29 April 2007 Chulitna River

view from Parks Highway overlook in Denali State Park

22 April 2007 Susitna Playground

We rode bikes into Talkeetna and out to the river on a beautiful spring day with Deb, Jeff, Pam, and Roger. Someone found this well-balanced cottonwood log and the fun began.

(for those of you who haven't been here yet, Denali is the mountain to the right of Paul, Foraker is to the left, he's blocking the view of Hunter)

16 April 2007 Matanuska River

I was driving to Palmer, the seat of the Mat-Su Borough government, to tell the planning commission that I supported the management plan for Fish and Numbered Lakes. Numbered Lakes is our back yard in Talkeetna. The folks up there came up with a plan that protects the unique natural values of the area (springs, wetlands, salmon habitat) while allowing low-intensity recreational use.

The commission meeting met at 6:00 so I left Anchorage early to miss the traffic. With extra time, I took the 'back way' on the old Glenn Highway. The view from the bridge over the Matanuska River was so good that I turned around to take this photograph.

And the plannning commission recommended that the assembly approve the plan. What a great evening.

1 April 2007 Talkeetna Spring

The morning temperature on the first day of April was about 10 at the cabin, but the mercury climbed as the sun reached higher in the sky.

31 March 2007 Talkeetna Lakes Tour

What kind of wax you got on those skis, Deb?

At the end of March I headed up to Talkeetna alone when Paul got an invitation to snow-machine in the Katmai backcountry. Friends Deb, Jeff, Ellen, Joe, and Peggy were as eager as I to take advantage of the warm spring days and go for a long ski. We didn't start especially early, but with the long days and skew of our time zone, we reasoned that starting at 11:00 was really like starting at 9:00 solar time.

The conditions were perfect for those of us with waxless skis and a little more challenging for those trying to wax. We skied from lake to wetland to hill to bluff to frozen creek. The changing moisture content and temperature of the snow meant the waxers were either sticking, slipping, or every so often getting perfect kick and glide. I was glad once again that I had finally purchased waxless skis two springs ago, mostly for days just like this.

During the six-hour tour we traversed country that only a few people see in a year, skied on a frozen subdivision road, saw one of the best views of the Alaska Range, and ran into a homesteader mad that we had trespassed without knowing it. All in all, a fairly typical outing in rural Alaska.