Summer is Coming....

...Eventually!

The Denali National Park road opened up to the Teklanika River, at milepost 30, this past week.  Vehicles will be allowed to drive the extra fifteen miles past the Savage River checkpoint, weather permitting, until the tourists buses start running on May 17th.  Even though we still have 2-3 feet of snow on the ground and temps 15 degrees below the historic average, we went out for a drive this week to look for critters and enjoy the scenery.  It was a beautiful day, but we saw no critters...plenty of tracks though :)

Denali was sending us a smile for sure :)

 We had a few days of warm weather recently that led to significant melt, but the most recent cold snap froze it all again.

Boss enjoyed the drive!

 Someone had just trudged through the snow out on the Teklanika River (to check out the open water spot maybe) and stomped out a heart shape in the snow!

 Love it!  And love this place!

Leaving the park...this small peak provides evidence of the sun and wind's power.  The south slope is almost completely snow free whereas the north face is still covered in snow. 

Boreal Owl

We had this beautiful Boreal Owl pay us a visit last month.  He was found in the middle of the day resting on a small branch by the pathway to our outhouse.  He appeared to be sleeping when he was first spotted because you couldn't see his face from any angle.  Boreal Owls are relatively small owls only standing about 9-11 inches high, but they have a wing span of about 20-24 inches.  They also have a very interesting call, that we finally heard recently while out watching the aurora.  You can listen to the call here if you'd like.

April Light Show

Even though our April has been colder than January so far, we have had a couple of nice aurora shows.  The first few pictures were from the beginning of April and the rest are from this past weekend.  We've seen quite a few shows this winter but we haven't taken that many pictures.  We've been slacking!

 On the northwestern horizon.

 Shooting to the east!  It was fun to get some with our cabin in them.

~

The ones below are from last weekend.  All these were taken in our backyard :)

 The pink above the trees is the Fairbanks glow...100 miles away.

 The setting moon on the left at the bottom.

The neighbor kid pulled into the driveway during this one lighting up the surrounding trees.

 The three small lights on the horizon here are the new windmills to the north of us.

 Our cabin light on the right at the bottom.

Our cabin :)