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.
We did have a “stuck fest” going on, although it wasn’t your normal stuck on the side of a mountain in deep powder stuck fest; this was a stuck in the parking lot version. When I pulled into the parking area I asked Larry if he was OK as his rig looked to be a bit too far into the soft snow on the edge, he said naw, he was fine and he’d drive out when we got back, Not.
Then while we were gearing up, Kerry came a long and sank his van up the axles and after trying to do a quick pull out we decided to wait until we got back. And then along come’s Tony who tried to park close to Larry and sunk his truck. Now I figured we would get them all out on the return, but Tony’s sled wouldn’t start so Wes and I used our wide tracks and pull him out.
Anywho, we took off late with 15 sleds and 16 riders and enjoyed a nice and steady ride down to Nenana. I felt pretty good as I only made one slight wrong turn, we’ll I call it a wrong turn but it was really due to the open water on the slough we were taking and figured we’d back track and go around it. Too early in the day to teach some of folks riding with us how to water skip. But we did hit some icy overflow about halfway down and that was fun, throttle down and go.
We arrived in Nenana around 12:30 and had a great lunch at which time Steve E came through for us and had a drawing for prizes, since we were a relatively small group for this run he had enough door prizes that everyone was a winner, way to go Steve.
On the way back, Steve 2 had a problem crossing the railroad track and damaged his undercarriage had to get trailered back to town., lucky for him Tony drove down to have lunch with and gave home and his sled a ride back to town.
So a good day with lots of sun and a good ride. The Iron Doggers are going to love the trail as soon as they pass under the Nenana Bridge and they get to ride on a decent trail with actual snow on it.
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