Archive for the ‘trip reports’ Category

Kotzebue to Kobuk – Fun on the Kobuk 440 trail!

Wednesday, April 30th, 2025

When we arrived in Kiana, there was only a faint trail out of town. After spending the night in the school we slept in late, hoping the dog race’s trail crew would leave before us and put in a trail.  As we rode out of town and down onto the Kobuk river, there was lath marking a trail out of town – yay!!  We puttered along slowly, grinding away on a soft trail across the main channel only to find the trail turned around – doh!  And back we went, slowly grinding back to town..  

Riding the KB440

In 2023, Bill F and I talked a bit about biking the Kobuk 440 route.  The Kobuk 440 is a dog sled race that goes from Kotzebue to Kobuk, then back, and is semi-legendary for bad weather.  

Kobuk440 route, from the Kobuk 440 website.

It is well above the Arctic Circle, and the temperatures can be quite cold, but by early April it should have lots of daylight..  We had tentative plans to ride the route in 2024, but those fell through. Which was possibly for the best, as the dog race was delayed a few days due to a big storm system coming in.   A friend was in Kotzebue teaching kids to ski for Skiku when the dog race was supposed to start.  The wind was so strong that school was canceled.   Kotzebue is a really windy place, so for school to be canceled, it must have been horrific!  

With that gloomy backdrop, this year we tried again and were joined by Spencer M.  We arrived in Kotzebue on the last day of March, and we flew right over the trail as we landed.  I had never been north of Nome on the coast, and spent the last part of the flight with my head pressed against the window looking out for the trail, which wasn’t to be seen.  The treeless alien wasteland was pretty intimidating, but I guess that is what the adventure is all about! 
After spending the rest of the day getting the bikes ready to go and doing a bit of exploring in Kotzebue, we left the following day, April 1st.

Riding the KB440

Riding the KB440

Leaving town was a bit confusing, but we were soon on the right trail and on our way – the start of a new adventure in a completely new place, hurrah!  

Riding the KB440

We spent most of the day biking to Noorvik, enjoying a wonderful sunny day with a brisk tailwind.  It felt a bit like being on the planet Hoth from Star Wars – snowy, treeless, and exposed. Crossing Kobuk Lake topped things off, and I could almost hear the Imperial walkers stomping in the distance.. 

Riding the KB440

Fortunately, as we got closer to Noorvik, trees started to return. 

Riding the KB440

Riding the KB440

We arrived in Noorvik in the early evening, when a regional basketball tournament was happening, and I enjoyed a healthy dinner of nachos and hot dogs from a stand the local kids were running.   Alas, I was thinking we would make it to Kiana, but we were going slower than anticipated – a bit of a theme for this adventure, hah!   

  • Day 1: 
    • Distance 47.88 mi
    • Elevation Gain 725 ft
    • Moving Time 9h 29m

The next day we headed out into a snowy morning and slowly rode to Kiana, where we found the trail ended. 

Riding the KB440

Riding the KB440

Riding the KB440

The folks in Noorvik had said that the trail from Kiana to Ambler doesn’t see much traffic, and I guess they were right.  There was a faint trail, but it was well covered with snow, and it would have been slow pushing..  We stopped by the school and they put us up for the night.  I was able to get pizza, pie, and other snacks from the store, hurrah!   We went to bed with plans to head out in the late morning in hopes the dog race would have someone putting in a trail.  

Riding the KB440 Riding the KB440
  • Day 2:
    • Distance 23.10 mi
    • Elevation Gain 285 ft
    • Moving Time 6h 1m

We packed up and headed out in the late morning, enjoying a leisurely morning in hopes there would be a trail when we left. On the way out of town we passed a group with the National Park Service who were heading out to staff the Portage / Tutasraq shelter cabin.  Things were looking good!  There was even a trail out of town marked by lath! 

Riding the KB440

Alas, it ended a quarter of a mile out of town, and we turned around and went back to hang out at the Blankenship store and eat snacks.  I looked out at every snow machine that passed by in hopes one would be the NPS heading out, but no luck.  Eventually, I walked down to the river and a group on big machines went by and parked out where the trail ended, chatted, then took off and headed out. We spent most of the day riding slowly on very soft trail, enjoying the sun and hoping for better trail. 

Riding the KB440

Riding the KB440

Riding the KB440

Riding the KB440

The trail slowly got better as the traffic increased, and got quite a bit better when a group went by pulling a big machine on a sled. 

Riding the KB440

Riding the KB440

Riding the KB440

Riding the KB440

Eventually, the trail went close to the bank and we found a good place to bivy for the night.   Just after sunset a group of snowmachines passed by with the dog race and stopped and chatted for a bit. 

Kobuk Ride

Photo complements of Bill Fleming.

Riding the KB440

I drifted off enjoying the northern lights, and in the early hours of the morning I was woken by dog teams passing, though I was too lazy to get up and cheer them on.  

  • Day 3: 
    • Distance 28.13 mi
    • Elevation Gain 292 ft
    • Moving Time 9h 50m

In the morning we packed up and enjoyed some nicer trail… until it started snowing again, and things slowed down.  We passed by the Portage or Tutasraq cabin where we ran into our first mushers, and chatted a bit with the NPS folks who were camped nearby and were keeping the cabin warm.   

Riding the KB440

Riding the KB440

Riding the KB440

Riding the KB440 Riding the KB440

Get all of me in the photo – Quince Mountain while taking photos of his mittens as booties cabin footwear. Mushers like Quince give me hope for humanity..

Riding the KB440

Riding the KB440

Riding the KB440

By evening our progress slowed down a fair bit in the new snow, and we camped in some bushes just off the trail a few miles from where the author Seth Kantner grew up. 

  • Day 4: 
    • Distance 40.29 mi
    • Elevation Gain 876 ft
    • Moving Time 10h 1m

In the morning the wind had died down, but it was still snowing lightly. 

Riding the KB440

So many ptarmigan!

Riding the KB440

Riding the KB440

We rode slowly the rest of the way into Ambler, where we were excited to hear there was a place that served food – yay! 

Riding the KB440
We stayed at the school, and given our slow progress, decided to see how the trail was to Kobuk – if we could make it there we would call it good.  

I was super amused by a poster with Iñupiaq seasons on it, with two springs – which seems very logical from my Fairbanks perspective.  In early spring it is sunny, with warm days and cold nights and the best part of the winter.   Late spring it is warm all day, mushy, and gross, and the worse part of the year. 

Riding the KB440
  • Day 5: 
    • Distance 18.61 mi
    • Elevation Gain 735 ft
    • Moving Time 6h 21m

We headed out of town after agreeing that if the trail was bad, we would turn back.  The trail started slow but ridable, but gradually switched to mostly walking with short sections of riding. 

Riding the KB440

There was lots of joking about the “well-used trail” the locals talked about.  We didn’t see anybody.  There were lots of clouds, and I couldn’t see the mountains and views the folks at the Noorvik basketball tournament told us about, alas.  However, I did enjoy a nice long walk with the bike.  Almost a marathon of pushing, hah! 

