Winter travel in Alaska

One of the things that would only happen in Alaska:

When people travel by small plane up here in the winter, they're required to wear all of their winter clothes (snow pants, heavy coat, hats, gloves, etc.) in case of a plane crash, so that they have a chance at surviving in the extreme cold.  When Jeff flew out to the village on his first trip, he was fully clothed for winter just in case.  High school sports teams often travel from village to village for games, and are required to do the same.

Now, the river is frozen enough that people are driving on it, but there are still alot of good sized holes, so they have to drive carefully to avoid them.

We have a lake here called H Marker lake, which when frozen in the winter time, makes the road system in Bethel an actual loop instead of a horseshoe shape.  The other day, I took a taxi to church and the driver had to go over the lake to drop someone else off first.  It threw the three of us passengers for a bit of a loop when he veered off the "road" and did some donuts on the ice!  So then later Jeff and I had to do it too!  We're not the only ones; we have a good view of the lake from the house and often see people do the same thing.  I've never done donuts before, anywhere, so it was alot of fun!

Winter is definitely here!

Well, winter is definitely here, as the current temperature is 2 degrees with a real feel of -29.  And it's only November!  We've all shifted into the winter jackets and long underwear and gloves.  The unfortunate part is that the amount of snow on the ground is such a small amount, I'm not sure it can actually be measured.  :/  Everyone is hoping that it "warms up" soon, so that we get more snow.

Last weekend, we had freezing rain and by Wednesday, everything was soo slick!  We hadn't gotten our winter tires on yet (had an appt on Saturday) so driving was treacherous.  By then, the ice over EVERYTHING looked to be about 1/2 an inch thick.  It's very dangerous.  School was cancelled on Tuesday and Wednesday because it was so bad.  There were two school buses that had slid off of the road and on the way to work, we passed a couple of taxi's off the road too.

Our driveway has a slight hill in the middle of it and it's slightly crooked, and on Wednesday morning, we couldn't get the car to go over the hill because it kept on sliding so badly.  Even worse, we have a fairly large ditch on the other side of the driveway that's filled with about 3 feet of water (probably all ice right now), and every time the car started sliding on our crooked driveway, it was toward the ditch.  We ended up taking a taxi to work that day and Friday and by Friday night, we were able to drive the car around the house where it was flat, so that we could get it to the appointment today to get the tired changed out.

When I left work that evening, I slipped on the ice landing on my back and my head smacked into the curb, so Jeff decided that I was too much of a klutz not to have cleats on my shoes.  So we invested in two pairs which helps get traction.  It's not so bad now. (Oh, and I'm fine thanks.)

Perspective?

Interesting!

Gas prices

Last week, a rumor was going around that gas prices were going to go up. So we filled up our car, and while there, saw a man filling up 6 gas tanks in his car.  This week, gas went up $0.55 per gallon.  And if you don't believe me, here's a current picture:

A friend's story

A couple of weeks ago, we posted about the river flooding, and being extra dangerous and rough.  On the Monday following, one of my native friends from when I (Laura) started working up here was missing.  He had gone hunting and was supposed to be back on that Sunday night, but Monday came and he wasn't back.  From what I understood, Search and Rescue was being planned.  After he got back safe and sound, I found out what had happened over email, and it sounded interesting and scary so I thought I'd share it.

B's story:
ME: What happened to you? We were all worried!

B: Oh just drove on the Kwethluk river(all day, from early AM to late PM) half way to Anchorage. Looking for Caribou(we seen some but were just too far in the distance, we seen large moose, male & females’ large eagles’(different kinds’)no bears’ though, seen huge boulders in the river(some areas of the river were shallow & swift(river is really loud up there in the mountains, seen a lot of snow top mountains, heard wolves’ howling & yelping in the night, we only had one good  day(when we went up)& the rest of the days were nothing but rain(off/on, constant at times)& heavy fog  on the last day. There is a different kind of tundra up there where by the mountains are, in some areas there was rocks under the tundra, the black berries have lots of flavor compared to our blackberries here, there was a lot of blue berries up there that turned bad from the cold weather. Would like to go back up there & look for a black bear if I could the that’s just a thought.

ME: So were you lost, or just stayed out a little longer than planned?

B: No was not lost just stayed out longer than expected, wanted to come home Sunday evening, but my guide thought that it was too risky to travel in dangerous waters when wearing glasses’ when its raining, he didn’t want to hit rocks or sweepers. So we left the next morning when daylight rose, but our visual was obscured by thick fog, so we drove slowly down the river, going w/the current  

ME: Wow, sounds crazy!  Good idea not to travel though if it was that rough.  Sounds very dangerous!

B: The water is high, but not high enough to where I would like to go, I’d need like almost a drum of gas to go where I wanna go, wanna donate!! For a good cause!! & if so give me your camera or camcorder & I’ll record my event for you so you can see how it is way up there, it sounds like a plan…


 Wish it looked like this right now!  I'm tired of blowing the tundra out of my nose!!!

Flooding, not near us thankfully!

Stormy weather is blowing up here.  It's been pouring like crazy for days, and windy as heck!  High water mixed with the storm surges from the coast is causing flooding  in many low lying areas.  Jeff and I drove down to the river on Friday, and the water was within two feet from the top of the wall.  It was much higher than usual, muddy and extremely choppy.  I couldn't believe that people were still going out in their small boats, but I think they were trying to get out before it got worse.  Seems dangerously risky.

When the river rises, "puddles" around the tundra rise as well.  It's fascinating how the water levels correct to stay about the same.



Here are some pictures.  This area is called "Alligator Acres".  It's very run-down and worn out looking, and the lowest area in Bethel.  If there is flooding, it's always there first.

Did I mention it's still September?!?

We had snow flurries several times today!  I'm so excited for winter!  Tonight, it snowed pretty heavily for about 5 minutes.  It melted off of course, but it's going to start happening more often and pretty soon, there will be snow on the ground again! YAY!

You can kind of see the snow here. :)