Tom Lake Cabin

Tom Lake Cabin
Cabin at Tom Lake

Friday, November 7, 2008

It's Winter In Alaska
















Ed at front door (left)


Finally, the fish are all spawned out, the tourists are all gone, as are the leaves, and South central Alaska has settled in for the long winter.

This is the time of year many of us look forward to. I just received a Chozzen Frozen report from Lake Louise. There is over 8 inches of new ice, in places it is over a foot in depth. Only a scattering of snow and up to 6 inches on the trails though. You would have to be careful and move slowly if hauling big loads across the lake at this time. I chose to wait until about Thanksgiving. There should be 18 inches to 24 inches of ice by then.

My Skandic SUV weighs 620 pounds dry. Add my 200, about 80 to 90 pounds of gas in the tank, another 40 pounds in the 5 gallon spare, a 200 pound sled and 600 to 800 p0unds of load and you have up to 1800 pounds on the ice. It gets up to 100 feet deep in the lake. At -20 to +20 I do not want to go through. Not even in shallow water. Trying to get a sled (snowmachine) disconnected from a loaded freight sled, and trying to get the sled out before it freezes in is not something I want to experience.

It will soon be time to haul more material in to the cabin site. I now have a brand new Williams 3300 series direct vent propane heater to install. It will heat up to 800 sq feet. The cabin is about 775 sq feet. This will be additional and night time heat. The main source is a Blaze King wood stove. It is rated at 2000 sq feet. With 6 inches of insulation in the roof, walls and under the floor we should stay snug at -50.

I'm going to haul some more 12 foot 2 x 6 lumber in. We used a few sticks when building the walls. I don't want to have to run out 6 1/2 miles to the end of the road and then another 70 miles round trip to the nearest town, Glennallen, to buy more in the middle of building the roof. I can always use a few extras for building the 12 x 12 shop / storage area anyway.

Some time in December my buddies Chuck, Tom and maybe a few others will journey north for several 3 day weekends. We hope to get the second floor up, build the rafters and install the metal roof. Then the doors go. That is when the new heater is going to be installed and the Blaze King will be put to good use too.

In March my brother Ed comes up for a couple of weeks. Most of it will be spent up at the cabin putting in windows, running the wiring, receptacles and switches, and running 12 volt circuits through out. We have stairs to build too. In the early morning and on any days off we will be fishing.

We both like to ice fish. I will take my ice shelter and small heater up with us. It tows behind my snowmachine and sets up in about 10 minutes. It is toasty warm when the temperature hovers around 0 degrees.

I have to finish tuning the snowmachines, changing gear oil, buy a corner cabinet to go with the maple units the found at a garage sale for really cheap and pull bunches of tools and materials out from the storage shed and under the house. This looks to be a really busy winter.

More later.