The Johnston's of Chulitna (formerly North Pole) | Adventures in Alaska

Another Alaska Cabin, 4th weekend

Posted on October 6, 2014 by John

I figured I’d make another trip, my fourth, up to the cabin site to help some more with the building. This was going to be a big push weekend as Dean had gotten a few more hands to help, a couple of good carpenters. I left town early with the plan to beat the snow fall that was suppose too fall in Fairbanks and the Alaska Range. The Alaska Range is south, so no worries, right…

The Steese site is more in the Central weather area as far as weather reports. The news was saying a bit of snow in town and nothing out of the Central area, at least that’s what it said before I left. So the drive up was pretty easy and relaxing and I got to wait a bit for the others to show up. They and I were going to stay in one of the enclosed trailers with a heater. Since I wasn’t familiar with the heater I just hung out at the summit and started to read a good book. After they showed up we all packed our gear in the trailer and got the heater going.
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Another Alaska Cabin

Posted on October 1, 2014 by John

For those of you who haven’t really followed my postings over the years, after Dean and I brought the property down near Hurricane (aka Hurricane cabin near Chulitna Alaska) we applied for the State of Alaska Land Lottery and won, along with 50 or so other folks. Anyway, the land lottery is the state’s replacement to Home Steading and a pretty good deal, at least I think so.

Our original agreement after getting both locations was that I would build the first cabin in Hurricane and Dean would build one on the Steese property. As time went on Dean got side tracked with the regular issues of life and helped me build the Hurricane cabin and not the Steese one.

So last month (Sept 2014) he informs me that his wonderful and charming daughter got all her material for a 16×20 cabin. One slight little problem….. She needs dad (Dean) to build it because building is not one of her major skill sets.
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Brain Surgery and Cabin Work

Posted on October 1, 2014 by John

So I made the trip to Seattle and the Swedish Medical Center to follow up on the brain surgery my local doctor said I needed. To accomplish this I had to cancel all my hunting plans and spend three days in Seattle in a very small room. The bottom line, my cyst is not a cyst but an anomaly and doesn’t require surgery, yeah team.

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The Hurricane Cabin durin g Sept 2014

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July 4th, 2014

Posted on July 14, 2014 by John

Well I guess it’s time to review the roll over I had on the 4th of July weekend. We got to where Peter said the group was meeting, this was 50 miles down the rough and ready Denali Hwy and then another 7 miles up the Valdez Creek Mine Road to a nice pull out with a view. So far an easy if bumpy ride, well almost easy, crossing Valdez Creek shortly after turning off the Denali Hwy was a challenge. The challenge of course was convincing my lovely bride that we wouldn’t get sweep away crossing what was a pretty good roaring river. Heck it only came over the top of the tires for a few feet.

So we made it and nobody got wet which was nice. After getting camp set up I was informed that Peter was leading a ride farther up the valley, you can see it on the track log included in the pictures. It was a beautiful evening and a nice ride with only a couple of wet crossings, granted one of those was 500 feet long with nice deep pool at the end to get over, but still enjoyable.

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The 4th of July 2014, where I rolled the ATV

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June 2014, into the cabin

Posted on June 24, 2014 by John

After my end of the season trip last April I figured I’d wait until the snow was gone and the weather improved to make my first summer trip in. Well the snow did melt and summer did arrive along with lots of rain so far this year.

I drove down Thursday evening and had my mind set to get stuck a couple of times on the ride in, surprise, surprise, made it to the cabin without getting stuck once, that was a change. You will notice that the first picture in the album below is of bear pop, taken about 50 feet just before the cabin. Dang bear(s) tore up some more of my form board and decided to leave me a nice little pile to show his support, Ha.

