Last trip to town

   Time to head to town and since it was the middle of the week the train was not an option. We would need to snow machine. This posed a problem because the spring conditions meant we would not likely be able to run the snow machine back up the trail before the good snow was gone. We would have to store it in town until next winter’s snow which means we would prefer to just take one machine. Some how we find our selves in this predicament every spring so have lots of history of ferrying multiple people  with one machine. Dan rides the machine. I ride on the sled hooked to the machine and Will skijoring behind with a tow rope hooked to the sled.
 

I think the most we have managed this way was
four people and a dog, the dog in a crate in the sled, two people on the back of the sled, one driving and one skijoring.

Last years we did this with four people. It turned out to be more challenge than fun. Will’s friend was visiting and they had decided to ski the twenty miles back to town. We rode passed them only a few miles into the trip and when we  reached the half way point I had one of those nagging little mother moments. What if something happens. Waving furiously on the back of the sled I tried to signal Dan which isn’t easy to do since he’s facing forward and has ear protectors on because of the snow machine noise. You have to keep waving furiously until he catches view of your shadow in the snow, realizes your trying to get his attention and turns around. “Lets wait for them here, I said,  they might get tired or something.” So we waited, comfortably at first but more anxiously as time passed and they didn’t show up. Dan left me on the trail and went back to see what was keeping them. When he returned he had Will’s friend Jessica on the back of the sled. Something was wrong with her ski equipment and if we hadn’t stopped she would have had to walk all the 20 miles or so to town.

Now there were two of us on  the back of the sled with Will on his skis being pulled behind. Normally this is quite doable but we were dealing with very marginal snow. A narrow trail was still there but it was high centered and much of the snow around it had melted away. Dan would leave the trail when he could and head into the woods where the snow was better. Curving through the woods on the often soft snow would cause the sled to lean from side to side and since there were two of us on the back we couldn’t shift the weight to keep the sled level. One or the other of us would end up in the snow waiting for Dan, who couldn’t see us, to figure out he had lost a rider and stop. Since he couldn’t back track very easily who ever was in the snow would have to make their way through knee-deep punchy snow back to the sled. For a while it was hilarious but after a few times things like that get old.
We made a new plan. Jessica on the back of the sled, Will on his skis and me sitting on the boxes in the sled. Off we went on a steady cruise, with no emergency stops any more and then we hit the Chase Road. The Chase Road is the last five mile stretch of the trail leading to the Talkeetna bridge. To get to town you have to cross the bridge so sooner or later everyone ends up with their snow machine on the Chase Road. Snow machines and particularly heavy machines tend to create moguls if they don’t pull a drag behind them to level out the snow. All that snow machine traffic turns the trail into what my mother would call the rocky road to Dublin. For five miles we went up and down bumpity bumpety bumpety bumpety. We were never so happy to see a ride done.

This year we headed off with high hopes of a better ride. We took the back route through the woods for the first few miles to avoid the Lane Creek bridge and some sharp curves that make it difficult to see a train coming. We also had fish to drop off at Tim’s and Carol’s and would pass their cabin on the way. Will started out early on his skis with the plan that we would catch up with him at Tim’s but it wasn’t long before we overtook him. The warmth of the snow had slowed his glide. We came to the downhill section of the trail before him and saw signs of trouble in the warm sun eating away the snow on the south facing slopes. Will would have to ski off the trail which may slow him even more.
Not by much it turned out. We had just stopped to drop off the fish expecting a bit of a wait when Will showed up. He hooked his tow line to the back of the sled and we headed for town. As we came out of the woods and stopped for a minute to assess the trail we shared our good feelings with smiles. Before us was  beautiful snow, wide and level and well packed. We couldn’t have asked for better. We rode in light snow falling almost in slow motion like tiny feathers of down. Just enough for a dusting to make easy going for Will’s skis.

At the Chase Road our good feelings got a bonus.
No moguls.   A sign by the side of the trail showed
us why. Some trail users had organized a committee
to keep the trail groomed. How nice.

We ended our trip quietly pleased, passing little comments back and forth of self-congratulatory praise as though we had some how engineered our problem free ride all by ourselves when in truth we just lucked out.