Winter has (sort of) arrived here in Interior Alaska. Alas, we are a little short on snow, so all my exploring has just been out of my house, and my go too loop is getting a bit boring, as I have been hitting it about twice a week. After hearing that the trails in the White Mountains NRA might be in good shape, I decided to go check things out. The plan was bike out as far as I could towards Borealis Cabin, then head back.
The trails started off good..
Got better..
Then started getting a bit bumpy as I reached the valley and started towards Borealis Cabin.
There wasn’t quite enough snow to fill in the holes between tussocks, but it was ok biking, though a bit rough. Shiloh, a new (ish – we have had him since mid March) member of the family seemed to enjoy his first long bike ride. I have done day trips with him on skis in the 40 mile range, but those are slower than biking. He did well, and seemed to be picking up the flow. I am looking forward to many more adventures with him! We got him from the pound, who picked him up as a stray, so we don’t know much about his life before us. He has definitely had some time in harness, and he had his dew claws removed, so there was some mushing in his past, but the rest is a mystery.
Remus is a old hand at this, and had a blast. Not bad for a 12 year old dog!
A bit past the turn of for Eleazar’s Cabin the snow thinned out a bit more, bring on more bumps..
Just past Borealis the traffic dropped off on the trail a lot, and the main trail less than a quarter mile later. There was some traffic on a slough, so I explored that for a bit, though eventually the snowmachine tracks turned around, and I headed back. The ice on Beaver Creek was thin but passable.
The ride back to the truck was uneventful. The off-ice is growing fast, but was all fairly bikeable.
As a side note, BLM put up a new sign at Borealis, and I was amused that the mileages are off by more than a normal amount.
Lee’s Cabin is roughly 14 miles from Borealis, so the sign is about 5 miles off. Most of the signs in the whites are off by a bit, but this is more than the normal amount. I forgot to check, but sign this one replaced had the distance to the next cabin down the trail, Caribou Bluff wrong – folks traveling east would see a sign saying 10 miles before crossing Beaver Creek, then in a mile or so, see this signs predecessor saying it was 11 miles away, even though it is a mile closer to the cabin. For tired travelers this was a bit demoralizing – going from only 10 miles to go, to finding out a mile later you still had 11 miles left!
It is pretty funny they would go to the trouble of making the sign, but not checking the distances against their own publications:
I hope everyone is enjoying winter!