Outdoors/Adventure

What to do outdoors now that Alaska's winter has vanished

I've been mentally preparing for this week since early fall, when it first started feeling cool outside and the sky was that electric, cold blue. I always loved those days as a kid when I could smell the snow coming because I love snow. I love winter.

When it hit 50 degrees in parts of Anchorage on Tuesday, I had a grim "told ya so" moment with myself.

To be sure, I didn't want to be right. In October, as soon as I smelled the snow, I braced myself for another weird on-and-off-again Alaska winter with as much rain as snow. I didn't want to get my hopes up. Better to prepare for the inevitable. I wish that climate change would affect daylight instead of temperatures, so we'd get a random 24 hours of sunlight in the middle of January. But, alas, we get rain in December.

So here I am, grumpy and sort of mentally prepared for what's happening around me (puddles; a city tossed around by wind). But after a few winters like this, I am prepared physically. So here are some tips on how to enjoy the outdoors, even when winter is bumming you out.

Spiked shoes

Walk slowly and carefully on ice and don't run unless you've bought yourself some Ice Bug running shoes. Or take an old pair of running shoes and drill screws into the bottom.

Whatever it is you want to do outside — walking the dog, running, hiking — studded shoes have a major edge over external cleats that fit over your sneakers. Those cleats can fall off. Or, if they have a fancy strap over your shoe, they don't fit exactly right. When I'm running with them it's kind of like running on tiny high heels, because my feet don't make proper contact with the ground.

Most times, any excuse not to go outside when it's like this makes the indoors an attractive alternative. So having good traction and cleats that don't fall off means there's one less thing luring me to spend the day in front of a glowing screen.

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With studded shoes, I've run on the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail and wondered why everyone on my Facebook feed complained it was un-runnable (leaving me a completely empty trail). I've hiked slick, puddle-lined trails, from Bicentennial Park to Winner Creek. Even though the weather is strange, there is a redeeming and, yes, refreshing sense of getting outside anyway. For me, just breathing fresh air provides my mind a critical reset. Even though the warm winter is what I'm having a hard time with, getting outside into it is the cure.

Biking

Fat tire biking is increasingly popular, but icy conditions are favorable for anyone with studded tires. Studded tires for regular-sized frames are readily available — and fun. This means that even if neither Santa nor the PFD bunny brought you a fat tire bike, a summer bike can easily be retrofitted for this kind of winter.

I miss the trails around Anchorage. During the summer, I saw so much of them. Now I can't remember the last time I rode out to Goose Lake. Outfitting my bike with studded tires would allow me to have some of that freedom again, and this weather gives me the option to explore. Sometimes conditions are too slushy to slice through with skinny tires, but most of the time there is enough hard pack (thank you, fat tires).

Again, the mindset for getting myself out the door is to treat myself like a child. If you have kids, this may be easier, but I have a kind of mantra. I tell myself that one option for enduring the depressing part of winter is to stay inside all of the time, but I know that makes me unhappy. The other option is to get outside, despite the strangeness, and treat the meltdown like a small adventure, a victory over the discouraging conditions.

I need to think of ice as interesting. Puddles are exciting (and they make a cool whirring noise when my bike rolls through). And at least warm weather is easier to dress for than cold weather.

Ice skating

To the Turnagain parents I once saw ice skating with their children down the street, thanks. I needed to see that. To the parents I saw with their kids on the ice at Westchester Lagoon — even though the skates sent up small tsunamis of puddle water — thank you.

Ice skating can be graceful and fun. But the municipality says on its website that Westchester Lagoon, Goose Lake, Cuddy Midtown Skate Pond and Cheney Lake are "not recommended for skating" due to standing water. Ditto all of the outdoor rinks in town.

All of the lakes still have 15 to 19 inches of ice, according to city measurements made on Tuesday, but Anchorage Parks and Recreation Director John Rodda said "they're not skateable, unless you want to go out and skate in three inches of water. You're going to get soaked."

And there can be some risk too. "There are currents under some of the lakes and ponds, and they can open up more rapidly than some people think," Rodda said. "We can't predict the flow of water and what it does. It needs to cool back down, reset itself and refreeze."

By and large, skating has been a surprising perk of recent warm winters. Once cold temperatures return, we should be left with lots of glassy ice until the next snow dump. That means there will be rivers to explore, lakes to cross and marshes to glide through.

Skiing

When warm weather melts the lowlands, sometimes the answer is simply to gain elevation to find winter.

The top of 3,939-foot Mount Alyeska has seen seven inches of new snow in the last 24 hours and more than 260 inches so far this winter.

"It was a stormy Wednesday morning at Alyeska," the resort's website reported. "Snow is piling up on the upper mountain. It is snowing from the top to mid-mountain, and lightly raining on the valley floor."

More than two feet of snow remained at most areas in the Hatcher Pass Management Area, while Independence Mine had 44 inches.

Overall this winter I'm pushing myself outside a lot harder than I usually need to. Still, it's important for me to get fresh air and fresh perspective. I take winter day by day and try to get out there to take advantage of what we've got.

Alli Harvey lives, works and plays in Anchorage. Alaska Dispatch News reporter Mike Campbell contributed to this account.

Alli Harvey

Alli Harvey lives in Palmer and plays in Southcentral Alaska.

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