Solid Ground

Solid Ground

Breaking the Trail Part 2

December 29th, 2014

“What’s up bub?” From what I was looking at I knew something wasn't right.  The truck was packed and snowmachines were loaded on the trailer.  Corey had on all his outergear and I had sent him out to the truck that was warming up.  By the time I had gathered the last of my things, and left the garage myself, he was lying on the ice in the middle of the driveway like a washed up beluga whale.

    “I don’t feel so good,”... shit.  I had seen a similar look from his mother during the last week.  Tamra had been fighting this same bug for quite some time and I was hoping that the rest of us wouldn’t follow suit.  All-said Corey soldiered on at least as far as the the gas station. In the end, after a few nibbles of the coveted gas station breakfast I had promised him, I took him back home.

   It would be just Mom, Dad and I this time.  We were excited to be headed back to the cabin again, the second time this winter.  The weather had been unseasonably warm but the trip in was solid.

 There was a foot of new snow and it was obvious to me that no one had been on the trail since our last trip two weeks prior.  

    Breaking trail always holds a special place in my heart.  Aside from the thought of doing-it-first (such as a first-ascent on a mountain to a much lesser degree), breaking trail is a spiritual thing.  What lies ahead?  What critters have been running here?  Are we equal to the obstacles in our path?

   The Kahiltna River was just as we had left it, but Upper Indian Creek had blown out a bit...especially after I skirted over it in Mom’s sled.  We had found a solid place to walk across. The plan was for Mom and Dad to walk over and I would shuttle the machines to the other side utilizing my take-no-prisoners approach.  

    On the first pass, with Mom’s 550, I knocked a big plate of ice free, dancing to the far bank otherwise unscathed.  We all exchanged forlorn looks after seeing the watery path I had opened up.  Nevertheless, with a careful planned launch I was able to ditch-dive the other two machines up and over the far bank.  Whoohoo!  

    Several miles later after driving over long runs of wolf tracks (they were after snowshoe hare) we popped out at McDougal and then onto the Yentna River.  It was just as we had left it with one notable exception.  As we came nearer to our turn-off spot I noticed something that stopped me in my tracks.  Two upturned snowmachine ski tips were frozen into the overflow right at our turnoff.  At first glance I thought it was a snowmachine sunk up to the skis, but upon further inspection I noticed that it was a trail groomer.  It was easy to see what happened.  Someone was grooming the trail and got caught in overflow.  The groomer was ditched altogether and bonded nicely with the river in a tight new friendship.

Wayward groomer

    Carefully and swiftly, I drove past the groomer on top of hardpan ice and found our turnoff trail.  After I confirmed its solidity I returned to collect Mom and Dad who were still trying to figure out what exactly the ghostly looking groomer was.  We pushed into the mouth of Indian Creek itself and headed up to the cabin. 

Several bends up we pulled over to inspect a recent moose kill on the creek.  Dad and I are staunch moose salvage critics and we wanted to check it out.  The hunter on this kill had done a decent job field dressing it and there wasn’t much left.  It was probably two days old and I looked around for any salvageable meat on the hide.  There were a few small hunks but the defecation of the birds prevented us from salvaging anything at all.   We saddled up and pushed onto the cabin. 

Unfortunately for our neighbor and Iditarod musher Jim Lanier the entrance to his trail was particularly soft and a portion of the creek-ice broke away as we drove over it.  Jim has been calling frequently to confirm the safety of his route so he can run his dogs to his cabin which is right next to ours.  Maybe next week Jim.

    To make matters worse, all that night through to the next morning, and all the next day it rained.  After prolonged coffee and breakfast banter we finally decked ourselves out and braved the wetness to harvest some firewood.  As we brushed out the ridge trail we were able to fill the toboggan halfway with firewood.  We are situated among old-growth forest and each year there are plenty of casualties that succumb to the will of the wind. “Let’s go over the hill,” I suggested.  I knew there was lots of dead-standing-spruce along the edges of the swamps.  Once below we would have to get the heavy sled up a formidable hill but I wanted to try out my new winch.  

SWT

   This year I bought a new snowmachine.  The Ski Doo Skandic Super Wide Track otherwise known as the SWT or simply Superwide, has quite a cult following, at least among the people of Northern Europe and interior Alaska.   Sporting the widest track on the market (24 inches) the SWT has terrific flotation and is touted as a work/utility sled.  I knew I wanted a winch on the back, which is offered as an add-on, but I wasn’t excited about paying the additional $1800 price tag for it.  I was able to order a  3000 lb Warn winch on Amazon and fabricate my own setup for a mere $350 bucks.  Not bad for a P.E teacher!  The winch pulled the 800 pound sled up the hill without hesitation.

    We were gone no more than two hours and we were completely soaked.  I think it was noon.  Needless to say, we spent a lot of down-time in the cabin that day reading, playing cards, cooking and otherwise conserving energy.  I made some fresh rolls infused with kalamata olives, sunflower seeds and freshly minced Jalapenos to go with the wonderful moose stew that had been stewing away on top of the wood stove all day long.

     Well before we crawled upstairs into our beds it was pitch black again outside and pouring rain like there was no tomorrow.  Ahhh December rain.  Tomorrow as it turned out was on our minds foremost because we had to reverse our trip on the river to get back home.  I texted Tamra earlier in the day and told her that we may have to stay an extra day or two to get back.  

   But as-is often the case, the situations we build up in our minds fall short of reality.  After coffee and a delicious specialty McMuffin sandwich laden with bacon, egg, and other accoutrements we fired up, and made our way down the trail to face our fate head-on.  “If I should die now,” I thought, “at least I have bacon in my belly.”

    As it turned out the quality of the river ice hadn’t changed as much as it had in our minds in the last couple of days.  There were long runs of pooled rainwater to blast through as we pushed up river to McDougal but nothing gave way and the trail was solid.  

    Finally we were off the river, pointed towards the truck and once again glad to be on solid ground.