waiting for conditions to improve.

[Dand]

Last week was snow and wind at one point 2.5 days steady then short breaks & a little more in northern Bristol Bay.  Spent a lot of time on the snow blower and shoveling. And its warm too, hi 20's to near 40!! So its real boggy riding on snogos tho I heard a ton yowling around today.  Hard to tell gas is $6.83 a gallon for all the motors I could hear.  Let my youngest go test the trails.  He had to wander off and try jumping drifts in his little 250 cc Yamaha.  Was getting worried when I didn't see him for a couple hours.  He finally shuffled in on foot.  He had zipped over the top of a big drift and dropped into a trough between another drift.  It was like a 4 foot deep trench.  He couldn't lift the machine enough to get it pointed out of trench. Sure wish I took a camera.  We went baclk on my machine and got him out.  I think the shoveling and 3/4 mile walk home was a good lesson. But it told me I need to wait before taking my heavier machine out into the woods.  But this snow should be pushing the ptarmigan off the mountains and down where we can find them. Now if it would just chill down.  This warm wet weather seems more dangerous than real cold.  We lost a guy in a nearby village when he got turned around in slush and fog.  Another guy spent a night under his trapping sled when he got bogged in deep snow.  That night went to -20 and he had been over heated and soaked in sweat from digging out so many times during the warm day.  He was smart, built fire, dried out, got covered and stayed put.  But his battery froze and he was out of food - cooked and ate the marrow out of the moose bones he  was carrying for trapping bait. Troopers found him next morning and hauled him out w a helicopter.  He's fine but a little shook.


Sure sad about that other villager.   Glad this other guy survived - works at the same place I do - good man.  Here's a link to the radio story.
http://kdlg.org//news/fullstory.php?storyid=2480

[spruce]

Interesting listen.  Thanks for posting.

[corbanzo]

The whole bottom half of the state has been the same way.   Seward had a very very cold beginning of december without any snow, no clouds even.  We ended up with good ice on the lakes early.  After that it all turned to crap.  It hasn't got below 30 for more than two days at a time, been raining a lot.  (I hear at least, its -36 in prudhoe right now)  Definitely sloppy.  They did finally get some snow yesterday and today though.  Still warm.  Mid 30's.   I am hoping when I get home in a couple weeks I will have a good crust of snow to drag trees over, but we will see. 


There was more overflow than ice on the lakes i drilled last time home.  Big lakes and rivers wide open.   Good snow up top for sledding though!