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Finally we've gotten a few good cold, clear nights, down into the teens(Fahrenheit, that is). The cold weather a little later than normal, but welcome nonetheless. Most immediately, the heavy frost has killed off the swarms of gnat-like bugs that have been unusually pesky this fall. This is the first time I can remember seeing these little things out in such numbers this late in the season. Even the mosquitos gave up the chase weeks ago.

The ground is also starting to freeze, which we need right now. If the swamps and smaller lakes and streams don't freeze up before the first big snow comes, we'll have a slushy mess with lots of overflow that won't allow us to set most of our trails. We'll still be able to use dry-land trails, but we'll be limited mainly to our own local areas. It's practically impossible to go very far on a winter trail in this part of Alaska without crossing swamps and lakes and other potentially wet places. Even in a normal year we don't expect the bigger lakes and rivers to freeze up and be usable for sleds and snowmachines before late December. Of course, we all want an open stream or two for water training for the dogs even after everything else is frozen, but there's a limit.

The first hard frost at my place always triggers some changes in the way I do things. Friday morning, for example, I noticed the water hose I've run 250 feet from my cabin out to the dog yard had frozen and the ice had popped the connections loose. No big deal--I expect this every year. It just means I have to roll up the hoses and get them out of the way until about next April.

The biggest change is that I'll stop dry-feeding the dogs. As long as I've got water in the dog yard, I use a two-pass feeding system: dry food on the first pass, followed by a couple of quarts of water on the second pass. Of course, once the hose is frozen, it means any water I put in their dishes will freeze, too, so there's no point in messing with it. Now I'll start soaking the food in water inside the cabin and feeding everything at once after the kibbles absorb all the water they can (usually about twice their volume).

This is basically the way I'll feed all winter and on the trail as well. My dogs won't touch straight water once it gets cold, so I rely on the water in the soaked kibbles to keep them hydrated. I normally feed the dogs their big meal last thing in the evening, since it's not a good idea to feed heavily them before a run. Besides, I want them to get used tothe idea that finishing a run means food.

Most mornings I'll also give them at least a quart of soup, which is nothing more than water with some kind of food mixed into it as "bait". The object is to trick them into drinking the water by flavoring it with something they like. Their favorite seems to be any kind of frozen meat thawed out and mixed with the water, the bloodier the better--they are carnivores, after all. Some of the younger dogs and a few of the adults will also get a morning meal, and in very cold weather, below about minus30, all of the dogs will get two full meals a day.

Of course, they need additional water after a run, so I always have a five- gallon bucket of meat-and-kibble soup waiting when we get back to the yard. It's important to get carbohydrates into the dogs as quickly as possible after they're done running, so I load the soup as much as I can with carbs, and I also give each dog a couple of big dog biscuits. This is also good training for the trail, where I want them to immediately eat whatever I put in front of them as soon as we stop, whether for a quick snack or at a checkpoint.

In a month or two I'll start cooking for the dogs, which basically means I'll be making a big kettle of meat soup, adding rice, and cooking the whole mess until the everything looks done. Then I'll put the cooked mixture into buckets (about a third full) and add one-third dry kibbles and one third water, resulting in a sort of super-fortified dog food that absolutely drives them wild. It usually even smells good enough for humans to eat, as long as you conveniently forget that the meat going into it is often just a couple of notches better than road kill (or about the same as what goes into ordinary hot dogs).

Aside from dog-related things, the unexpected clear weather has coincided with some heavy solar flare activity, which means that the northern lights have been out. Last night they covered most of the sky for awhile after midnight and I got a crick in my neck from standing outside watching them.

And this evening I was lucky enough to be out flying and got to watch the sunset from the air. When it's clear in the fall and winter, the setting sun performs truly wondrous alchemy on Mt. McKinley. Because the sun is now setting more and more to the southwest, its last rays illuminate the south face of the mountain, which is the side most visible from my area. As the sun sinks ever lower, the shadows creep up the sides of 20,320-foot-tall Denali and its two southern neighbors, Mount Foraker (17,400 feet high) and Mount Hunter (14,570 feet, located between the two big peaks).There are no other peaks even remotely as high within a hundred miles, so the effect is even more striking.

Finally only the three high peaks, the crown jewels of the Alaska Range, are illuminated in an orange-gold alpenglow, fringed with deepening blue below. One by one the glowing peaks yield to the shadows, finally leaving only the top of Denali blazing by itself. After a few more minutes the orange flame at the very summit subsides and it seems as if the entire country is suddenly plunged into a blue twilight. This skyscraping light show can be seen for hundreds of miles in good weather. It's easily visible from Anchorage. I've seen it on the Iditarod as far west as Takotna, and from an airplane almost halfway to Nome. I've watched plenty of sunsets in the Grand Canyon, and I can safely say that Denali is much more impressive.

Anyway, it's all a sign of the seasons changing up here, and is just one more reason some of us can't imagine living anywhere else.

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