Mile 13.5

That's the scene 1/2 mile downriver from here. That darn river is one fickle creature, maybe that's why we get along so good.  Two weeks ago when I took the video of the river locking in for the winter I would have bet dollars to donuts it was frozen for good...well, wrong again.

Normally this time of year we'd have a ski track set down to Fall-in-Hole and then through the swamp and back up the bench to our house. But this year as you can see the river is just to unsafe, almost to unsafe even for walking.  The warm trend and rain we had broke up the ice and then the huge tides with the full moon the last few days lifted all the ice and left it sitting around like a martian landscape.

That picture of Jet pretty much shows you what we're up against when trying to take a walk. The ice chunks are all under cut and we have places where theres 5 or 6 feet of ice over the river bed....and its got holes in it everywhere. Several years ago Jet fell through into one of these cavern type deals and disappeared, she found her way out in an entirely different area than where she went through and let me tell you her owner was fit to be tied.

If you've ever launched a boat here you'll recognise the rock on the right that's a prop eater at low water. When I first started at Mile 14 that rock was huge and even at high water you could wing ding your stuff if you weren't looking. Well through the years its either sank some or the river has filled up around it or maybe its even eroded...whatever the case it illustrates the nature and vitality of this Kenai River, a wonderfully crazy place. Thought you might like the pics of our earliest 'break-up' ever, Dec 11, 2011...