I Lost My Pants

Having had to move again, we are now in our 5th address in 7 months. (Wood Street, Eric’s basement, E Street, Crestwood Street, and now O Street.) Remaining friends, our trio dissolved we moved without Eric into our cool new apartment downtown. Unfortunately, in the shuffle of moving, Dan lost all of his pants. He swears that he remembers packing them when we moved from E street, but aside from one pair of jeans and his mountain pants that he wore through most of the winter while living at Crestwood, he can’t find any of his other pants. It’s simply a mystery, because it’s not like we could have left anything at the last place, and of all things, why just his pants? Some of those pants were pairs that he had worn for many years, so it will be a sad grieving process.

Anyway, our new place is great. With huge windows on the East and South walls, the sunlight streams inside the apartment all day long. In fact, it’s almost too bright, and Dan has to keep one set of blinds closed since sunglesses don’t work so well when you’re trying to look at what’s on your computer monitor. Sampa likes the place as well, and she spends hours each day basking in the sunlight atop her kitty tower. Looking off of our deck, we can see the Cook Inlet and watch the jets take off from Anchorage airport. And being sandwiched right between the departure airspaces of Merrill Field and Lake Hood, there will be plenty of small airplane traffic flying overhead everyday.

Back to the sun. It sets at 9:00PM tonight, although by the time you read this, it could be setting well past that, since we keep gaining almost 6 minutes of light each day. Summer is definitely on the way! At least in theory anyway, since there is still snow everywhere and it was 16-degrees when Amy began her 5 minute trek to work this morning.

Amy’s marathon training is coming right along, and this past Saturday, we did our third long run/skate ski together, this time 4 1/2 hours and about 22 miles. Leaving our apartment, we walked about 4 blocks, got on the coastal trail and then went all the way to Kinkaid Park and back. It will be interesting for her to start doing some running on the road, since all of her training has been on snow and ice while wearing heavy trail shoes and those little shoe spikeys. We bought our tickets to beautiful Kodiak Island and are excited to go down there for a fun filled Memorial Day weekend.

We have another adventure planned for next week. We’re going with Eric, Julie and Eric’s friend Dan O on a four day traverse of the Eklutna Glacier, otherwise known as the Eklutna Traverse. To give you an idea of what we’ll be doing, here is a trip report from one of Eric’s friends who did it a few years ago.

In preparation for this really cool Alaskan big glacier adventure, we went out with Eric and Julie yesterday to practice glacier rope techniques. Neither Amy nor Julie have ever done anything like this before, so we ran over the skills of how to rope up for glacier skiing and do crevasse rescue. Not that we plan for anyone to fall into one but the thing about glaciers is that they all seem to have those pesky crevasses on them. Some more than others. Of course we’ll be very careful and all that stuff, and are excited about having a few days in the big mountains.

In addition to beign good experience to practice with the ropes and gear, it was great to get out on a very sunny Sunday afternoon and play in the mountains. Again, it was a bit strange to have the sun be so high in the sky so late in the day, but it gets us excited about thinking about all the outdoor fun to be had outside after work in the summer. Ideally, we could leave the house at 6:00PM when Amy gets home from work, go up and hike or bike for a few hours, get back at midnight (with it still being light) and still get 7 hours of sleep.

Repeat.

Mt. Redoubt keeps spitting out big plumes of ash every week, and in fact, one morning, we had a dusting of fine gray ash in town. You could see it on car windshields and the snow. Overall, we’ve been pretty lucky because it could have been much worse, and it still can I suppose.

In other Alaska news, apparently, the bears have been waking up early, and a couple of them have been wandering around on the trails and chasing skiers. One fellow even got chased up a tree by one particular grumpy black bear who has been causing trouble and eating trash in the Hillside area of town. Living in close proximity to bears is a fact of life here, and generally the two species try to leave each other alone. However, when a particular bear becomes too used to humans and starts causing problems, it usually ends up getting shot by the Fish and Game Dept.

