The home runs off of a generator in the morning and around dinner. Batteries provide power for the rest of the day. They use oil for their heating and have well water. It's a total of 3 stories with a separate shop and even has a hot tub in the basement.
Since it has just two oil heaters, one for the basement and one for the top two floors it can get pretty cold, to a suburban person. Upstairs where the bedrooms are it's certainly cold, but that's compensated for by lots of blankets on the beds. The weight of the blankets makes you especially cozy while gazing out in the morning at the spectacular views just outside the windows. Sometimes you can even catch an avalanche on the opposite side of the valley. The valley is narrow enough that although they live in a safe area, the avalanches on the other side give you the feeling that you are too close, close enough that the sound gets to your ears only moments after it's started.
This Christmas, unfortunately, was probably the last Christmas we will get to spend up there in the valley. They have gotten tired of living for a decade up in the mountains where winter lasts 9 months, and have purchased a new property on the banks of the Matanuska River, where they started work on a new house last summer, and so they hope to sell the cabin, which, untill just 2 years ago, was the biggest residence in the valley. For comparison, there is a guy up the street who lives in a shack that is permanently attached to an old u-haul truck. I think the truck is his "bedroom". I should have taken a picture of that by now. Anyway, the house if for sale if anyone is interested.
