The weather was near perfect today. It was 25 degrees, no wind and the sun was out. We needed to take advantage of it to pack the trails to keep the new fallen snow around. What tends to happen here, since it is so dry, the snow that falls is crazy poweder, imagin down feathers that melt. It's that light. When the wind blows it blows away, unless it gets packed down and crunched together, then it tends to stick around and cover the rocks, branches, ice, dirt, whatever happens to be in the trail. We had about an inch or 2 of snow fall on Tuesday/Wednesday. So after our monthly birthday potluck, which consisted of cuban grilled sandwiches brought by Ms. Letty, our office peruvian and master cook, and cheesecake with alaskan blueberry sauce, we headed out on the trail for a few hours of trail packing. Three words- A Maze Ing. It was absolutely beautiful. Virgin trail. Fresh powder everywhere. We headed down to the river, saw a few open spots with water and crossed back over. We were looking for places to access trails since the river edge tends to be 3-4 feet up. Mark pointed at this ramp and I shot up it, hit the lip with the track, it launched my ass up in the air. I had a death grip on the steering wheel but without weight the ski refused to turn, I was headed for the trees and as I crashed down on the handlebars, I landed on the kill switch. The machine died and came to a halting stop as I crashed into a 2 foot pile of powder and disappeared. None worse for the wear and the machine received not even a scratch. Thanks for guardian angels and the such. Wooooo.
Everyone was laughing and I made a perfect powder angel, probably the best art work of my life.
We set out again and headed to the tent without incident. When we got to the top we jumped a covey of moose that exploded in every direction, there were about 6 or 7 of them, 3 or 4 calves and a couple cows. The calves starting bawling right away and they headed to the pond in the direction of the granite mountains. The scene was quintessential Alaska, moose running around, snow, spruce and mountains in the background.
From there we headed out into the flat lands and found the trail nearly perfect, wide sweeping curves and we rode it for a few miles jumping up to 50 or 60mph. Just flying. The hand heaters kept getting too hot on my bumblebee yeallow Ski-doo, other than that it was just a great ride and so fun. We went all the way down near Donnely Dome past the cordwood house and out onto the Jarvis creek, frozen solid. I did a few donuts on the ice with the snowmachine. It was sliding and spinning with no effort.
We hopped back on the trail headed back to the barn. The first part was great, going back on the trail of long sweepers then we headed into these crazy S curves. One after the other, left, right, left, right, left right. sliding from side to side like a motorcycle racer on a flat track got so tiring. I started having trouble keeping my speed through the right handers and the ski started pushing really hard in the right turns. I ran off trail a couple times in the really tight corners. My arms were dead. We finally hit the river and I topped out the Ski-doo with my bulk on it at around 65mph. All fresh snow.
We pulled in and parked the machines and I headed in to use the little boy's room and strip off my wet outer clothes. My pants had gotten soaked from the sweat and melting snow and had frozen solid on my butt. My wool just kept on keeping me warm. Thanks woolies. Taking off frozen pants had me laughing as I struggled to get them over my boots.. I was warm the whole time, I just started getting cold on my fatty parts while sitting here typing this.
It was a great afternoon but now I have to make up the hours, a small price to pay for being able to strike while the iron is hot. It's a shame to be working on such perfect days.
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