In search of snow...

Well, we had to drive two hours north to my friend Clay's cabin to find good snow to play in but it was definitely worth it. I like living up Hatcher Pass because I don't have to haul my snowmachine anywhere to ride, I usually just walk outside and go. Since we had 45 degree weather and four days of rain all we have is a lot of ice with about 2" of new snow on top of it. Not much fun to ride in. Clay and I drove up to the cabin Saturday morning and spent the day riding on the east side of the Parks Highway. We rode over the mountains closest to the highway and into a big valley that is the head of about three or four rivers. The area was huge and the riding would have been great except it got cloudy and the light got really flat. Riding in flat light is about the same as riding in complete blackness. You are on a canvass of complete white and you can't tell if you are going up or down and can't tell if you are about to ride over a ledge or into a cornice. It causes a feeling of vertigo. On the way out we ended up having to cross a huge (about a mile across) patch of alders. If you haven't ever experienced being in the middle of an alder thicket I'd have to compare it to maybe being in a field of corn or a bamboo forest. Maybe not quite that extreme but close. Going into it I saw what I thought was a nice line through it but once inside I lost that line and Clay decided he didn't care for my trail finding abilities. Once out of the alders we played our way back to the cabin and called it a night. Sunday morning didn't start out looking too promising as my head and stomach were none too happy with how much I drank the night before. Had it not been for the fact that we drove two hours to get there I'd have gone home and gone to bed. Every time Clay said "You don't look so good Ty" I'd just get up off the ground and hope I didn't really look as bad as he made it sound. However I knew I did. Since I didn't want to be the one to ruin a good trip I toughed it out and about two hours into it I started to feel almost human. It only took getting stuck once to really start sweating everything out of my system. After my head stopped spinning I was really glad I went. We spent Sunday on the West side of the Parks Highway playing in the foothills of Denali. The snow was really good and the day was great. We found a bunch of ravines to play in and every ravine seemed to have a beaver pond in it. Beaver ponds are great to play in because the dams and lodges make great jumps. We may have disrupted sleep for a bunch of beavers but I'm sure they will survive. Hopefully we will get a ton of snow in the next few weeks but if we don't I expect Clay and I will be making another trip to the cabin in the near future.

Since Clay didn't have a camera most of these pictures are of him...

The Cabin

Clay making his way through the trees

Clay playing under the power line

On the way up the mountains on the east side of the highway

Trying to find paths between the alder thickets

Crown Royal in a Mason Jar; it was much more appealing Saturday night

Playing in the foothills of Denali

Looking up the Ohio Creek Valley

The sun tried to find it's way through the clouds

Clay as we debate which direction we should head

The only picture I have of my sled is when I got stuck. I didn't quite make this incline, but the digging out did help cure my hangover...

The terrain is endless, with a little more snow to hide the alders this would be heavenly

Dozer, Clay's retarded yellow lab

Waking of the beaver

Trying to find a way to the creek bottom

The river banks were a little too steep to get down so we'll have to try a little harder next time...

Is it just me?

I was just reading my own blog from January of 2008 and this time last year I was praying for a little sun in the Sahara Desert and now I am praying for a little snow in Alaska in January. Is it me am I cursed? What the heck is going on; I go to the desert and I can't get sun, it just rained the whole time. Now I'm at home and it rained all last week and we can't get any snow; what is going on???

I went for a ride today and all of our swamps are completely devoid of any snow. I was literally riding across muskeg (tundra) and brush because the swamps have no snow and the lakes and roads are glare ice. About fifteen miles up the road there is about two inches of new (soft) snow but that is it. I did manage to get two pictures while I was riding today; one is of my new snowmachine and the other is looking back down the valley.

UGHHHHH.....

If any normal place in the world had an eighty degree temperature increase in four days, I think people would die of heat stroke. Here in Alaska, we just warm up to five degrees less than our average summer temperature.

Last week it was about -20F here at the house but ten miles down the hill in Willow it got down to -45 degrees. Today it was 45 degrees above in Willow and pouring rain. We lost almost all of our snow here due to wind and rain. A pipe froze and broke the day before I came home from work so I had Sandi turn off the water. I picked up the fittings to fix the pipe on the way from the airport hoping to have the water and heating system back in service Wednesday night. Unfortunately when I told Sandi to turn off the water I forgot to tell her to turn off the radiant heating system controller. This small oversight on my part led to a burnt up (not so cheap) circulation pump. Live and learn I guess. Luckily it was forty degrees for the three days that the radiant heating system was down otherwise things could have gotten ugly in a hurry.

We spent today trying to chip up our glare ice driveway, pump the water out of the barn, and cut up the spruce tree that blew down across the fence in the horse corral. I took my snowmachine out to survey the loss of snow and it may as well have been a jet ski. I'd have been better off wearing a dry suit instead of the down jacket that I was wearing. All of the lakes around here have slush and standing water on top of the ice and there are huge puddles everywhere. I was thinking a snorkel might have been a good idea.

