"Uh Yeah, Your House Is Still Open..."

This past week, the weather has definitely made life here more difficult.  After 3 days of snow, we had clear skies (a rarity in Juneau).  The problem is that whenever it clears up, it gets SUPER cold.  On Friday and Saturday, our highs were in the mid-teens and lows were in the single digits.  Perfect time for a hike, right?  My friends and I had already rented out a cabin for Friday night so I took a half day on Friday (the only way to be able to hike in daylight since the sun sets around 3:30 PM) and out the road we went.  Neil and I tried to snowshoe at first, but there wasn't that much on the snow so it was a lot more work than it was worth.  Eventually, we just carried the snowshoes and hiked like all the other people in our group.  Although it was cold, the views were worth it.

Our night at the cabin was great and when we woke up, the lake had frozen over.   Our (stupid) friend, Ben, decided to try it out.  Made for a pretty awesome picture, huh?

The real fun began when we tried to leave.  One of our garbage bags broke on the hike out so that was annoying to say the least.  The real fun began when we returned to the car.  My dear friend, Amber, has been driving around with a flat tire for quite some time.  Instead of getting it fixed, she just stops every few days to put air in the tires.  Overnight at the cabin, it had snowed a few inches.  As Amber pulled out of the parking lot and tried to get back on the trail access road (which was all ice and snow), her car got stuck.  REALLY stuck.  She tried flooring it, backing up, etc...no movement.  Luckily, we had a shovel and between us digging around the tires and three boys pushing the car, we got her moving again.  By the time we got to the main road (about a mile later), her tire was so flat that you could hear it going ker-plunk, ker-plunk.  Obviously, it was not a good idea to drive the 25 miles on the highway back to town.  We pulled over and the boys got out to help.  Then the real fun began.

Mind you, it was no more than 14 degrees at the warmest time of day and everyone but me (who had no circulation and fingers that were turning blue) was standing outside.  Amber had a spare...but it had somehow frozen to the trunk.  Eventually, with the help of a friendly stranger, the boys managed to yank it out.  But at that point, they acknowledged that there was no way that they were going to be change it on their own.  Since none of us had cell phone reception (again, we were out the road), we decided the best thing to do would be to pile 7 of us into a small sedan and drive to the waffle place to get breakfast and call AAA.  After some delicious waffles, I drove the girls (in Ben's stickshift car) back out the highway to meet AAA and Amber's tire got changed.  We finally made it home, in one piece, around 5:30 PM on Saturday.

It finally warmed up when it started snowing again yesterday (and yes, it's still snowing).  As I've mentioned previously, I live right near a really popular hiking trail.  A lot of the state workers like coming up here and walking Perseverance during lunch.  On Monday, I was coming back from my lunchtime jog (the only time I can jog outside in daylight) and this guy goes "turn around, you can't go up there, Perseverance is closed off."  I said, "Thanks, but actually I'm going to my house.  I live right there."  (And I pointed the 3 houses up the block.)  The guy seemed a little embarrassed and informed me, "uh yeah, your house is still open."  THANKS.  I'll keep you posted on whether an avalanche does block off access to my house at some point (a very real possibility).  All this snow means our ski slope is opening early so on Friday, I'll finally be able to use my snowboard again!