Well it seems this holiday season Trish and I were left all alone as the kids and grandkids decided to have a Christmas down in Anchorage. I guess we could of gone with them, but neither of us really cares for the big city, so we decided to do some winter RVing near Trapper Creek, or more specifically, the Petersville Road area.
I wasn’t sure just how that was going to work, as far as heating goes anyway. So I did some modifications to the RV and added what is called an “Extend-A-Stay”. In short, you attach the propane coupling between your on board tank and regulator. This allows you to use an external propane tank, so I took an extra 100# tank along. It worked great and lasted us the seven days we were out with enough fuel between the 100# and the on board tanks for another week or longer if we wanted. So if you have an RV and want to make sure of you have plenty of propane for heating and cooking on long winter trips, get one installed.
Found a nice big pull out at Mile 11.5 Petersville Road and set up for the week. A nice spot it was too, next to the Safari Trail, one of the trails that the Curry Ridge Riders (CRR) maintains, so easy access to the trail system, lots of fields close by to play in and 6 miles from the Forks Road House.
Friday morning I decide to take a short run to the Forks Roadhouse and check it out, the trail was great, much better than I remember it from 15 years ago, the last time I was riding in that area. Or at least it was until Sunday, after all the weekend folks were finished it was rougher than a cob, sort of like our Interior trails. What I did find, much to my surprise, were good trail signs and a couple telephones, what, a telephone !! Yup, about 6 trail miles from our camp site in the middle of nowhere at what is known as the Reflector Tree was a telephone, no I didn’t try it, was to shocked to even think of it. I actually found two of them before the week was over. Wow.
So anyway, I did what I came down to do, rode the CRR trail system and explored the area. And some great riding it was with lots of open fields (dozens, if not hundreds) to explore and an easy place to get lost in :<) Of course I always took my GPS and keep a decent bearing on my location. Wasn’t hard to do at first, not until after the X-Mas weekend was over anyway and then there were trails everywhere, but the signs helped.
Well that got boring after a few days, riding a couple hundred miles of trails, had fun playing in the powder fields, but !! So then it was time to see if I could find those hills and mountains I kept seeing off to the west. Only way I knew how to get there was to follow the Petersville Road, so that’s what I did.
I rode the back way from camp, down the Safari Trail to the East-West connector Trail to Petersville Road, this put me about 3 miles west of the Forks and I figured it would be a smoother trail, it was, until I got back on the Petersville road. Anywho, I rode about 20 miles my first trip in and came to a really deep valley with some smaller hills off to the north, rode these for the day and headed back to camp.
You know, I still wasn’t where those dog gone mountains and all the snow I keep seeing were. So the next day I rode through that deep valley. The road goes through it, which made it easier, I think, not sure I wouldn’t have been better off in the valley bottom. It was deep and steep, a couple hundred feet at least and rougher than the rest of the trails.
But at last I found the place to ride. The area is the State of Alaska Peter Hills Recreational Mining Area, or at least that’s what the sign said. After that it was all fun and play in the powder. Lots of hills to climb, fields to play in and unexplored territory to explore and enjoy. Turned out this was also my last day to ride, but when I go back I’ll be heading right down the road and into those hills.
And so I rode back to camp and took a few more turns around some of the fields on the way, just hated to haul all that fuel back home