Snowmachining

Well the blizzard hit Golovin and most of the region. Hageland was on weather hold, and it didnt’ look like they were going to come and get me. Not wanting to get stuck there and get behind on the trip I skyped Teresa (the person in charge of travel for the district) and she tracked down Doug (the district pilot) he was in Brevig and was on his way to Elim. She had him stop by Golovin and pick me up on his way.

After a quick flight to Elim I was picked up by Steve the site principal.  We quickly found Mark and John and hopped on snowmachines to go out for a ride.  We were hoping to get out to the hot springs, but with the resent dump of snow the trail was not only unbroken, but also laden with deep snow.

We ended up getting a bit stuck and had to turn around pretty quickly.  It was a lot of work getting all 4 machines turned around.  You couldn’t really go off the trail at all without really getting stuck.  So we had to turn them around by hand.  Lifting up the back end and and moving it around and likewise with the front of the machine.  It was a lot of work.  The whole time we were punching through down to the river below.  Good thing I was wearing bunny boots.  They are stellar in just such an occasion.  You can literally step in a river and have your boots fill with water.  All you need to do is dump the water out and put them back on.  Your feet will not only not freeze, but stay warm.  So we got back out of there and went down a different trail that had been used more recently.

It was a good day to be out on the machines.  I really like getting out in the woods.

I’m off to White Mountain tomorrow if the weather is kind to me.