Hopefully the temperature will drop a little and all of this precipitation will turn to snow instead of the rain we are currently getting.

Pray for snow!

Happy New Year....

Well, I suppose I should get motivated and write my first post of the year.

Things have been pretty quiet and I haven't worked on any projects since November. The week before Christmas I went to Minden, NV for some technical training for work. Minden is only about a forty minute drive from Lake Tahoe so I spent two days up there checking things out.

Having never been to that part of Nevada or California, I thought it was really pretty. They got about a foot of snow at Tahoe right before I went so I took my snowboard just in case Heavenly was open when I got there. The one day I got to ride, the gondola was closed due to high winds and only two runs were open (also due to high wind), and the lift ticket was still$60. After a little quick math in my head I figured I would save money as well as get a little exercise by spending the afternoon at Heavenly as opposed to sitting in the casino. Based on how much I lost the night before in a short amount of time I think I made the right decision.

Usually I like to go with someone I work with when I go to training. That way I have someone I know to work with in the class and do stuff with in the evenings. I was a little reluctant going by myself not ever having been there before. Things worked out great though (as they usually do) and one of the guys in the class (Aaron) works for Atlantic LNG in Trinidad (the island right next to Tobago) which happens to be a LNG plant that a bunch of guys I work with helped start up. So we hung out together most of the time. The oil and gas world is really quite small.

It was the first time Aaron had ever seen snow so we drove up to Lake Tahoe several times so he could take pictures and play in the snow. It's funny to think that here was a guy that hadn't seen snow until he was 29 and I can't remember a year of my life without it. Although I can't imagine life in a climate that never gets colder than probably 60 to 70 degrees either.

I flew home on December 20th and just barely made it through Seattle before they shut the airport down for three days. Which I was quite happy about.

I decided to trade my 600 RMK (snowmachine) for this years 800 RMK. I've never really wanted an 800 but now that I have it I'd have a hard time going back. I picked it up the night I got home from Nevada and got sick the next day. I laid on the couch for a whole day and watched the snow fall on it. I ended up sick for three days and got over it just in time for a little fondue on Christmas eve. In eight days at home I only got to put 60 miles on my new sled before having to head back to work. It worked out ok though, we all had a nice quiet Christmas. For Christmas Dinner my Mom, TJ (and Aubrey), Rachelle, Sydney came over and Sandi's Mom was up from Wyoming. After my 28lb turkey for Thanksgiving I decided to start a new tradition for Christmas Dinner. I cooked blue cheese stuffed filet mignon and king crab with asparagus. And after recovering from overeating, I think it is a worthwhile tradition to continue.

The last week and a half have been really really cold and even if I were at home I wouldn't be riding so it isn't so bad being at work. It is supposed to start snowing again the first of next week so hopefully I'll get home to a couple of feet of new snow to play in. I have some pictures of Tahoe I'll post also but I forgot my camera at home.

I'll keep you posted.

Procrastination...

Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment. ~Robert Benchley


It isn't that I haven't spent plenty of time at the computer in the last three months that I haven't added a new post, and it isn't because I have been consumed entirely by my gargantuan projects; it is more a combination of things and the biggest of which is procrastination.

After the completion of the geothermal installation I did spend the next time home trying to turn my nuclear landscape back into something that looked nice. Sandi went to Oregon for a week for a horse clinic so I rented a dozer and Gordy came up for a couple of days and we pushed a bunch of dirt and stumps. I did have a bit of a problem being too hard on equipment as I put a stump through the oil cooler on my Dad's loader which put it out of commission and then I tipped our (Sandi's) tractor over trying to move dirt. All in the same day mind you. In the end we got most of what I wanted to get landscaped completed. I still have some work to do next summer but we do have a fairly sizable new pasture (fairway) that now needs to be seeded. It has been really nice to have the open area as I think we actually doubled our usable acreage with this project.

In October and early November with the help of Ted and his loader, I was able to get the two long walls on the barn and the bottom half of one of the gable ends. My big pile of SIP's has disappeared from the ground in front of the barn and the few that are left are now residing inside the barn. I had to get enough done so that the garage door installers could come hang our garage doors. So now we have two garage doors and one whole open wall. It does stop the wind and snow from blowing through which is nice. I was really hoping to get all of the walls up before Christmas but it has been pretty cold and the daylight is from 9am to about 4pm and usually by the time I get motivated half the day is wasted. This last time home my motivation has decreased in direct proportion to our amount of sunlight. It is really low as is the sun in the sky. Luckily that all changes soon and we will be gaining sunlight soon.

I'm getting a new snowmachine in December so I don't anticipate being a real ball of fire as long as we have good snow.

