19 July 2006 Powerline Pass

For the past 7 years my Wednesday evenings from April through September have been devoted to riding with the Wombats of Anchorage (Women's Mountain Bike and Tea Society). I've become a much better mountain biker by riding weekly with the 'bats and have made some great friends. We meet at various trailheads around Anchorage, mostly riding in two large municipal parks. These parks offer rooty dirt trails through birch and spruce groves. My favorite ride of the summer, however, is up Powerline Pass. We drive to the edge of Anchorage to a trailhead in Chugach State Park, the huge park to the east of Anchorage. We pedal half a mile through a grove of twisted mountain hemlocks to reach the rocky four-wheel drive road that heads up the treeless valley to the pass. The road is closed to vehicles in the summer. Few hikers walk more than 2 miles out the road, and few bikers go up there. So soon we have the trail and valley to ourselves. We turn around about 5 miles out at a tundra lake up against a ridge.

The openness of the valley and pass are a welcome change from the trees of Anchorage. I love the forests of Alaska, but we're often in them at home, at our cabin, on our camping and kayaking trips. So many of our Colorado trips took us to the high country. I don't realize how much I miss those alpine tundra landscapes until I'm in this valley, able to see miles around me. In the summer we often see moose on the other side of the valley. One winter while skiing here, I saw a wolf loping along high up on the hillside. He embodied the free feeling I had, high in these mountains, yet only a few minutes from my home.

(This year someone discovered this huge boulder next to the trail and those with good upper body strength pulled their bikes up for photos. That's not me in the photo -- I'm taking it of course. That's my friend, Jamie, who was born the same week I was in 1965.)

15 July 2006 Cruciferous

Even though it seems like July has been nothing but rain, with continual cool temperatures and clouds, we had received less than .05" of rain during the month. Wednesday and Thursday seemed like summer had finally arrived, with high temperatures hitting 75 and clear sunny skies. But the clouds returned early Friday morning and by afternoon it was as dark as it's been since early May. The rain started late afternoon and continued through the night and into Saturday morning. It rained 1.6" and now we're more than an 1" ahead of the normal month-to-date precipitation. The weather may have changed our Saturday plans, but the vegetables, trees, and lawn seem happy with the soaked ground. Greens seem just a little more vibrant today and leaves are shiny with the moisture.

2 July 2006 Big Lake

On Sunday afternoon the sailing club took up a collection for fireworks. The only town, and four stands, that sell fireworks in southcentral Alaska are less than 10 miles away. Fireworks on the 4th of July really don't have much oomph in a place where the sun just barely sets behind the horizon from about midnight to 4:00 am. But the skies cooperated this evening when heavy clouds moved across the sky, blocking the sun. The kids, with some adult supervision, set up the fireworks on a gravel pad just off the end of the dock. Most of us sat around the campfire a hundred feet away and oohed and ahhed as the colors burst against the backdrop of gray clouds. The fireworks show lasted about 20 minutes.

And then the sun dropped below the clouds and gave us its rendition of 4th of July fireworks.

1 July 2006 Venus of the Primrose

We found Venus in a souvenir shop in a Tuscan village in May 2005. She now graces a stone in the primrose garden behind the house. This spring the primroses seemed to be bowing down to her, subordinating their beauty to hers. She took their obeisance in stride, as any goddess would.