And finally, we discover that good old uncle Ted Stevens was innocent all along. Who would have thought? And of course, the Palin Family Saga continues with the whole family mad at baby daddy, Levi Johnston, after he went on the Tyra Banks show, and with Sarah Palin’s sister in law getting arrested for burglary.

It’s better than TV.

Spring Slowly Springing

Well, we officially made it through our first winter in  Alaska, and over the weekend we were rewarded with near zero temperatures followed by a snowstorm that left us with about five inches of fresh powder. We know that Spring is slowly springing, though, because the pavement has been growing all over town. Of course with dwindling snow cover on main streets and parking lots also comes slush, so, while Dan took his truck out of four wheel drive for the first time in months, he put the fenders back onto his bike in preparation for some wet riding around town during the next few weeks.

On the first day of Spring, we saw our first bald eagle. The bird’s magnificent shape was unmistakable as it flapped its wings and landed right on top of a church steeple. It must have left Fort Collins a few weeks ago- Ryan, just how long to bird migrations take? We look forward to seeing many more around Alaska during the next few months.

One popular place for bald eagle watching is the Eagle River valley, which lies just north of Anchorage. Last weekend, we skied a few miles up the frozen Eagle River, which is a classic Alaskan backcountry river full of wide, shallow braids and gravel bars, and lined by some of the taller peaks of the Chugach Mountains. The area is full of wildlife in the summertime, and in fact, is the site of the Eagle River Nature Center. This area is beautiful and will be a wonderful place to explore even further when summer comes.

Our skate ski/trail running partnership continues to prosper, as this past Saturday, we went out for 4 hours, and over 20 miles, as we skied from the house and made a big loop of the trials around Campbell Airstrip and Hillside Park. Amy’s running ability has certainly recovered with great improvement since her injury two years ago and she feels confident about her training progress for the Crab Festival Marathon on Kodiak Island in two months.

On the bummer side, we have to move again. The woman who owns the house we’re currently living in sold it six weeks after we moved in and after telling us that she had taken it off the market. So, the two of us found a really nice apartment right downtown in an area called Bootleggers Cove, one block away from the water and about two blocks from the start of the coastal trail. It will be cool, urban living for the summer and our good renter karma has finally paid off, because our landlady seems like a super nice woman who gave us both a hug when we signed our lease. It’s a really cool location and we’ll be within walking distance to all the downtown attractions, a 10 minute walk to Amy’s office and living by ourselves like proper married folk. Not to say that we don’t still like Eric, and we’ll certainly miss his company… sometimes. 😉

Of course, this means that we will be spending our first anniversary weekend moving. Bah.
Stay tuned!

March Madness- Alaska Style

We had our first visitor! Our good friend Paul won the prize for first person to come up and see us. He got extra points for coming in the winter. His prize? Watching dog sled racing, Ultra Endurance racing and cross country skiing along the Iditarod trail.

With winter well on its tail end, March is a big month here in Alaska, especially the beginning of the month. March begins while Anchorage in the middle the annual Fur Rondezvous Festival, otherwise known as Fur Rondy. The festival goes back to the time when all the fur trappers and traders all came to town to peddle their wares for the season. There are lots of events downtown, and of course, sled dog racing. The World Championship Sprint race takes place over the course of the weekend and since the course follows the downtown streets and bike trails, it’s easy to be a spectator.

We watched on Saturday amid a heavy snowstorm and suddenly realized the magical quality of this special sport. As someone who has seen a real dog sled race, it was surprising just how quite the sleds are as they come by through the forest. We were watching on the trails with noone else around and all you could hear was the soft pitter patter of dog feet and the quite shusshing of freshly waxed sled rails. It’s a pretty cool experience.

On Sunday, we went with Eric to the Alaska Ultra Sport Iditarod Invitational Race start. This is the race where bikers and runners race 350 miles to over the Alaska Range to the town of McGrath, or for those super endurance folks, 1,000 miles to Nome. The bikers ride fat tire bikes, while the runners basically walk pulling small plastic sleds. It can take up to 2 weeks for the runners to reach McGrath and up to a month for the to reach Nome. For Amy, it was like being a kid in the candy store, since she’s been fascintated by this race for years. She hopes to compete in the future and tried out one of the racer’s sleds. Many of the racers use Eric’s Epic Designs Gear, so Dan shot photos of the race start and then went cross country skiing along the Iditarod trail with Amy and Paul. It was Paul’s first time skiing in years and he loved it! During our ski, we were passed by a few dog sled teams who were out for the day. It’s neat to see all the happy puppies with their smiles and flapping tongues as they trot down the trail.

