Nature's Freedom: Out of the frying pan, into the snow

For the second leg of my break, I left warm and dry California, for cold and icy Alaska to visit my sister in Anchorage. I'd visited before, but last time it was in late August before the snow. I knew what sort of scenery to expect, but it definitely improves even more with a dusting of snow!
The first night after arrival, me and Eloise and Jerami hiked a short distance along a trail to a yurt (a small structure made of a wood frame with fabric / plastic covering it). These are not insulated, don't have any water or electricity, but do come equipped with an outhouse and a wood burning stove. It was quickly getting dark as we arrived and consequently the temperature was dropping, so we stoked the fire and started the long journey to a warmer yurt. We ate reindeer hotdogs and cookies and drank whisky between replenishing the fire with wood.

The cold wasn't so bad once I had a long t-shirt, 2 warm mid-layers, 2 fleeces and a jacket on and was next to the fire. As it's winter we didn't see much wildlife, although we think a moose walked within a few feet of the yurt as we heard heavy footsteps going past. On the way in to the yurt, despite it only being a 40 minute walk, my beard froze, along with some things in my bag and batteries drained very quickly. I did manage to take some photos though, and have stolen some of Eloise's too.

My patchy ice face mid-hike in

Happy to be at the yurt

The view from the yurt in fading light

Our home for the night

The morning sun breaks into the valley (at 10am)

Walking back

A warm Isla

On the second day we drove to a frozen lake. Eloise and I went for a walk around to see how it was, and decided it was too cold (-20C or so) for Isla (the dog), and my toes started to freeze. So we took some quick photos without falling through the lake or falling over and made it back to the almost-warm car.

We went phat biking (basically using mountain bikes with very thick tires, built for riding over rock and snow), which I absolutely loved. We biked around 12 miles through forest trails using compacted snow, as if the tyres hit wind-blown snow, stability is lost very quickly! I really enjoyed the narrow trails where precision steering is required, and I only fell over once throughout the few hours we were out.