North to Alaska

Frost had crystallized on the plane’s windows and the body of the plane felt cold and somewhat clammy to the touch as we began our final approach. As the pilot made final preparations for Alaska Air jet’s landing at Ted Stevens Airport in Anchorage, one of the flight attendants proceeded to debrief us. “The temperature in Anchorage is….cold. Let’s just leave it at that.” A nice ominous warning! As we exited the plane via the ramp, I felt the cold already biting my flesh. As we drove out of the airport our headlights spotlighted a light coat of ice on the road and a thing dusting of snow along the roadway. And then in the headlights the official greeting—“Welcome to Anchorage.” As we drove to our home away from home—more bad news. A four point quake had briefly rattled the city about 2:30 in the afternoon. Talk about a friendly reception!
The Anchorage Daily News had two interesting pieces of news in its Sunday edition. REI was sponsoring a winter biking in the snow course and wanted to make readers aware of the Susitna 100 and the Little Su 50k billed as a “trek across frozen Alaska “ scheduled each February. Second nugget of news was that there would be a driver’s workshop with a unique defensive driving twist—Avalanche awareness. Mid-morning we trudged up to Chugach State Park where an official sign announced that the park was closed to snow mobiles due to insufficient snow. At least we can rest in peace for one more night.