Riding the KB440

We spent the night in the Shungnak school, where the principal gave us Shungnak hoodies! 

  • Day 6: 
    • Distance 26.17 mi
    • Elevation Gain 404 ft
    • Moving Time 10h 50m


On our final day, we rode on a much better trail for the 9 miles to Kobuk. 

Riding the KB440

We had spent the afternoon and evening before in Shungnak talking to the kids and hanging out with locals.  Folks seemed pretty interested in chatting with us about our ride.  I learned that there are several Iñupiaq dialects in the area, and the language spoken by the folks in Noorvik (coastal Iñupiaq) is different enough from what is spoken in  Kobuk (inland Iñupiaq), the locals weren’t able to tell us pronounce place names in a dialect spoken in the other region.  I was super impressed how the local languages are apparently still in use!  Keeping a language alive that is only spoken in three villages with a total population of under 2k is an amazing achievement!  

  • Day 7: 
    • Distance 8.92 mi
    • Elevation Gain 223 ft
    • Moving Time 2h 31m

The following afternoon we flew back to Kotzebue (morning flights having been canceled due to weather), and I flew back to Fairbanks via Anchorage the day after that. 

Riding the KB440

Thanks for the adventure Bill and Spencer, it was great traveling with you! 

Notes: 

This trip was super fun, and it was great spending time with Bill and Spencer! 


Bill did most of the logistics for this trip, and contacted the schools in advance and got us permission to stay in them, and for Noorvik and Ambler, permission for us to send resupply boxes.  It was generally $150 a night per person, and the schools were all pretty friendly. 

The trail was very slow after Noorvik.  It didn’t appear to be getting much traffic between Kiana and Ambler.  We saw lots of traffic between Kotzebue and Noorvik, but otherwise we didn’t see many people on the trail.  

The riding was mostly slow, but we had pretty good weather.  It snowed most days, but we didn’t have any hard wind storms.  It is very exposed from Kotz to Noorvik, and could be miserable if a storm came in. 

The trail conditions were slow and soft for the most part.  The locals say that it generally snows when the Kobuk 440 is happening, so maybe this is normal for this time of year. 

The route was scenic, but it had a lot more river riding than I expected – which is my own fault, as I had a map. It was also very cloudy with limited visibility for a lot of the ride, so I had fewer views of the mountains than I would have liked, but such is life. 

Everyone was very friendly! 

There are flights twice a day from Kotz to all the villages on our route via Bering Air, as well as frequent flights from Kotz to Anchorage. Direct lights from Fairbanks to Kobuk, Shungnak, and a few other villages are available, although these are only offered a couple of times a week via Wright Air, and are not listed or advertised. Ryan Air handles freight (the bikes) in all these communities. 

The hotel in Kotzebue is super nice! 

The local native languages (Iñupiat dialects) were everywhere!  It was really exciting to see the local languages are alive.  The principal in Shungak said the students didn’t like going to their Inupiat classes, so maybe it is an uphill battle, but it is still very refreshing to see.  

Skiing this route later in the year might be fun.  Ned Rozell and Andy Sterns did that years ago and had a great time. 

For anyone thinking of doing this route, it isn’t a beginner’s trip. It is very remote, and can be extremely cold and windy, with little traffic. 

This was the first trip in a while where I wished for tires with more tread.  I had big tires, HD 4.8s on wide rims, but with low-profile tread, and I think something with a bit more bite to it in the front might have worked better.  And maybe an even bigger tire. We joked a bit about the new gearbox fat bike Surly is making, maybe that would have been ideal, or maybe not. 

A Beaver Creek Float with the Family

Tuesday, June 25th, 2024

The family and I did the classic Beaver Creek float and hike. Jokingly I suggested to my daughter Lizzy that she write a blog post about it for me. Amazingly, she agreed – enjoy!


In a story that was told during one of the Dark Winter Nights productions it was stated that something truly was terrifying because Jay Cable started screaming, and he never screams. 

I can say that this is factually false. My dad screams more than probably anybody else I know. Multiple times I have had to tell him to not scream unless he is actually seriously injured because otherwise, nearby people will come running to witness the terrible injury, which would be embarrassing for both him and me. 

Note: The dark winter nights episode Lizzy is refering to can be found here:
(Also, I never scream. -JC)

https://dark-winter-nights-true-stories-from-alaska.castos.com/episodes/the-blowhole

The beaver creek trip I went on this summer, luckily, did not include very much screaming, except for a few moments. The weather was fairly perfect, with almost no bugs.

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The packrafting was definitely not hot, but also not the frigid hail-filled adventure a previous beaver creek trip was. We had one day of packrafting, then stayed at a cabin for the night, then crossed the creek again to get to the trail on the other side. I was boating in a tricolor boat and took joy in paddling far ahead from the rest of the group so that I had to be shouted at to wait. 

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Lizzy, in the “tricolor boat”..
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Lizzy, in her natural habitat..
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The wildlife from the creek was quite impressive. We saw multiple eagles and ospreys, plus a porcupine and a moose. Bank swallows were also a continual presence later during the boating. 

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Summer cabin life..
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Lizzy, the young author of this screed, appreciating the aroma of her well aged socks..
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The short journey away from the cabin on the second day turned out to be an unexpected source of adventure. I got across perfectly fine in my boat, which I then deflated and rolled up to go in my dad’s backpack. However, there was a shriek from the middle of the creek as my dad was crossing. Apparently he had a thermos of coffee in the boat which had a poor lid, or a lid he had forgotten to actually screw on. Whatever the cause, he was soon sitting in a pool of coffee that had filled the inside of his raft. 

When he got out of the boat the seat of his pants was soaked. There was also a very strong odor of coffee as he walked past. He quickly changed into different pants and underwear. However, he then asked the family to wash both in the creek. I refused and ran in the opposite direction. Finally, he was forced to wash his own clothing, and then changed into dry shorts. 

It wouldn’t really have mattered if he had kept the original shorts on. He had told us that there would be a creek crossing after the first, but that it would be shallow and that we would just walk across. It was not shallow. It was thigh deep on my dad, waist deep on me. I told my dad he had to come back and take my backpack for me. I had assumed, on a day we wouldn’t be boating, that I wouldn’t need to seal everything into a dry sack. Apparently, on all hiking trips it is best to assume that you are going swimming. 

The trail on the first day of hiking wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great either. The brush, unfortunately, in some locations was densest beside and in the trail. The brush would grow specifically in the trail because water would flow down it. Specifically the two miles after the trail shelter, or before the trail shelter from our perspective, are very brushy. 

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When we reached camp I entertained myself by reading the two books I brought, both of which I finished during the trip. I was very appreciative of the large supply of camp chairs in the trail shelter. 

The third day, while being the shortest, was somewhat frustrating for me. My wet feet and poor shoes generated blisters. I was also carrying the largest kayak paddles, which stuck out from the top of my pack and caught on all the brush. 

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Why, what big paddles you have Lizzy!

