A Winter Solstice Cabin Hop

Several years ago, a forecast for -20 degrees over Christmas vacation made staying indoors and watching TV sound pretty good. Since then I have enjoyed a few years in Fairbanks, made a couple of clothing and gear purchases, figured out that the outdoors can bring far more delight to a soul than a TV show or sporting event, and met some ambitious adventurers to provide some insight and motivation. Now -20 degrees brings to mind things like, "Well, we could probably pull it off." Or "At least it will likely be a nice clear day."

December 21 was a gloriously clear day. We soaked up all the solstice sun we would get.

Also, we were cold.

Eyal is an ambitious UAF student from Israel that Julia and I met a while back. He was interested in heading out on a backcountry ski trip. After exploring some of the options and taking a look at the weather forecast (somewhere between -15 and -30 on the days we planned to head out), we decided on a Chena Hot Springs Road cabin hop.

The GPS and map software were both very helpful. Below is our route:

This adventure was not too far away that we couldn't get ourselves out of trouble but definitely far enough away that we could feel a sense of separation from civilization. We were out for three days and two nights and we did not see another person until skiing along the road midway through our last day on the trail. It was a great trip.

The first day was all on skis up to Stiles Creek Cabin.

Eyal on the trail. 

Stiles Creek Cabin

A nice full moon on the first night. Unfortunately we
conked out 2 hours before a lunar eclipse. Eyal photo.

We woke up the next morning with the intention of making our way up to the Chena Dome (Chena Doom) trail and down into the Angel Creek drainage to Lower Angel Creek Cabin. We used snowshoes the entire day.

We followed a very nice unmaintained trail north off of the Stiles Creek trail for a few miles through the trees.

Towards the tree line. Eyal photo

The trail disappeared above the tree line, which we made just after the sunrise at 11:00 AM.

What a day.

Alaska Range in the morning light. Eyal photo.

Mount Hayes

A solstice sunrise. Eyal photo

A shadow cast at noonday. 

Soaking up the view from the ridge. Eyal photo.
"Oh Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds thy hands have made!"

Above tree line.

We slogged through some pretty deep snow along a minor ridge and finally made our way up to the Chena Dome trail and the highest points on the trip, just in time to watch the sun set at 2:41 PM. 

Starting along the ridge.

Through the Dr. Seuss terrain. 

Chena Dome across the valley.

One of the climbs along the Chena Dome trail as the sun sets. 

Mount Moffit and Mount Hayes in the evening light. 

The night was clear and we pushed through some thigh deep snow (unfortunately perpendicular to a difficult to find trail) down into the Angel Creek drainage. We were grateful to have a near full moon to help with the route-finding through the trees. Thankfully we were close enough to the trail to come across Upper Angel Creek Cabin. Because it was dark and cold and no one was using this cabin, we decided to stay in this cabin rather than get to Lower Angel Creek Cabin three miles further down the trail. This was a good decision. A very good stove, relatively dry wood, a pair of slippers, and an unopened MRE were waiting for us at Upper Angel Creek.

Upper Angel Creek Cabin

The trail we couldn't find the night before. We descended
from the ridge in the background.

The next day the skis were back on as we skied down the valley to Chena Hot Springs Road from the cabin. Then we followed a great dog mushing trail along the road to Chena Hot Springs.

Coming down Angel Creek. 

Arriving at the gate to Chena Hot Springs. The temperature
was somewhere near -12 degrees.

We arrived at about 5:00 PM at the hot springs, about 2.5 hours before we expected my lovely wife to arrive and shuttle us home. That long wait was not a problem. We had spent much of the past three days  outside in temperatures that likely never got above -10 degrees. Three hours soaking in warm water did wonders for the legs. Not even a pinch of sore muscles the next day. Just some tender feet and fingers from a bit of frost nip.

Though I didn't know Eyal when we first started planning, we became well acquainted as the trip progressed. He grew up in Israel and headed home to Haifa for the holidays after our trip. We had plenty of time to get to know each other. Our conversations included discussions of the stuff we were using, route-finding, idiosyncrasies of stoves, life in Isreal, studying chemistry, exploring Alaska, food preparation on backcountry trips, and, my personal favorite, where Jesus shows up in the Old Testament.

The grace of God in the Old Testament points to Christ continuously and we enjoyed that reality in conversation.


Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 
Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 
(John 3:1-15 ESV)


What a joy to discuss Numbers 21 and John 3. All we must do is look to Christ and we escape the just wrath of a loving God! Look!

It was a trip full of joy.

"Look! Look! Look!"

Home Again Home Again Jiggity Jig!

Where is home I wonder? When I am in Alaska "home" is two places. It's the little hole in the wall where Joel and I live, but home is also Michigan, where my family is. This spring Joel and I were able to go "home"meaning Michigan, for a couple of weeks and here are some things we did there.

However, I first want to share with you some thoughts I have about "home", meaning Michigan. Here are some things I like about being there in the winter and some things that I am missing, in no particular order.

