Welcome to My Back Yard. These short stories are my attempt to document some of my many fine Alaskan adventures. My developing love for writing is a perfect match for my uncanny ability to forget all but the most fundamental of details. J.R.R. Tolkien's timeless quote is my mantra- "Some things that should not have been forgotten were lost."- so I write.
Since I have made a conscious decision to take-on our snowless winter head-on wielding no more than a shiny new fat tire bike I figured that I’d better get to peddlin’. Mother nature, forcing my hand yet again is going for the trifecta of shitty weather winters.
True-to-form I have been peddling my buns off. I have explored all of the territory around my house that is legally accessible. Fat tire bike tracks lead away from our house like a spider’s web and since there hasn’t been any new snow to speak of since the first few inches on October 17th, all of my tracks are still visible.
A month's worth of tracks have hardened, grown wider, and solidified serving as arteries pushing me into the wooded and watery landscape nearby. And although it has been nice to check out all of our local lakes (there are five lakes within a mile of the house), and nearby trails, it’s the river that I look forward to most.
Accessing the river from our property in Willow near mile 84 is a cinch. From our cabin I can peddle over the hill and be on the river in under two minutes. From the river basin there are endless sloughs, ridges, channels, beaches and flash-frozen overflow pools providing lots of cool stuff to ride on and is far from boring. I look forward to seeing the changes each time I ride down there. The Susitna River never ceases to amaze me. It is always in a constant state of change. A fire pit and log jam that Hazelee turned into a fort two weeks ago is currently glassed over in an overflow event that flooded the whole two acre shelf it was on. Skating anyone?
Last week this was gravel.
I picked up a pair of studded tires last weekend and they are pretty amazing. Riding over glare ice is not a problem. I can hear the studs crunch into the ice as the bike rolls effortlessly over top. Slamming on the rear brake carves several parallel lines in the ice as the bike scrapes to a stop.
Today I found a place to cross the mighty Susitna. I ditched the bike so I could check it out and test the ice. Carefully I made my way across the ice; Solid. Finally as I stood on the far gravel beach having just crossed the main channel of the river I looked back across to where my bike was parked. It was 150 meters away. I wanted to retrieve the bike and begin exploring the beach but I was out of time. It would have to wait until the next ride.
Yours truly halfway across the main channel. It was solid
Tight frozen ridges on a main channel of the
Susitna River near Susitna Landing.
Zamboni overflow.
Studs don't fail me now.
Frosty clear shards of fresh, new ice
glistening in the sunset.
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” -Walt Disney
Let’s be honest, the last two winters have produced less than desirable snowfall. I’ve pretended not to notice but my optimism can only stretch so far. The NOAA ( National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) is losing faith in the possibility of La Nina (cold, dry) this winter in part due to the occurrence of “the blob” (warm, wet). I’m not even sure what all this means or how it works but I’m guessing that we are in store for another less-than wintery winter.
I’ve always been of the opinion that if you are going to live and thrive in Alaska then you’ve got to be able to recreate outside year-round. Otherwise why not live in Arizona? Luckily for us here in Alaska there are so many incredible things to do outside, even in the winter. But, in recent years winter activities that require deep snow have, well... sucked. Who wants to ski, snowshoe, or snowmachine in two inches of hardened snow turned icy crust? No Thanks. And what about those warm and wet days when the rain saturates the snow base into a slushy mess? Nah. Insert fat-tire biking.
Talkeetna is almost always a little colder and collects more snow than our southern neighbors in the lower valley and Anchorage bowl. But the last couple of winters have felt more like Juneau than Talkeetna. So when the opportunity arose for me to buy a fat tire bike from a friend this summer I jumped on it. I couldn’t dream of a better way to get outside on these marginal weather days. The bike I bought is a made by an Alaskan company called Fatback that is based out of Anchorage. It was purchased as a gift for my friend Arthur Mannix by his wife Karen. Arthur, is a diehard nordic ski bum couldn’t imagine wasting any precious ski days peddling a bike and was happy to let it go.
So far I have been loving it. I have had the opportunity to ride on a variety of terrain including up to six inches of snow, ice, four wheeler trails, hiking trails and river banks. I’ve even peddled into our non motorized hunting area to hunt caribou couple of times (no luck).
R0lling along the Susitna River
“What’s the big deal with these fat tire bikes anyway?” one might ask. Aside from being goofy fun, the wide tires provide a bigger footprint on the ground. Deflating the tires to as little as five pounds of pressure increases the footprint even more. The bigger footprint disperses weight over a larger area allowing the biker to cruise over terrain otherwise unrideable on a regular mountain bike. Sandy beaches, soft snowmachine trails, fresh powder...no problem. Since more rubber is in contact with the ground traction is increased. Hill climbing is easier too and the squishiness of the tires acts as shock absorbers effectively bouncing the rider down the trail.
So this fall, while waiting for the elusive “big dump” of snow, I have been pleasantly biding my time, bouncing along trails and sometimes even giggling.