My spirits improved near the end of the hike, and I was pleased with myself once I reached the parking lot and took my shoes off. I also have an appreciation now for my hatred of coffee. I will never end up with coffee packraft crotch. 

The Alaska Wilderness Classic 2023 – Little Tok River to McCarthy

Sunday, July 30th, 2023

Warning: I asked my daughter Molly to edit this post, and was told afterward that I would have gotten a D if I had turned this in as an assignment in her English class. I was told my writing is simplistic and childish. So you have been warned 🤣

Last year when the new Alaska Summer Wilderness Classic course was announced, going from the Little Tok River bridge to McCarthy I really wanted to do it.  Unfortunately, a bunch of things contrived to make it so I couldn’t make it, so this year I was committed!    After searching around, I eventually found my friend Peter was interested, and it was a go! 

The evening before we drove to the start, having dinner at Fast Eddies in Tok, then hung out with everyone before hitting the stack.  I joked a bit with someone parked near me about moving my car so it was behind his to absorb the bullets, as we were in a gravel pit that looked like it was a shooting range sometimes.  In the morning someone drove by really early, and in the morning there was a sign left up, facing outwards.  I walked around and was amused to see my joke had come true – it said: “4th of July Trap Shoot No Parking”.  
So after moving our cars, everyone headed out. 

ASWC - 2023

Peter and I zoomed along on the ATV trails at the start.  I was full of nervous energy and talked a bit too much to folks nearby.  The ATV trails eventually ended (or really, we lost them) in a river floodplain. After several hours of crossing back and forth, we found the ATV trail again, and we followed it up to the first pass, and we camped at the base of the second pass, with great views of Noyes Mountain. 

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Peter is a big appreciator of mountains and thus began the first of many brief mountain enjoyment stops where Peter would stop, look around and say “Mountain!” and point at a new mountain.  Or a mountain seen from a different angle or side.. The next day we zoomed up and over the pass, then headed down Platnum Creek to enjoy the great walking.  Some folks right ahead Peter and I, Caleb and Nate, put in right away, but I suggested waiting a while to see if it was actually worth floating.. A few miles later the group passed us, so we put in.  Platinum Creek was a bit of a mess – it wasn’t challenging but there was lots of wood with very few eddies, so there was quite a bit of panicked jumping in and out of the boat.  I tried to use my whistle to signal to Peter when to get out, but like an idiot, mine was rigged such I couldn’t keep it in my mouth without using a hand or bending down – a mistake.  Fortunately, we were just far enough behind Nate and Caleb that we could often tell there was something coming up when we could see them out of their boats.  Apparently at the pre-race gathering in Anchorage everyone (that is everyone but Jay and Peter from Fairbanks, hah) had been warned that Platnum Creek was a woody mess, but no one had mentioned it to us.  They also said at that same gathering that everyone should have a dry suit.  I almost didn’t bring mine.  Those Anchorage people, hah!  

 Near the confluence with the Nebesna River, we came around a corner and a very large lynx was looking downstream.  Just after that Christof stuck his head out of the woods and said he had flipped avoiding a sweeper and lost his paddle.  Fortunately, he found it in a strainer and had given up on floating.   He seemed a bit shaken up, but ok, so we kept on.  The creek widened out a bunch and then we came out on the big, wide Nebesna.  We worked our way across the Nebesna, taking out at Cooper Creek, then starting our walk up to the next pass. 

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Cooper is a wide flood plane that necks down to a narrow valley, with many crossings. 

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Eventually, we turned off into a smaller creek, then up and over to Blue Lake where we spent the night. 

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Best campsite ever – Blue Lake!

The next day it was down to Notch Creek, over the beautiful Cooper Pass, then down Notch. 

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Again I voted to just walk as Notch looked like pretty marginal floating, but after walking half the creek we put in, floating to near Cross Creek, where we hiked over to the Chisana River,  stopping to inflate to cross.  There was a set of fancy Gossamer Gear poles someone left there on the bank which I grabbed in case we caught up with whoever dropped them.  So light, so fancy, I was sure someone was missing them!   I also apparently left a few things including the fuel on the bank which Peter rescued (thanks Peter!).   At Chisana we caught up with Christof again and chatted a bit, then walked a few more miles before hitting the sack. 

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In the morning we headed up Geohenda to the Solo Flats, then over and down to the White River.  Such a beautiful area!  

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We enjoyed a few miles of ATV trails just before the White River, and the Solo Creek Guides had some fun with their signage. They even had an Iron Dog lath marker, which was super funny, given two mountain ranges separate us from the Iron Dog route.

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The weather had been sunny and hot, so the White River was raging.  We could have inflated and crossed, but the current was moving fast, so we went downstream to find a more braided section, and crossed with Caleb and Nate, then camped on a little clear creek.  In the morning it was up and across Flood Creek, which looked raging but wasn’t too bad, then along the old glacier remnants, then into Skoli, and onto the Goat Trail. 

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Crossing Flood Creek

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The Goat trail was a bit less trail-like than I remember, but the walking was mostly good.  There was still a fair bit of snow up there though! 

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We pressed on, eventually camping right before the steep part of the Goat Trail. In the morning we did the iconic scree slopes of the Goat Trail, then headed down to the Chitistone.  

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The Chitistone was really moving, and while we could have blown up and crossed it, it would be been a bummer to miss the eddy on the other side, so we walked up in hopes it was possible to ford it where it braided out a bit where the glacier and creek came together.

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No dice, it was still raging, and much too deep to cross.  So we wasted several hours inflating, crossing, and then crossing the glacial river, then finally getting all the way across and packed up.   Next up hiking down the Chitistone to Glacier Creek.  I remember this being a mess of alder swacking from my last visit but the walking was mostly great.  There were two big landslides I didn’t remember.  They are less landslides and more like the side of the mountain exploded. 

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Eventually, we reached Toby Creek, where we found Nate and Caleb waiting for the water to drop.  The water was too high to cross, but we all expected it to drop overnight, so we went to bed. 

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A few hours later there was the cry of “BEAR, BEAR” and I shot out of the tent fully awake, just to realize there was a small black bear across the creek that also couldn’t cross, and it quickly moved on.  From all the cries of “BEAR” I was expecting it to be in camp, trying to eat my food, hah!  Shortly after that Luc, Alan, and Lee arrived, set up their mid, and went to sleep.  The consensus from everyone was that instead of dropping Toby Creek was going up. Odd, I thought and went back to bed.  I wasn’t too worried – if it was still high we could just inflate and take out at the next eddy, it would be fine. A few hours later Peter woke me up, saying the channel that everyone had been looking at was going up, but that was because the creek had rerouted itself, the rest of the channels were all a lot lower.  So we packed up and the whole group of us crossed the creek and hiked down to Glacier Creek, where we put in and floated to May Creek Road.  

