meanwhile, in Alaska

riceme wrote:

Whoever filmed that is insane.

Or is carrying a cannon

If the population density was the same in NYC and Alaska, then Manhattan would only have about 16 residents.

I've read that before and it's kind of hard to wrap your mind around. Oh, and our population declined last year by about 15k. Who would want to leave Alaska??

Something about the cold that's just....

cold!

I'd rather sit by the wood stove and sweat like my dogs sit there panting.

It doesn't bother me at all, but I don't work outside. That might be a different story, I don't know. I have cut firewood with my cousin in temperatures down to about -30*F and was still good, but we'd built a big white man fire to periodically warm up our hands. My sister, who lives in Northern California was absolutely preoccupied with the idea that she was going to freeze before she came to visit for Christmas, but she was fine for ten whole days.

It has been an unusually warm winter, and we have not seen a speck of snow since sometime in November... so strange.

The latest ruckus up here is that the shelves are all bare in the grocery stores because the barge out of Seattle was delayed. Although there is no comment in the article from Safeway, Fred Meyers or Walmart, there is also nothing on their shelves. In the winter there is only one delivery a week of produce, dairy and meat, and it was the barge that didn't make it, so... Bummer, dude.

Life is funny up here sometimes.

http://www.newsminer.com/news/local_news/some-fairbanks-store-shelves-bare-after-supply-barge-is-delayed/article_ef8bc5d4-be80-11e5-b039-4b76d662777d.html

Lower that thing some and I'll bet it'll walk all over the snow. So high, I thought it was going to tip over... or is it tump over?

I bet the center of gravity is actually very low... those tracks are super heavy.

I can't imagine doing that to a perfectly good truck.

You know what they say... big truck, little uh huh.

Great picture! This is actually in California... near Donner Lake, right below Emigrant Gap in the Sierras.

We haven't gotten any snow since early November, so if California would like to send us some of theirs I'm sure we'd be happy to take it. Strange winter! It dumped snow on us August, September and October so hard and fast we literally could not keep up with it. I had about 60 cumulative inches at my house by November 1st. Since then... nothing.

nochain wrote:

lol... DAMMIT! You ALWAYS rake your roof before you plow or shovel the drive!!

I tried to post this using my handy script, but it isn't working today.  This is a short truck made in Russia and costs $50K, according to users on Imgur.  It looks really handy.

https://imgur.com/gallery/veUzOYU

It was pointed out to me that we must get pretty bored up here because we have strange pastimes and celebrate and bet on the strangest things.

Long winter in Hoona, kind of funny:
http://www.adn.com/article/20160212/video-bearded-alaskan-dancing-alicia-keys-everything

Talkeetna Bachelor Auction & Wilderness Woman Competition:
http://www.talkeetnabachelors.com/

Yukon Quest... started in Fairbanks the day before the Super Bowl, and is a way bigger deal here than the Super Bowl (see below post for a continuation):
http://www.yukonquest.com/

Every year we bet on the day, hour and minute the ice on the Nenana River will break up. That is considered the official end of winter. The kitty is about $350k... a pretty nice purse.
http://www.nenanaakiceclassic.com/
http://www.nenanaakiceclassic.com/2015%20Nenana%20Ice%20Classic%20Brochure.pdf

There are huge celebrations, both formal and informal, on Winter and Summer Solstice... the farther north you get, the bigger deal it is because the less daylight you get in the winter and the more you get in the summer, so those days mark the downhill slide into daylight or nights with darkness again.

A couple sporting events you won't catch me participating in:

The Midnight Sun Run... these nuts run a 10k in the middle of the night.

The Icicle Bicycle... do you all have fat tire bikes?:
http://www.fairbankscycleclub.org/Events/2016/icicle_bicycle.shtml

As you read this you might think this guy is bullshitting, exaggerating, or telling a "walked to school up hill in the snow, both ways" story. I assure you he is not. The dogs, men and women who race in Yukon Quest are immeasurably tough.

Quote :

A piece of little known Quest history and an often asked question - why Iditarod has a 24 hr. mandatory lay-over and the Quest has 36:

Joe May, Yukon Quest veteran:
In Quest beginnings, the mandatory rest stop was 24 hours, just as is Iditarod. Then in 1986 the first half of the race was brutally cold, never warmer than -35 and often -50 or -55 at night. As harbinger of things to come, Bill Cotter and I crawled part way up Eagle Summit, on hands and knees, ahead of our dogs in a howling ground blizzard. The rest of the race, so to speak, was downhill from there.