1. The most important one, my family!
2. The winter wind whipping on the old windows in my parents house and the pretty frost patterns that this process creates.
3. Touching the cold wood floor with my feet when I get out of bed on the first day of Christmas vacation while knowing I have a whole month before school begins again. (I think I am going to become a student again...)
4. Waking up to a honey do list from Mom and Dad and mom's credit card so Anna and I can buy whatever groceries we want to cook with.
5. Going skiing with my family and with Milan.
6. Podunk Michigan ski races.
7. TC restaruants including Mary's Kitchen Port, Amical, Potters Bakery, Bubba's, and The Omelette Shoppe.
8. The way my mom and dad smell when they give me hugs.
9. Playing Euchre or Scrabble with anyone from my family
10. Shooting the breeze with the Wunsch's while eat pistachio nuts.
10.5 Aunt Barbs Christmas Cookies (spritzes most importantly, but they're all good).
11. Christmas Eve at the Wunsch's
12. Christmas morning with my parents
13. Wet Snow
14. snuggling and giggling with my sisters
15. My niece and nephews.
16. The U.P.
17. Ingird
18. Uncle Freddy's Maple Syrup.

Things I don't miss:
1. Unlce Freddy's peanut brittle.

Ohh yeah things we did when we were home...

First listen to the song "Home" and ignore the part about loving anything more than Jesus Christ...

This song is one of our favorites aside from that line. We like the idea of thinking we are at home when were a together in our packrafts, on the side of mountains, camping at -10F,  in our teeny tiny apartment, and so on...

Mt. Prindle Take 2 (Bagging the peak)

Joel and I headed to Mt. Prindle the weekend after our first attempt to see if we could reach the summit. We headed to the trail head on Friday night and camped at the trail head so that we could get an early start on Saturday morning. 

Here's a picture of our campsite on Saturday morning. 

 Joel at the beginning of the hike. With in the first couple miles of the hike there were a couple of stream crossings and one in particular where getting your feet wet was inevitable. 

 Joel hiking starting up the ridge that leads to the summit. We had a nice picnic on the this ridge.

This is a big picture of some of the tors that are on the ridge to the summit. These tors (see link) are formed by slowly cooling igneous rock under the earth's surface that is gradually exposed to the surface over thousands of years as the softer metamorphic and sedimentary rock erodes away. The granite that makes up the tors is more resistant to erosion than the surrounding rock and large spires of the rock protrude from hills and ridges formed by the largely concealed pluton, of which the tors are a part of.  These particular tors are famous because they offer a great adventure for rock climbers. 

Here are more tors on the ridge leading to the summit. It's hard to see their size, but they are huge and very cool. 

Nearing the top of the summit the ridge became more of talus slope. The peak in the background on the left is the actual summit. 

This is a view from the ridge.

 And another view from the ridge

Proof that we made it to the top

The classic picture that Joel and I like to take at the top of every mountain we reach

Joel framed in between two tors

The valley that we walked up. 

Joel finishing the hike through the valley. And look fairly sunny blue skies... success! Ohh yeah it started raining and thundering when we got back to the car... 

Julia's Perspective

Joel and I haven't been so up to date with out blog posts mainly due to lack of internet at our apartment. However, we are housesitting for the next little while and I am planning to take advantage of the internet at our "houses" to add some detail to our blog.

In Joel's last post he quickly recorded the adventures that we had this summer and early fall. I'm going to use some posts to add to those adventures with my perspective. Today I will talk about the Mount Prindle hike.

Joel and I attempted Mount Prindle on a Saturday. The weather forecast was for isolated thunderstorms, but in our Fairbanks experience "isolated thunderstorms" usually means bright blue skies. Thus we made the 1.5ish hour drive to the Mt. Prindle trail head. The hike to the top of Prindle is 9ish miles one way. Joel and I planned to run most/part of the trail and hike the steep parts. The trail was narrow and very wet from late snow melt and we ended up walking most of it. The first 5 miles of the hike is rather flat through a valley and then goes up to a ridge which takes you to the summit.

Here is a picture of the valley that we hiked through. You can see that the trail is a little damp. You can also see that our prediction of "clear blue skies" was a little off. 

And these are the clouds that forced us to turn around and end the hike early. I know these clouds don't look too bad, but they were more threatening than they look. Also there was lightning. We also were only prepared for a day hike and didn't have "foul weather gear". 

Though we didn't get to the peak we did make the drive worth it by stopping at the Chatanika gold dredge. The dredge is technically on private property, but there is a pretty good beaten down path to it. 

There are a couple of dredges around Fairbanks. Most of them are on "private" property, but private is more like a "guideline" here in AK. Needless to say Joel and I have been to two of them. They're huge by the way. 