We took Paul to the airport for his Sunday night flight and he ended his 48 hour, fun filled, adventure packed Alaska holiday. March Madness continued here the next weekend with the other two big events, the 27th Annual Iditarod Race and the Tour of Anchorage ski race.

The Iditarod is without a doubt, the biggest event in Alaska. Over 60 dog teams began this year’s 1,049 mile race from Anchorage to Nome. Saturday, March 7 was this year’s Ceremonial start. People line up all along the streets and trails to watch and cheer the racers as they cruise in a relaxed pace through Anchorage from Downtown, 20 miles out to Campbell airstrip in the Chugach Foothills. The race ‘restart’ was the next day, where the dog teams take off for real on their extreme, adventurous journey through Alaska. They face many hazards along the way, including extreme cold, navigating in whiteout storms, broken ice on frozen rivers and of course, cranky moose who are tired after months of winter and often refuse to budge from the trail even when confronted by dog teams. It takes the fastest racers about 10 days to reach Nome, although in the past, it has taken some racers up to a month.

The Tour of Anchorage is a 25k, 40k and 50k nordic ski race all the way through town. This year is was the day after the Iditarod Ceremonial start and so the party air continued along the trails in Anchorage through the weekend. We watched Eric and the few thousand other racers of all ages and body fitness ski on skate and classic gear sky by on the trails in our neighborhood, and Dan went down to the Weschester Lagoon to shoot the first waves of elite racers speed by in their skinsuits. It’s like the Old Town Marathon, Alaska style, and we hope to do the race next year.

Now on to Dan and Amy stuff.

First, the biggest news of all, Amy drove a car. Not just a car, a Hummer. Since she sold her 4Runner before moving to Alaska, She runs and bikes to work just about every day and has not really had any opportunities to drive since we left Colorado. Her streak was broken when the boss asked her to run an errand in her Hummer. Needless to say, it was an interesting experience for her.

Also, Amy’s job at the Sport Shop has ended for the season, so she now has full two day weekends off, which is great, since temperatures and daylight hours are both on the rise. We gain 11 minutes per day, and with Daylight Savings time now in effect, we can now see dim twilight past 8:00pm.

Amy’s running is coming right along and she hopes to do her first marathon since her injury at the Crab Festival Marathon on Kodiak Island in May. She’s been training on the snow covered trails, and in fact, we have found a fun new way to train and spend time together. Since Dan doesn’t really want to to run for three hours, he skate skis along with her as she runs on the trails. That way, we can spend lots of time together and train at the same time. We also bought metal edge touring cross country ski gear and are having fun exploring the trails in and around town and the foothills.

With pilot lessons coming along nicely, last Monday, Dan flew his first cross country to Kenai a couple weeks ago, and then his solo cross country flight last Monday. He went up to Talkeetna, which is about 60 miles north of Anchorage, and the town where most of the glacier and mountain air taxi companies like Talkeetna Air Taxi and K2 Aviation are based. A few days later Dan flew to Talkeetna agian with an insructor for his night cross country, where he practiced night landings before returning to Anchroage. At this point, Dan has logged 27 hours and hopes to have his license sometime in April.

Thanks for coming Paul, it was great to see you! Now, who will be the next person to win the Visit Dan and Amy in Alaska Prize? Lots of fun adventure and homemade pizza awaits those who make the effort.

Palin Sighting

Question: How long can do we have to be in Alaska before we have our first Sarah Palin sighting?

Answer: Five months.

Question: Where did this alleged Palin sighting happen?

Answer: Where else, at a snowmobile race.

Question: What were we doing at a snowmobile event?

