Posts tagged #Denali National Park

In The Rearview Mirror 2017 pt. 1

Flashback Friday

First quarter of 2017

    I can not believe that 2017 passed so fast. My first whole year in Madison, Wisconsin. As always a lot of things happened during the year. In January we celebrated the second day of the new year by going downhill skiing, and in February we all of a sudden had 61 degrees F. Finally came March with a trip to my favorite place in the world, Alaska. 

January

    We spent the second day of the new year at Maverick Mountain, which is an old ski resort that just recently got reopened again. We drove there on January 1, braving bad road conditions and snowstorms. When we finally arrived we went to the hot springs, well they were hot springs but not really that hot unfortunately, but still fun (could also be because the temperature was between -20 to -30F). The next day we braved the cold (-20F) and were the first people on the ski lift. We skied in our down jackets, and I got tired after only a few runs. Before we traveled back to Madison we went to the Madison river outside Bozeman for a short hike and saw some cool wolf tracks. It was still cold in Madison once we got back, of course, but we did some curling indoors. 

February

    February brought some weird weather. It was cold, but then all of a sudden we got 60 degree weather. We went to Devils Lake state park on a very icy hike. We made some sausages with our new attachment to the Kitchen aid that we got for christmas. We went up to the Northwoods, no skiing but pretty hikes and lights. I finally got my sign up for my office, and felt like an official research specialist, finally. And then before you knew it, the ice on the lakes had melted. 

March

    February might have thawed the ice on the lakes and made the trees disoriented, but we still got snow events in March. I made the Swedish baked good Semla, but the mini version, for the second time this year. We also went to Guillermo del Toros exhibition at the art museum in Minneapolis. I love that director. Going through the exhibit was a mixture of wow and oh and eek. We also finally went back to Alaska for about a week. We went skiing to Castner Glacier, east of Fairbanks, on a sketchy ski trip that could have ended up in one of those pools of water by the trail. We also timed our visit to Denali and were lucky to be able to borrow our dear friends dry cabin there. What a trip.

Posted on January 5, 2018 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Flashback Friday, Rearview Mirror and tagged rearviewmirror2017 Alaska Denali Denali National Park Madison Madison life Montana Skiing Ski Mountains Hiking Northwoods northern Wisconsin Wisconsin2 2018 rearviewmirror Spring Winter.

We got a battle in front of us

 

"I hope that the United States of America is not so rich that she can afford to let these wildernesses pass by. Or so poor that she cannot afford to keep them." - Margaret (Mardy) Murie

Wednesday Thoughts

    Sometimes this world makes me scared, scared that all this will somehow disappear, just like that. But as soon as I am out there I forget about all the worries of our free world, all I can think about are all of these massive wilderness places that are put aside for us, only us! This wilderness is ours, and we should prepare to fight for every last little bit of it from this government that don't seem to value these places as much as we do. 

One place where we can do this is at: Earth Justice

You can also take action on the climate agreement that the US is planning on pulling out from, on Earth Justice website, Take Action

Another depressing thing is that opening ANWR to drilling in 2018 will be one of the priorities in Drumps budget

You can read more about this long battle: War of the Arctic Oil

 
 

Again, I am sharing this powerful video about ANWR:

Posted on May 31, 2017 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Alaska, Montana, Nature, The great wide open, Wisconsin, Yellowstone, Science, Denali, Wednesday Thoughts and tagged Science Alaska ANWR Climate Agreement climate change Montana Yellowstone National Park National Parks Denali National Park Canyonlands northern Wisconsin Wisconsin2.

Skiing in Denali National Park

 

Adventure Tuesday

Spring in Denali?

    A few weekends ago, when we made a short appearance in Alaska again, we took the opportunity to go skiing in Denali. We were so lucky when it comes to the weather. It felt like spring, snowmelt, 45 degrees and sunny, with some blue sky! Denali is tricky, she can create her own weather patterns, that is why so few people actually get to see her. But we did, and we have so many times in the past too, countless times.

 
 

Too warm to ski?

    The only downside to cross country skiing when its above 40 degree is that it is slightly too warm. But, we really really wanted to get out, and hiking was not an option since the snowpack was so deep. We decided to ski up this creek, towards the mountains. Sun was shining and the snowpack was thick, if you were trying to walk on the snow without skis you would sink through, well actually that tend to happen a bit with the skis too. We saw open water at some places but not a single animal, well, we did see some ptarmigan, but that was about it. We packed the snow down at our tunaround point and sat down for some lunch. I told W how lucky we were, lucky to be out here in the middle of Denali National Park. We glanced up the creek towards the mountains, and bot of us were thinking about the same thing. We wished we had a tent, more gear and time to actually get ut there and get somewhere. But we were pleased with the outing still. You take what you can get, right?

 
 

    Snow will stay on the ground until late April, early May, sometimes even later in Alaska. In Madison it's completely snow free now, and I walked around in shorts this past weekend. 

 
Posted on April 18, 2017 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Adventure Tuesday, Alaska, Denali and tagged 2017 Adventuring Adventurer denali Denali National Park Alaska Winter Adventures snow skiing Sun Mountains USA Outdoors Skiing Spring National Parks National Park Denali.