Ash layer on the snow

The plume of the eruption vanished behind the clouds. We ran inside to check the Alaska Volcano Observatory page to find that the ash cloud was heading our way… Not only did we get to see it blow, it looked like we might see the ashfall too! Hig immediately went to work convincing me that we could safely set up our camera to capture the ashfall on time lapse. Glad he did, because the video is pretty cool.

Time lapse of Redoubt Volcano ash from Bretwood Higman on Vimeo.

Ash on our skylight

Snowshoeing to check out the ashfall

Snowshoeing to check out the ashfall

Tracks in ashy snow

Tracks in ashy snow

Bright line of tracks in an ashscape

I was far too distracted by the volcano and the prospect of an ashfall to do any real work, so I stood at the sink doing dishes, staring out our plastic window in the direction of Redoubt. The mountain was invisible behind a strange dark blue-grey cloud. As the cloud approached, I watched the sky get darker, and darker. All the mountains across the Inlet disappeared. I could see streaks of ash falling out of the cloud over Cook Inlet, and finally the last bit of bright sky over towards Homer was gone.

At that point, I was super excited. But then nothing happened. The sky seemed to lighten up a bit, and we couldn’t really see anything coming anymore. I’d just about given up when it arrived.

The ashfall came in a flurry of heavy snow. Snowflakes swirled around the yurt, pattering on our windows and skylight, speckling the fresh white snow with a mottled dark grey. The dog whined to go outside. We kept her in. A pungent sulfur smell hung in the air, making me feel a little odd even inside.

And then the snow slowly lightened, turning from grey to white again. The snow stopped. The sky cleared. The sun came out, shining on our newly greyed landscape. The air still stung just slightly of sulfur when we went out snowshoeing to check it out. Just as the sun was setting, after lots of photographing, I went out to gather an ash sample to send to AVO. I’ll grab another today.

The fate of the oil terminal at Drift River is stll unknown. See Skytruth’s blog.

The volcano is still restive. A smaller bang went off at midnight, and it could be months before it’s really quiet again.

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