For Thanksgiving we went to my parents house for dinner and my contribution was the 28lb turkey. I even cooked it! It took me all night to cook but it was ready by 2pm on Thanksgiving day.
Aside from that I'd say things have been pretty quiet around the house. The geothermal has been working really well; the oil fired boiler does seem to kick on to assist the heat pump when the temperature drops really quickly outside but otherwise we have been heating with the geothermal since September.

We got Thane's snowmachine going last week and he and I have kind of turned Sandi's new horse pasture into our new snowcross track. He's a riot to watch and since his machine tops out at probably 15mph (if he's luckily) he's pretty safe. I've taught him how to lean on side hills and how to get unstuck when he gets himself stuck. I have to laugh because when he gets stuck, he throws the exact kind of tantrum that I do when I get stuck. I didn't teach him that part, I guess it's just genetic.

It looks like sunset but it is actually just a November afternoon in Alaska. A view of our new pasture/snowcross course.

My pile of SIP's that finally disappeared.

A view of the sinkhole side of the yard.


Another view (overcast and wintry) of the fairway...


Our two man SIP installation operation; Step 1- get panel in the air


Step 2- get panel on the sill plate

Step 3- lift, tilt, slide, OK don't move until I get it attached to a post....
Did I mention that the brakes weren't working on the loader? Just part of the fun of the project.


South view from the second floor of the barn

Same view with Mt Illiamna to the left of Mt Susitna.

We may not have all the walls (or even a complete roof for that matter) but we do have garage doors!

Note the roof opening for the not-yet-complete cupola.

But the doors are nice!

The West wall; I like to think of it as a big window to nature! Not too good of an R value though.

The South wall with all of it's panels...

The fairway with a little sunshine on it.

Thane got his Yellow belt in Karate last month.

Our livestock guardian dog thinks winter is cold and has decided that sleeping in the hay feeder is warmer than sleeping on the ground. Smart dog....

Pictures to go with yesterday's post

I apologize that my post from yesterday was four pages long but it was because I sat down three times and started writing and never got to post any of them. Last night I compiled them all and put them into one really long post. I guess if a picture is worth a thousand words then these pictures should justify yesterday's text.

Here are some pictures of a couple of my latest projects:

Here is the trailer with 9000 feet of 1" pipe and 500 feet of 1.25" pipe ready and eager to be placed into a trench.

This was the first trench for the header into the house. Since my septic system pipe runs under this trench I was very careful and ended up hand digging a lot of it just to be on the safe side.

This is trench one which went down the left side of the drive, looking from the house. Note the greenery on the other side of the drive and refer back to it after seeing pictures from trench three and four.

Trench one on the way down the side of the drive.

Placing the piping into trench one.

My number one helper at the controls. After a few hours training he had it down and could fully operate the excavator as long as he was in my lap so his feet could reach the pedals.

Here he is up close...

Looking at the house from the end of trench one.

This is the start of trench two and three looking from the house end of the trench.

This is looking back up at the house from where trench two splits off of trench three.

Looking down trench two which went down the left side of the drive.

The barn in the background of trench two.

Looking from the house out at trench three. Refer back to the third picture to see the loss of vegetation.

Trench four with trench three on the right. Trench three hadn't been back filled as we were trying to save time by saving the final back fill for after all the trenches had been dug.

Looking at the house while digging trench four about 75' from the end of the trench.

Same location looking towards the end of trench four.

Navigating the mountain between trench three and four while trying to back fill.

We had to dig trench four right in front of our shed, I accidentally swung the boom around too fast and broke the awning away from the shed. I was thrilled as this created yet one more project.

This is me placing piping into trench four. The pipe is not real easy to work with as it retains a fair amount of memory from being coiled in a roll for so long.

From the deck looking at trenches five and six, trench three and four went on the right of the shed. The dog kennel used to be on the right side of the shed but had to move to a temporary location.

From the deck you could barely see the excavator on the hill in the background while digging trench five and six.

This was one of the trees that I really wanted to save while digging trenches five and six.

Working on trench six, Gordy was operating while I laid piping.

Looking back up trench six toward the house. There are two passes on the bottom ready to be covered with 18 to 20 inches of dirt so the two upper passes can be put in the trench.

This is Gordy working his way back up onto the pile to back fill the end of trench six.

Looking back at the barn from the end of trench six. Note the devastation and loss of vegetation. I have to plant some trees next year so we will have a little oxygen output left in the neighborhood

This gives a really good visual of how the pipe lays in the bottom of each trench.

Brian and Andrea's back porch timbers. I am really happy with how the tapered posts turned out.

This is Sydney sitting on the back porch after the trusses were put on the roof. Their back porch is going to be nice and tall.

The front porch with the set of test rafters on top to get an idea of how it will look.

The tapered posts on the front have braces (big challenge) and I think it turned out really good. Note the embellishments that Brian added to the garage, this is going to be a great looking house. They have already had a developer stop by to ask about the porch because he wants to incorporate details like theirs into his houses. Kind of cool.