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The Chitistone seemed really high and had at least 5x times the volume than when I was here last time.  Rocks were bouncing along the bottom and you could hear the near-constant sound of rocks bouncing off rocks in the upper sections.   I led the group for the first section and ran the only section with any real white water, which looked fine, but as I moved through it, I realized they were way bigger than expected. Not a big deal, with nice clean eddy lines, so move around in it, just lots of water, and a mistake would be painful.  So I hopped out and re-directed everyone to a  cowardly side channel.  After that, we stuck to all the lower-volume side channels and reached May Creek Road uneventfully.   On the Nizna Luke, Lee, and Alan floated by in another channel, a mile or so before we took out.   Nate and Caleb took off, and we didn’t see them again. 

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We finished after the 9 miles or so of road walking with a scenic walk through McCarthy and were met by Peter’s son Sam and his friend Jack – Yay.  They soon had burritos cooking for us, and after that we walked back to town for ice cream, double yay! 

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I was so excited for ice cream that the lady serving it said to the other person staffing the store something about me being a little kid in Spanish, then in English told me I was just like a little kid because I was so excited.  So I did a little dance for them to show my excitement, which caused them to break up laughing.  The next day we drove to my car at the start, where I was excited to see it didn’t have any bullet holes in it, and made our separate ways back to Fairbanks. 

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Thanks for the company Peter, and for the ride Sam and Jack! 

Julian C. has a great video here:

Christof T also has a great video:

Ben A has a great one too:


A few things I would do differently  – 

  • I need to rig my whistle so I have to keep it in my mouth so I can signal hands-free.  I had it setup way too short, so I had to either bend my head down or use my hand to hold it – a huge mistake. 
  • I need to get a bit more serious about getting better at packrafting.
  • As a spur-of-the-last-minute gear choice, I had brought little mini gaters. Alas, they worked just well enough to show that gaters were a good idea, but not all that well.  Next time I will bring mini-gaiters that actually stay on. 
  • I brought my really old, and lightish paddle with a floppy connector.  I really regretted that on the chitistone – I need to not take that paddle on trips with actual white waters, it is either going to break, fall apart, or do both at the same time. 
  • I really, really should have brought a helmet. Listening to the rocks bang around under us on the Nizina and the Chitistone was pretty terrifying.  Next time I need to bring a  helmet!!
  • I need to spend a lot more time in class III water to get comfortable.  I need to find some white water friends in anchorage I can float with more often. 
  • My packrafts cargo fly’s zipper is really having trouble closing.  I need to figure out what is wrong or get it replaced, it is a huge pain and takes forever.  I have cleaned and lubed the daylight out of it, and it still is a pain in the butt, with lots of separation issues. 

A few things that worked really well: 

  • We had a hot freeze-dried meal every night.  That rocked, I would totally do that again.  Maybe also have one mid-day. 
  • I bought a lightish dry suit from REI using a coupon – the best $500 I have ever spent.  It is well under 2 lbs and adds a large comfort and safety factor.  Love it! 
  • I brought an extra day’s worth of food and ate most of it.  Including two nearly inedible Range Bars. One I had picked up in McGrath and took it to Nome with me.  They were like eating coffee grounds combined with dirt and chocolate.  Not enjoyable, but space efficient.  Otherwise, I was pretty happy with my food choices.  Peter less so, he had stomach issues most of the way. 
  • We used a tent of Peters, an MSR Hubba Hubba 2. It was surprisingly light for a “normal” tent, and while we could have saved some weight with something specialized, it was pretty roomy and convenient. 
  • Taking May Creek Road, while boring, is faster.  We walked pretty slowly and did a bit of dinking around and still finished within 4 minutes of Luc, Alan, and Lee who took the Nizina.  If we had hustled we would have beat them. 
  • I got an old Osprey Exos pack off REIs used gear site as a spur-of-the-moment replacement for my HMG pack after it became clear that a Seek Outside pack would take too long to get to me.  I am super happy with that pack and am now questioning these small niche brands now.  I like the design of my HMG, but I don’t like how floppy it is, and how hard it is to get it loaded so it isn’t moving around a lot.  On really long days it takes a toll on the stabilizing mussels in my upper body.  The Osprey pack was much, much nicer to carry – the best $110 I have ever spent!   I wish Osprey would make packs out of XPac or something similar that is waterproof or at least didn’t absorb water rather than the same fabric they used 30 years ago.  I might still try getting a Seek Outside flight or some other pack, but I am less convinced at this point that the normal options are not better. In particular, the side pockets are great – I was taking my water bottle in and out constantly, and never had any issues. 

I will likely add more to this when I get a chance. 

Our route can be found here: https://caltopo.com/m/EVJ7K

The Iditarod Trail, 2023

Saturday, July 29th, 2023

After riding and pushing our bikes from Ophir we finally arrived at Moose Creek cabin just as the drizzle started. Miron welcomed us in, and we tucked our bikes under the eaves to keep them dry. The day had been beautiful, warm with blue skies and sun, but much too warm for the new trail put in by the Iditarod Trail breakers to set up. As we dried off in the cabin and cleaned up the nests squirrels had made on the bunks, the drizzle turned up a notch into intermittent rain. Miron was planning on heading out at 2 am, but Jamie, Bill, and I agreed to get up at 7 am then head out – but to go back to bed if it was still raining. Morning came, and I could hear the rain on the metal roof of the cabin. I stuck my head outside, and it was raining. Not hard rain, but enough to be pretty miserable. Back to bed, we went, tucked back into our -40f bags.. The glorious life on the Iditarod trail!  

Like everyone, Covid had cramped my adventure time the last few years.  After riding my bike to Nome in 2018 I had thought I was done with the Iditarod trail.   I signed up in 2022 to go to McGrath as a spur-of-the-moment thing and really had a wonderful experience.  When signup time came up again I was feeling like I hadn’t had any “real adventures” lately, so signed up for Nome – if nothing else it would be a good, long adventure and I was sure to have fun at least! 

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And so on a warm, sunny mid-afternoon, I found myself at Knik Lake with nearly a hundred other people.  The first part of the race is a bit of a maze, with so many options that mostly all look not very good, so after texting (aka bothering)  Andy P. of Seeing Double Sled Dog Racing about the best route (as he lives in trains in the area), I just decided to follow him.  He threatened to make me sign a waiver in case he got us all lost, but I escaped without any paperwork as Andy led a group of us to the first checkpoint.  As we neared the first checkpoint I noticed there was only one set of tire tracks ahead of us, and they were an unusual tread design – odd!  We arrived at the first checkpoint only to discover we were in the lead, with the fast guys Miron and Tyson right behind us.  I felt a bit bad being ahead of the fast guys, as they had taken a much longer and hillier route and ended up behind, alas.   Local knowledge for the win, thanks for getting us there Andy! 

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After chatting a bit, and having some snacks we left and headed to Yentna Station where I had a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of soup, and then on to  Bentalit Lodge the official second checkpoint. 

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I had never been to Bentalit before, and wow, that place is nice – and huge!  I got a room, a hamburger, and lots of other things to eat.  In the early hours of the morning, I headed out again, enjoying the fast firm trail to Skwenta, yay!  I said hi to Cindy at Skwenta, and lunch then moved on.  The trail stayed awesome, and I took a mix of the traditional route and the ice road, making a great time to Finger Lake.  Passing through Shell Lake was a bit sad, with a big empty hole where Shell Lake Lodge used to be.    

