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Wandering in the Whites..

Monday, March 19th, 2012

With the Whites 100 only a week away, Tom, Remus, and I decided to do a last minute overnight trip to Caribou Bluff cabin to check out the race course. I was on the snow bike, and Tom was on skis. It was a wonderful trip, with nice weather and fantastic biking. The trails were in great shape..

There was minimal traffic on the trails and I only saw two parties of snow machiners, otherwise I had the whole place to myself. There were occasional signs of other users though..

The ride in was fast and I decided to go a bit further and check out the trail heading out of Wind Gap. This was the first time I traveled this trail in this direction, and the views were pretty spectacular.

I turned around near Windy Gap Cabin and headed back to Caribou Bluff where I caught up with Tom and mellowed out. We had a nice evening of goofing off and lounging, and eventually hit the sack. I woke up around 2am to a wonderful display of the aurora, though I was not motivated enough to get up and grab the camera. In the morning we headed out. It was a slow ride for me on the way out, as the 50 mile ride the day before apparently was a bit too much for Remus the dog and he was quite sore.

So we took our time on the way out, taking photos and enjoying the nice weather.

The ride out was uneventful, though I did pass some folks from BLM picking up stuff off the side of the trail. Apparently a guided mushing group ran into some sort of trouble and had to be medivac-ed out by the Alaska State Troopers. The more details can be found here: . Fortunately no one seems to have been hurt.

The overflow this year appears to be fairly manageable, though there was one section of wet overflow that was maybe two inches deep. It was all easily ridden on the snow bike though, so long as I kept the speeds down and was careful.

If the trails are like this for the race we should see record times for the folks on bikes and on foot, and possibly the skiers too, though the snow was fairly cold and slow. Good luck to the racers this weekend!

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And Now, Skiing!

Wednesday, March 7th, 2012

I took a bit of a break from biking and did a short ski in the Angel Creek valley near Chena Hotsprings, with Tom and Remus. It was fantastic way to spend an afternoon.

Our recent snow dump has given us a fair bit of white fluffy goodness.. a little over a foot or so of new stuff in this location.

We stopped briefly at the new Lower Angel Creek cabin and peeked inside. The new cabin has wonderful view and is very large. It should make a nice option for larger groups and families. Wonderful job State Parks!

A Iditarod Trail Invitational writeup is coming soon, I have been slacking.

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Sun..

Thursday, February 9th, 2012

We are starting to get quite a bit more daylight now..

And with the additional sun has come a break from the cold. No more -56f!

I spend a wonderful Monday out biking in the Whites, and enjoyed a wonderful 11 hour ride. It was great, but alas, I was in too big of a hurry leaving the parking lot, and left without enough snacks. The 1k calories I had with me was not enough for 10+ hours, as I found out. Not the end of the world though, and I enjoyed a wonderful day of riding in the sun.

I saw three moose durring my wanderings which is fairly unusual for the Whites. Perhaps all the fires in the last ten years have changed the vegetation to be a bit more friendly to them.

The cold weather had apparently taken a toll on some of the other inhabitants of the whites..

For the last hour of my ride I rode with a wonderful full moon illuminating trail, making for nice night riding.

Only two more weeks to the big one.

Hope everyone is out enjoying spring!

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Cold..

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

Its been a tough January, with most of the time spent in the “colder” area of the thermometer.

The National Weather Service has declared this January to the be 5th coldest on record, with an average temperature of -26.7f :

AT FAIRBANKS...THIS JANUARY WILL LIKELY GO DOWN
IN THE RECORD BOOKS AS THE 5TH COLDEST ON
RECORD WITH AN AVERAGE TEMPERATURE OF-26.7
DEGREES THROUGH YESTERDAY. TEMPERATURE DATA
AT FAIRBANKS DATES BACK TO 1904.

While it is possible to bike in -40f temperatures, its slow and not particularly fun, which has put a bit of a dent in my ITI training, but such is life. Hopefully things will warm up a bit soon and I can get some longer (8-10 hour) rides in. Think warm!

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Moab.

Monday, January 9th, 2012

The day after Christmas the family and I left cold and dark Fairbanks to spend some time in the greater Moab area with my brother Dwight’s family.

Several days were spent with lots of Cables having fun in the warm for us +50f sun..

Silliness abounded..

And rock spires were eaten.

Everyone had a wonderful time exploring a new world of sand, rock, and in the twins’ case, the novelty of a sun beaming down actual warmth.

.. and dino prints!

Arches National Park was explored and enjoyed.

We spent some time in Canyonlands, though without the assistance of Dwight’s clan as they had to head back home for school. They were missed..

I was able to get out for one seven hour ride on Moab’s “Brand” trails, which were in a word – amazing. I had the place to myself, on a sunny windless day. The trails were dry and snow free.

