An Early Spring Walk

29 April 2012
6:31 PM

Sunrise at	5:23 AM	in direction	51°	Northeast
Sunset at	10:16 PM	in direction	310°	Northwest

Duration of day: 16 hours, 53 minutes (6 minutes, 59 seconds longer than yesterday)


Sun in south at 1:48 PM at altitude 40° above horizon

Solar noon in Fairbanks is approximately an hour and three-quarters later than AKDT noon here.  So, when it posts the sunrise as 5:23 AM, I think of it as 3:45 AM and I think of the sun setting at 8:30 PM.  Weird that it would be so different, isn't it?  I'd expect the dawn to dusk to be more evenly balanced between day and night.  But it isn't and solar noon is almost an hour later than what I'd expect it to be for daylight savings time.

No matter how I think about it, though, I am loving the increase in light.  Today, as I returned from services, I saw a stand of aspen that had leafed out.  The birch have not yet.  The casing for leaf clusters that form at the top of the trees, which look very similar to its seed cluster, are starting to split at the top, but they have not yet fully broken through.  Aspen don't have that type of unfurl strategy and a particularly wonderful family of aspen turned today from grey to leaf.  Several other families near by were near turning by the time I went by a second time with my dad so he could see it.

I took Dad down to the park by the river downtown.  The park has monuments to Alaska-Siberian forces, a representation of the first native family in Alaska, the office of the Yukon Quest, and a marquee showing distances to various places in the world and other cities of Alaska.  Although the Siberian Pea shrub stems are greening, only a trace of buds had formed along the stems.  None of the flowers and shrubs which grace the park were greening up, but the grass is definitely considering it.

We walked across the bridge that spans the river from the city side of the park to the parking lot by Immaculate Conception and Doyon, Ltd. on the other.  As we looked down in the sediment-filled, deep, reddish-brown water, Dad asked if it was every clear.  No, it is a river fed from snow run off in the mountains to the east and it brings some degree of soil with it all through it's flow season.  But it usually isn't as thickly filled with soil, to the point where it looked like a chocolate fountain at a brunch.  The river moved fast and we already saw several boats and a two kayakers and one canoe on it, even though it is still cool and very early in the season.

I suggested we eat at Pike's Landing because the day was warm and I thought it might be warm enough out on the deck by the river.  By the time we got there, the predicted rain front had moved in and it was breezy and chilly.  We ate inside the porch and watched the river through the distortion of plastic.  Still, it was lovely to be there so early in the season.