We meet at Chatanika Lodge for breakfast, 15 folks showed but only 10 brought along their sleds to ride. The temps at the lodge was -26 below when we arrived, so we decided to head up to Cleary Summit, where the temps were a balmy -2 below.
Chuck did a great job as our ride leader and took us on two separate rides. On the first run we crossed the Steese and Elliott Hwy’s to Murphy Dome road and then rode along the pipeline towards Fox and then south to the Goldstream Valley. Kerry, riding a new Skandix took a little side trip into the trees when he hit a dip that turned out to be a double dip a bit deeper then he thought, a couple good pictures of his “Tree Hugging” adventures and us getting him out included below.
This first run was about 33 miles with temps that varied from -25 below in a valley or two to 2 above along the pipeline, so a good day and fairly warm when we were out of the wind which was worst at Cleary. The snow was decent and the trails were in great shape the whole ride. So I ran my video camera for most of the ride along the pipeline and uploaded some of the ride to YouTube, one is shown @ http://youtu.be/pSMpFwsNPoE.
Since it was only around 1:30 when we got back to Cleary Summit, 7 of us decided to take another run in the opposite direct and checkout the mine and see what the trail was like towards Gilmore Trail. The trails were again in great shape and we had some fun playing in the gravel pit close to the Alpha C trail and rode another 26 miles for about a 60 mile day.
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