57 Mile Elliott to Windy Gap

The best way to describe this ride is “whew”. We meet for breakfast at 8:00 AM at Hill Top Café and got out of there a little after 9:00 I think. Breakfast was OK, but as always a bit slow in getting to our table.

There was six of at breakfast and six of us at the 57 Mile parking lot at 10:00 off loading and getting ready to hit the trail. I took a quick peek down the trail head and it looked pretty smooth, fact is it was smoother than I thought It would be. Seems we lucked out and we were the first tracks after the BLM had groomed the trail, lucky us.

So it started out looking pretty good and that lasted for about the first mile and half. Then the six of turned into to four of us as Tony and Joe had to go back after Tony’s sled started having trouble and they had to return to town. At least it was a nice day for a drive….

The first portion of the ride was fairly easy and uneventful, a little overflow, but not bad. So we made it to Windy Gap Cabin and had a little break, easy ride, the trails are great, heck, let’s go up to Windy Gap, and so we did. The trail to the Gap from the cabin always had a little overflow and I expected some, but not 3 miles worth. The picture below was the “little” overflow we hit before the cabin and this was just the start of it. The area by the cabin is also a place where we always find overflow, but it’s usually smooth and solid and you can’t beat the view of those mountains in the background.

As I said, the trail to Windy Gap was interesting with lots of windy trail, powder and overflow, but once we got to the Gap it was spectacular. Deep snow with lots of sunshine and warm temps, couldn’t ask for more than that. We just sort of lazed around a bit and enjoyed it all till we decided to head back to Windy Gap Cabin and consider taking the trail past Caribou Bluffs, the Borealis LeFever cabin and head north along the Big Bend Trail back to the parking area, a loop of an estimated 90 miles or so. A good plan and one that everybody could make on a single tank of gas without any concerns. As all good plans go, this one started out OK, but I guess I should of known when Nokai’s oil light came on, seems he forgot to fill up his oil reserve. Ooops, bet that doesn’t happen again, especially after we spend 15 or 30 minutes trying to siphon some of the oil out of reserve one tablespoon at a time. We had got about 4 oz of oil out my reserve and into his when three sleds coming tracking down the trail and my first question was “anyone got any oil they’d be willing to sell”. Response was a big “no”, but they did have some they’d give us  SO Nokai got a quart of 2-cycle and we were ready to hit the road. I have to say that’s guys like these that make Alaska great, he wouldn’t sell us any oil but he did give us a quart to by with. We owe you all one.

So after socializing a bit we headed south towards Caribou Bluffs and they went on up towards the Gap, or at least as far as that 3 mile stretch overflow. We past the turn off to Caribou Bluffs and headed to Borealis LeFever Cabin and our connection with the Big Bend trail, well we were suppose to turn on the Big Bend Trail, I kind of missed the turn, another Ooops for the day. After getting turned around we and hitting the Big Bend Trail I was getting a bit relaxed, the ride was almost over the Big Bend Trail was looking pretty good. 3 miles along the trail were stopped as the trail hit a dead end, well, not really a dead end, just a deep gully with no ice bridge. Humm, looks like a trail on the other side of the gully, but no one’s been on it this winter, our gas tanks are getting below the ¼ mark and we now have to make a decision. Do we break trail down towards the valley to the north of us, uphill to the south, or turn around and back track.

I was tempted to ride down the valley and find a way around the gully, but was out voted and so we headed back to Caribou Bluffs and the Fossil Gap Trail. Although it add almost 40 miles to the ride, it was a beautiful run down along Beaver Creek and through the canyon. I was glad to discover that the trail that usually goes down the creek bed the whole way was moved to the south western bank. There was a lot of open water on Beaver Creek as you can see.

And let’s not forget the windblown area that were like riding on concrete, had packed and rough, fortunately it was short lived and we were back on more powdery terrain. Our last stop of the day was at the trail junction by Colorado Creek Cabin where we ran into Darrell Bon who did invite us over for coffee, but it was 8:30 PM and everyone was beat and ready to head home.

All in all, a long and tiring ride but enjoyable as all get out. I can always tell it’s a good ride when I’m to sore to do much the next day .