Answer: Dan shot the event for one of his clients. Imagine his excitement when he saw Madame Governor, that wonderous woman from Wasilla with his very own eyes!

Sarah Palin at the 2009 Iron Dog Race

What else is new here in Alaska? Well, the sun is coming back. At a rate of 11 min per day, the days are indeed getting longer and it is now still light out when Amy leaves work at 5:30pm. Before long, it will be light when she leaves for work in the morning, and then summer right around the corner! She’s still such the trooper, running to work in the cold dark most days along snowy trails, occasionally being forced to take moose detours.

Dan is progressing with his flight lessons, having soloed last month, he is looking forward to his first cross country flights. When not studying his aviation book, he is working hard to market his photos and pick up new clients.

We managed to get out and ski a bit together a couple of weeks ago, and after talking about some of the awesome ski touring that this area has to offer, we went out and bought some metal edge backcountry touring setups. We’re looking forward to getting out for some kick and glide in the Chugach Mountains this winter and spring.

Of course we’re eagerly watching Mt. Redoubt, waiting to see if it’s going to blow. Actually, at this point, the hoopla has pretty much died down. Everyone has their masks, but since it still hasn’t erupted, we’ve kind of moved on. That is, until it finally does blow it’s top, in which case, it will be a terrible mess around Anchorage if the wind blows the ash cloud this way. If that happens, you’ll all hear about it on the national news, so just keep glued to your TV sets and stay tuned.

The weather? After that frigid cold snap last month, we had 50-degrees and rain, which caused lots of flooding. All the local schools were closed on account of it being too warm in the middle of winter. In fact, it was warmer here than it was in Arkansas. However, the cold came back and everything quickly got back to normal.

We’re still hanging tough and on the back end of winter now, with just a few weeks left until spring, although the snow will hang around for awhile. Looking forward to longer days and more fun outside!

Cold Snap!

Happy New Year!!!

2009 arrived in Alaska on the wings of a bitter, frigid cold snap. The temperature hasn’t climbed above zero for almost two weeks now and it’s been quite an adventure for us to balance the basic human needs of keeping warm and getting outside to play and go to work.

For Christmas, Santa gave us a new place to live. The construction noise and issues with our greedy inconsiderate landlord got to be too much for us and so we moved out of the old place and into a nice rental house in a great neighborhood called Rogers Park. The area has that homey Old Town Fort Collins feel, although we can’t see too much since everything is covered with a foot and a half of snow. We even have a grocery store within walking distance, a little market called Fred Meyer. Ok, it’s an enormous market, and it’s no Beaver’s but it is close and since it’s the grocery store for this neighborhood, it’s got a nice mid to upscale client base, not like the getto Carr’s/Safeway over on Gambell St. Plus you can get just about everything there: food, housewares, books, art and office supplies, games, auto stuff…

We had a nice Christmas together and made some yummy food bla bla bla… Ok, since I know you all want to know about the cold, we’ll talk about that some more.

Riding your bike at -14 degrees is a challenge. Not because the riding is that hard, it’s quite do-able with studded snow tires and packed down trails. Rather, it’s the keeping your feet warm that’s the hard part. Regular running shoes are fine for riding short errands around town, but for longer, more exercise, get out and play rides, your feet freeze pretty quickly. Even insulated, plastic winter mountaineering boots haven’t worked very well, mostly because there is just no movement, your feet just sit there on the metal pedals and get cold. What seems to work here is big, warm and loose. Sorels and anything oversize that gives your feet room to move around and keep circulating.

The hands part is not too bad, since we have Epic Designs pogies that Eric has been kind enough to supply for us. Big winter gloves and mittens stuffed inside the pogies does the job pretty well. For the face, keeping as much of it covered as possible is key. Scarves, balaclavas, facemasks… whatever works. Of course, wearing glasses means dealing endlessly with fogging lenses whenever you start covering your nose. Oh well, such is life when you don’t have perfect vision.

Running is a different story. You keep much warmer and since more of your body is working and moving, your feet are fine in regular shoes. The trouble with running in sub-zero temperatures is that the snow covered trails are frozen solid as is the rubber in running shoes, which means very little cushioning for your feet. Too much running on the ice leads to foot pain, as Amy is now unfortunately experiencing.

