Blowin' in the wind

Sam chucks wood under the watchful eye of Queen Bee
during a ride across Blue Dot last Saturday.

Alaska has gone a little crazy this winter. And not just that Sarah-Palin-loony kind of crazy. More like Lindsay-Lohan-on-a-bender insane. She covers herself with white powder and invites everyone to roll around on it until she goes apeshit and starts trashing the room.

Rain, chinook winds, yadda, yadda, yadda. It’s like a bad case of PMS mixed with cheap whiskey and a short fuse. Over the weekend, Glen Alps recorded a top wind speed of 104 mph. Every side street and parking lot in Anchorage is a hellish slab of ice that’s unsafe for everyone without studs in their tires or spikes in their shoes. And there’s another storm on the way that could push gusts to 90 mph on Tuesday.

And, just to add insult to injury, it’s December and we still have to be alert for a garbage-munching bear that refuses to hibernate.

Fortunately, I haven’t heard of any bear sightings for a few days, local trails have recovered from the meteorological disaster of two weeks ago, and the state’s most recent meltdown didn’t ruin our riding conditions. Saturday was awesome, Sunday was soft but still fun, and Monday was reportedly bomber again. Go get some while the gettin’ is good.

And carry a saw if you can, because when a tree falls in the forest and there’s nobody there to hear it, it still blocks singletrack.