We had decided to ask the counselor's children to go with us for the trip to let them get out and enjoy the weekend, but as it turned out, only Crystal, their daughter, was allowed to go this time. She came over around 10AM on Saturday and we finished getting the sled packed up and the machines gassed up and checked. We departed, checking our existing sets along the way. That turned out to be disappointing as the last bout of snow fell upon traps that were not holding animals - and so they were covered with a layer of ice and snow that rendered them inoperable. Several pieces of bait were stolen. No catches. Snares were set off but the new snow covered up whatever tracks were there so no idea what happened there. Not much to write about in the ol' trapping journal, heh heh. But this was supposed to be a trapping trip, so here it is.
We eventually got out there to the site where we wanted to pitch the tent and get camp set up. It seemed like a beautiful day - the sun was out and the skies were clear. We should have known they were a little a TOO clear. At any rate, we began the process of setting up the tent, only to find that there were not enough tie-off trees for the tent to work out in that spot. So we moved it. We then realized that we were probably not going to find a "perfect" spot, and we should just make this one work, so that we could get things going, and get on with the rest of the trip.
After getting the tipi set up and the stove and stovepipe in place, (which took us waaay too long :) ) we decided that Sarah and Crystal would stay at camp and get the liner in place on the inside of the tent and get camp organized, - and I would go get us some firewood in the meanwhile by cutting up some dead trees I had scouted earlier in the week. I took off with the saw, and arrived at the location of the tree I wanted. But the saw wouldn't start. Hmm....checked choke, checked the carb and throttle - all was working well....but then I opened the gas cap. No gas. Hah! Back to the camp I went. Filled the saw with gas and bar and chain oil, and returned to the site of the tree. But the saw would not start. Again. Went through the checklist in my mind. Again. All was well, except for the non-starting part. I decided it must just be too cold, as I had started to notice it WAS pretty chilly, even though I had been pulling on a chainsaw cord extensively for the last ten minutes. Hmmm......
I went back to camp and broke the news of woe. I decided to get a fire started in the stove and heat up the tent, and thus the saw would warm up inside the tent with us. Sarah and Crystal went and took the axe and chopped a dead spruce into manageable portions by clearing the snow on the surface of the lake and using the ice underneath as a solid cutting surface. In a little while, the stove was blazing and we were anxiously awaiting the saw starting ceremony. After a while we tried it again, but it was still no use. Finally it was declared that we should just go gather some dead branches nearby and just get it done with the axe. Though this idea did not sound much like fun, we all were well aware that a good supply of wood was perhaps the next most important thing to air, as far as this trip being a success. So we all three set out on the machines on a firewood hunt. The girls sped off down-slough, with Crystal at the wheel, as it was her first time riding a snowmachine and of course we had to let her drive. :) I stopped at every beaver lodge in the area in the meantime, listening to the roar of their machine in the distance. As I snapped off branches from the exterior of the beaver lodges (a new lodge about every fifty feet) I could just picture the beavers huddled up inside, listening to the evil monster (me) outside, though I am sure they knew they were warm and safe under all that ice, snow, and hard work. You can tell which dams are active by at least two methods. One is an air hole, where the exhaled air from the beavs finds its way out through the snow all winter. This hole may or may not be right above the lodge - sometimes you have to LOOK for it. Another way is that the feed piles - which are usually near the main lodge - will have branches in them which are still green wood. An inactive lodge will show NO green wood/branches. After a while of gathering wood and observing which lodges were and were not active, I heard the girls returning. As the machine rounded the corner, I could see that I would need to take a picture of them on their wood gathering journey:
We loaded up what we all had found and headed back to camp. After stacking the smaller stuff, I thought we should give the saw a try before undertaking the chopping of all the big logs. To our relief, it started, as the fire while we were gone did the trick. I immediately went out and got the tree cut into thirteen rounds and drug them back to camp. At least now the firewood problem (a BIG problem) was solved. Now we could keep the stove rolling all night and then some - and it seemed we would need to, as it was feeling rather cold...again...
Sarah took some pictures of camp while we began dinner and I split the rounds into usable pieces. The tipi is hard to see until you know right where it is(which is a good thing):
Things took us so long that we didn't get much exploring done before it began to get dark. We settled in not too long after dinner, intending to play some cards or Yahtzee... after we got the stove rolling of course...
We were thawing everything out near the stove, (including that frozen butter above) and my Nalgene bottle got a "tumor" when it got too close while we were trying to get the block of ice inside to turn back into water....
Though the tipi was not expanded to its full size due to our limited tie-offs, there was still LOTS of room for us, and a good time was had by all...even the Mooshka bear:
As the night wore on however, it began to get COLD. Now, we expected to be cold, when camping out in Interior Alaska in early March - but I mean it was COLD!! Soon the stove was glowing hot and it still wasn't keeping up. Finally, at about 1 AM, I got up and went on Firewatch, keeping that stove crammed with wood to the max - the whole thing was buckling and crinkling from the heat. And the girls were still chilly - as was I - even in the sleeping bags, which are all at least zero-rated. Around 3 AM, we decided this was not good and headed for home. Throughout the day we might have figured someone was trying to tell us not to stick it out, and that if we had to work that hard to stick it out then maybe we should just go. It was perhaps the coldest my hands have ever been - on that ride home. We ended up chasing a moose up the trail in the dark - which was exciting - I kept waiting for him to turn around and try to squish-stomp us, but he didn't. He just kept on going. By the time we finally got home around 5 AM my thumb was, once again, frostbitten:
Its almost getting routine now when we go out. A couple days of feeling weird and then its back to normal again. But that white spot was a hurting unit, let me tell you. And the reason why it was frostbitten?! Well that supposed -5 to Zero temp?.... Hardly. Straight-up it was -19, and with the windchill it was -33 by the time we got home and checked online. And, if you add in our 20 mph average speed on the ride home, that -33 becomes a windchill of -68........ -68 !!!!!!!!! No wonder frostbite made an appearance!
The trapline is not dead yet though. A teacher here in Pilot has a son coming up this week into next week, and I promised him I would take him out and show him how we do it up here. He sounds totally stoked. So, we'll set up some new kitty sets and of course some fox sets and see what we can't come up with for our last two weeks. Be posting again soon!
