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.