When I arrived at Finger Lake my insides were a bit unhappy, and I was very excited to go use the outhouse.  Yay for modern comforts, hah!    The very friendly volunteers were cleaning a very burned pan, it turns out they had only arrived recently, and had been delayed by the weather. 

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The leaders had passed through before they were there, missed their drop bags, and just had frozen burritos.  Fast people troubles, must be hard, hah! 

The trail was still awesome, so after restocking I headed out and had a great ride to Puntilla Lake with Tom M. and Peter D.   Puntilla was as nice as always, and the newish bunkhouse is so awesome.  As I arrived John “Faster than the dogs” L and Tim B were heading out and said something about staying ahead of the storm.  Hmm, “storm?” I thought, then I tried to get some sleep.   My insides didn’t cooperate, and I made lots and lots of visits to the outhouse.  My body was less than happy with something I ate, and that made it hard to sleep.  After one of the trips back from the outhouse it started to snow, and after noticing folks were awake, Justin, Spensor, Tom, Peter, and I headed out.  It was pretty calm, but I warned everyone it could be pretty windy up in the open area before Rainy Pass.  That turned out to be not true, the weather was great, warm, with a bit of wind.  The trail was a blown-in though.  My insides were still quite unhappy, and I spent most of the way to Rohn trying not to go the bathroom, though I had to twice in open areas in blowing snow which was super awkward.  Sigh.  Fortunately, the riding was pretty good as I was slow enough the rest of the group pulled away and disappeared into the distance, leaving me to ride in the nice trail they broke out for me.  And to jump off the trail when nature’s calls stopped going to voicemail and had to be answered. 

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I arrived in Rohn, where my insides and I finally came to an agreement on how happy we should be (happy!) and I crashed and got nearly 8 hours of sleep.  The rest of the group I had been riding with headed out after a few hours, pushed on by Justin.   I was amused to hear Justin rallying folks by saying “I haven’t suffered enough” and pointing out it was pretty warm out so biving wasn’t a problem. Which was a good point, as it was in the 20s, so warm!  I had the whole place to myself until Harm and Jamie H. showed up.  Jamie alas, had broken one of his boa laces on his fancy boots, confirming all my fears about those laces. 

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I left Rohn by myself, and had a wonderful ride, all invigorated by all the sleep I had gotten – so much sleep!  The trail was mostly good, though it was blown in sections, and I had been warned that the leaders were still not finished when I left Rohn, so obviously things were not fast.  

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I was enjoying things right up until I broke my seat post near Bear Creek Cabin.  I had been using a suspension seatpost that was oh-so comfortable, and on one of the deeper ruts left by Irondog I came down a bit too hard, and the post snapped. 

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There was a bit of cursing, but then I made peace with it – obviously, it must get slow at some point ahead of me, so I can just walk, no big deal, right?   I texted my wife Nancy who started tracking down a new seatpost for me. 

Shortly after that Adrien D. and his helper, John (maybe?) came by on their way to Rohn and gave me some Fireball, and we chatted for a bit. 

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After that, it was a long slow walk with a bit of riding to Nikolai.

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I stopped briefly to heat water and make dinner, but otherwise just kept moving.   I arrived in Nikolai just before Tom, Justin, Spenser, and Peter left.  I had the place to myself!  Since at this point, I was in no hurry, and not wanting to spend a week in McGrath I decided to get some sleep and head out in the evening.  I told myself since the checkpoint folks were saying it took Tyson (the winner of the short race) nearly 24 hours to get to the finish, it didn’t matter when I left, as I would be riding half it in the dark anyway.  

 **This turned out to be wrong, looking at the tracker now, Tyson left at 11 pm and arrived at 4 pm – way less than 24 hours11** 

After chatting a bunch with the folks staffing the Nikolai checkpoint, John and Brian (I think?), I crashed and got nearly 10 hours of sleep. 

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At 5 pm I headed out, and I arrived just before sunrise, riding and pushing mostly in the dark, hah!   The trail was a mix of ridable, and walking. It would have been much more ridable with a seatpost, but I wasn’t miserable and enjoyed the ride!

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McGrath was a bit of a madhouse. The finish is now at an old lodge, and it is big, but there are so many people doing it these days so it gets very crowded. I had been worried that I would get stuck for a long time in McGrath, as the southern route doesn’t see any traffic normally outside the dog race.    The forced break was good in some ways, as it allowed my new seatpost to arrive, thanks to Nancy, Jeff O, and the wonderful folks at Speedway Cycles.  Thanks, guys! 

Three days later, Myron G, Bill F, Jamie H, and I headed out mid-day, with some assurance there was going to be a trail at least as far as Ophir.   Just as we are leaving McGrath we saw Chet F. unloading a plane, and we chatted for a bit. Chet is a skier who has done the ITI several times and was headed to Ophir to help run the checkpoint.   He was heading there later today, and we left with an extra bounce in our pedaling knowing a friendly face awaited us. 
The ride to Ophir was fun, though things got a bit soft after the last house on the top of the hill after Takotna.  

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By 10 pm we were in Ophir, where we were welcomed in, fed, and enjoyed the heated wall tents set up for the mushers.  Alas, there was no trail after Ophir, so we spent the day helping the Iditarod checkpoint staff set things up.  It was great talking to everyone and getting a chance to catch up with Chet.  In the late afternoon, the Iditarod trail breakers passed though, and there was finally a trail! 

 In the evening they fed us again (BBQ, it was fantastic!), and the next morning we set out early.  Chet joined us for a brief ski, and we headed out into a warm morning, under clear skies and a bright moon.   Myron G zoomed off like the fast guy he is, and I didn’t expect to see him again.

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The trail was great, and we made good time to the first shelter cabin.. Then we were walking.  The temps had warmed up to near freezing, and the fresh trail was a soupy, unconsolidated mess.  So we walked, and for the rest of the day we rode a bit when the trail was in the trees, and sheltered from the sun, but in the open areas, it was soft and squishy.

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Mid-day Myron came by, apparently, he stopped at the first cabin hoping the trail would set up.   He was riding a lot more than we were, as we were pretty much not even trying when it was soft, and soon disappeared off into the distance.   We had several groups of snowmachiners pass by, including one couple on their way to Point Hope, which sounded like an amazing trip. 

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By evening it was lightly raining on and off, and we finally pulled into a very warm Moose Creek cabin and were welcomed by Myron.  After a bit of cleaning we settled in. I said we should get up at 7am and check to see if it was raining, as our weather forecasting friend, Ed Plumb, said rain was in the forecast.  Sure enough, just as I went to bed there was the sound of rain on the metal roof.. 

Myron took off in the early AM hours, and when we got up to check to see if it was raining, it was definitely raining, so we went back to bed.  It finally stopped raining mid-afternoon so we headed out for a bit of slog to Iditarod. 

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We arrived in the early evening, having enjoyed a long walk pushing our bikes with the occasional post hole into knee-deep snow in temperatures slightly above freezing.  

