1. Today
It’s 35 degrees Fahrenheit and feels like a warm, wet, spring day. It is only our second thaw in over a month. During a winter when highs average around 15, 35 makes you want to break out the shorts and mow the lawn. It’s impossible, of course, as there is still close to a foot of snow covering the ground. Yet, this Barrow-Alaska-life-style might not last after all. As, you can see by the five-day forecast below, we are in for a heat wave:
Today
40% chance of precipitation
Tonight
18 °F
Partly Cloudy
20% chance of precipitation
Tomorrow
32 | 23 °F
Chance of Snow
30% chance of precipitation
Saturday
32 | 19 °F
Chance of Snow
30% chance of precipitation
Sunday
34 | 7 °F
Chance of Snow
40% chance of precipitation
Monday
25 | 1 °F
Chance of Snow
40% chance of precipitation
Therefore, I better not wait too long before finishing this post. Memory does not hold the moment as well as we would like to think. I was looking through old posts on the blog a few days ago and was stunned by the beauty of summer at Dry Creek. I thought I remembered warm days picking tomatoes from the garden, but I really didn’t. Oh how we forget, as grand moment after grand moment slips by unnoticed. It will not be long before I no longer have a solid metaphor for life in Barrow, Alaska. Since, this has been the coldest winter in twenty-five years, it may be another twenty-five before I once again get to sit down and have a chat with true cold. I need to write it while I know it.
First, a recap:
2. Last post on “Barrow, Alaska; Dry Creek; and Winter Chores”…
Our hero, Steve, drove 35 miles through a blizzard only to find out the plow stopped half-mile before the entrance to Dry Creek:
There was nothing to do, but gun it through 12 inches of fresh snow. Luckily, it was so cold that the snow was dry as dust and most of it went flying up over the hood and windshield of the car as plowed erratically through, its bumper picking it up and tossing it back. The problem was, the minute the grains of snow hit the windshield, they’d briefly melt and then freeze. Even with the defrost running full blast, an ice sheet quickly spread across, blanking out what little I could see through the driving snow.
I did make it though--at least to the entrance to Dry Creek. Right at the gate, the car slid to the side, said, “That’s it, I’m done; it’s all yours. Go on ahead; I’ll wait here.” And so I walked up the rest of the way to the house, let Marci know I was home safe, hopped on the ATV and started to plow, knowing something had to be done in order for us to be ready to leave for work at 7:00 a.m. the next morning. Marci joined me with the shovel, and together, we worked until 1:00 a.m., and then came in for four hours of sleep, before starting all over again in the morning.
3. This week on “Barrow, Alaska; Dry Creek; and Winter Chores”…
Knowing that it would probably continue to snow through at least part of the night, I woke up at 5:30, so that I’d have time to re-plow the roads. My assumption was quickly validated. There was at least another three to four inches, which might not seem like a lot, but when you already have over a foot of snow on the ground, which has been plowed into two to three foot banks along the edges of the road, it’s hard for the plow to push the new snow off the road because it’s walled in from the previous plowing.
Further more, when I got down to where I’d abandoned our car, it became apparent that there was no way we’d make it the ½ mile to town even if we managed to get the car unstuck unless I plowed the county road for them. So, out of desperation, not good will, I gunned the four wheeler down Canyon Road, then up again, then down again, then up-down, up-down, over and over again, until I thought the car might be able to make it through. Then, as the car was stuck hood first, I made what I hoped would be an adequate turn-around spot. I didn’t have much to work with though, because on the north side of Canyon Road it drops off quickly to Chalk Creek forty to fifty feet below. There is a wire fence and oaks, but not much to keep a car from going over. In fact, someone must have went over sometime in the fifties because large chunks of his car is still down there tangle in the trees.
I then shoveled around the car, fetched Marci, and with all the optimism I could will, earnestly, or at least half-earnestly believed we would simply back out, turn around and head down towards town.
Unfortunately, Newton’s law, the one about how a body at rest tends to remain at rest, is further strengthened if that body is a car and it is sitting on ice. And damn it, gravity also plays a part. And banks of snow, no matter how light and fluffy they may appear, must emit tons of gravity, because I’ve found no matter how well you shovel around the car, the minute your wheels are spinning, it will be sucked towards the biggest snow bank around, and by the time they stop spinning you will have slid half-way through the bank (but not all--don’t get your hopes up) and will be pounding on the steering wheel saying “What the…”
Okay, I’ll sensor it here, wrap it up, as my blood pressure is rising, just thinking about the damn physics or metaphysics of it all.
To make a long story short, we ended up backing up the half-mile to town and were two hours late for work. Life on the frozen frontier--I wouldn’t miss it for all the palm lined beaches in the world.
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