I think I've mentioned before that expecting and dealing with changing conditions is the name of the game up here. I don't think I could quantify just how many times we've shelved plans due to weather conditions. Today might be one more of those days... time will tell.
My first foray into the backcountry with Ben saw us delayed a week and a half before we could return home. A little snow, a thawing airstrip, high winds, poor visibility... all added up to a long and unexpected detour. Nowadays, weather delays are commonplace and go with the territory of living a life closely tied to the land.
It seems like fall on the coast of Prince William Sound is about the worst when it comes to predicting and accommodating bad weather. Almost every year Ben gets stuck either in Valdez or in our bush camp because the winds are too high or the rain is too severe. I think the longest weather wait was eleven days... now that is a long time to be sitting, waiting on weather.
Life gets a bit boring, frustrating and stressful when necessary events must be delayed or missed because the weather won't let you get where you need to go. But I guess thats just part of the price to be paid for flying the friendly skies and using an airplane as your commuter.
If you're stuck in camp, there's always a deck of cards laying around, and hopefully some books that you haven't read before. And you can never get enough wood hauled in, so as long as you're able bodied, there are camp chores and cooking to keep you busy.
But being stuck in town is the absolute worst. Its depressing, demoralizing and downright fattening to be trapped day after day after day without anything constructive to keep you busy. At least Valdez has a decent library that is even open on Sundays... without that a person might lose his mind.
Today Ben is hoping to fly home. He's sitting at one of our trapping cabins, over an hour away in the heart of the Talkeetna Mountains... and it has started to snow. Its hard to say what the weather is doing over there... but here it looks marginal for flying. And there could be widely varied conditions in the hundred miles of wild country between here and there.
The forecast says these conditions should last for 2-5 days. I guess we'll see about it. There's only way to figure out what's going to happen and that's to wait and see. I hope Ben has a good book and a bunch of food with him, because it could be awhile before we hear his airplane buzzing the cabin.