Our new house is further from Amy’s work than the old place, about 3.5 miles, but she’s been a rock star and has continued to run the 35-40 minutes to and from the office nearly every day in the cold dark. She accepts the occasional ride home from a coworker and the even more rare ride to work since Dan now has a plug-in engine heater in his truck. With the trails so hard now, she started riding her bike to work this week. This morning it 25 below.

Dan has been shooting photos here and there, doing lots of office and editing work, studying the private pilot manual, and even went out to take photos of Snowzilla, the colossal 25-foot tall snowman here in Anchorage that made the national News. It’s been too cold to fly lately, so he hasn’t had a lesson since before Christmas, but will hopefully get back up in the sky in that critical weather window between the time it warms up and before a week of forecasted snow hits Anchorage. He’s looking forward to his first solo, which will likely happen sometime this month.

In the evenings, we watch Netflix videos, play games (Cribbage, and Yatzee®) and bake and cook yummy things like cookies (Amy) and homemade pizza (Dan and Eric). Now that the winter solstice has passed, we’re looking forward to progressively longer days. Summer will be here before we know it! One nice benefit of the short days, though, is that winter light is absolutely beautiful. When the sun is out, it’s so low in the sky that it’s basically sunset all day long, which makes for great photos. And, even though we’ve lost count on the moose, we did see on walk down our street the other day.

We miss all of you, dear friends and family, and our Fort Collins house, even a little bit more lately. We wish you all a great and happy new year and are still taking bets on who will be the first ones to come visit up up here.

Almost Winter

Well, it’s almost officially winter here in Anchorage, although to the untrained eye, it would seem as if winter is already in full swing. Temperatures have been steadily wavering between just above freezing to just above zero, and there has been snow on the ground for well past a month. Over the weekend, we were treated to 35 degrees and freezing rain, followed by 25 degrees the next day, which basically turned the entire city into a sheet of ice.

Driving, and walking for that matter, is absolutely treacherous, but who needs to drive. Our bikes are fully winterized with flat pedals, fenders, blinky lights and the all important Nokian Freddy studded mountain bike tires. Each tire is embedded with 336 carbide studs which cut right through the ice and allow you to speed along over the slipperiest of terrain. It’s fun to whiz pas cars at intersections that are spinning their tires and going nowhere. Dan is out on his bike running errands around just about every day of the week, no matter what the temperature. Every errand is like an all terrain mountain bike ride, since you have to negotiate snow and ice piles, the occasional unplowed sidewalk and of course, traffic.

Amy still bundles up and walks to work every day, and enjoys making fresh powder tracks along the downtown park strip when it snows. Running after work is made more difficult by the ice and hard snow along the sidewalks and bike (now ski) trails, but she puts on her shoe spikes and makes an adventure out of it. The two of us run together about once a week. She’s doing well in her job and has settled in well with the nice people at her office. She still works weekends at The Sport Shop, but will cut back after Christmas.

Dan is progressing well with his flight lessons. He’s up to 7 hours now, and looking ahead to his first solo, which could happen sometime in the next few weeks. He studies his flight manuals and Federal Air Regulations guide and practices on the simulator at home. He’s also made some really good contacts with some local ad agencies, and has shot photos a few times, although with the sun so low, and lots of cloudy days right now, the low level of ambient light makes action photography somewhat difficult. On of his photos was recently published in the current issue of Alaska Magazine.

One new activity that we’ve discovered is skate skiing. We’ve rented and borrowed skate skis a couple of times and have tried this fun new sport along the bike trails, and out at Kincaid Park, which is without a doubt one of the finest nordic ski areas in the country. Over a hundred miles of ski trails wind through the forest and most of the trails are lighted. Eric also took Dan out to Hillside ski area, another great nordic center in the Anchorage foothills. It’s still a little awkward, since neither of us grew up on skis like so many of the little kids you see out on the ski trails, but it’s definitely fun and will take some time to learn.

