A Yurt Christmas

We had a wonderful and cold Christmas this year. We ate a lot of food, took naps, and talked to family members on the phone. Here is a picture of our Christmas tree.

Nicki and I got to go skiing with some friends while the grandparents took care of Leo.

We might hit the negative 20's in the next couple of days. Yikes! The places with open water on the river are closing up with those dropping temperatures. Here is a picture of that happening. I'm calling it agate ice. (for all those geology nerds like me)

You can already tell there is more sunlight streaming into the valley. Since solstice we have already gained an hour of daylight. The constant twilight makes for some really cool alpenglow on the mountains.

Our friend, Jason, did the triple black diamond on his belly. He's crazy, and here is a picture of the after math.

We hope you all had a great Christmas and have a wonderful new year.

Full Moon, skiing, and Oma and Opa

Clear skies and a full moon lent itself to some fun late night skiing and picture taking. Here is a picture of the Eagle River Nature Center at about 11:00

The shadows in this picture are being made by the moon. Since it was so bright with the moon reflecting off the snow, I didn't have to use my headlamp to see or a flash for the camera.

A tree that over hangs the frozen river.

That same tree during the day. Notice the sunshine on the mountains in the background. We are pretty excited about solstice and getting that sun back.

Oma and Opa Pressman are up for a visit and ans you can see, Leo is really wearing everyone out.

Here is is, the triple black diamond down the septic field. Yes, Ben does have a lot of time on his hands.

Cold Temps, Frozen Ski Trips, Snowcaves

We finally hit negative temperatures here at the yurt. I added some extra insulation to our skylight to prevent heat loss through its relatively thin plastic. As you can see it was pretty cold by early evening, but we were warm and dry inside. (Hopefully, this will hold true when the teperature dips down into the double digit negatives.)

What to do when the temperature drops this far? Go skiing and check out all the frozen stuff. Here are the dogs pulling me on my skis. We are headed out to the frozen Eagle River to check out some frozen rapids.

This is where the Eagle River valley narrows considerably. This is looking up river towards the rapids.

The water freezing on the surface of the river would push up the layers of ice on top. This created some pretty fantastic terraced ice, and some unstable conditions. You had to cross the river a few times over ice bridges made from constantly shifting ice. Yikes!

Lot's of great chandelier ice.

We did about 10 miles of skiing and skijouring in single digit weather, and this is what you look like after you are done. Notice the ice on the eyelashes.

The latest projects at home have been building stuff in the snow, building shelving for Leo's toys, and getting ready for Christmas. Here is a picture of Leo in a snow cave out by the shed.

Coming up in a future post - the triple black diamond ski run down the septic field.