Waiting for winter in Alaska

A quick, snowless trip down to the river.

A small mountain of new gear and equipment for a an extended stay at the East Pole gathers dust in the living room. A brand new snowmachine, the first in 20 years, chugs juice from a trickle charger for its battery against the day when it can move and an old man grows older by the minute as he anxiously waits for the signs of conditions that would allow him to move.

December 5 the temperature dipped below zero and wavered between negative 15 and negative 7 for the whole night and day, preserving the minimal snow cover in the yard, the same amount of snow that according to friends provides a meager cover on the trail through the deep woods. That temperature range is forecast to prevail at least through the next week without a cloud in the sky that could hold even a promise of snow. For the record a minimum of 20 inches would be best.

Dinner tonight consists of a can of food that was supposed to be consumed in the warm comfort of the cabin at the end of that trail.

A day ago after four inches of snow fell the temptation proved too much and I fired up  that new machine and took a ride around the neighborhood, but the sound of those brand new skis scraping over gravel hidden under that thin protective coat of snow sent a shiver through me every time I heard and felt it and the trip was cut short after only a few minutes. So now the machine has six miles on it according to the odometer. Oh joy.

Two things filtered through the mind today. The first came as I walked across a parking lot at the store, my ears burned by the cold air, my fingers tingling from the same condition, some of it blamed on the slowing circulation of an aging man but also on the lack of exposure to the weather this year. Somehow 10 below at the cabin is tolerable while out here it is not. The thought that developed was about weathering these conditions and it raised the question asking if we are not going to get a decent winter in Alaska any more, why spend the rest of my life suffering in the cold and grumbling about it. Maybe it would be better grumbling about it on a beach in Palau.

And that one kind of evolved into the second one. Given the political atmosphere in the country these days I might be able to do some good if I were to take every one of those goddamned climate-change deniers by the neck and shove their pompous well-fed faces into the bare gravel in my yard. That wouldn't change anything, of course, but think of the personal satisfaction.

This complaint has almost become an annual event. Seems like I have written something like it several times over the past few years. Perhaps it all comes down to choices and maybe a big one is looming. There are options for places to live but there are no promises for anywhere. After all, if you can't count on winter in Alaska, what is there that you can count on?