The Contrast of White on White...

This post is a bit late - as is typical with most things I post. Today is Tuesday, December 15th - our first fog free day after 8 very foggy days here in Anchorage. Fog set in last Monday underneath a large blocking ridge of high pressure. High pressure usually results in beautiful sunny days over most of Alaska, but December's very low sun angle coupled with the fact that Cook Inlet to Anchorage's west is still largely free of ice caused us to "sock in" for the days that would have been sunny. Anchorage continuously reported ground visibility of 1/2 mile or less.

Luke was lucky - he saw the sun for the 5ish hours that it is up this time of year while at work in Eagle River. I stayed in Anchorage - in the fog. The fog reminded me of the lyrics to the 1994 Counting Crows song Round Here which was the inspiration for the title to this post:

"Step out the front door like a ghost
into the fog where no one notices
the contrast of white on white..."

On Saturday, Luke and I drove up to the Glen Alps trail head in the Chugach mountains to Anchorage's east. The fog was only about 700ft thick, so we quickly drove out of it as we approached the mountains. Below are 20 of the 62 pictures that we took.

Driving east on O'Malley road toward the Chugach. We were still under the fog/stratus layer but about to drive out from underneath it.

This is my favorite of all of the pictures that I took while we were out on Saturday. It was taken just a few minutes after the picture above it.

Fog visible in the distance. Note the radiation frost on the trees. I call it "freezer fur" although it is far more impressive than the frost/fur that forms on items that have been in my freezer at home for a bit too long. It forms on EVERYTHING when we have fog in the winter time.

We walked for about an hour on the Powerline Pass trail. Here are a few of our older blog posts w/ pictures from Powerline Pass:
http://anchoredat61.blogspot.com/2009/09/powerline-pass-by-bike-and-foot.html
http://anchoredat61.blogspot.com/2009/08/powerline-pass-and-hidden-lake-hike.html

Powerline Pass trail... we saw a lot of people cross-country skiing up there.

Little O'Mally peak on the left - big O'Malley peak on the right. Luke and I hiked up to the top of Little O'Malley in early July.
http://anchoredat61.blogspot.com/2009/07/little-omalley-peak-and-williwaw-lakes.html

Mount Susitna - aka The Sleeping Lady

The top of the fog... Anchorage is under there! The smoke plume in the middle of the picture is from a power plant a few miles from where we live.

Luke and Elsa

Flat Top Mountain on the left... Blueberry Hill on the right. Luke and I climbed Flat Top back in June and he climbed it again in October:
http://anchoredat61.blogspot.com/2009/06/friday-hike-up-flat-top.html
http://anchoredat61.blogspot.com/2009/10/flattop-mountain-round-two.html

Snow in the pine trees

My camera battery died - so the rest of these pictures were taken w/ my dinosaur Nokia cell phone. They certainly don't do the view justice but hopefully give you the idea.

View from the Anchorage Overlook trail. Anchorage is under the fog.

Another view of Flat Top Mountain and Bluberry Hill

Luke - watching the sun set over the fog.

Redoubt volcano is the mountain peak on the far right in this picture. Redoubt is 103 miles from Anchorage. I think the peak on the left is Iliamna volcano.

Fog obscuring Anchorage.

Carrie and Elsa

Sunset over the fog.

About half way down the mountain.

Luke and I also shot about 10 minutes of video w/ a camera from school that Luke needs to learn how to use for a class project. We need to try and figure out how to use iMovie to edit it so he can teach the program to students. Once we figure it out, we'll post our video.