Cold weather, snowstorms and BLM cabins
Last year my husband came up to visit for a couple of months and we planned a long weekend in the White Mountains. The weather this year has been really warm compared to previous winters, not only here in Alaska but elsewhere too. We drove towards the white mountains on a Saturday morning, through a really bad snowstorm. We arrived at the trailhead about 2 hrs later and felt, man that was the worst drive ever. We had been so worried about the weather on the trail but it turned out that the weather on the road was the most dangerous situation we ran into. The BLM (Bureau of Land Management) has a bunch of cabins out in the White Mountains (and elsewhere too) which you can rent for a very small fee. They are completely dry cabins of course, no running water, no electricity, no stove to cook things on so you have to prepare a little bit. The first day was our shortest day and we skied about 7 miles before we arrived at Lee's Cabin, we met quite a few people going out when we came in, and luckily there had been another party at our cabin right before us so we arrived to warm cabin!
Trail Etiquette
As always when you are out and about in the mountains in Alaska, a lot of other people are out too. It is not uncommon to run into skijorers, dogsleds or snowmachiners. It's a good habit to leave way for people that are traveling at a greater speed than you, especially dogsleds, since it's a lot harder for them to slow down for others. We had a wonderful time out in the Whites, if you are interested to read more about the adventures we had, click on any of the pictures below:
