Spring in January in the Yukon?
It’s now been a month since I last posted – that may be the longest “dry spell” here in 4 years. I’ve been so busy that I hardly know which direction is up, but this morning I’d like to tell you about some of what’s been going on, starting with today and going backwards.
This is the weather report as of a few minutes ago. This record-breaking warm weather just keeps going on and on.
I hadn’t been to Skagway for a month, and the sunrise as I was coming home from town yesterday morning provided the extra boot I needed to hit the road with my fur-buddy. The photo was shot at 09:12.
It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen a good weather report for Skagway, so I wasn’t expecting much for the day, but even so I was in for some surprises. The temperature was a very mild -4°C (25°F) when we headed south, and slowly dropped to -15°C (5°F) by the time we reached Robinson at 09:30. Just 7 minutes later, though, with virtually no change in altitude, the temperature had climbed to -1°C (30°F)! That is one of, it not the most dramatic temperature changes I’ve ever seen.
Conditions got quite ugly as we neared the south end of Windy Arm (Km 81 on the South Klondike Highway). There was apparently a warm, wet layer of air above the cold one, and through the ground-level temperature was -5°C (23°F), a light rain was falling, of course freezing as it hit the car and road. The temperature slowly climbed to the freezing point as we neared the White Pass, but the visibility dropped to less than 50 feet for several miles across the summit. Don’t I know how to have a good time? 🙂
I picked up most of my stuff at the post office, though a post office rule that they only keep parcels for 2 weeks is now being enforced for the first time in the 20 years I’ve had a box there, so one book got returned to the merchant. From there, I went over to the mouth of the Skagway River. The view of that great sandy beach was all the encouragement I needed to take Monty for a long walk.
Monty spotted a dog that he would really have liked to play with, but when I insisted that he get in the car to drive to the Yakutania Point trailhead instead, he did. I occasionally get asked what breed Monty is – he’s a Seppala Siberian Sleddog, a breed of husky developed in the Yukon about 25 years ago.
With this high country frozen, the Skagway River doesn’t have much water flowing. This is the view north from the Yakutania Point footbridge.
Ahhhh – soft sand in January! I really wanted to go barefoot, but it was much too cold 🙂
Yakutania Point.
Looking south down Taiya Inlet.
I could see a forecast rainstorm heading up the channel, and knowing what that could turn into up in the White Pass, cut the walk a bit shorter than I’d planned. The temperature was still sitting at the freezing point through the pass, and conditions were slightly better than they’d been a couple of hours before.
With even warmer temperatures forecast this week, Highways crews were very busy getting as much snow and slop off the road as possible.
Even though I took the photo, I still find myself shaking my head in amazement that the Yukon can look like this in January.
This past weekend, Cathy and I went to Vancouver for 3 nights – I’ll tell you about that trip in another post once I digest it all. While there, I did some experimenting with HDR (High Dynamic Range) images. While I think it’s a gimmick that’s being over-used, it’s pretty cool with the right subject – this is Coal Harbour in Vancouver.
One of the projects that I’ve gotten back into is working on the Bill Lythgoe collection of photographs of British Columbia in the 1950s and ’60s. You can see much more about the collection here.
This is the Lakeview Lodge at Mile 462, Alaska Highway, as Bill saw it in about 1963.
Back outside, Monty has been enjoying the warm weather, and I ran the snowblower around the property a couple of weeks ago so he could RUN! A husky racetrack is just plain fun 🙂
Renovations continue on the house – the next pair of photos show the change in the furnace/laundry room in the past few weeks. The list of things accomplished is very long, but there’s lots more to do, and I’ll be at it all winter. Next Monday, I’ll be gutting the main bathroom for a complete re-do.
Well, that’s a brief look at what’s been going on. I know that some of you are getting truly awful weather, and hope that you all stay safe.
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