The Anchorage Winter of 2012-2013

Since it's still winter i suppose i should get at least one winter post up. I didn't get out much this winter because the first half of it was so cold and the second half i had health problems. So here are some random pictures from the Anchorage winter of 2012/2013.

One day i was in the mood to use my underwater housing and this pole attachment i got last spring. The only problem was it had been less than 10 degrees for a month, so most water was frozen under several feet of ice. That's where the pole came in handy. It's not very user friendly, and i forgot the wrench that you have to use to change the angle of the camera on the pole. I tried to find holes in the ice and stick the camera down in there to see what down in the holes. Mostly i got crappy severely diagonal pictures but here are a few that came out interesting enough.

Sometimes in winter we get these temperature inversions that create cool illusions on the horizon, as you can see below. The illusions change shape and height as you change altitude.

Mt. Foraker grows higher and higher over the barracks of Elmendorf AFB. From the base to the mountain is 130 miles.

It's a Sphinx!

Foraker has blown it's top but Denali is holding it's head above the fray.

Fairbanks has the World Ice Carving Championships every winter. In downtown Anchorage some of the contestants get warmed up before heading north. These were really cool but if you see the winners of the Fairbanks competition you can tell these pieces are just practice.

An Alien and a mermaid

A Chinese Pavilion

This turtle was next to a cool whale but they had ropes in the way of taking a picture.