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The Iditarod folks were welcoming, and set us up in a small arctic oven tent complete with a propane-powered heater – so deluxe!!

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We resupplied, wading through the giant pile of huge trash bags the race organizers had left for us to find our stuff and hit the stack.  In the morning I had a cup of coffee from the Iditarod dog race staff, and we hit the road.  The trail was now an iron-hard sidewalk of fast riding – so hard, so fast! 

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All that wet snow had frozen super hard, and we had the best trail conditions I have ever seen – so firm, so fast! 

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We zoomed on to Shageluk, and were welcomed into town by Chevy Roach (https://www.facebook.com/roachfamilylbz/) and family, who opened their store where we got pizza, ice cream, and other stuff, then put us up in a small house, it was fantastic!  Later I learned they are famous, and have their own reality show as part of life below zero. In the morning we were on the trail again, heading through Anvik, Grayling, and eventually stopping for the night 20 miles down the trail past Grayling.   In Anvik I had pudding packs which Bill made fun of me for, but I love those things on the trail, and in Grayling there was a brief panic when I accidentally broke the Inreach app on my phone, requiring me to beg a wifi connection briefly.  We also stopped at Shirley Clarke’s and had lunch. Shirley is quite a character and an amazing cook! 

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In the morning we zoomed on to Eagle Island, where we saw Dan of Dewclaw stopped with his dogs and I said hi to some of my dog Eddy’s siblings. 

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Dan looked happy, more so than some of the other mushers we saw.  We were now in the mix with the mushers and saw mushers nearly constantly until we arrived in Nome.  After Eagle Island we rode on to Kaltag, doing the whole section of the Yukon river in 32 hours, which is amazing. The next day we rode to Unalakleet. 

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I love that section of the trail, as the transition from Interior Alaska to the coast is so stark, and it really feels like I have gone from one world to another.  The people on the trail change as well, with a lot more locals using the trail system.  I bumped into a young man with a seal skin hat at Old Woman cabin, and when I complimented him on his great hat he said his grandma made it for him. 

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Such a different world, and it is so neat to share it with the locals!  We spent the night at Peace on Earth pizza, crashing on the floor after eating lots of pizza, and then having more Pizza for dinner. 

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Brent at Peace on Earth is a wonderful person!  The next day we were texted by Jeff O warning us about a big storm system coming in, so we pressed on to Kaltag, hoping to arrive just before the storm hit, but instead the storm hit when we were still a ways out, slowing us down to a crawl at a few points.  Otherwise, the conditions were fantastic though – so firm, so fast! 

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When we arrived at Kaltag we were let into the school, where we crashed for nearly 12 hours.  The next day we rode from Kaltag to White Mountain, stopping in Elim and in Golvin. 

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We were met in Golvin by a small group who invited us into the school and served us dinner.  Grilled cheese sandwiches with moose – so yummy, and so welcoming!  I was really excited to meet folks from Golvin, as the other three times I have passed through there I have not seen anyone. 

The evening we spent with Jack and his family, with his son Liam cooking us a fantastic dinner.  Then the next day we rode into Nome, stopping briefly for burgers at Safety, then finished a few minutes before the musher Michael Williams Jr from Aniak.   

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Cute “dropped” dog at Safety who was living the best life, pets and hamburgers from a constant stream of Iditarod tour groups. He belongs to a Fairbanks musher, so it was great to see someone from home, ha!

We had a surprise encounter with Jeff O and Heather B in the hills outside Topkok  Jeff and Heather are friends from Fairbanks, and both current ITI record holders – Jeff for the northern route to Nome and Heather has the woman’s record to McGrath.   They are very good friends with Jamie and were super excited to see us.  And of course, us to see them. They had been planning to ride to Kaltag from Nome but the various storms had pinned them down, gradually reducing their goals to eventually Shagtoolik, where they flew back to Nome.   I thanked Jeff for helping me get a Seatpost, which he poh-pooped, but he was a huge help in Nancy getting me a new post.

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When we finished in Nome, Jodie Bailey of Dewclaw met us at the finish, handing me pizza, bananas, and a huge thing of M&Ms.  So appreciated!

Bill, Jamie, and I spent the next few days hanging out in Nome, enjoying the sights, and watching the last few mushers come in.  At that point, I was pretty worn out socially and needed some people free time, but I survived.  My friends Sue and Glen were out of town, but they generously allowed us to crash at their house with Egor “the very chatty” house sitter.  Sue is a very talkative person, so I was a bit worried about someone Sue would describe as ‘very chatty” but Egor turned out to be a very interested miner from the Lake Baikal region.   Thanks, Glen and Sue! 
I would like to thank my family Nancy, Molly, and Lizzy for letting me disappear on this adventure for nearly a month – you guys rock. Molly also edited this blog post, with lots of helpful and constructive criticism.  Better than Lizzy, at least, who told me I write in a very simplistic and childish manner -hah! 

I don’t think I am going to do the whole Nome route again – it is really time-consuming and only parts are worthwhile.  For segments I felt like I was holding the fast forward button, just burning time in the middle of no where with not much to gain. Spending life in “fast forward” spinning my wheels just to get to a place worth visiting doesn’t seem like a good use of my time… I might do sections again – Kaltag to Nome, and Ophir to Shageluk are really worth doing! 

The Iditarod Trail Invitational 2022

Thursday, October 6th, 2022

(This blog post is way late, from late February of 2022, I am just way behind on writing anything.)

In 2021 it seemed like I didn’t do anything interesting.  Living in a mixed-generational setting made COVID more high risk for those around me… limiting travel and lots of other fun things.  It wasn’t a huge deal in the scheme of things – I was healthy, my family was healthy, and I was employed, but I was feeling “under adventured”.   In the late spring of 2021 the Iditarod Trail Invitational (ITI) signups opened up, and on a lark, I signed up for McGrath.  The ride to McGrath is simple, with minimal logistics, and if nothing else happened all winter fun-wise it would give me something to focus on and an adventure of a sort.    And so, on a late February afternoon, I found myself at Knik lake again getting ready to ride to McGrath.  

I have mixed thoughts about the ITI these days.  Perhaps I am getting a bit old and becoming an old fart, grumpily muttering about things that are not the way they used to be.  I was not excited to see the organizers had added a stop at “Butterfly Lake” in the first 30 miles of the race – it really seems to me that the ITI is pretty uninteresting until after Skwentna – otherwise it is just river and swamp on fairly well-traveled trails, but now with some extra mileage though the outskirts of Big Lake.   It wasn’t a lot of mileage though, so I figured it would just be a few extra hours and it would be over – no big deal.  

Zooming an hour in

Zooming along with Aaron W a few hours in…

In the weeks before the race started the organizers sent out an “athletes’ guide” as they call it – and I
was pleasantly surprised.  There were lots of small changes in how the Nome-bound part was presented that I really appreciated and were, from my POV, very well done.   The Nome-bound race after McGrath, to me, is mostly an unsupported bike, walking, or skiing trip.   Besides the flown-in drop the ITI provides, mostly they are providing a list of contacts for the stops along the way, and it is up to the racers to do their own logistics and to behave themselves.  The “behave themselves“ part has been historically a bit problematic. These communities are small, disadvantaged, and pretty isolated.  The ITI racers passing through really stick out, and I think the guide does a much better job of pointing out to the racers that how they interact with the communities will affect how the racers behind them are treated, possibly for years to come.  I am still quite impressed by how much time and thought they put into the guide. 

