Alaskan escape: Spring

Showing posts with label Spring. Show all posts

Friday, March 22, 2013

Bits and pieces from last week

One more week has passed here in Alaska. It's a bit crazy how fast time goes by now. Next week will be our last week at work. I mean, what?? And in one month we will leave Alaska. Again, what??

We get busier and busier as the time of departure approaches. Like mentioned before we are heading to Canada, the departure date will be the 22nd of April. We have now purchased almost all our gear for the summer backpacking trip and we spent most of the weekend sorting and listing them. We have also started sorting and packing the stuff that we will need in Canada for six months, and the stuff that we will leave in Two Rivers.

We are still able to find some time to enjoy our weekends. Last Saturday we had a barbecue dinner and meeting with the Mile 101 crew. It was so great to see again all those people with whom we had so much fun some weeks ago. As we left Peter's place we realized that we would have to say more and more goodbyes in next couple of weeks. Even though you know that you have to leave, and you are very excited about the next adventure, it's pretty hard when it's time to say goodbye.

On Sunday we enjoyed the sunny weather by doing some outdoor cleaning and wood piling. The temperature is between -10 and 0 °C so when the sun is shining it is pretty warm outside.

Julien tried some adjustments with our tent, making sure we are ready for the summer. He also took off the back seat of the car in order to have more space for our 6 month road trip in Canada while Piia was out with Kerry and some dogs.

We took a day off on Tuesday and it ended up being a great opportunity to spend some time with Nick who is rarely around during the weekends. We had lunch together and Nick offered us new culinary experiences with extra hot horseradish and triscuits. Nick likes mountaineering so we had some interesting discussion about outdoor gear and nutrition.

After lunch we went for a walk with Barges who is now our walking buddy, Keeper and Nick's dog Cooper. We walked until Flat creek which is pretty impressive looking creek now with its huge overflow. The weather was nice as it has been since many weeks now.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Around the Flat Mountain

As Julien stated it, “the white spring” is here!

Meaning we still have snow on the ground so the landscape is white and beautiful, but the temperature keeps rising up during the days with about 11 hours of sunlight so it’s perfect for outdoor trips.

Last Saturday we decided to train a bit for the hiking trip we’ll do this summer, so went on a snowshoe, and later just shoe, trip around the Flat Mountain that stands on our backyard.

We packed some homemade bread with cheese, some tea, and of course camera and headed to the trail with two dogs, Pronto and Barges, who chased squirrels, opened the trail and enjoyed the trip as well.

The trail was fun to walk. We clearly don’t have as much snow as we had last year this time, and the trail was also packed pretty well, so we didn’t actually even need snow shoes. To go around the mountain you have to climb a hill called “a wall” which describes it pretty well. It’s not a long way, but it is steep! We also climbed to the top of the mountain, just to see the view.

We stopped for a snack at the other side of the mountain. Barges and Pronto tried their very best...

At the back of the mountain we faced some overflows. Luckily it was frozen under due to cold night temperatures, with just a little bit of water on the top. So we didn’t even get wet.