Posts tagged #Winter travels and the white mountains

Winter Travels and the White Mountains part. 3

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Flashback Friday

Winter travels

    Last time I wrote about our winter travels in the White Mountains I left you with the story of our time at the first cabin, and the fact that it slowly started to snow, something that turned into a windy snowstorm during that night. If you want to read more about the beginning of this trip you can click on the below pictures.

Cold Snowy Winter morning

As we awoke the next morning a thick blanket of snow was covering the cabin and all the forest surrounding us. We could not see the tracks we had made the night before. The wind had been howling all night, to the point where I was wondering if the cabin would blow away or not. We made sure the day before to haul in enough wood for the next people to start a fire, and more wood for us to keep the cabin warm during the night. During the night we had taken turns tending the wood stove, but the fire was almost out once we woke up. It had been hard to keep the fire burning, and we burned through all the wood, and then some. The cold didn't bother us too much since we still needed to prepare for our next trip, the trip to Elezar's cabin. W had already waxed the skis the night before, and we started the fire again, and brought in some more firewood. Water is never an issue on these winter trips, since you have all the snow in the world surrounding you. You do need a small amount of water to start melting the snow though, otherwise it will burn and evaporate immediately. 

Leaving Lee's Cabin

    After a semi slow morning, packing and cleaning the cabin we were finally on the road again. There was a thick new layer of snow, and we kept breaking trail, which gets very hard after a while. Once we got to the turnout to go towards Elezar's cabin we started to doubt where we were going. It's not as easy to follow a trail if there isn't any trail. But a quick look at the map told us to go along the forest patch. So we did. We finally saw a man and his dog come up towards us on the trail, pushing his fatbike. He said he was suppose to meet his friend last night, but he had never showed. That made me worried. During the rest of our trip towards the second cabin we never saw this other guy, hopefully he made it to a trailshelter and was just resting up before continuing. 

Breaking Trail

    It was Sunday and no other person could be seen, well except the fatbike guy and his dog, that we had met earlier. We were breaking trail almost the whole way to Elezars cabin. There is a race that goes through the White Mountains, called the "White Mountains 100". That is a 100 mile race that you can do on foot, skis, or fatbike. It's very fun to follow, because each year is different. Some years the trail is more beneficial to skate skiers, whereas other years the fatbikers are the winners, and so on. All this BLM land allows for this enormous area, an area to roam free, to ski, skijour, dogmush or snowshoe if you are in to that. You can book these cabins to, for very cheap. They don't have any electricity or running water of course, but you don't really need that anyway. After about halfway towards the Elezar's cabin a couple of snowmachiners came through and broke trail for us. The first time ever I really appreciated the sound of a snowmachine. 

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Slushy Snow

    Some of the areas we ski over are semi submerged in water, because there are creeks that you can't necessarily see with all that snow. Scraping off that wet slush from your skis is a must, before it turns to ice and make it even harder to ski. But can we talk about the weather? After a pretty grey morning the sun started to peak through the clouds, and now we could actually see blue sky! Maybe we could even see some aurora in the evening....wishful thinking I'd say. 

Towards Elezar's Cabin

    And then finally we came to the turnout towards Elezar's cabin. There, up the hill is where it lays. We were again left with breaking trail towards the cabin, and this time we also knew that this meant the cabin would be cold. I admit, I was a bit tired. It's hard to ski far, and also hard to break trail. It's about seven miles between Lee's cabin and Elezar's cabin, so not that far after all. 

Sunset

    We arrived pretty early in the afternoon and got a glimpse of a beautiful sunset later on. After we got the fire going and some hot drinks we got the cribbage board out and started playing. It's a pretty nice feeling to be on your own, out in a cabin far from everyone else, a place with no cell service or electricity. I went out several times during the sunset to try to take some pictures of the beautiful light. 

Endless Mountains

    There is something about that calm, that calm you only get away from eveyrone else. I miss it. That absolute silence, no loud noises, no cars driving by your window. Absolute solitude, well, apart from being with your partner of course. It makes me feel more alive, to be able to be out there, in the wilderness. Disconnected from everyone. I miss it.

Nighttime

    As the darkness fell over the cabin on top of this hill I had high hopes, high hope of some northern lights. The night was a bit cloudy, and I left my GoPro out in case that aurora decided to stop by. It didn't. Still the moon casted a bright light over the cabin that night. A reminder that even in the darkest time there is always a light out there for us.

The Wall

    The final morning we woke up early. We had a long stretch back, well about 12 miles or so. Both of us were also a bit nervous. Nervous that the car wouldn't start, and we aimed to be back before the dark was setting, just in case we needed to get some help from any passing car on the highway. I managed to snap a few pictures before we started our journey. The final stretch of trail also includes what some people refer to as the Wall, its a 1 mile hill, including a climb of about 600 feet. It's a struggle. However, we were semi lucky since we got all that snow the other day. The way towards Elezar's cabin had been smooth traveling down the Wall. I can not imagine going down that hill in a luge like track, which I know is often created in these areas. 

