Anniversary Adventure

Post by Corrine

This was a White Mountains adventure full of threes! It’s been about 3 months since our last blog post, it was our third attempt at doing a cabin adventure this winter, we celebrated 3 decades together, and we skied in about 3 inches of new snow. (Plus, we saw three skiers on our first day.) 

We haven’t written anything for the past 3 months, because it’s been a long transition from fall to winter with snow, then rain, then subzero cold. So, we haven’t been on any adventures outside of normal life. We had 2 cabin trips planned into the White Mountains around Thanksgiving but bailed on both due to cold weather, wind, and poor trail conditions. I couldn’t see the point in being miserable just to say we got out. We have continued to get out with short biking, skiing, running and snowshoeing jaunts. But no epic or even semi-epic adventures.

Early season ski up on Old Murphy Dome Road

Early season bike to Lee's cabin and back

I had reserved Eleazar’s Cabin in the White Mountains to celebrate our wedding anniversary which was December 15. It’s hard to celebrate during the week so I reserved the cabin for Friday night since I now have Fridays off. What better way to celebrate 30 years together, 29 of them married, than with an overnight trip in the Whites? The forecast looked do-able with temps finally rising from -35F to above zero. We decided on skis instead of bikes after getting about 6 inches of snow the week prior. It’s easier to carry gear for a cabin trip on bikes, but no point in suffering on bikes when skiing would be great. 

We were out the door at 10 AM Friday morning after packing our backpacks. When we got to the trailhead there was about 3 inches of new unpacked snow on the trail. We made the right choice. Biking would have been a slogfest. 

As we started down the trail, we could see that somebody had skate skied ahead of us. Who would even think of skate skiing in several inches of new, cold snow? We could only think of 2 people who might do that: Shalane or Melissa. And since we didn’t see any dog tracks (Shalane almost always takes her dog), we figured it had to be Melissa. About 3.5 miles in we saw a skier skating back towards us. Yep, it was Melissa. She said skating was not a great choice, but she was having a good time anyway. And she is training for a wilderness endurance race or two, so she has to be prepared for possible tough conditions. She was just out for a day ski and was headed back to her vehicle at the trailhead.

Who would even try to skate in these conditions?

Melissa Lewis, of course

It’s only 12 miles to Eleazar’s Cabin so that shouldn’t have taken us too long. Ha. With new snow, slow trails, and backpacks, it took us 4 hours to ski in. But it was a beautiful winter wonderland ski. Quiet, just our skis shushing along on new snow. It’s that time of year when it never really gets light if it’s cloudy and snowing, and it was doing both. It’s almost winter solstice and we are down to just over three-and-a-half hours of sunlight. Winter in Fairbanks at its best. 

There was enough snow that we were actually able to ski (i.e. snowplow) down the Wickersham Wall. Usually this is a screaming fast descent, and we would normally take off our skis and walk but this time we made it down intact with skis on. At the bottom, we ran into 2 other skiers who were headed to Borealis Cabin from Lee’s. Their snowmachine support crew had already gone ahead, which helped to pack down the trail for us.

We ran into only one area of overflow. Eric went around it to the right. He found thin ice and a few inches of water. He got wet toes but otherwise was fine. I went left and was able to cross the slush without getting wet. Eric said his feet weren’t too bad, so no need to change socks. At the next drainage, Eric was ahead and saw a lone caribou, which immediately dashed off the trail before I go there. 

Looking back at the overflow we had just crossed.  I had gone to the right in this photo, Eric to the left.  The skiers behind us followed me but chose to walk instead of ski.

When we turned off the main trail for the mile climb up to Eleazar’s, we had to slog through about 6 inches of fresh powder. It took over a half-hour just to go that last mile. Finally, the cabin was in sight at about 2:30 PM as it was starting to get dark. 

Eric started the fire, then headed out to look for firewood. I stayed back to stoke the fire, melt snow, and get our gear set up. Once Eric got back with a few trees, we cut up the wood. Finally, we were able to kick back and relax the rest of the evening. 

Full moon shining through the clouds

I was more tired than expected for just a 12-mile ski. I guess I’m not used to carrying a pack while skiing through slow, cold snow. I was in my sleeping bag by 7:30 PM reading a good book on my iPhone. Eric managed to complete the Thursday New York Times crossword puzzle – with some help from me – before turning in around 10. It’s nice to be out without the distractions of home and the internet. (Though Eric wanted it to help with the puzzle!)

Eric stoked the fire in the middle of the night, so the cabin was still warm in the morning. Wanting an early start, we ate breakfast, melted snow for water,  packed up, and were out the door before 9:30 AM. We used headlamps for about an hour although we might have been able to get by without them. Snow is an excellent light reflector, even when there’s not much light to reflect. 

We made it the mile down to the main trail in less than 10 minutes! I barely had to snowplow with all the snow. At least one other snowmachine had been by the day before, so the main trail while still a bit soft was faster. There was more overflow (at two crossings this time), but we made it across with dry feet, just accumulating a bit of ice on our skis that we scraped off. We were also able to herring bone up the Wickersham Wall without having to take off our skis. Another first for me! 

I gingerly test the overflow, slushy on top but solid ice underneath.

Scraping the ice off my skis after crossing the overflow

Herringbone tracks up Wickersham Wall

It snowed most of our way out and we had a slight headwind, but the temperature was perfect for skiing – maybe 10-15F. I felt like I was in a snow globe. Three miles from the end we ran into a group of snowmachiners. They were nice and polite, but they were on paddletracks, which really stirred up the snow, making for soft and slow going. Oh well, I was just glad I didn’t have my bike with me. I would have really been cursing them!

We ran into Erica and Devin right before getting back to our car. They were getting a late start skiing into Moose Creek Cabin. We’ve been running into those two on the trails a lot this year! Not surprisingly, we saw no bikers on the trails this weekend. 

Erica - Devin is somewhere behind her

We have a couple of more cabin trips planned over Christmas and New Year’s with our friends, Jill and Beat. Now we just have to see if the weather will cooperate. There is a big winter storm on the way and then it’s supposed to get cold again. Will we head out or just stay home?

I was glad the weather cooperated for an overnight with my adventure partner, Eric. It’s been a great  three decades of adventures and I’m sure there will be many more to come.