November Snow

Life is complete again as snow is once again covering the yurt. It'd be nice to have the temperatures in the positive numbers, but hey you can't have everything.

A clear night with a full moon and new snow, excellent skiing conditions.

A day back-country skiing out at Arctic Valley yielded great views of Denali.

Who needs playdough when you have freshly fallen snow.

And, who needs to pull a sled when you have THREE dogs (Nisha is in there somewhere) to do it for you. (photo credit goes to Ted)

Happy snow play every one.

Pulks on the Cheap #1

Once the cold weather sets in it can become very difficult to get our little guys out. Chariots and Burly ski systems are great ways to bundle your kid up and take them on a ski or hike, but those systems are very expensive. Most of us, however, already have enclosed bike trailers. These bike trailers can be cheaply converted into a pulk. I haven't finished this yet, but I've done the first step which is to attach the wheels of a bike trailer to skis.

But first, here is the original inspiration and end product of this bike-trailer-into-ski-pulk project.

http://www.akskedaddle.com/2011/10/repost-and-update-ski-pulk-diy.html

Here is what I came up with. The cradle for the wheel is a 2x4 (shaped to match the circumference of the wheel) sandwiched between 2 pieces of plywood. The skis are some old downhill skis I cut in half (Which is unfortunate because the tails had the word "RADICAL" written across them).

I drilled holes into the ski and fastened wood screws through the skis and into the wooden cradles.

I filled the holes for the screws with epoxy, sanded them flush, and then hot waxed the entire base. I used this process to attach the hardware for a split board I made a couple of years ago and the epoxy holds really well and doesn't add any drag.

I used zip ties to attach the wheel to the cradle. Here are the holes drilled through the cradle to thread the zip ties to.

Here are the zip ties threaded around the rim of the wheel and trimmed.

And the final product.

I'm helping a friend with this and I only have the wheels to her bike trailer, so I can't show you what it all looks like with the skis on the trailer. Hopefully I will get another post up soon to show how we attach the bike trailer to a person, what the entire system looks like, how it well it's working, and tips for how to keep your kiddo toasty warm inside it.

Woosh, it's been a long time since I posted. There has been a lot of puzzle work and running around. But, we have been having a beautifully sunny and warm fall. The wild flowers were a big tangled mess this year but still brought us plenty of color in the late fall.

Kaya is up and running and becoming a great hiker. Here she is running away from us down the driveway,

and keeping up with big brother at the Nature Center.

During September the setting sun shoots beams of light right down the valley creating perfect conditions for rainbows.

Leo got to practice his rock climbing skills out on the dew mound trail.

The kiddos enjoying the view out by dew lake.

We haven't had any significant snow fall on the yurt yet, but it is definitely coming.

Visiting Friends and Blueberries

We had some good friends from Seattle come and visit in the middle of August and we were fortunate to have several breaks in the weather. We were also fortunate that they were enthusiastic picture takers. Here is the family on the cruise boat on Portage lake with the glacier in the back ground.

We took the ferry from Whittier to Valdez and were blessed with sunny skies, sea lions, humpback whales, and even Orcas that were surfing the wake of the ferry. Valdez didn't disappoint either with it's wall to wall pink salmon running in a local stream. Surprise, surprise we caught a few of these.

On the way over Thompson Pass we pulled off the side of the road and did some scenic blueberry picking. Here are Dunes and Ramona with their daughter doing some serious picking and eating.

The weather did not hold for the entire trip and our one night of actual tent camping ended up being pretty wet. Luckily there was a picnic shelter for some dry cooking and eating. Here are the 3 kiddos in their ducky out fits.

We also spent some time hanging out at the yurt. Here is Ramona engineering the baby train.

It's my second favorite time of year, berry picking season. (ski season being the first) Lots of locals have been complaining about the lack of blueberries around this year, but you just have to know where to go.

Dipnetting and Fairbanks

July in Alaska means fish. This Summer, we got our act together and were able to participate in an Alaska resident only fishery, dip netting. You basically stand in belly deep in a river emptying out into the sea with a really large net hoping fish will swim into. Here I am catching the best fish in the sea.


Literally thousands of Alaskans show up at the mouth of the Kenai river for the return of the salmon. We were lucky enough to be there during a 30 year record for the number of fish to return in one day, 230,000, and have excellent weather. If you click on this next photo you can see all the people lined up on the opposite shore. You are literally shoulder to shoulder with the other people fishing.

We caught 25 fish in 2 hours, but netting the fish is just the beginning of the work. Next you have to process them. Here are Nicki and Kaya at their first ever fish cleaning session.

Nicki has the month of August off and we have been taking advantage of it by getting out and traveling. Kaya is already brushing up on her backpacking skills.

We took a trip to Fairbanks to the Tananna Valley fair. Leo has really gotten into roller coaster rides, but we got him to tone it down a bit and ride the ponies.

The raspberries are ripe and abundant. Leo is showing Kaya the ropes on berry picking.

On the way back we were caught in a freak snow storm near Denali park. Leo was very excited to throw the first snow balls of the year.

hiking and dog houses

Now that most of the snow is out of the mountains the hiking season has begun. Leo has impressed us all with how much more motivated he is to go long distances than he was last year. Here Leo is at the highest point of his second annual father son Mt Baldy hike. Required brownie in hand.

Nicki's parents were in town for awhile and we hiked with them for a little ways on their traverse of crow pass. Here's Kaya enjoying lunch at the pass.

Leo doing the same.

After they finished their hike, Nicki's parents watched the kids and let Nicki and I do the same traverse. Here is Nicki on our first backpacking trip since moving to Alaska.

Here I am testing how cold the water is.

Leo found this eagle feather on a recent hike. Sweet find, but there were a few tears shed about not being able to take it home.

Ranger is slowly making his transition to being an outdoor dog. We made a dog house for him this past weekend and he seems to be taking to it. Good Boy.

Camping, Catan, and Siblings

More wildlife sightings. This time from the safety of the yurt. You can barely see Leo in the front doing a moose dance.

Nicki just went on a well deserved 4 day sea kayaking trip. Here she is, on the left, lounging by a block of ice with a couple of fellow paddlers (Barb and Jenny).

While she was out camping on her trip, I took the kids out on our first camping trip of the year with our good friends the Taygans. Here is Kaya hanging out by the fire with Will and Lucile.

A sunny May made for a good time on an Eagle River gravel bar.

As Kaya gets more mobile, (she is walking now) she and Leo are finding more and more things to do together. I don't usually know exactly what they are doing but here they are in Kaya's toy box.

Two other "stay at home" dads (Roger and Bill) and I hiked our first mountain of the year, Harp.

We recently made some improvements to the yurt puzzle by making the windows and skylight yellow for an illuminated look and trying out a sunset sky.

And finally, as a diversion from puzzle making, I made this wooden Settlers of Catan board. The border pieces snap together with magnets embedded into the wood.

Hopefully I'll get to use it in the next day or so.

Happy June everyone.