You have to love Alaskans even when you disagree with them

Last week when "snowmagedden" just about paralyzed the East Coast and most of Washington, D.C., despite the government being mostly closed, both Alaska senators made it to work. And, that's not the best part. When they got there one of them found five people from Nome already waiting in the office for a meeting. You can take the girl out of Alaska, but you can't take Alaska out of the girl.

On a more somber note, yesterday I noticed the spring frosting. That is when the days are warm enough to soften the top layer of the snow. Then it freezes overnight and that crust looks all shiny like a glazed donut. The problem is those conditions create avalanches and today two people and maybe a third were killed in avalanches. One of them was the president of Conoco Phillips Alaska.

It reminded my of the time I watched my son head off into the mountains on his brand new snowmachine a few years ago. His buddy had a full backpack and at first I wondered what for since they were only going to be gone for an hour or so. Then it hit me. When they came back we headed straight to the sporting goods store and I spent about $600 on gear for him: a locater beacon, a breakdown shovel with snow probe in the handle, small first aid kit, a folding saw, space blanket, super flashlight, a signal mirror and some other things. I felt a whole lot better next time he went off by himself.

To give you an idea what he might have had to deal with. One time the road out of Valdez was closed by an avalanche in Thompson Pass, the area in the U.S. that usually reports the heaviest snowfall for a year. Record is more than 900 inches. Ok, so when they said on the radio that a one-way lane had been cleared through it, I headed out. When I got to the one lane through the avalanche chute, I reset my odometer. All of this snow was higher than a pickup and when I came out of it I had gone 4.7 miles. That avalanche was almost five miles wide by the time it got down to the road. I am not easily impressed but, oh boy, I was that day. Difficult to get your head around the power let loose there.

I go through a small avalanche area on the drive to and from work, and believe me I drove through it just as fast as I dared tonight.

Here's tonight's avalanche story.