Monday, February 25, 2008

One of my favorite times of the year.....

March and June are hands down my two favorite months of the year in Alaska. I know it isn't March yet but it is pretty darn close. Today was a beautiful sunny blue sky day with tons of really good snow. We are up to 10+ hours of daylight and gaining 5 minutes everyday. Right now the sun isn't setting until after 7pm, a wonderful thing.

Today we spent most of the daylight hours playing on snowmachines in the woods not too far from home. I love that in ten minutes worth of riding you can be so remote it would take a day to get there in the summer. The sun was bright, the snow was deep, and the trees....

well, lets just say they sometimes don't move out of the way fast enough.
On days like today you become one with nature, the word tree hugger takes on a whole new meaning. With the snow just barely covering some of the alder thickets I find that when you are flying across the top of them and your ski dives under one measly little alder, you stop like a fighter jet on an aircraft carrier. The only difference is that the pilot is strapped into his fighter, I on the other hand continue at the previous forward speed until coming to rest somewhere in a pile somewhere near the machine. Tell me that doesn't sound like fun. With all of the avalanche activity around and a few deaths this year at least we don't have to worry because we don't go above treeline. Our biggest concern is getting impaled by a tree branch or something like that. People think riding a snowmachine consists of sitting on it and steering, that is a pure misconception and at the end of the day you are so tired you feel like a noodle.



Here are a couple of pictures..

I wish I had the event on video because it was so funny. Ryan where is your sled??

If you look real hard you will see it upside down under the big spruce tree.

I'm not sure how he managed it but it looked awesome!

Lucky boy, not so much as a scratch!

Here is how I spent a fair bit of my time.....

Start shoveling...again!

This is deep snow, step off and it is waist deep. Get stuck and start digging!

What could be more fun or better exercise......





1 comment:

margmor said...

Thanks for the dot on my map Tyson- I'm having serious map envy, yours is very impressive! Also, glad to know you still have all your limbs, even if the trees you face on your snowmachine...don't!