This post is lacking many pictures. I want to try to capture my experience of the full lunar eclipse that took place on the Winter Solstice last night, the previous time it happened was 350 years ago, so it was kind of a big deal.
Friend Jenn, (well known for her amazing cycling skills and being an ok runner) and I rallied up to Mt. Ashland for an eclipse cross country ski Yeti hunting mission. For real. The weather had been questionable leading up, previous days were snowy, cloudy, windy, cold.
Monday night came and the Brother/Sister Moon started rising visible full on the horizon! The sky was clearing and it was on. I’m known for not preferring early starts to bike rides, or most things really, so a 9:00 p.m. pick-up time was really testing that one out.
We tried to rally Jenn’s beau, Erik, who is also and amazing cyclist and ok at running, though he was a bit worn out from putting shoes on the runners of Ashland Town.
We made our way up the road to Mt. Ashland, covered in snow and ice, which was quite a shift from the previous weekend when I had been able to ride my bike all the way to the top a number of times on clear road. It felt like we were a bowling ball in the bumper bowling lane with the road cuts of snow creating a bobsled track on the way up.
We go to the top, and it was full an A-frickin’-pocolypse! Windy, cold, windy, snowy, cold, we got out of the truck, tested the air, and I took this picture below:
So we decided to drive a mile down to where the calm side of the mountain, no wind, clear skies, full frontal shot of the moon. We met a couple of ladies from Oregon, talked, chatted, and I gave them each a moon marble.
We snapped in the skis around 10:00 p.m. just as the moon was starting to eclipse.
Most of the pictures I took didn’t really turn out. Most of them didn’t come close to capturing the moon, the changes in color, shape, the lighting on the snow covered mountain side around us.
Pictures couldn’t capture the snow flakes glittering in the moonlight, moon-shadows of trees, humans, stars becoming brighter as the moon eclipsed more,sounds of skis in the snow, the sound of our “Holy Crap!”
Our shouts of gratitude to Sister and Brother Moon.
We skied on the tracks the lazy schnitzel people laid earlier that day, and we broke some new track too. About an hour later the Moon was full eclipsed and we stood in awe, and peed in the snow.
Then we turned back towards the truck. I started talking too much about Yetis, and Jenn started thinking too much about cougars.
Anyways, a brief moment of adrenaline charged uphill skiing kept the winter night chill at bay. And then I asked, “Do you think those ladies are still at the parking lot?” Jenn, “No, they probably left by now. Do you think they will be there?” Me, “No, I don’t think they will be there either.” To which I added, “So I guess if we see them it will be a surprise.”
Five minutes later we are skiing, about 1/2 mile from the truck, I see a really dark spot of the side of the track, looks like a water hole where the snow is melted, a chasm of sorts, I’m about to turn on my headlamp, Jenn is two feet away, when we hear, “Gotcha!”
Well, needless to say we both jumped out of our skin, actually, Jenn just collapsed in the snow and we both saw our lives flash before our eyes. We were on guard from the cougar thoughts and this was too much. Turns out it was the ladies from the parking lot, so it was a surprise that they were there.
After I recovered from my seizure and we went on. And commented on the absurdity of the ladies, waiting, until we were right there, in the middle of nowhere, to scare the shit out of us.
Jenn rocked the drive home, like a true Alaskan ice haul trucker. And I made it to bed around 2 a.m.
And finally, a little bit of something, rough around the edges, on Yetis:
Once there was a Yeti named Betty.
Betty was a Yeti who lived on a jetty by the sea.
Her friends wondered why Betty lived on a jetty by the sea.
Yetis are supposed to live on mountains, not by the sea.
And Yetis are supposed to eat humans,people like you and me.
Betty the Yeti lived on a jetty and ate fish.
Betty the Yeti made a crazy wish.
Betty the Yeti wanted to learn to read, and not eat people.
Building Boats 
