Alaska - Winter Trail ride & a “Snow-tage”
Winter Trail
April 25-26, 2023
Leaving Chena
The day of departure from Chena, we awoke to blue skies and a light breeze. Our plan to outstay the last winter blast had worked! After realizing we’d initially set ourselves up to leave with the approaching storm; there was a subsequent realization, we had never really been on a multi-day, resort-style vacation of our own kind. Our only resort vacation was decades ago on my first SW company club trip to South Florida - free, but not our style. This time, it was a perfectly, unplanned way to kick off our new life of adventuring.
Our bikes, fully loaded again, were parked outside the lodge while we checked out. When we returned, we almost never left, as curiousity got the best of almost everyone that passed by, including locals from the surrounding area, and a young family from Florida traveling cross-country by RV.
By the time we passed back under the Chena Hot Springs arch, it was early afternoon, day 3 in the saddle, and 9 days since we left Fairbanks. Everyone we met there was amazed that we had ridden out to Chena and truthfully, I was as well. It had been mostly up hill with many rollers and a couple steeper climbs, none of which, were we conditioned for, since our bikes rolled into the garage at the end of our last summer trip in 2022 from our cabin in Washington to Wyoming and Utah.
It is a life lesson we seem to repeat with the start of almost every trip - a lesson in pain and perspective. Ultra-runners talk about experiencing the pain cave....yeah, it exists for bikepackers as well, but it’s not after mile 40, 50 or 60. This time, it was mile 5, then 10, then 15, 16, 17, 18, until 2-3 weeks later everything in the body finally realizes this is how we roll now. During that time period, even though the body signals try to overpower the mind, it is a transformative time when the mind reawakens to what it can actually control, it pushes our headspace into another level of remembering or discovering what we are capable of, and the realization that every moment of discomfort on the bike is temporary and fleeting.
Winter Trails
On the way out to Chena our only option was heaving ourselves over hill after hill on dry tarmac with studded tires. Riding the “winter trail” was not-to-be, given the weight of our load and the unstable and deep snow conditions.
Alaskan winter trails are for all forms of non-motorized travel, dog sled, cross-country skis, snowshoes, fat bikes, as well as any four-legged travelers, and then disappear as the season ends. Our dream since following the Iditarod was to someday ride the trail ourselves. Cyclists and cross country skiers race the same route as the Iditarod mushers, self-supported, each year in the Iditarod Trail Invitational.
This trail section along Chena Hot Springs road is also part of the Yukon Quest dog sled race crossing between the Alaskan Arctic and the Canadian Yukon. Another long distance dog sled race Lance Mackey won 4 times, twice in the same years that he won the Iditarod.
Wild Camp & a Snow-tage
In our beeline to get to Chena after leaving Rosehip, we quickly scanned the other trailhead pullouts and campgrounds only to discover the trailheads were plowed, but all the campgrounds were under heavy, melting snow. On the way back, we pulled into the Angel Creek trailhead and decided to walk up the winter trail from there to check the conditions. To our surprise, after the weekend blast of negative temps, it seemed hard-packed enough to support our weight. Excited to get off the road, we decided to give it a go and see how far we could ride the winter trail paralleling the road.
After 2+ glorious miles traveling by snow, the trail approached Chena river, and we found a perfect camp spot alongside. From there, the trail crossed under the bridge and continued on the other side, or crossed the “frozen” river to the Angel Rocks trailhead parking lot. We decided to walk down and check out whether we could cross over to the trailhead lot in the morning. If not, we would have to back track a short distance and portage (or as Nivaun aptly defined it “snow-tage”) our way down an unplowed side road to get back to the main road, as the temps were continuing to warm.
I forged ahead, while Nivaun took pictures of ice bubbles under the bridge, and successfully followed sled marks up to the parking lot. Nivaun shortly followed. After exploring around, we turned to head back. Just as I was down the hillside, crossing again what I didnt even really realize was the actual river, not a tributary, Nivaun says “the ice probably isn’t going to hold much longer here.” Instantaneously - my boot crashes through snow and then ice. One glance at my boot under water and then the next, swooshed into the water. With an “Oh Shit!” all I could think was move, move, move! A couple more frantic steps and my boots hit snow again. Snow-tage it was to-be! We were not tempting fate on the river a second time with fully loaded bikes.
The next morning, we back tracked to the side road to snow-tage all our gear and then push our bikes, breaking trail back and forth in knee to thigh-high snow, until we could load up again at the side of the main road and continue on.
We had only gone 9 or so miles after leaving the Hot Springs and decided to stop at Rosehip campground again. This time we were sure the melting snow would pack down enough for a river-side spot to enjoy the warming temps an extra day.