A last minute re-route from Central to Circle Hot Springs was hacked out hours ahead of the first team. The trail was a nightmare of 90 and 120 degree corners around and over stumps and down trees. An ice jam at Circle necessitated a 7 mile detour through a nearly impenetrable snarl of black spruce growth that Bruce Johnson christened “The Enchanted Forest."

H. Sutherland stuck his sled between two trees so tight he had to chop it out with an ax. A dog cold-cocked itself in a head-on with a tree and was thought dead, got carried on a sled for miles, and when magically coming back to life...went back to work in the team. Miles of trail was completely gone, blown in, necessitating taking turns on snowshoes ahead of the dogs.

The rule, as it was then, was that the trail would only be broken once...and that, a week prior to the race. We slept cold on the river...no firewood, no fire...at 40 and 50 below.

The last night of a two day slog from Eagle to Dawson was in the midst of a storm of wind and snow and deadly wind chill. Out on the exposed river, having exhausted both human and dog food by the second night, unable to see the length of the team, afraid to stop and nearly unable to go, there was a very real fear for life. When eventually the leading convoy of 13 teams did reach Dawson, many mushers had incurred serious frostbite - five scratched immediately - others nursed frosted hands and feet for 24 hours in an effort to recover sufficiently to continue on.

After the race, at the post-race drivers meeting, I spoke and suggested a longer mandatory stop in Dawson, 36 hours, for the mutual benefit of dogs and mushers. Facetiously, I added that 24 hours wasn't long enough to “party” get some sleep, and sober up again to get out of town. It's somehow easier to laugh about misery when it's shared. Mine wasn't an exclusive sentiment. The vote, as I remember, was unanimous for future lay-overs to be 36 hours...

Addendum: The first time dog coats were used as a matter of course in a thousand mile race...

http://yukonquest.com/race-central/current-standings/live-tracking

We went down to the river and watched the dogs and mushers go by on start day. Fortunately it was a warm sunny day. We were at about mile 20 or so. This is a blurry shot of my cousin, but I kind of like it...



This is one tough young lady, Laura Neese. There was a blizzard the night before last and none of the dogs in one of the other musher's teams would lead, so he was in trouble. He asked her if she would break trail for him and if he could follow her in to the next checkpoint. She was happy to help him out. The sportsmanship in this sport is pretty amazing.

Ricey, those bicycle tires are fatter than the fat (beach cruiser) tires we use in the lower 48.

I bet they have studs as well, like the ice racing motorcycles.

Eric wrote:

Ricey, those bicycle tires are fatter than the fat (beach cruiser) tires we use in the lower 48.

I bet they have studs as well, like the ice racing motorcycles.

Yes, exactly. Some are more like spikes... same as dirt bike tires. Usually when you see the fat tire bikes they are on rivers or trails going painfully slow. Sort of like the cross country skiing of bike riding. But this Icicle Bicycle race is crazy... they go super fast on actual roads. Like, roads that people drive on. Paved roads. With ice on them. lol

https://i.imgur.com/xANmmvR.webm

Since I cannot post these things live in the post, I'm gonna post a link to 'em from time to time.

LOL, that has been making the rounds up here for a couple weeks or so and it's still funny after watching it a bunch of times. I like that the camera man is laughing so hard he can't keep the camera from violently shaking.

I have to wonder about the guy in the bear suit though... most places keep bear guns on job sites up here, not to mention it's a constitutional carry state. Even if your employer says you can't carry at work, lots of people do.

That's a good one.

I don't know if you guys remember me mentioning last summer about "some asshole" (or some similar variant) up here driving around a brand new Masarati, but this is the current condition of the vehicle after he failed to keep it between the ditches and it caught fire this morning:



On one hand it's a shame that such a beautiful car is destroyed. On the other hand... who the f would bring a car like that up here?? We have potholes bigger than Volkswagen Beetles. The guy clearly has more money than good sense. A guy totaled the only Tesla in the state of Alaska on the road up here last winter. Apparently people just don't learn.

I think I would need a jacked-up 4x4 with loud knobby tires. You sure ainta gonna slip up on anybody in that, but it might keep you out of the ditches.