The start was chaotic as usual, with people taking off in all kinds of directions across the lake, then folks riding too fast and too slow on the narrow trails just after crossing Knik Lake.  

The first few miles zoomed by, and soon I was at the turn I normally took to a road, but instead I went straight and boom, I was on new trails – yay! 

Still zooming


The new trails were quite a change – neat, narrowish, and well-used, with little rolling hills.  A nice change from the road I normally took.  Eventually, I hit the railroad bed, and slowly spun along on some softer trail. Just as the trail was firming up, there was a loud crack and my bike suddenly got all floppy.  

Ugh.

Much to my sadness I soon realized that I had cracked the seatpost, and my seat was now in a mostly reclined position. Yuck.  My bike had been making creaking noises, and I guess I just finally figured out where they were coming from.  I texted my brother John who lives in Wasilla, and a musher friend, Andy P, who lives nearby, but no one had a seatpost that would fit.  Double sigh.  I texted my wife Nancy who would see about getting me a post sent to one of the checkpoints and posted a photo with a note to Facebook in the off chance someone in the greater neighborhood had a post. 

I decided to push to the next road crossing, where I ran into a friend of a friend who let me raid their toolbox to strap random tools to the post in hopes of splinting it up.  

Attempting a repair..

Helper dog helps

Helper Dog helps..

That got me a bit further, but the post eventually was so floppy it was just riding on my sleeping bag roll on top of my rear rack.  Eventually, I was forced to just walk my bike whenever there was anything soft, and stand up and pedal everywhere else.  I was so slow it felt like everyone had passed me.  Eventually, even a skier passed me! 

Chet the skier catches up

One eternity later I made it to Butterfly Lake, where the owner of Fatback cycles, Greg Matyas, was helping run the checkpoint.  He whittled a piece of firewood, while I was talking too much and probably sounding like a lunatic, telling me it wouldn’t be a problem, I could ride to McGrath with the fix!  He also got my wife Nancy in touch with someone from his bike shop who would see about getting a post sent out to one of the checkpoints.   Thanks, Greg!

Another, slightly better fix

another use for firewood..

I was in a bit of an odd frame of mind. While breaking the seatpost was bad, I was feeling a bit like it was very much a “first world problem”.  The war in Ukraine had just started and was very much on my mind.   Europe had always seemed to me to be a very civilized place, and it was hard to imagine there was a big land war happening right there.  While Ukraine is far away, it is near too – there is a sizable Ukrainian immigrant population in my hometown of Fairbanks.  On most mornings I pass a Ukraine immigrant janitor busily cleaning the entryway as I enter my work building.  The nearby town of Delta has a large Ukrainian immigrant population (ironically referred to as the “Russians” by most people), and the grocery store (the IGA) has a neat selection of unusual eastern European food my family always stops to check out when we pass through.  Growing up in rural Alaska in the 80s the threat of the Russians invading was this sort of an ever-present thing in a small but vocal minority.  In 2017 when riding to Nome I stayed with a local teacher who ended a lot of his rants about things going downhill, not working, or just being not quite right with “And then we will all speak Russian!”  So while my seat post was broken, at least I wasn’t being bombed. 
I left Butterfly Lake, and a few miles later the seatpost repair failed, and the post snapped completely, and that was that.  From then on I rode standing up, which was an interesting experience.  It was super fast, but my legs and knees hurt so much.  By the time I made it to the second checkpoint Nancy had let me know I was getting a post on the “mail plane” to Skwenta the following morning, so I just had to make it there, and things would be fine.  I arrived in Skwentna in the evening, had a ton to eat, then slept through the night, and in the morning I had a post! 

Yay! I swapped out the seat, and was back in business – hurrah!  At this point, I should give a huge thank you to Cindy at Skweena, Nancy, Cynthia from the ITI who took the post from the bike shop to the plane, and Pete Baysinger who told Nancy about the mail plane.  Thanks, everyone! 

The nice folks at Skwentna

The rest of the ride to McGrath was fun, with great weather, mostly a really fast trail, and my legs kept feeling better and better each day.  It was odd – after riding so much standing up my legs and knees actually started feeling a bit better each day rather than feeling worse like they had in the past.  I took a bit of the new ice road from Shell to Finger Lake, and a bit more of it to the steps, and was sad to find out I could have taken it the whole way from Skwenta to Helicopter Lake.   And even more sad to see the trail up off the Happy River steps was now a road.

The "trail" up the Happy river steps

I could have driven my Impreza up it, it was so hard, flat, and firm.  A bit of a bummer, as while it was easier, it was way less scenic, with a neat single track through the trees replaced with a wide open road.  I feel bad for the Winter Lake Lodge operators, as the ice road is visible from the deck of their lodge. Quite a treat for the guests…

The trail after Finger lake

It wasn’t all happiness – there was a tiny bit of pushing my bike.

Heading to Rainy Pass lodge

Almost to Rainy Pass Lodge!

On the upside, the checkpoint at Finger Lake now had unlimited burritos (I even took one with me – yay!!) and Rainy Pass Lodge had a wonderful new cabin for us, with lots of bunks – a new stove, power, and bright lights! Spacious luxury, no more drafty cabin cluttered with the heads of African game animals haphazardly decorating the walls. 

The ride from Rainy Pass lodge to Rohn was the most fun I have ever had on the Iditarod trail – it was clear, sunny, and calm, with amazing views.  The trail was chewed up with footprints, but semi-rideable, but that just gave me more time to enjoy the scenery.  So nice! 

Leaving Rainy Pass Lodge

Ptarmigan Pass

Ptarmigan Pass

Ptarmigan Pass

Ptarmigan Pass

Ptarmigan Pass

Ptarmigan Pass bike selfie

Ptarmigan on Ptarmigan Pass

Avalanche in the valley heading up to Rainy Pass

Heading up to Rainy Pass

Casey climbing Rainy Pass

Rainy Pass bike selfie

Avalanche detritus after Rainy Pass

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In Rohn, I enjoyed delicious soup and brats and kept everyone up chatting for way longer than I should have (sorry Petr!), then I left for Nikolia.

Wolf Tracks

Egypt Mountain

Fairwell Lakes

Petr napping in scenic splender

Petr sleeping on the trail. Alas, I woke him up, after keeping him up talking too much. I felt pretty bad about it afterwords..

Somewhere after the Fairwell lakes the bumps started.

Sand hills, looking south

 The Iron Dog racers use a race tactic that involves digging trenches with their tracks to slow down racers behind them.  I hadn’t really seen it besides in the treed sections from Ophir to Poorman, after McGrath.  This year it was really trenched up wherever the trail was in the trees and narrowish (so where the trenches would be hard to avoid for the Iron Dog racers and thus most effective for slowing down racers behind them) from the Fairwell area to 10 miles out of Nikolai.  So. Many. Bumps! 

