Eagle River Weather

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

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.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey Ben,
Just checked out your blog, got directed from Yurt Info. Interested in getting one and would love to be able to ask you some questions, seeing how you guys are surviving in Alaska in one. If you have the time can you email me,,,,i would love to ask you a few things.
Life looks good up there.
Thanks
Effie

effiemackinnon@hotmail.com