burnin' up

52 degrees.

In Alaska. In February.

Aaaah. Refreshing.

Just 10 days after the mercury in my neighbor's thermometer froze, leaving my best guess at the temperature at a chilly -48, chinook winds blew in from the Pacific, bringing 100 Farenheits worth of degrees with them.

And it feels great, but the weather isn't the only reason why spirits are bright in the Box.

Last Saturday, I finally got back to exploring some of the places I promised I'd have conquered by now: Birch Hill, Murphy Dome and some of the highways and byways around Fox. Now equipped with snowshoes, I can check out more winter terrain and I have a feeling waking up before noon might not be as arduous for a while.

Another reason to look forward to consciousness during the morning is the end of the Yukon Quest. Since the dog teams left Fairbanks, sportswriter Matias and photo editor Sam have been giving chase, hopping to frigid outposts with names like Scroggie Creek and Slaven's Roadhouse. The very spirit of the race requires attention at all hours, meaning that in order to put the most complete story in the paper, it has to be written very late.

Forget pushing deadline, we've been barreling through it, sending the front page off to the presses at least 45 minutes late. In fact, the only time we made deadline was when it got pushed back to 2 a.m. the morning the winner (Lance Mackey, his fourth in a row) crossed the finish line in Whitehorse.

Not that I'm complaining. Having little knowledge about dog mushing, I still found myself eager to read Matias' stories the minute they arrived via e-mail, and when Sam calls to tell me there are fresh pictures to upload I pop out of my chair and take long strides to the photo section. It was fun stuff, and the mushers are real characters. A bit gruff and cocky -- certainly the type of people who'd peg me as city-folk in a heartbeat -- but at least that makes them colorful.

It's not like I'm going to watch a dog race over, say, college basketball, but I find it a bit more approachable than major sports these days. For example, a typical football fan will forfeit a minimum of 17 Sundays a year to watch games. Then, worst-case scenario, the Monday night matchups stink after week three, which means we also can subtract a minimum of three evenings a year. Take 10 minutes per morning reading team news in the local sports section or team Web site: In a 17-week regular season, that's 1,190 minutes or 19 hours, 50 minutes -- about four days free time for a very unoccupied person. Playoff matchups take two days per weekend thrice. Add the Super Bowl and you've lost a minimum of 31 days' free time as a casual fan, which is all spread over half a year. Then there's the draft, following your favorite college players ... you get the idea.

So if most sports are full-time jobs, the Quest is like a two-week internship.

Today, the temps are back down to freezing, which is kind of nice because the roads were getting a bit too slick. I'm taking a day off exploring 'cause a bit of cold is creeping up on me.

Hopefully, this passes soon. I'm looking forward to snowshoeing off the beaten trail at Creamer's tomorrow.