to pick her up.

The fog started to roll in so we decided to set up our tent and then hike up to the lakes.  You can barely see the yellow spec of our tent.

 

 

 

 

We had a short break in the clouds to actually see the mountains around us.  It only lasted for a few minutes because shortly after we were being pelted with hail and rain.  Our goal was to make it up to the B52 bomber crash site on the mountain but we were too soaked. 

 

Waterfall on the hike down.  Katherine and I didn't realize how difficult it would be with two wet dogs and ourselves in a 2 person tent.  It was a bit challenging but we eventually dried out.  We cooked dinner right outside the tent and had a few close calls with the tent almost being lit on fire haha.  

Leaving camp, walking back into the fog.