Moab also has the nicest bike path I have ever seen, complete with warning signs for hills, and posted speed limits.

I got several hours of playing on slickrock, which was interesting and fairly rewarding.

The “XC” five inch travel full suspension bikes we rented (almost) cured me of any interest buying a similar bike – way too much bounce. At times it was like riding a pogo stick. I say almost as I might have been able to fix the bounce with adjustments to the pressure and damping, but not having access to a shock pump made this impossible. I was pretty impressed by how much the suspension could soak up though.. only for all the riding I did on it, it was much too much bike. We had tagalongs (thanks Kristin!) and tried to get some biking in each day. Generally the day would start with driving to the general area, then biking to various trailheads with the twins in tow, and then hiking.


The roads outside of Moab, Arches, and Canyonlands are great for biking. We didn’t see very many bikers but it seemed like it would be wonderful off season road biking, with minimal traffic, fantastically smooth asphalt, and wonderful views.

On the way back to Alaska we spent two days in Seattle taking in the sights with Steve and Manish.


(Click the Vimeo button for the full awesome effect)

Now its back to the snow bike, getting in the miles/hours in preparation to the upcoming madness in 6 weeks.

A big thanks to the Cable family of Utah, and Steve and Manish for inviting us to visit, chaos and all.

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A trip to Richards

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

The trails were rumored to be setting up well in the Whites, so early-ish on a Sunday morning Ms Marsh, Tom, and I headed out on a overnighter to Richards Cabin in the White Mountains NRA. The weather had been pretty nice the last couple of days, though perhaps a bit too warm for the trails to set up for good biking.

We arrived at the trail head and started down the trail, enjoying the warm weather. I was planning on biking, and Tom and Ms Marsh were going to ski. Richards cabin is about 20 miles in on a well used trail. The trail starts off with a climb up over a small ridge, then decends for 8 miles or so to cross Nome Creek, then winds though spruce forrest and a old burn before arriving at Richards. The trail was a bit too loose and steep for me to bike right out of the parking lot, so I started off pushing for the first mile or so. Tom and Ms Marsh carried their skis, so I traveled up the hill with them for a while, though once it became ridable I headed off. The day was bright and beautiful, and very warm.

Eventually the climbing stopped, and I was treated to nice downhill to Nome Creek.

It was in the upper twenties for most of the day, a bit too warm for pleasant snow biking. The trail was nicely packed and I made good time for the first half of the trip. Eventually I was passed by a large party of snow machines on their way out from Richards, and the riding slowed down a fair bit.

I found out later that these folks had just returned from Iraqi. It was a bit too warm for the trail to setup, so I spent the next 8 miles or so in a mix of low pressure riding and pushing. Good practice for what is in store for me in two weeks.

Not a big deal, as it was warm, and due to the low sun angle and a bank of high clouds, there was a all day sunrise (or sunset?).

The low angle sun illuminated the ridges along Cache Mountain beautifully.

Remus the dog is not too excited by snow biking. When pedaling I travel fast enough he has to trot to keep up, and can’t lolly gag. He gets to goof off while I am pushing though, and durring on of these non-pedaling sections a vole ran across the trail and ran into one of his legs. Remus was very surprised, and didn’t know what to do for a couple of moments. After following the vole around for half a minute he decided it was not edible or interesting and moved on. I followed the vole for a bit as it attempted to find it way back down to it’s tunnels under the snow.

After several minutes of running around on top of the snow the vole found tree well and returned to its life under the snow. Eventually the sun set, I turned on my lights, and eventually arrived at the cabin.

The cabin was still warm from the previous tenants so I hunted down some more wood and got busy melting snow. Once there was enough water I feed Remus, and soon after that Tom arrived, followed by Ms Marsh a while later. Richards Cabin is a large 20′ by 30′ log cabin with lots of room. We enjoyed a wonderful evening eating, talking, and goofing off. Tom was excited to find a copy of a UK publication call “Poultry Magazine”, which was complete with a section of reader submitted poems. He was riveted.

Richards sees a different style of visitor than most of the other cabins in the Whites. Besides several other UK farming publications, there was a number of issues of gun magazines and trading publications, and some motor sport publications. I think it might see a bit more of the hunting crowd, as it is possible to reach it in summer by ATV.

Eventually we hit the sac, and after a slow morning, set off to head back out to the parking lot. A about a half inch of snow fell overnight, and it was slightly colder, but the trail had setup firm and was now pretty rideable. The new snow and the low lying clouds made for a very white day.

The ride out was mostly uneventful, though scenic. I arrived at the truck an hour or so before the skiers, with enough time to feed Remus and myself, and get the bike unpacked and loaded up.

A very wonderful overnighter – thanks for putting together the trip Ms Marsh!

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