January

So far its been a pretty good year, the Iron Dog is going to setup the finish line in downtown Fairbanks and it should be a blast. Going down the Noyes Slough from the Chena River near University Ave will be interesting. All the rumors flying around town have really stirred up folks thinking that the racers are going to be blasting down it at 100 MPH. But I believe we have the solution and it’ll be a great and safe race through town with “pilot sleds” leading the racers under a yellow flag through the slough at a maximum speed of 25 MPH.

Our weather this year has been strange to say the least. Started out with some good snow fall, then the temps dropped down to the minus 50 and colder (had -58 below here at the house), which Isn’t to bad actually, froze up the rivers and set a nice base. But oh nature can be fickeled and the following week the temps got to 50 above. Whow, whats up with that, a 90 to 100 degree temp change in a week, not good. So half of our snow melted and then the temps went back to normal, a comfy zero during the day to -20 at night, this I can live with.

Getting antsy to ride, I took, Tyler, my 10 year grandson, on a ride to Chena Lakes from the house, this had to be the worst ride of my life. Hard packed ice all the way down the trails. The best part was riding down the slough, but even that was nerve racking looking for open holes after the warmer temps. But we made it and I decided not to do that ride again until we get another foot or two of snow.

Yesterday we drove to Chatanika, had breakfast and meet up with 7 other FST members. The scheduled ride was suppose to be from 42 mile Steese Hwy to Cache Mountain Cabin. Humm, warm temps a week ago, a little snow fall, then 40 MPH winds yesterday and Thursday, didn’t look good. During breakfast we decided to forgo starting at 42 mile and just ride out of the lodge, down the main trail to 4 corners, head north east from there and into the White Mountain Rec area. This was a good choice. The trail from the lodge was decent and as we got farther along the trail it got even better, all the way to the White Mountain Trail System (WMTS). The WMTS wasn’t so good, all the trails were as hard as a rock and what new snow did fall was wind blown and gone. So I believe we made a good call on that one.

We rode to Moose Creek Cabin and decided to take a lunch break there. At this point one of our younger members decided to play in the snow, AKA hard packed ice, and cracked up his sled. And cracked it was, I’ll leave the details for another day, but lets just say that we didn’t finish the loop we had planned since his sled required a tow back to Chatanika. Let’s see now, of the past 3 FST rides I’ve been on this season, so far we’ve had to tow a Polaris out on 2 of those,…. :geek: OK, so yeah, I’m Cat a rider if my sled breaks down on the trail I know I’ll never heard the end of it, but until that happens I get to pick you Pullaris riders.

But it was a great ride and everyone, with the exception I’m sure of the guy having to rebuild his sled, had a good day. Oh yeah, he did get to ride Tyler’s Cat back to Chatanika.