Eagle River Weather

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Bitter Cold to Windy and Mild

Last Friday Nicki did a wilderness medicine and survival course. She got to practice emergency medicine, start fires, and sleep in a snow cave. All this took place between -35 and -20 degrees. Go winter survival. Here is a picture of Nicki holding a signaling flare.

Another cold, clear, full-moon night led to some more great picture taking. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get away from the yurt to take advantage, but I made the most of it.

This photo shows you what happens when the neighboring valley is sunny and ours is cloudy. The sun projected the outline of the ridge onto the clouds. When things cleared up we were able to match the actual ridge with the picture of its outline.

Three days after the previous photos were taken things started to warm up around here. We went from the negative teens to the 40's in the space of 48 hours. It has been pouring rain and the wind has blowing extremely hard. Here are two pictures of the property taken two days apart. Man, things can change quick.

Nicki's brothers, Andy and Peter, got us a wind gauge for Christmas. The fastest wind it has recorded so far is 50 mph, but we think it has been blowing harder than that. I think I need to get it up on a pole and off the railing to get a better reading.

And, finally a quick video of our fun in the wind. The beginning of the video is for all you yurt owners or potential owners. It shows you the cinch buckle and strap we added to the yurt for wind. It helps keep the window flaps and side wall from moving. It has made a really big difference and only needs to be put up when wind is in the forecast.

Wish us luck getting up and down our driveway. With all this slushy ice, We'll need it.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! Talk about weather extremes! That is crazy. How did the melting snow/ice effect the inside of the yurt? Did you have puddles of water to deal with?

Your Christmas photos were great. It looked warm and cheerful inside.

I really like the cool pics of the landscape. I bet you could sell those to some nature minded mags, or least make custom postcards! They are beautiful.

Heather

Ben Schneider said...

The Yurt actually absorbed the water as it melted out. I guess that there are enough smaller holes that it just kind of seeped out. I had very little clean up. I was worried about it though!
Thanks for the compliments on the photos. I'm actually in the process of selling them in postcard format.
BEN

2eph10 said...

Was your yurt allowed in Eagle River without any problems regarding codes? Curious as well, what made you guys move it out to chugiak? Do you still have the same set up? It looks great! Did you do your wiring or did you hire it out?

Ben Schneider said...

@2eph10
We used the temporary housing loop hole as an excuse to be able to build our Yurt. And, we lived far enough out (by the nature center) that nobody was really checking on us. The property the yurt was on did not belong to us and the owners wanted us off. We moved to Chugiak for it's proximity to mushing and skiing trails and the fact that it is pretty loose on its building codes. The yurt is set up in a similar fashion (loft with work space beneath), however the new set up is not plumbed. I did not do the wiring on the first set up but did on the second.