On a brisk spring morning the family, three dogs, and I loaded up into the truck and headed off on a ski trip in the White Mountains. We had been invited out to join the Rozell family and several other folks on a trip out to Eleazar’s Cabin, which is about 12 miles one way. The Rozells have a daughter who is in Lizzy and Molly’s class at Bunnell House, and they were looking forward to spending the weekend together. We had abandoned plans to head out to stiles creek cabin due a large snow fall and high winds that made drifts deep enough that State Park’s trail breakers got stuck right out of the parking lot. Bailing on this trip was quite a disappointment to the girls – they were really looking forward to the trip. Fortuately, the weather for this weekend was quite a bit nicer, with a forecast for a fairly standard Interior Alaska spring – Lows of 0 to -20f at night, and highs of 10 to 20f above. We are now getting lots of sunlight making for bright and warm days. After a bit of a delayed start, we connected with the Rozells at Alaska Coffee Rosters and after getting a bit of caffene, headed out to the trailhead. The trailhead was a bit of a mad house, with a party of snow bikers, a musher, and a large posse of snow machines all in various stages of arriving or departing. We eventually got going after a couple of mishaps, including discovering that one of our party left the poles used to haul their child hauling chariot, leaving us with three kids and only the double chariot that seats two. Fortunately Molly was willing to ride on top of the gear hauling sled so we headed down the trail while one of the adults zipped back to town to retrieve the poles.
The 4 and a half year olds started off the day walking, and were little troopers. The rest of the day was a mix of slow adult walking / fast 4 1/2 year old walking …
and skiing with occasional stops for snacks and drinks.
It was a bit slow at times..
Molly got to ride the “green horse” on the way in and out, and was quite a trooper. She fell off quite a few times, but was quick to jump back on.. generally it worked like this:
Then this..
And finally this:
And we were back in business.
After a full day of slow travel we reached the cabin, were we caught up with the rest of the adults, hung out, ate, and generally had fun. The twins were super excited to explore the cabin, climbing around in the loft, going up and down the ladders, and otherwise having lots of fun. Eventually everyone called it a night. The next morning I was surprised to be the first one up at a little before 8. I am not a big fan of sleeping in on trips – I can always sleep in at home, but alas not every day for me involves so much outside play time. Everyone else was soon roused and we got the morning rituals started. After breakfast we headed off down the trail, though this time we had enough places for all the kids as the person sent back to town with to obtain the missing chariot parts had arrived with the missing parts. Nancy headed off with the twins, with the goal of reaching the big hill climbing up out of the valley, sometimes referred to as the “Wickersham Wall”, before nap time and having the little people walk up it.
Molly had a melt down when told that she would have to ride in the Chariot, claiming that she wanted to walk the entire way out. This provided some of the adults great amusement – a kid actually angry that she was not going to get to walk the whole 11 miles out under her own power, rather than complaining endlessly about having to walk at all.. Anyway, they zoomed down the hill while I hung out at the cabin a bit longer, cleaning up and lazying about. After giving the kids and Nancy a 20 minute or so head start, I set off, and caught up with everyone just before the big climb. The rest of the trip out was fairly uneventful. On the way in we were past by a party of snowmachine supported bikers, and on the way out we were past by the same bikers shuttling out via snowmachine.. apparently the trail was too soft for snow biking, which does not bode well for the upcoming Whites 100 race.
A big thanks to the Rozells for inviting us out and providing the inspiration- it was a very fun trip