And of course, everyone wants to know how we’re handling the darkness. Today the sun will rise at 10:03AM and will set at 3:42PM, which makes the day 5 hrs, 38 min. It’s a little strange to get used to, but it’s more intriguing that anything else. Amy takes walks every day at lunchtime and Dan is out on his bike during the day alot, but it is definitely a little weird to see cars drive with their lights on all day. It’s like we’re in Canada or something. We basically have two more weeks of shortening days, and then they start getting longer again. We’ve heard that January is the toughest month, it’s after the holidays, it’s cold and it’s dark. We’ll see how that goes. We watch lots of Netflix, make homemade pizza and try to do other fun stuff to keep us busy. We’re looking forward to having a fun Alaska Christmas here together.

So, that’s the update for now. We hope you have wonderful holidays and wish you all the best.

Moose in the Yard

First moose in the yard. It probably won’t be the last. These were taken right out the window next to Dan’s office.

The News from Anchorage

Just another regular week in Anchorage, Alaska. Here’s the latest news: Apparently some guy named Barack Obama won a historic presidential election, which means that we get our feisty governor back. Not very many people voted for this Barack fellow up here, they were busy trying to send 84-year old convicted felon Ted Stevens back to the Senate.

Amy has been running farther and for longer than she has been able to for a long time, often heading out in the morning darkness to get a few miles in before work. She’s been getting to know our new neighbors- a HUGE mama moose and her two younglings that have moved into the nearby woods. They hang out on and next to the bike trail down at the end of our street. Amy often returns from her runs with a faggot in her arms.

fag·ot also fag·got (fāg’ət)
n.
A bundle of twigs, sticks, or branches bound together, usually meant for use as firewood.

Dan has been meeting with some local advertising agencies, and working hard to make professional contacts around town. He also signed with Alaska Stock, a local stock photo agency that has national and international exposure. His image should begin to appear online with them soon.

Oh, and he has also decided that he wants to learn how to fly airplanes. He had his first lesson over at Merrill Field on Tuesday and goes up again next Monday. You can read about this in more detail over at Dan’s flying blog.

Cold Sunday Morning Together

12-degrees in Anchorage this morning, with an icy fog that hung over the city. Perfect conditions for a couple hours of exercise/playtime/adventure before Amy had to go work at The Sport Shop. We suited up, donning wind pants, balaclavas, and enough layers to keep us warm for an hour-long run, which we followed with an hour-long bike ride.

The air temperature was so cold, especially during the run, that any exposed pieces of hair, whisker and even those tiny little hairs on your face that you can’t even see, became covered in white rhyme ice. We saw a number of other people out on the trail walking and running, and everyone had the same look; like we were all some kind of strange ice creatures.

We finished running at about 9:00 AM, just as the sun was rising above the Chugach mountains to the east. The fog began to burn off as we headed out on our bikes, which was an even colder experience, because canvas, mesh cycling shoes, even with thick wool socks, offer absolutely no cover from the icy wind. Our feet were cold within minutes, and began to freeze after we ride through a long icy slush puddle that splattered ice all over the tops of our shoes.

They were uncomfortably cold by the time we turned around to head home, and by the time we were finished, they had that painful freeze that hurts with stabbing pain when you warm them up. Amy’s feet were worse, since they had a thicker coating of ice. In fact, her shoes were literally encased in solid ice to the point that it impossible for her to untie her laces. We need to figure out better shoes for winter bike riding. More on that later.

All in all, it was very enjoyable way for us to spend the morning together. Ain’t married life great?

Skiing, Hatcher Pass, Talkeetna Mountains

Day #1.

6,000 vertical feet.

Incredible early season powder.

Amy Sebby skinning- Talkeetna Mountians, Alaska

Amy skinning on a ridgeline in the Talkeetna Mountains

Amy making her first big Alaska powder turns

Skinning up for another run

Amy heading off into the powder for more turns

How do you like the snow, Amy?

Here’s a panoramic view from the top, looking out over the Talkeetna Mountains (left) and the Matanuska Valley, the Knik Glacier and the Chugach Mountains (middle-right). Click on the image to ‘zoomify.