Getting stuck in deep snow on Easter is probably only a risk in the northern countries. Sledding in t-shirts and walking on the still-frozen lake in the middle of April is probably something you’ll only find in Alaska… and maybe a few other northern countries.
All the snow melted by the first week of May. On May 5th, we broke out our bikes and rode them for the first time since we lived in the RV. Normally, all the melted snow causes something called “breakup.” Breakup is characterized by mud, mud, and more mud – a season the majority of people don’t look forward to (although there are a select few who enjoy it). This year we didn’t have too bad a breakup season, which is surprising, considering how much snow we got this past winter. I guess all the snow evaporated extra quickly!
It seemed that from one day to the next sometime during the first week of May, all the trees unfurled their buds and the world turned green again. One of our neighbors calls this the “green wave” since one day the rolling hills could be filled with barren gray tees, and the next, the hills have magically turned green. It’s truly magical to watch all the trees and shrubs come to life – and it’s a sign that summer is on its way!
By the end of May, we started kayaking on the lake and reading books on the grass. Summer was filled with lots of sunlight (about 20 hours a day!) and fun activities – boating, kayaking, canoeing, swimming, berry picking (more on that in another blog), and reading. I went out of my comfort zone and read two new series of books, both of which I ended up loving! We went for our first swim in the lake on July 20th, and my dad even took out the sailboat which we made in South Korea. We didn’t go swimming again until the middle of August (we were all very busy, and my dad had been away on a business trip), and at that point, my family thought it would be the last swim of the year. However, for me, it was just the beginning. Previously, I had only gone swimming in one area of the lake where there are little thermal hot springs dispersed throughout the area. We had to take out our bigger boat for that, which could take some time, and tools, since it started to have some sort of problem with its motor. It became a bit tedious to take it out. I had always watched movies where kids at summer camps would run and jump into the lake off of docks, and my dad had finished building our dock, so I decided to try the same. Maybe I couldn’t jump off of a second-story platform like from the boat, but it was still a lot of fun! I did learn, however, that there aren’t any thermal springs in the area of the lake around our dock. Although that didn’t bother me. I wanted to go snorkeling to view the underwater lake-scape and maybe even see some pike and other fish, but unfortunately, my goggles didn’t allow for that. No matter how much I tightened my goggles, they kept filling up with water. I think the rubber around the googles was too hard, so it couldn’t properly form onto my face. Oh well, I’ll try again next year with a new pair of goggles.
I did most of my swimming at the end of August and during the month of September. Each time I went in the water, it got a little colder. At first, it felt like very cold water. Next, it felt like chilled water with a bunch of ice cubes. Shortly after that, it began to feel like liquid ice. And eventually, toward the end of September, it felt like molten ice – if such a thing exists. We got our first freeze on September 19th, so that explains the molten-ice-like water temperature. Unfortunately, I don’t know exactly how cold the water in that lake was while I swam in it, but my dad approximates that it was probably in the 40s (somewhere around 5-10 degrees Celsius). That’s definitely the coldest water I’ve ever been in! I haven’t been swimming in the lake this past month (it’s been quite windy, and cold water and wind don’t mix well), and now the lake is frozen over with an inch of ice and more than a few inches of snow. I suppose swimming is over for the year, but still… we do have shovels for the snow and some heavy-duty hammers that could break through that ice… :). After swimming, I would warm up in the sauna – talk about going from one temperature extreme to the next! I was very careful, though, that way I would get the health benefits of a cold-plunge and sauna and not hypothermia or shock.
Alaska doesn’t seem to have a very long fall season – it seems to just skip from summer to winter, with maybe two weeks of fall in between. But that doesn’t mean those two weeks of fall aren’t beautiful. Here are a few stunning pictures from fall that I had to include. The golden-yellow leaves on the birch trees glowed in the light of the rising and setting sun, and the views over the lakes in the morning – rolling hills covered in golden leaves, mist wafting up from the water – were simply breathtaking. Eventually, the birch trees shed their leaves, like golden-yellow confetti fluttering down from the sky. This happened about a week after the first frost.
Also, here are a couple of moose and bear pictures we got over summer and fall.
On October 10th, we got our first snow and beautiful northern lights! All the snow melted by noon, but it was still a nice surprise, even if it only lasted a few hours. And the northern lights – they were just spectacular! We must have spent an hour gazing up at the ever-changing green, purple, and pink auroras in the sky, feverishly snapping pictures on my dad’s phone (my and my mom’s phones couldn’t capture the northern lights). We took a lot of pictures. Here are a few of the best pictures we got:
It hadn’t snowed again until just yesterday. A winter storm came in overnight, and when I woke up yesterday morning, fluffy white snow covered everything outside! It continued snowing the entire day, and we got around a foot-and-a-half of snow in total (around 40cm), and we got 26 inches – 66cm – of drifted snow up against our door! That’s enough snow to go sledding (as I write, my sisters have gotten on their snow gear and are going up on the deck to play in the snow. My dad is going to plow our driveway and the area around our house)!
Dare to explore!
Vivienne