Alaska: Part Nine "Big Powder"

This is my final installment of my Alaska Mock-umentary. I will miss talking about you, Alaska. It's been fun (for me) and a lot of reading (for you). Thanks for listening.

This dangerous machine is an Alaskan Snowblower, commercial grade. When I took this photo in July last summer, it took me back to a distinct sound from my childhood . . . The high pitched 'Beep, Beep, Beep' alerted the town that the snowcrews were backing up . . .usually around 3am (I guess they couldn't do 3 point turns, but they COULD drive backwards, just as quickly as forwards!) They started AT LEAST that early to get the roads cleaned up from the nightly snowfall. Clean enough so people could drive to work/school (don't forget your chains!). Sometimes, if the was snow was constant and heavy, they'd work 24 hours a day!

When my kids have a "No School, Snow Day" because 2" fell overnight and the whole town shuts down, I roll my eyes and think, "Toughen up, you sissies!" But then I remember how Damian slips around in the snow and practically kills himself, and I send him to work, in 4-Wheel-Drive. I stay home, trying to pull together our hat/mitten assortment, before it all melts off by lunchtime.

Where I live NOW, we get an average of 6 inches a year.

Valdez, Alaska, where I grew up, gets the most snow in the US, with the average being 27 feet (325"). My mom took this photo looking OUT of my house. I'm holding my brother Daniel, and it's my sophomore year of HS ('89-'90). That was the record breaking snowfall year, with 47 feet (564").

The plows would take care of the road, but we kids had to help dad with the walk . . . so we could get TO the road. My house was a split level, ground level is about 6 feet below the front door. We didn't shovel all the way down to the ground, you'd just have to throw it higher! We just shoveled and packed the snow level with the front door. Dad didn't need a snow blower, like most families had, he had 7 kids! It wasn't just the butterfly swimming that gave me humongous shoulders/pecs! I got a part-time job at 14, so I wouldn't have to shovel so much dang snow!

The snow would pack up and slide off our tin roofs and land right in the path. My poor brother Michael was trapped once, under the snow pack, until my mom heard the snow screaming and dug him out! Here is my sister, Briana, and Paul digging out our cars. We didn't drive that green-scary mobile much in the winter. It was for our summer adventures. But if we didn't keep the snow off it, it would collapse, from the weight! The other car was attached to a snowplow that dad would do our driveway and his rental property parking lots with.

This is our beloved blue Subaru (the license plate said, "Goold"). My dad bought it in Salt Lake and drove it home to AK, hitting a moose on the way! He survived, and that car took many more beatings. Please listen to the '92 Subaru song on my playlist . . . to commemorate this car!

I drove it my Senior Year at BYU. It had finally been wrecked enough to pass on. It didn't have 3rd gear and some of the floor had rusted out. The mat covered the hole that you could see through, to the street! It was in this car that I said to Damian, in front of all his friends, "When are you going to stop asking me to marry you? I love you like a BROTHER!" They never let me live that down. But I'm digressing . . .

Oh, one more story about the Goold-Mobile . . . When the green-scary mobile died, we drove the Subaru to Utah for the summer. That's a 3000 mile drive that my dad would do in 3 days. Caffeine was his friend. There were 9 of us, and the car had seat belts for 5. We had a car-topper for all our luggage, and at night, Dad would lay the seat down and put a 2 ft. board between the windows sills. Instant Bunk Bed! I am really amazed at my parents industriousness and survival skills, how did they do it with no portable DVD players?

This lovely lawn ornament measures the amount of snow pack that accumulates in your Valdez yard.

Even though Valdez would get around 30' of snow, it would compress to about 7-10' on the ground, perfect for tunneling. We had VERY cool forts in the winter, once Dad built us an igloo! The snow starts in October, and doesn't finally melt until June. Especially the piles, like the one next to the Subaru, where the Snowplows would stack the snow they'd pull off the streets.

One last thing to mention, THE SKIING! We all learned to ski on a little rope-pull bunny hill, and then "graduated" to Thompson Pass. This is the home of the World Extreme Skiing Competition (do they still have that?) and the average snowfall there is over 500" (the same as Aspen Ski Resort). There were no lift tickets and no chair lift. We just had mom. She'd drive us to the top, and pick us up at the bottom, for another run. She'd bring a book and sandwich fixins' to work on between drives. When I think of that now, she probably had all the little kids in the car with her, keeping them entertained, until they too, were old enough to ski black diamond, Alaska Style!

Those parents of mine were true Alaskans, tough, wild and a bit crazy . . . but all fun.