It was about zero most of the day yesterday, clear and beautiful after days of wind and fresh snow. We've had maybe two feet of snow in the last couple of weeks, and it has made the trails pretty challenging, to the point that you can't really walk without snow shoes anywhere there isn't an established trail. For anyone who recalls my occasional attempt to describe the so-called "eighty words for snow", it's mostly punchy snow now. That means it's almost dense enough to support your weight, but not quite--if you step off the trail, or off a parked snowgo, you are pretty much up to your waist, if not deeper.
That said, the trail on the river to Andy's camp was good--hard enough to drive on, deep enough to be well above the rough ice, windblown and fairly smooth, and dry--not a drop of overflow anywhere. We followed the new ice road out to the Yukon, and found it hard to leave--there are waist to chest-high plow berms on both sides, so we eventually had to jump the machines over one, then make our own trail for a ways to get back on the usual river trail. We both took the big Widetracks and sleds so-as to pick up firewood on the way back. There is about 20 or 30 miles of river bank where no one bothers to collect wood because it's too far to haul it economically, but since we had to drive right past all that wood anyway... We followed a single snowgo track up river, maybe half a dozen or so on the way back.
Andy was gone when we got to his camp. He left the stove fired up and the generator running to charge his batteries while he was gone, so we knew he would be back soon. I got stuck in his driveway--it's kind of a spiral that rises about 40 feet from the river bank so he can haul firewood up to the cabin, and the return is a steep drop almost straight down the bank. Some of the trail he builds every year is just deep packed snow, and this time, it wasn't particularly well packed--it has accumulated faster than he can manage it, so part of the trail is steep, soft, deep snow. After I made a mess of it, he came along and got stuck in the same spot. He told us that he didn't realize we were there until the moment when his machine sank in the snow. Fortunately, by then we had the Widetracks up on top and Ben pulled his loaded Bravo up the hill.
We yakked for a few hours. Turns out that Andy has been housebound for a couple of weeks after a freak snowgo accident (oddly enough, most snowgo accidents are freaks--as the disclaimers say. "This machine can kill you more ways than you can possibly imagine"). He fired up his Bravo at the top of that steep hill, and the throttle stuck open. He repeated with embarrassment that he forgot to hit the kill switch in the second or so before it went airborne, and it flew about 10 feet before he landed on the woodpile on the beach. He was injured so badly that he couldn't work his firewood until just recently, but fortunately, he still had some Hugo Chavez heating fuel left over from last year, so he could heat with his oil drip stove. When he arrived right behind us with three big sticks of firewood in his sled, that was the only firewood in camp. I guess he's OK now--he apparently got that wood loaded by himself. Anyway, one upshot besides the fact that he was low on wood is that he hasn't been to town for a month or two.
Andy has a picture of President Obama proudly displayed on the door of his cabin. He has a few complaints about current gubment issues, but compared to the last eight years, we agreed that it's a nice change. He mentioned the Serum Run--said it had been on the trail for about a week, and asked if we saw any sign of them on the trail. We hadn't, but agreed that they should turn up any time, and sure enough, as soon as we crossed the river on the way home, there they were. We must have been near the head of the caravan, because we only passed about three dog teams and one snowgo on the way back, but we had to re-pass them after we picked up our load of firewood.
Ben found a terrific chunk of wood on the way back--a huge dry white spruce tree over 80' long that was enough to make a big load for both of our sleds. Unfortunately, it was a good 30 miles from town, so we had kind of a slow drive coming back, driving in low gear most of the way. Fortunately the wind had compacted the river snow pretty well so we could drive around the dog teams without getting stuck. I imagine that they were glad for the nice, slick level trail we left behind our two heavy toboggans.
It was a really good trip--kind of a long cold drive, particularly on the way back; but no problems, and we got home with some really nice dry wood for the next few weeks.
Making a transition here, I cruised some lefty Alaska blogs this morning, and want to point them out for general interest.
Shannyn Moore: Just a girl from Homer is a radio broadcaster/blogger who is still on Sarah Palin's case for political and legal irregularities. She seems like a sweety, and is knowledgeable as hell.
The Mudflats I have mentioned before. He (or she) is another liberal Alaska blogger who seems to know everything about local politics, and who sorta broke the news about the economic crash/ fuel/ food shortages in far western Alaska, particularly the coastal salmon fisheries disaster this year. He introduced me to
Ann Strongheart, whom I have mentioned, and who posts on
http://anonymousbloggers.wordpress.com/
There are some really good pictures of her hometown of Nunam Iqua and of her family on the anonymousbloggers website lately, and you will see a big contrast between interior Alaska (Galena) and her little town on the Bering Sea coast.
http://anonymousbloggers.wordpress.c... is a particularly good post of hers about, well, what it says. Her other notes give a picture of life in a town without connected roads or a local store.
Cross posted from my blog at
Home on the Yukon