    We finally arrived back at the car, and the final stretch we were passed by some other snowmachiners. W skied fast back towards the car, because if the car did not start, at least there were some other people there to get a jump from. But, we were lucky, my car started on the first go and we were happy, happy but tired. When were you last out on a winter adventure?

Posted on December 22, 2017 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Flashback Friday, The great wide open, Alaska, Cabin Life and tagged Cabin 2017 Alaska White Mountains Winter travels Winter Wintertime Winter Adventures winter sun Winter travels and the white mountains deep winter skiing snow Snow snowscapes Mountains Mountain Sunset glowing sunset Cabin Life_ Skiing.

Winter travels and the White Mountains part. 2

 

Flashback Friday

Winter Travels and Cabins

    Last year in late November W came to visit in Alaska and we went on a 3 day skitrip through the White Mountains. The White Mountains is about 1-2 hr drive from Fairbanks, and of course there was a snowstorm the morning of day one, of our adventure, but we still drove towards the White Mountains. I wrote a little text about part one here. We only did a small part of all the trails that are available. There is at least 100 miles of fairly untouched wilderness out there with cabins along the way. 

 
 

  Into the Wild ? 

    When you go into the backcountry in Alaska, well I would argue anywhere I suppose, you have to be prepared for anything. A big difference though between Alaska and most other places is that there is no cell reception (most of the time) when you go out into the backcountry, or very spotty. Even driving on the highway you can loose reception for big chunks of the time. There are a few trail shelters in the White Mountains that are first come first serve, but as the name implies it is only a trail shelter. The cabins have to be reserved online ahead of time, and they are all dry cabins of course. So getting water mean that you have to melt snow.

 
 

Cold Car    

    Our biggest concern during this trip was that my Subi wouldn't start when we got back to the car after two nights out, after all we had pretty cold weather during the night (around -5 F, -20C, or so could have been lower) and there was of course no plug in at the trailhead.  

 
 

Cabinlife

    We managed to get the cabin closest to the trailhead rented for the first night. It's a short ski (7 miles, about 11 km), and when we arrived the cabin was still warm from the previous visitors. These cabins are more like a shell, not too much insulation but a working wood stove and a place to sleep. You have to make sure that there is enough dry firewood when you leave so the next person can quickly start a fire when they arrive. Most of the time there are a lot of wood in the wood shed, but other times you have to get out and find some dead trees, saw some wood up and bring back to the cabin where you can split the wood. Most trees are black spruce so they are very thin and don't really supply that much mass, but they burn well. And you can't just go and chop down any tree, you have to find a tree that has fallen over and is dead. 

 
 

Firewood    

    A lot of times when snowmachiners are out they will have a chainsaw and prepare lots of wood, or even leave wood that they bring in from outside. It's incredible how much wood you sometimes go through if the night is cold and the cabin isn't that well insulated. 

 
 

Togetherness    

    Actually, you can fit quite a lot of people in these cabins too so a lot of people tend to do large trips with a bunch of friends. A lot of people also celebrate thanksgiving out at these cabins, but mostly they have at least one person who has a snowmachine, or they have dogs so they can skijour or pull sleds. 

 
 

Guest Log  

    Once at the cabin there are guest logs, which is awesome. It's great to read about other peoples adventures and what they saw and how the conditions were. We, of course, also left a little blurb there. 

 
 

Snowstorm    

    During the evening a snowstorm came in and it was very very windy. The next day we woke up to cloudy conditions and about 17 inches (45 cm) of fresh snow in some places...made for an interesting ski to the next cabin since not that many people are out there on a Sunday...more about that next time I write about the winter travels in the White Mountains. 

 
 

    Do you have any winter adventures to cabins like this one to share? What do you do for fun during the wintertime?

 
Posted on November 4, 2016 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Flashback Friday, Alaska, The great wide open, Cabin Life and tagged Alaska 2016_2 White Mountains Winter Adventures cross country Skiing skitrail Dry Cabin Winter travels snowy cabin snowstorm snowmobile snowday Cabin Life_ Snow Mountains Winter travels and the white mountains Wintertime Wintertravels Life in Alaska 2016.

Winter travels and the White Mountains part 1

 

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:

Posted on March 27, 2016 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Alaska, Nature, The great wide open, Cabin Life and tagged Alaska White Mountains Skiing BLM skijouring Up in Alaska Winter Adventures 2016 Adventure Cabin Life_ Snow Cabin Winter travels and the white mountains Winter Winter travels Forest Wintertravels.