After waiting all winter for spring skiing in Alaska, we skied 40 miles in the White Mountains over two days. On Sunday we skied into the Borealis cabin and skied out on Monday.
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| First trail junction–six miles from trailhead and 14 miles to the cabin |
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| Only nine miles to go |
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| Borealis cabin |
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| Borealis-LeFevre Cabin maintained by the BLM |
Snowmachine traffic created nicely packed trails, which were shared by skiers, bikers, dog mushers and snowmachiners. We crossed paths with all of them.
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| Our friends snowmachined to Caribou Bluff cabin and came back to meet us at Borealis Cabin before heading back to the trailhead. |
We enjoyed staying in a toasty cabin for the night–especially Nelson. We awoke to a chilly minus 30 degrees. The Fairbanks area has been experiencing below normal temperatures for the past month–about 20 degrees below normal. The highest temperature we encountered probably wasn’t warmer than 10 degrees.
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| Ryan on firewood duty to keep us warm through the night |
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| The inside of Borealis cabin with our explosion of gear |
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| Nelson and Ryan enjoying the warmth of the cabin |
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| Peaceful evening spent reading the cabin logbook |
Despite the cold temperatures, water was still flowing in some of the creeks and created overflow. The ice was solid on the ski in but on the way out we encountered slush and running water which froze our boots to our bindings. We stopped at the Wickersham trail shelter to try and thaw them out but to no avail–they needed a longer thaw.
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| First encounter with watery overflow on the way back to the trailhead |
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| Wickersham Trail Shelter |
With our ski boots frozen to our bindings, we ended up doing the herringbone (penguin waddle) up the Wickersham Wall–a mile-long hill too steep to ski up. A slow and exhausting climb that we so quickly descended the day before.
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| Nelson looking at the Wickersham Wall in the distance |
And a few tidbits I discovered while skiing in sub-zero temperatures:
-Ziploc bags are hard to open with mittens.
-Raisins don’t taste good frozen.
-Power Bars are rock solid no matter how long you keep them in your pocket to thaw-out.
-Vasoline barely squeezes out of a tube (a millimeter or two at the most) when you really need it.
-Hot chicken broth in a thermos is worth the weight.
No better way to spend the last two days of winter than skiing. Happy Spring!
