Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Biking in Anchorage in the Fall

The fall in Alaska comes too soon, in particular for those of us that pay attention to the outdoors and actually go out and feel the cooling air of September in our faces. I bought an old classic bike for my girlfriend/wife now. Her first encounter with Alaska was not as shocking as we thought it would be. This only shows us one more time that global warming is here and probably to stay.
Nowhere else in the country is global warming so evident as here. In 1991 when I arrived in Alaska, my mother and I went to see the Portage Glacier since there was a new visitor center at the mouth of the glacier. Well, the visitor center is still there. Last month my wife and I went to the same place.  I wanted to show her this pride of Alaskans... but to my dismay, the glacier is no longer. Only a lake-like body of water remains.   

Diana in Anchorage - Fall 2011
My point is that if you look at the pictures and pay attention to the trees, the leaves are yellow. This time we are experiencing an Autumn like the ones the lower 48 states experience; A season in which the temperature decreases gradually, giving time to nature to prepare for winter. Leaves change color, wind blows them off the trees, the entire picture says fall. It used to be that the temperature drops were so drastic and winter arrived so suddenly in Anchorage that leaves turned from green to dark brown in a matter of one week and spent the rest of September and October falling.  As it is, we can still bike some very nice sunny evenings of September and even October.  Perhaps the old bumper sticker is coming to be a granted wish... "Alaskans for global warming".

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