350 McGrath Trip

Video Footage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1kwPjOU6CI

A journey begins with uncertainty and excitement. A long planned ski trip began for Gale and Grace on February 21st as we left our cabin and headed out onto the Susitna River. We had 300 miles in front of us to reach our end-point, a small village in McGrath.

Our setup. Gale in lead. Grace in the middle. Pulk sled with gear in the rear.

We were following the first third of the Iditarod trail, seeing the sights and connecting stories of mushers I've heard working as a sled dog handler the last few years in Alaska. Its one thing to hear a story about a place, its another to see it yourself. Our trip was broken into roughly two parts: Before Rainy Pass and After Rainy Pass. Rainy Pass is a low point in the Alaskan Range that dog mushers and crazed skiers often cross over the mountains. One side of the range may be blue sky, the other side of the pass may be blizzards and whiteout. I had a plush life on my trip before Rainy Pass, I stayed at remote lodges along rivers or on lakes. Instead of having to melt snow for water over my camp, I could fill my bottles from a sink! That is luxury, let me tell you. A luxury of time saved.

We began our trip on a day with severe winter storm forecasted. The first night it snowed 15 inches of wet heavy snow, but we stayed that night at Yentna Station although we had planned to tent out.

I had ice growing in my hair and decided thawing out by a wood fire would be a good.

We left Yentna Station at 10 am, not in a hurry. We hoped and willed snow machine traffic to pave a way to Skwentna. By noon, our hopes were dwindling. We made a mighty 1.3mph with the thick heavy snow. At 7pm, we made it 12 miles upriver (thats 12 miles in 9 hours!) As we were about ready to stop, we blinked. We blinked again. Gales ears perked. We saw a light. A snowmachiner was heading downriver. We waved them over. Payton on the sled said he was amazed to see a skiier out here in this snow. He told me there was a lodge just 3 miles ahead, go to Imm's Inn he said. With that encouragement, I donned my headlamp and set out in high spirits. Three miles, surely I can do that? We sped like a racehorse down the three mile stretch to the light of the inn. We just had to cross over the untraveled river to the inn. That was a struggle, but we made it and Barry warmed up a cabin for us and brought me some water! Luxury I tell you.

The sled was so difficult to pull I had to hook Gale directly up to it.

A big cabin for a girl and her dog. We were most exhausted this day, 15 miles total.

From mile marker 45 on the Yentna, we left on directly through Skwentna and onto Shell Lake. We stayed here for a few nights. The first night to wait for a snow machiner to make a trail (I didn't want to break trail to Finger Lake / Rainy Pass. They never came. Then I received word that the disrespectful snowmachiners from the Iron Dog race were coming through, they would certainly run Gale and I over without a second glace backwards.

Finally, after fully resting and recovering at Shell Lake, we set out again. I was starting to go crazy!

Just past the turnoff to Finger Lake, on our way to Rainy Pass

The days were warm since the beginning of our trip. We often traveled in our t-shirt during the afternoon hours. The trail would become softer in the sun, the sled heavier, and the steps more difficult. In the morning, it was ice and fast, but with little control. Poor skiing conditions. The section from Finger Lake to Rainy Pass had some steep hills to climb, which we took our skis off to climb and to walk down. We avoided the Steppes and followed a big cat (motorized) trail, which made for flat and quick travel. We arrived at Rainy Pass lodge well before nightfall and had plenty of time to make ourselves comfortable. After looking at the weather, there were two full days of sunshine forecasted, so we decided to stop another extra night and explore for a day at the lodge.

These photos was from our explorations day - a short sunrise ski before breakfast, then later an afternoon ridge ski and a cheese sandwich for lunch. Soft snow. Good skiing. Heaven.

We left Rainy Pass shooting for Rohn, where there was a public use cabin, 38 miles. We did this in 12 hours. We had a blessed time from Rainy Pass lodge, up to the summit. Our problems started promptly after beginning our descent. We first crashed with each shoulder inches from a large alder, and a head right between. We decided to walk after this. Next the trail deteriorated and I had to step across a steep wall of snow while six inches of water flowed beneath me through Pass Creek. A topple wouldn't have been disastrous, but we would of been stomping through a creek bed. Our sled was overloaded with food, I packed too much. The pulk sled had a real mind of its own. It would swing ahead of me and smack Gale if no tree caught it, or it would get stuck in trees. I had to walk backwards down much of the pass steering it. There were multiple open water creek crossing (just a few inches deep) that we navigated through the trees to find a snow bridge. Dalzell Gorge posed no issue as the ice bridges were thick and wide. I finally made it down the pass, and we ski'd into Rohn at dark. I had a twisted stress stomach from the struggles. This day was my favorite day of the trip. This day was my most stressful day of the trip. This day was a paradox.

We took many photos of our trip from Rainy Pass Lodge up to the summit. We took almost none from the summit to Rohn.