Snowmachine ruts

Trench-tastic!

It must have been very warm when the Iron Dog racers passed through and then refrozen, as the trail was rock hard. Iron hard.  I could ride pretty fast so long as I stayed in the “ski” part of the track, and not the trench part, but I had a few hard crashes where branches caught me.  Riding in the trench was hard, with constant deep drops followed by steep climbs out. 

Snow machine parts lost on the trails Iron dog machine bits

Irondog leftovers… The bumps doing their job, slowing down the folks behind, ha!

At one point I walked around a moose in the trail and was able to go completely around it walking on top of a really firm crust on top of the snow.  Amazing!  I spent a bunch of time thinking about the mushers who were going to be traveling this in a few days – I hope they were warned! 

Mirages

Fata Morgana..

Sullivan Creek bike selfie

Manditory Sullivan Creek bike selfie!

Birch forest outside Nikolai

Birch forest outside Nikolai

Nikolai arrived, and I got a burger and a bit of sleep then headed out again to McGrath. 

Denali!

Looking back at Denali

I was crushed when I arrived in McGrath to see a biker I know from Fairbanks showered and fresh-looking when I was positive he was lying asleep under a table when I left Nikolai.  How could I be so slow and out of it that he passed me without me noticing and was so far ahead of me?  I was crushed!  Fortunately, it turned out I was confused, and it was someone else under the table, and he had left Nikolai hours ahead of me.   It was also great to finally catch up with Kevin B, whom I had ridden a lot with to Nome in 2018.  He’s a local Fairbanks super-biker.   He had an ORV accident in McGrath a year and a half ago, crushed one of his legs, and had a long slow recovery.  It was great to see him back on his feet and kicking butt!  He had an awesome ride, and finished a day ahead of me!   The finish was in a new location, a lodge that is slowly transitioning to an operating state.  It was quite a change from Tracy and Peter’s, and I missed their good cheer, but it had its advantages – it has a little coffee shop with actual good espresso!  I had a really good latte, hurrah!   After a bit of food etc, I was on a plane heading back to Anchorage, where I spent the night in a fancy hotel, back in civilization.  Yay! 

Flying out of Mcgrath Leaving McGrath

This year’s ITI really left me so much happier with the event – I had so much fun even with a broken seat post.  I think the event is evolving a bit for the better, which was great!   Even the new stop at Butterfly Lake is a bit of an improvement, with a bit less road, and less swamp.  I left much happier about life, with a good fun adventure under the belt, and a post-trip positive buzz that lasted for a solid month.  Yay! 

I would like to thank my family for letting me disappear for a week, Nancy for helping me get a new seat post (Nancy you rock!), and Cynthia and Kyle the organizers of the ITI for putting on an ever-improving event (your work is really appreciated!). Cynthia in particular took the time to pick up a seat post from Speedway and get it to the mail plane – that is way, way beyond anything I expected, and I really appreciate it!  I would also like to thank Cindy at Skwentna for helping Nancy connect with the folks running the mail plane, and Pete Baysinger for pointing out to Nancy that she could get me it that way.   Thanks, everyone!

A Postscript of sorts:
Roughly a year ago I broke a fancy carbon seat post on my commuter snow bike. Perhaps breaking it is an exaggeration, it was an older Easton post where the aluminum head is glued to the carbon post, and the glue gave out.

So I looked through my parts pile, found the heaviest aluminum alloy post I had, used that, and reused it on my new bike. Obviously, this didn’t work out. I have a tendency to just reuse stuff until it breaks, then I am surprised when it breaks. Nothing lasts forever, and I need to start replacing stuff. Hopefully, my lesson was learned, but it now feeling like all my bike stuff is falling apart from old age all at once. As I write this just discovered my brooks cambium seat I love is falling part. Sigh, I guess entropy never stops!

Beaver Creek & the Summit Trail with the family

Monday, August 22nd, 2022

Note – This trip was in June 11-13, 2022, but I am falling behind on my blog..

A long time ago our whole family floated Beaver Creek, and hiked out the Summit Trail. Lizzy (daughter), Nancy (wife) both decided after that trip packrafting was “dumb”. A few years later Molly (other daughter) gave it another chance and had a blast. With a weekend (plus a day) free, Molly and I decided to do it again, floating Beaver Creek in packrafts and meeting up with Nancy and Lizzy half way out on the Summit Trail. This time we were joined by Ruby the loaner dog, who we were taking care of while her owner was off on the north slope. Our dogs Shiloh and Eddy are terrified of water, and are in no way packrafting dogs. It was a great float, the float was fantastic, the weather warm… just about perfect, though the water was a bit slower than ideal..

Ruby the dog on lookout beaver creek Mellow beaver creek floating
Lunch

Hot lunch – luxury!

Fellow travelers

We stopped briefly to check out an old cabin on the USGS topo maps, and found it – yay I love rusty old stuff!

Old Cabin

We spent the evening in Borealis Cabin, enjoying the clean (yay!!) and warm cabin as the temps dropped to near freezing overnight. Ruby enjoyed snuggling with me and found the cabin full of exciting smells.
In the morning we crossed the creek and started hiking after watching some beavers busily doing beaver things.

A Beaver on Beaver Creek! Ruby waiting with Molly for a ride

Ruby waiting for a ride across the creek..

Shuttling across Beaver Creek

Shuttling across the creek

Fording Wickersham Creek

Wading Wick Creek..

Footprints on Wickersham Creek

Busy banks!

We then hiked to the trail shelter, roughly 12 miles from the river. The trail was mostly great once off the winter trail (tussocky!), with marvelous colors and great views.

Tussocky Ruby The summit trail! PXL_20220612_195135432 PXL_20220612_195438110 Going under..

Under…

And under..

“I can make it!” – Molly

Eventually we made it to the trail shelter where we caught up with Lizzy and Nancy and spent the evening enjoying snacks, books, and games.

In the morning we headed out and hiked the rest of the way out..

Lizzy is preped for the bugs!

Lizzy, well bug proofed

A bit of spruce pollen

Pollen-licous!

Shiloh is unimpressed

Shiloh the dog is not excited about this hiking stuff.. 🙂

Lunching

Lunch!

BLM had installed new boardwalk on the really muddy section, and it was a fantastic addition – thanks BLM!

Eddy leading the way Eddy leading the way

The family dropped me off at Cleary Summit, and I biked to Nome Creek to fetch the car. The ride was great, but I didn’t bring enough food and bonked a bit.

The Davison Ditch! Nome Creek Road Almost done..

We are so lucky to have the Whites and Beaver Creek so accessible to us. It is amazing to go on a three day trip and to have the place completely to ourselves. Yay! Thanks again BLM for such a wonderful area! And of course thanks to Molly, Lizzy, Nancy, Ruby, Eddy, and Shiloh for the company. And Sinbad the cat for watching the house while we were away 🙂