It’s Monday and I’m already whipped. Started the weekend riding with Destiny’s bow (Cody) and his dad (Rod) to try and get them a caribou for their freezer. So Rod says I know this area we can get into zone 2 of the Caribou registration hunt. Remember, I already filled mine and Trish’s tags in zone 1, so we have meat in the freezer. But always being up to explore some new territory and willing to help out I figured I’d go along for the ride.
Rod said this will be a nice easy ride and a great open trap line trail, hum, should of known it wasn’t going to be all fun and games. We got to the parking spot and off loaded the sleds, it was a brisk -14 below but we were heading up in elevation and it should warm up, which it did. The first 17 miles were a cake walk down the dirt road that hadn’t been plowed for a bit, which is good and there was enough snow on the ground that we didn’t mess up the skags, at least on most of the road.
As soon as we get to the end of the road where the trap line starts all we can see is snow, no trail per se, but lots of snow. OK, Rod volunteers to break trail and that’s when the fun began. Cody hadn’t really ridden a snowmachine other than some ditch bagging with his buddies, so this is all new to him and I have him on Trish’s 550 Cougar. He did good and about ¾ of the way to our destination point he mentioned that this is a lot of work, of course that was right after I helped him get unstuck for the 6th time.
So we made it back into what we considered was our destination point, about 28 miles back from the rigs. The view was fantastic with the South Fork of the Chena River to the north of us and the Salcha River to the south. I was surprised at just how far back we actually got in relationship to the Salcha River. Last time I was that far in we rode the Salcha River and it took a lot longer to get there. Unfortunately no Caribou nor any fresh sign, so a great ride but unsuccessful as far as getting them their Bou.
Sunday morning I loaded up for the annual FST Sweetheart run from Fairbanks to Nenana and the Monderosa, this is usually one of my favorite rides of the season. Not so sure about that any more, we started out with 16 sleds and 19 folks, three sleds were riding double. It began great, nice trail and not as cold as it could have been, only -8 below. However a few miles down the river and the light became flat, almost snow blind white flat, I had one heck of time seeing where I was going.
The nice thing was the length, this is usually a 58 mile run one way and as the river changes every year someone always sets a track through some new sloughs and around sandbars that shortened it to 48 miles. I’m about blind and I look down and see were at mile 46 and my mind is wondering about the next 12 miles when all of sudden I see the bridge for Nenana and the next thing I know where there, wow, was I surprised. I did get off the river at that point and decided to ride thorough town rather than run the last few river miles. I do believe everyone was wondering just what I was doing, hey I needed to get to where I could actually see the bumps and dips for a bit.
As we diverted through town, I tried to go to the spot that we usually cross by the Nenana bridge, well heck, they’ve blocked it off for some construction, so Lee (thank you Lee) lead us around the edge of town to the Nenana river where we broke trail back to the Tanana and on to the Mondo. As always a great lunch and service and then Steve E had a drawing for some door prizes where every rider got a prize, that was fun.
The return trip was about the same flat light as the trip down. I did stop at one point, about 30 miles back to town. Paul pulls up and said I was wondering why you slowed downed there a ways back, then he hit the same spot I did and realized that you couldn’t see a thing but white. Kind of like trying to look inside of a totally white box when someone turns on the million watt bulb, it just blinds you. Of course it might not of been so bad if my heated visor was working and I could use the tinted shield, but since it wasn’t the tinted shield was all frosted over and worse than no shield at all, which is how I rode. First order of business on Monday was a new shield.
Had to work Tuesday but the rest of the week is going to be spent on the Iron Dog trail, making sure the track is set and trail stakes are all in from Manly to the finish. The Alaska National Guard has a small crew that is going to stake the trail from Nenana to Manley, about 60 miles. They haven’t been on this section of river before and it should be an interesting trip for them.
I’m working on the North Pole Fuel Point and the trail from the mouth of the Chena on to the Tanana to the fuel point and then down the Chena to the finish. Should be an interesting and busy 4 days.
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