"Stacia's" Sledding Hill

All Stacia asked for was a place with snow like Misawa, Japan. We assured her there would be snow in Alaska. Alas, there hasn't been much snow this year in the valley. We've had several strangely warm snaps (high 30's and 40's) while the rest of America was having abnormally cold weather. We've had all the snow melt off several times.  This is a bummer as it's hard to do things like skiing, ice fishing, sledding and snow machining without a good layer of snow.

The kids had planned to sled down the side of the yard. The snow was powdery and kept disappearing. Stacia spent a day building a "ramp" of snow. She thought this would give an extra "push" at the start of the ride....then we had one of those warm days and things melted. Then we had a cold day which resulted in a layer of ice over the snow (and roads too).

Stacia is the most devoted to sledding. She discovered that the hill was FAST when the snow was a bit wetter and covered in ice. She even got me to try it. They were stopping at the deck, now they zip across the yard, around the septic pipe, and either into the pasture or into the fire ring.

Alex came out and enjoyed the icy sledding hill 

Here's a clip. 

All the photos I took of Stacia were blurry. We'll try for more.

Note - I received a text from Stacia, on the 19th, while in Anchorage, "We just had a huge sledding crash but nobody is mortally injured." Seems they hit the wire of the electric fence going full speed. The wire will be put down for the rest of the winter.