Quest for the Sun

Blueberry Hill. This was the mountain I intended to climb.




The sun is behing those clouds, and that stupid mountain.






Rays of sunlight peaking out.







The North East face of Soakpak being kissed by the sun.






Zoey checking out the valley below






The slope above me. It does not look far to the sunlight areas, but by the time I got there it would be dark!






Soakpak Peak







Sun Dog.





Yesterday I had planned to climb Blueberry Hill so that I could see the sun. Although the sun is not hitting the ground where I live we are having between 4-6 hours of "day light" I will not got into the technical definition of day light, but I will tell you it is NOT Dark here all the time. Well yesterday it seemed like we were going to have good weather in the morning, but a storm blew in and it was snowing and windy, plus the surface of the snow is icy from the mid-January thaw we had a few weeks ago. I talked Colby in to going skiing with me, but we soon turned back because the conditions were just too crappy!






Today was better, only about -9 and very little wind. There were a few scattered clouds in the morning, but the sun was clearly hitting the hills. So I set off on my skis to the North. I skied along the north side of Contact Creek where there is a "road" out onto the tundra. The snow was still icy, but at least there was a dusting a fresher show to give some traction. Zoey pulled in the harness a little bit today, sometimes giving me a little boost, sometimes, pulling me off balance.



When I got the the valley where little contact creek flows between Soakpak and Blueberry hill, I decided the sun looked like it was hitting Soakpak a little lower down.



So I skied a bit further, took off my skis and put on some crampons and started off by foot up Soakpak. As I walked north along the flank of Soakpak, the sunlight on the ground also traveled north. The light was just up on the next bench. Each timed I climbed the next bench and the sunlight was just as far. I could see the sun hitting the flat plane below me and the mountains above me, I just could not get to it. I think I hiked about a mile and a half before giving up. I sat on a talus ridge and looked at the sun light peaking out from behind the mountain across the valley. I drank my hot coco, took some photos. Maybe when the Sun moves to the south, it will shine through the space between the mountains. I think I could have been walking back in the sun if it was not for the clouds that rolled in! Oh well. Snow machines past by in the valley below and I could hear dogs barking in the distance. But for the most part it was quite and beautiful even if I did not get to see the sun directly.