Northern Lights and Skiing Independence Mine

Last Sunday night, we were treated to a spectacular showing of the Northern Lights from our back deck. I've seen the lights in various places before, but this was the best I've ever seen them, by far.


The forecast was a bit off on its prediction of intensity, so we didn't expect to see much, but when they started we were amazed to see their intensity so bright that all the colors were showing, flowing in waving ribbons and pulsing dramatically right overhead. Jolene was inside getting the camera for the one or two minutes of the highest intensity, but the bright green lights stuck around for some time afterwards, and she was able to get some great pictures.


I told the boys to remember that one or two minutes that we had the lights pulsing right overhead us, odds are we'll never get to see them that bright again, as the conditions were just right and we were in the the exact right location to catch it.


Our snow has stuck around for the past couple of weeks, even though it has started to warm up a bit. The snow in the spruce trees, with the lights glowing overhead, made for some great winter Alaska scenes.


In this picture, Jolene captured the big dipper overhead our neighborhood, with the lights still showing along the horizon.


Today, we donned the ski gear again and headed up to Independence Mine at Hatcher Pass to do some x-country skiing.

The boys can ski circles around me, and usually do. So sometimes I just stop and catch some video of them skiing by.


It was a beautiful day to ski around the old mine buildings.


The boys kept pointing out the movie-shoot locations where they filmed our latest locally-produced film "Sudsy Slim Rides Again", which was mostly shot around these structures at Hatcher Pass.

Skiing around the historic structures at the mine was a neat experience.


We think we'll go back and ski the mine again tomorrow, and maybe take Dino with us. Jolene had some new snowshoes delivered, and she might take the opportunity to try them out while we ski.


Landon is serving as the State President of BPA this year, and this past week he moderated a panel for his high school's business pathway. The picture is of him and the panelists from Northrim Bank, with the description in the media release included below:

Our #AlaskaBPA state president was the moderator at the Mat Su Career and Technical High's November Pathway Day. Northrim Bank employees were our guests. They included:

Mike O’Brien – Information Technology, Systems Engineer
Jared Shary – Marketing, AVP- Marketing and Sales Manager
Sarah Gaines – Human Resources, AVP- HR Operations Manager
Cait Ward – Accounting, Staff Accountant 
Brian Leonard – Wasilla Branch, Assistant Branch Manager
Diana Soliday - Wasilla Branch Manager
Joshua Rabe – Special guest (worked for Northrim but left to start his own IT firm) Owner/Operator of Stratus Services.