Anchorage - Again

26 March 2012
9:13 PM

Sunrise at	7:27 AM	in direction	82°	East
Sunset at	8:27 PM	in direction	278°	West

Duration of day: 13 hours (6 minutes, 44 seconds longer than yesterday)

The Chugach - the way we would like to see them

 We drove into Anchorage through gray and snow, but on Saturday the sky cleared.  By early afternoon, we were looking at wonderful blue sky throughout the region, something residents of Anchorage were abundantly grateful for as it is rare compared to Fairbanks.  Sunday dawned as beautiful as Saturday and Denali was clearly visible as were the volcanos to the southwest.

I did not get good photos of Denali.  Although the view of the mountain was unobstructed, there was mist and haze in the air so it was not sharp against the sky, but rather blended into a milky whiteness.  It remained free of clouds much of the way from Willow to Talkeetna Junction, but by the time we caught views of the mountain around Trapper Creek where it was becoming more sharply defined, clouds had started to form right at the peak.  I decided to not take a photo this trip and by the time we were in Broad Pass, the clouds formed a halo around the top of the mountain.  I never get tired of seeing the mountain, no matter what the weather, although certain conditions make it harder to photograph.  Views from Willow are dramatic - you can really see how tall the mountain is.  When closer, our man's eye view of the world doesn't capture its height appropriately.  I thought several times of the lesser peaks around it, between 10,000 and 17,000 feet in elevation, yet they are dwarfed completely by the giant near them.

The Chugach - the way we usually see them, as a backdrop to our ways

We packed our things (although I got a call from Bev today since I forgot my vest and scarf), loaded up the car and drove down to Egan Convention Center for the second day of the dog show.  JayJay did spectacularly well, although I did not photograph her during the competition - go figure.  She won Winners Bitch, for 2 points, and then took Best of Winners and Best of Breed, beating a champion male - giving her 3 points total and a major because she'd bested 5 other dobermans.  I admit, although not at the same level of excitement as tracking my favorite mushers' progress on the race trail, it did give me a thrill to see her do so well.

Tokens of Queen JayJay's greatness (as Terry called her)

She needs more exercise, which is tricky in winter.  We have a large space for our dogs to run in, even when we are not deliberately exercising them, but the Doberman's are not greatly excited by cold and dark and don't take advantage of it.  We are buying a treadmill, for us and her.  She is a wonderful bitch, but her back has softened over the winter and ... how do you get a dog to run a treadmill I wonder?

We drove home through wonderful sunlight and even with a few stops, made the drive in 6 hours.  DOT is gradually decreasing the winding nature of Highway 3 in places that count most and that makes the drive easier than 2000 when I first started coming to Alaska.  Each year, they whittle away at some section of it, improving banking, width and decreasing twists and turns.

I experimented with the zoom capability of our camera and wished I'd used it more often before.  I have  a series of photos of Broad Pass that I will share over the week.  Here is the first:

Talkeetna Mountains to the east, without zoom