Icewind's Ramblings

Snow left on the mountains from last winter still blocks the Resurrection Pass Trail in Chugach National Forest .  Things up high are melting fast as you can see the ground and rocks high above the city.  Lower levels of the mountains are in that transition period of greening up for summer.  Over the weekend I had to pull on the fleece in order to sit on my southwest-facing deck and enjoy the evening sunshine. The spring sun, admittedly, feels as good and warm as ever.  But the air, well, something is wrong with the air.  The air is still cool.  As soon as the sun disappears behind a cloud, the temperature starts falling as if it were nighttime in the desert. A bright sun warming the deck one evening last week actually encouraged me to engage in the foolishness of pulling on shorts and a short-sleeved jersey for an evening mountain bike ride.  It was only a fleeting thought as I did not want to dig out the bike from under my deck storage area....

Four or five days ago there were some changes coming to the Anchorage area which gave us our first real glimpse of summer.  The clouds parted, the sun continues to give us the sunlight lost during our long winters.  We are up to about 17 hours now with sunrise around 5:30 am and sunset around 10:30 PM so you can still see it light outside to the west after midnight. The city is in that period of time when everyone comes together to walk the roadways picking up trash that has either been dropped or blown around the streets.  Everyone has the opportunity to clean up the debris and limbs that were blown down in your yard.  The City of Anchorage opens up the two landfills for a couple weekends for those that want to clean up and drop off their debris.  For those two weekends the do not charge so the lines are long but it makes a big difference in how the city looks during the summer. With the sun out in force giving a sense of warmth at about 60 degrees it wa...