The weather was holding nice at a -10 below or warmer so I decided to take a run on Wed, Dec 26th, out to Chena lakes. I also wanted to chat with John Schakley, the head ranger as he is retiring as of the 31st. John’s been a ranger at the lakes for 26 years and has done a great job of keeping the facility up and going. He’s done a lot to help FST in all the various events we’ve had over the years, he’ll be missed.
It was about -5 below when I unloaded and starting checking out some of the trails and open fields. With the nicer temps, well temps warmer than -20 below anyway, I was surprised there weren’t more tracks out there. I spent about 3 hours just riding in the powder and enjoying a nice day by myself.
I will say there were lots of moose out. The COE had the flood plain planted with wheat last summer and the moose were enjoying all that grain. Hopefully we’ll get a couple more feet of snow though, otherwise the Iron Doggers are going to be using the front of their sleds to harvest some wheat grains, those stocks have to be 3 to 4 feet high.
Saturday, Dec 29th and my last ride for 2012 was another good run. Peter and Cindy invited everyone up to their cabin at Angle Creek for a ride to Rosebud and a nice warm meal afterwards. Al though the trail was a bit rough with lots of overflow and ice it was a great day, temps in the upper teens and just a plain beautiful day for riding.
Started out with six of us all the way up to Rosebud, a ride of about 20 miles from their cabin. Ran into Brett on the way back, he was a bit late in joining us and took some interesting side trips from his description.
We took the Winter Trail from their place to the Yukon Quest Trail and rode to the top of Rosebud. Lots of Caribou tracks and sign. At the base of Rosebud we ran into some hunters who were loading up their Bou and heading back out. I did come prepared to fill my tag and we did see some Bou, but I didn’t want to take the time to go track them down and fill my tag, but I do plan on going back this week to see if I can help in filling up the freezer.
As I said, it was a great day for riding and the trip was well worth it. Cindy had Sloppy Joes and side dishes ready for us on our return and it was nice to have a warm meal after the days ride. Thank you Cindy and Peter.
I included some pictures I took, although Peter has more, I also included this image of the trail track for anyone interested.
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