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The cabin in June 2014

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Bear Pop next to cabin

back wall

Cabin

View from deck

Hillbilly water supply

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Last ride of the season

Posted on April 27, 2014 by John

And it was a doozy, the day started out fairly good, worked 4 hours, then drove down to my parking spot and unloaded. Plan was to make the first trip in with necessities and then make a couple more to haul the 1/3 cord of firewood I brought along. Well as they say, the “Best made plans of men and mice”, it was 2:00 PM by time I was able to start my first run in. It was getting pretty warm and I figured I’d see how the ride was going in with a light load.. hahahaha, it’s 3 miles from the parking spot to the cabin. Normally a 10 to 15 minute ride, it took me 4 hours and 38 minutes to make it.

Got stuck 5 times and as you can see from the pictures below, the first time also included rolling the Bearcat and then burning out my belt. After getting unstuck and going again I figured I’d be OK, nope, got stuck three more time and was just about to turn around and head back to the rig when one of my neighbors, Ron, showed up. He helped me get the Bearcat back up and on to the semi-packed trail and then he rode lead on his nice little and very light weight Tundra. We made it into the cabin and there I stayed. It was 6:38 PM and I was pretty well wiped out.

April 24, 2014 Cabin and Slush

Last run into the cabin, winter of 2013/14

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Arcticman Week

Posted on April 17, 2014 by John

The week of April 11th is Arcticman week and everyone who rides is pretty much down at Summit watching the races and enjoying the third largest city in Alaska for those 7 days. Me, I prefer some quite time and headed on down to the cabin to finish the last of the repairs to the foundation and yes it’s done. So now I can get back to insulating and maybe working on the inside walls.

As I have a hard time making a trip down there without hauling some materials in, I hauled in 10 sheets of OSB and some 40 odd 2x4s for the skirting, and seeing as it was 35 above and sunny, I went for a ride on Friday after getting all the hauling done. It was blue bird skies and just beautiful, no one else was around and I had an enjoyable and quite weekend. Of course Trish always gets “concerned” when I go down to the cabin alone, but man its sure nice to have that alone time in the woods.

Quick ride around the front yard of the cabin

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The Cabin March 2014

Posted on April 3, 2014 by John

March this year has been more about getting the cabin foundation fixed (you do remember my shock last August http://bjb.be5.myftpupload.com/index.php/archives/2607) after the big lean than anything else. I made two trips and almost have all of the cribs in and the beams straighten and braced, one more trip should do it and then I can get back to finishing up the insulation.

Of course there was a few hickups during March as well with Trish’s health. So far everything is looking better, but the poor thing has had one H E double L of a winter. We think we may have it all worked out and she should get back on schedule.

March 2014, The Cabin

Working on fixing the cabin foundation.

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Iron Dog, weird weather, and sick wife

Posted on March 3, 2014 by John

The pre-race conditions for the Iron Dog was pretty strange this year, heck our whole winters been strange this year, I’ve heard it called the winter that wasn’t and the winter of OCD, take your pick, it’s simply been a very different one. It started out pretty good with some decent snow fall, then it warmed up and rained, rain and winter months do not mix well in the Interior.

So the weeks before the Iron Dog start of Feb 14th there were lots of discussions on moving the race start to Fairbanks, maybe go north of Big Lake (historical starting place), maybe skip Nome and have the racers turn south once they reached the Yukon River. But the board decided that this is the Iron Dog, be tough or go home, so we kept the race track intact and everyone was geared to run. We did (or I should say the racers) got lucky and mother nature provided some snow fall, not much mind you but enough to help.

Iron Dog 2014

Iron Dog 2014 and the North Pole Fuel Point

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Sweetheart Run 2014

Posted on February 22, 2014 by John

I have to say I had my hesitation on this year’s ride and considered canceling it after the warmer than normal temps and rain fall we’d been having. But when I saw the 3 to 4 inches of fresh snow on my deck I was glad we I didn’t cancel it and it turned out to be a great ride.

The temp were right around zero to 2 above at Chena Pump Landing where we all meet at 10:00 a.m. and stayed in that range all day. We did have some cloud cover in the morning and I was thinking we might have some flat light to deal with, but it was minimal and the sun came out for most of the day.

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Snow Travelers Sweetheart Run 2014

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