Joel is the little white thing standing on the dredge next to the ladder. It might give you some perspective as to how big it is. You can also see that the graffiti and ladder suggest the how guideline like "private property" signs are. Joel explored inside, but I preferred to sit on the hill and fret about our illegal actions. My nerves were settled more when we ran into a whole family headed out to see the dredge. At least we weren't the only ones who were going to get in trouble for breaking the law...

Needless to say we learned from this trip that "isolated thunderstorms" does not always mean "clear blue skies". Our new perspective on Fairbanks forecast is that you can have "bright blue skies" when the forecast is "isolated thunderstorms"... when you're in the right place at the right time... Is that how it is in your part of the world too?

Summer Activities

Well, there were lots of things to add to the scrapbook this summer. Here are some favorite photos of a few adventures to get ourselves caught up.

Packrafted a bit on the Mighty Boardman River.

The mighty portage of the Mighty Boardman.

Good day for a float.

Enjoyed some Michigan sunshine. Currently leaning towards an investment in road bikes. This was very pleasant and heart healthy.

Very good.

Also, very good.

This too was very good.

Julia trained a horse. Nice work wife.

She's got a good-looking seat.

Caught salmon in a net near Chitina.

The sunrise on the Copper River. 

Einar caught a king salmon. Fun for all members of the party.

Packrafted a bit on the Chena River. We forgot food for this trip. Really. I never thought that would happen with Miss Julia along. Thankfully there is a Hershey bar stashed in the emergency kit. We ate it.

Nice day for a float.

Hiked on Murphy Dome. Complementary hot dogs were provided by kind hiking partners.

That dog was not consumed by hikers.

Climbed Mount Prindle. Julia may have to expound on this trip. I hope she does. A beautiful gift of a day. All the way around.

This is where we had lunch. This cracked the top five favorite picnic spots of all time.

Packrafted a bit on the Delta River. I hope Julia expounds on this trip too (cheesecake!). We get to wander some amazing places up here in Alaska.

Our boats are making the only waves on this calm section of the river.  Other sections were class III rapids. Both sections were worth floating.

Explored the Kenai Peninsula. This was incredible too. Describe this trip too please, wife!

Floating Grewingk Lake avoiding icebergs from Grewingk Glacier.

While Julia helped coach some aspiring college skiers, I hiked a portion of the Crow Pass Trail and floated down Glacier Creek in Girdwood.  Both quite incredible. One fun part of this 16 or so mile hike on the Crow Pass trail was at the top of the pass mist was flowing down from a small glacier just above the pass. I was standing at the top of the pass watching some of the mist descend to my left, towards the Turnagain Arm, and some of the mist descend to my right, towards the Knik Arm. Eerie but pleasant.

Looking down Raven Creek on the Crow Pass trail.

Raven Glacier, near Crow Pass.

The view from the tram used to cross Glacier Creek.  Winner Creek is entering river left.

The video below was taken by another packrafter who had begun his float a bit higher on Glacier Creek.  At 2:45 there is a little rock bar on river right where I put in. Above that rock bar is the tram. The waves just past the rock bar but before the confluence of Glacier and Winner Creeks may have induced a very exciting test of my ability to maneuver a packraft. The gauged flows of Glacier Creek for the guy in the video and the trip I took were almost identical (around 24-25 cfs). The only difference I noticed between our two runs was that he had a bit more sun. He probably didn't see a dead dog/wolf washed up on a gravel bar when he went down the river either. In short, this was really fun.

Packrafted a bit on the mighty Tanana River. Julia most certainly has some comments to add about this adventure.

We saw a lot of this...

Picked 15 cubic yards of low bush blueberries. The berries are very good. Raspberries from a local u-pick and low bush blueberries are very good on vanilla ice cream.

Annie and Greg joined us for some of the fun.

The following two pictures are from adventures from the end of the summer that will definitely be described with greater detail in the scrapbook. I hope Julia describes them, but if she doesn't...I'm on it.

"It sure is beautiful here."

Almost to our highest point on the ridge.
"It sure is beautiful here."

OK, three pictures! What a day for ridge walking!

All this summer while we wandered about Alaska, I started to see a little more clearly the weight of Psalm 97. Nature is just one tiny opening where God allows us to look on His greatness. The connection presented in the Bible is that to enjoy the beauty and greatness of nature is to enjoy a brief and incomplete view of the beauty and greatness of God.

[1] The LORD reigns, let the earth rejoice;
let the many coastlands be glad!
  [2] Clouds and thick darkness are all around him;
righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
  [3] Fire goes before him
and burns up his adversaries all around.
  [4] His lightnings light up the world;
the earth sees and trembles.
  [5] The mountains melt like wax before the LORD,
before the Lord of all the earth.
[6] The heavens proclaim his righteousness,
and all the peoples see his glory.

If nature is simply one method God uses to put Himself on display, then I want more of God, not just to experience more of nature. Nature only points!

More thoughts on nature by wiser men:

"'Be glad thou sleeper and thy sorrow offcast. I am the gate to all good adventure.'"
C.S. Lewis from That Hideous Strength

Jonathan Edwards