Close call

Back to the cabin and off the train to find the snow machines buried in two feet of snow.
Dan and I looked immediately at the trail and breathed a sigh of relief. Someone had packed it for us. Probably Jordan. Shoveling out the snowmachines is a piece of cake compared to trying to snow machine to the cabin on an unpacked trail. Considering the importance of a passable trail in our lifestyle we have been very lucky. Rarely have we had a problem and only once did it defeat us completely.

We had been outside (as in out of the state) for Christmas break and returned to six feet of snow that fell while we were gone. We had left our snowmachines in Talkeetna so we could ride the trail along the river and get right home instead of having to wait for the weekend train. Will was about three and rode in a car seat strapped to the back of the Tundra Long Track safely helmeted and belted in. A well used trail from Talkeetna got us the twenty miles to Lane Creek easily, but when we arrived at our trail head we saw we had a problem.  No trail. Just how much trouble this is can vary depending on the condition of the snow and this night it was the worst. So cold and dry it wouldn’t pack and shifted like sand under the machine. When its like that the machine tends to surf over it and waffle from side to side. If you don’t use just the right body english and shift your weight fast enough the machine ends up horizontal.
That's what was happening to us. We’d go about ten or twenty feet with the machine leaning more and more to one side then have to stop and pull it over to the other side, try to level it out and try again. After almost an hour of this we gave in and strapped on our snowshoes. The only way we were getting home was to pack the snow out in front of the machine. Dan went first with me  following in his snow shoe tracks for extra packing. About a hundred yards out we turned and headed back to the machine  along side the tracks we just put in. This made our trail double wide for snow machine skis. Now we could hop on the machines and be fairly certain of getting at least as far as our tracks at which point we would put our snowshoes on again and pack the trail further.
Dan had just started his machine and as I was heading for mine when I leaned down to William to check his helmut. He had been sleeping through all of this and his helmet was pushed sideways. He opened his eyes, smiled, then shivered and said, “I’m cold."
You have to understand that this was a little kid who never said I’m cold. More often than not he would say I’m hot because his mother usually put to many clothes on him.
Dan and I looked at each other and Dan said it first. “We’re going back.”
We had just spent more than an hour going less than half a mile which meant at our current rate we would get to the cabin and a warm fire in 4 to 5 hours. William needed to get out of the cold now.
Six miles down the river we saw our first fresh snow machine trail going into the woods. Someone was home. We followed it to warm lantern light where Charley and Shirley were pleased to rescue us from the cold. They propped William in front of the fire, wrapped him in down and plied him with hot chocolate. It wasn’t long before he was pushing the down off, obviously warm and ready for a good sound sleep. We adults sat up late into the night telling stories about other close calls like the one we just had, all of which some how became very funny in the retelling.
One such story we didn’t tell because it was still to come. When we finally got to our cabin the next day we found the lock chopped off the front door and a gaping hole in the door board. I was behind Dan and saw him stop short in front of the cabin and bolt inside without even taking William out of his seat. I followed him in to find him checking everything looking to see what was missing. He never saw the note on the table. I picked it up and we read it together.

While we were away they had come up for Christmas break and were not too concerned about no trail because they planned to snowshoe. Both were smart outdoor people who had climbed Mt. McKinley and other peaks around the world. With no trail you find your way by landmarks but in winter's dim light things don't look the same. They had followed a gully only to come to find no cabin where it should have been. They retraced their tracks and headed up another gully only to have to turn around again. Then Clair noticed that Mike was beginning to slur some of his words and she knew they needed heat fast. She knew they could easily find  Lane Creek and if they did that it would be easy to find our cabin. When they got there Mike wasn't thinking clearly. He could have gotten in through the back door or the upstairs porch door. But he took an axe and chopped of the lock and the door panel it was attached to.
They came by a few weeks later and fixed the door and when spring came they sold their cabin. We were sad to see them leave. They were lots of fun and full of adventure but their close call with their little girl changed them. We could never get them to laugh about it.