Leaving Rohn, the trail deposited us directly onto glare ice. We wandered around old tracks looking for the correct path to follow, our first path led us to a 20 foot lead of rushing open water. No, we were not up for swimming. We backtracked. Eventually, we found some trail markers fallen on top the hard ice. Looking ahead, we saw more trail markers. I had on ice cleets to stomp over the river. This was one of the most scariest and uncomfortable ten minutes of the trip, crossing over ice on a frozen lead. For a hundred feet, we steped onto white thin ice, the ice would crack. Snap crackle pop. Our foot would fall six inches and land on another shelf of ice. The top ice was overflow that had frozen over overnight. I had to trust that there was ice beneath to catch me. We made it across without punching through, phew. The South Fork of the Kuskokwim is a large fast flowing scary river! During this time, participants from a cross-country race on fat-bikes started passing me. The bikers who passed in the afternoon told me there was overflow up to their knee's on that crossing, one lady told me her bike just about got pushed downstream as she waded through. After leaving Rohn and crossing the river, the trail was in terrible condition. The snow was hard as ice, giving me no control. The moguls from trail-destroying snowmachiners were continuous and high, so I was always getting jerked around in-between a dog and a pulk. I walked. The views were majestic, sharp dark uninviting mountains loomed over us. The trail was the pits, but it was an enjoyable hike through the "Buffalo Tunnels" as that section of trail is called. Many sections of bare ground. It is significantly more difficult to pull a sled over rocks and dirt. Even more arduous to pull it up and down the many twisting hills. There was many fallen trees. I was amazed that dog mushers survive this part of the trail with a full team of dogs. The smells in the area made Gale pull like the crazed animal she is. I can't imagine navigating that with a full team and reaching the end in three pieces, much less one piece.

We hiked 22 miles, got water from Tin Creek and slept in a nearby tree grove. Morning came and we packed up camp and set out again walking. We crossed over a series of lakes and entered an area of trail called "The Burns" infamous for its snowless landscape. We were lucky that The Burns was mostly snow covered, although mogul-fied from snowmachiners. It was a section of constant mellow hills, continuously going up or down. This was by far our least favorite day. Hauling the sled upwards was tiring and slow, getting pushed off our feet by the sled behind us was irksome. I lost my temper and scolded Gale for pulling, though she was just doing her job. I looked at my Garmin and saw we were traveling at 2.2 mph. This cannot be. I unloaded my sled. I threw out raw fish into the snow. I threw out monster cookies. I threw out Quinoa. I threw out Peanut Butter balls. I threw out kibble. I threw out fat. We still had ten days of food, but only 5 days to go. I had to lessen the weight so I could actually make some mileage. After purging food, the sled still felt heavy but was more manageable. They saw "You Pack you Fears" and its true. I didn't want to starve or run low on food, but I learned that having too much food retards your travel significantly so you can't actually get anywhere. I was aiming for Bear Creek Public use cabin, 20 miles from my camp the previous night. We got there just as the sun was setting, it was empty for about 5 minutes. After opening the window shutters, two buffalo hunters pulled up on snowmachine, helped gather and cut wood, and we soon had a blazing fire in the wood stove and were sitting down to eat our camp meals.

After leaving Rohn to Bear Creek Shelter - Buffalo Tunnels and The Burns.

The two buffalo hunters told me about a cut-off trail that would route me outside of Nikolai. What attracted me was that it was a FLAT trail that hadn't been destroyed by the malicious Irondog racers. While they said the trail into and out of Nikolai was terribly bumpy with moguls, the cutoff was ten miles of GOOD snow. I went this route. It was glorious. I was on fire and smiling every minute. FINALLY I was back on my skis. Finally Gale was pulling her heart out. Finally we were gliding again. Pure Joy. Life. Goodness. Prosperty. All the good feels returned.

Sunrise in a protected section on the cut-off trail.

While setting up camp, the snow was punchy up to your hip. It was well above freezing. The wind blew this night, but we hardly felt it here. When we woke up, my thermometer read 2 degrees, finally some cool. After leaving camp, the trails were windblown and hard as rock. Yesterdays glory skiing was taken away as we reentered the main trail, ski slid and crossed over ski. The trail diveted, slanted, and bumpy with moguls. Not as bad as The Burns. At least I could manage on my skis instead of walking by foot. It was not good skiing. I double poled while Gale pulled. Blue skies warmed up the air and snow quick, by afternoon I was finally able to have better traction. We had planned to take our time and camp out before arriving in McGrath, since we had zero plans on our arrival. As we neared our end-point, I figured might as well make it to the end. We were on track to arrival shortly after nightfall, around 9pm for a 40 mile day. I met another skier on the trail this day, a Czech skier named Jon participating in a race. Gale was slowing down for a segment, as she typically does between mile 25-30. Gale was not for this, and she up'd her ante and charged after this skier. He was our Caribou who overtook us, then we chased, passed, and left behind. About ten miles away from McGrath I knew I was going to make it to the end, in one piece and without injuries. I was quite happy looking into the sunset. An idea long dreamed, a dream long trained for with days on days of sking in preperation. Challenges met, we carried on to the end. While we never faced extreme hardship, no high winds, blizzards, forty below temperatures, or uncrossable rivers. Instead, we had to adopt to 35 degree days with either a morning of melted and refrozen snow into ice hard trail or an afternoon of wet punchy trail, unskiable terrian. A destroyed trail by disrespectful users. We did have a most glorious and unforgettable day at and leaving Rainy Pass . We made our own story and put stories of others into place. We became part of the story of the land we traversed through. Our last steps of the trip, we followed the Kuskoswim up the banks into McGrath and went to a community center where I slept outside for the night, and was invited inside in the morning by the owner in the morning. I'm most proud of Gale who brought me to the end. She is a maniac. Her hindlegs are bricks full of muscle. She got me up the hills and over the rivers. She also pulled me onto my rump many times on the ice, then I waved towards the sky for a helicopter to fly her away. None came so we dealt with our problems together. We did it. Willow to McGrath, Grace and Gale. Where to next?

Video Footage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1kwPjOU6CI