Winter in Alaska (part 3 of 3) - It's the big thing

Originally I had the idea that this post was going to be about planning trips to warm, sunny, places, or how the weeks of work that we put into our house last summer have made it so much warmer this year than last. I was trying to re-qualify the XC skiing class as a big thing so that I could re-use it after considering each XC ski trip as a little thing in part 2. But it all seemed like a stretch, which accounts for the delay in this post getting written. Eventually I realized that there's really just one big thing that matters at this point in the Alaskan winter: the Sun.

Each morning when the sky is clear I can't see one of my computer monitors at work for about an hour because it is directly in the sun, but there is absolutely zero chance that I will close my shades. This morning when we got to work, the sky was unmistakably getting light over the Chugach, causing Beth to proclaim that it's almost spring. Of course, after a brief pause we burst into laughter knowing that we've still got at least two more months of snow on the ground. Also it was about 10 degrees with a bitter north wind blowing in our faces. Also it was still just as unmistakably dark outside. Also tonight's forecast is for temperatures as cold as -20. Also... well... it's just clearly the middle of winter still here. After all, you can always bundle up or build a fire against the cold, but the sun is pretty much irreplaceable. So seeing a clear sign that the sun is rising earlier and earlier really means something this time of year.

Fortunately, there are a lot of these signs this time of year. Just last Wednesday the sun rose before 9 AM for the first time. Tomorrow we'll have over 9 hours of sunlight. On Sunday we'll have sunset after 6 PM, and by next Friday (the 25th) we'll have 10 hours of sunlight. In March we'll get sunrise before 8 AM (temporarily, on the 1st), 11 hours of daylight (on the 8th), sunset after 8 PM (skipping 7pm due to Daylight Savings Time, on the 15th), 12 hours of daylight (on the 18th), sunrise before 8 AM again (21st), and 13 hours of daylight (29th). By the end of April we'll have over 16 hours of daylight with sunset after 10 PM!

Also, by that time, the snow should be mostly gone!

glorious