Fall Floods

Last week we had some extremely crazy weather. Hurricane force winds, very warm temperatures, intense rain and flooding. They say it's supposed to be like this for the next 50 years. Back on the Valdez posts there are a couple of pictures of Keystone Canyon from June, and even then there was some flooding just outside of Valdez.




Sort of a before and after pair of pics. I took the "before" back in June. It seemed like it was shortly after they had repaved the road. I didn't take any of the other pictures. I got them in an email with no reference to who took them. These are better than what was shown on the news. Since the middle of the road is already messed up, i'm assuming the entire road was under water during the peak of the flood, and these were taken while it was subsiding.







From what i hear, the road to McCarthy is impassable in several spots, and is likely to remain that way for some time. Reportedly several buildings have been damaged in Kennicott as well.; damaged by that innocent looking stream. So now i'm glad i went to those places this summer instead of next, since they apparently are no longer the same.

Fourth of July Weekend

I haven't made a post for a while, but i've been busy learning some new photo techniques. Now i need to learn how to post the stuff online. One of my brothers came up to visit over July 4th weekend. Fourth of July isn't that great for fireworks in Alaska because it never gets dark. But, because it never gets dark it makes for a great day to spend outside.




The ground around here was like walking on a giant brain


Jeff sports his new "broadband" programmers mohawk.


Fisher is seen here asking if we really think it's a good idea for him to get in the freezing water


Later Fisher launched into his eternal Holy War against ground squirrels

It was cloudy in town so we went to the Talkeetna Mountains, which turned out to be mostly sunny all day. We went up to a kind of a hidden lake i'd been to before. My friend Jeff had decided to try out a wet suit he had and go swimming in the lake. I'd been swimming in it before, for about 30 seconds. Jeff lasted about 2 minutes before his hands and feet were completely numb. It was decided a full dry suit would be required. Fisher must have thought Jeff was trying to kill himself, because he swam out into the lake to rescue him. All in all it was a very nice hike, and afterward we were rewarded with a great steak and fish barbecue at Maree's relatives property on the Matanuska River. Nice times.




Just about to exit the afternoon shadow of the mountain


If you look at the second pic in this post, you can see that those clouds behind the mountains stayed right where they were all day long. Crazy.