Greenwater

We had so much snowpack in the mountains this year, the river has been pretty much bank-full all of June and now? well into July. Fast, loud, and an oddly attractive grey-green color that doesn’t come through in photographs very well.

Talkeetna River, high water

The River: As River.??????? Photo by Elf

Daily entertainment is looking for new logjams, old ones swept away, and comparing the water level to yesterday.

If I am away for any length of time, the web provides a substitute which is highly informative, if not nearly as engaging. The Alaska River Forecast Center provides an ongoing record of the river level, along with its predicted behavior for the near future. This I can translate into whether or not my wheeler can make it under the bridge, and what channels will have water in them.

The River: By the Numbers

 

Fourth of July in Talkeetna

We don’t usually have town-sponsored fireworks for the fourth of July, for the same reason we don’t have drive-in movie theaters. It doesn’t get dark. We save the big guns for the winter time. Of course that doesn’t? stop people from buying enough explosives on their own to re-enact the Battle of the Bulge. Between one and two A.M. is about as dark as it’s gonna get, and the celebration is on. Nothing centralized, just skirmishes all over town and down by the river, blue smoke drifting over green water in the twilight. Not a good night for dogs.

During what I like to call high summer, we very often get that wonderful effect of low evening light (from the north) with a backdrop of grey sky. It’s just plain delicious. This scene was downtown Talkeetna on the evening of the fourth, around 11 pm:

 

Fourth of July in Talkeetna Alaska

Talkeetna, Fourth of July, 11 P.M.