Chris and Robbin's Alaska

December 6, 2000

Seasons Greetings!!

Well its been a year since our last letter and much has happened to us since then.  However, in the interest of good journalism I will give you the brief version of the past year and then tell you a Thanksgiving story.

When the school year ended last May Chris and I packed all our boxes (well over 50 now) chartered a plane and moved to Elim.  Elim is a village of about 321 Yup'ik Eskimos.  It sits right on the edge of Norton Bay in Norton Sound, near Nome.  We spent the summer getting to know our new community; that consisted of living out at fish camp in a tent for much of the summer.  During the first part of the summer we dried and put up 100 pink salmon.  In August I left Alaska for Illinois, where I spent two weeks getting a crash course in my Internet graduate program.  I then went to Maryland were I spent three weeks with my parents and saw many of you.  When I got back to Elim, I jumped right into work and grad school.  I work for the school as their librarian and technology liaison and take classes over the Internet toward my Masters in Library and Information Science.  Chris is teaching 6 classes to grades 7-12 this year and enjoying it most days.  Needless to say we have both been very busy.  I have just finished my two classes so I have some time to write this letter.

Anyway on to the Thanksgiving story.  Because we have been so busy this year, Chris and I were really looking forward to Thanksgiving break.  We both worked hard to get caught up on our work so that we could go for a camping trip on those days off.  Thanksgiving day we went to the village potluck and ate more than we should have.  The day after the feast we got up early and proceeded out to burn off our dinner and then some.

Our goal was to hike nine miles out to the hot springs. We figured we could get out in a day and come back the next day.  Our trip started out well enough.  We had all our gear in our new, homemade sled.  The temperature was above zero and there was little wind.  We got to the top of the first hill just as the sun was rising.  It was going to be a beautiful day, the trail was hard packed, we didn't need snowshoes and the sled was working great.  Then we hit our first downhill.  It was quite steep.  I had to walk beside the sled in the deep snow so that it wouldn't slide off the edge.  Not a big deal we were making good time.

About three hours into our trip we came to the second big hill of the trip.  This hill was pretty much straight up, I slid back more than once in the ascent.  Of course the trail went right over the top of this hill.  By the time we started to get near the top, the wind was blowing.  The downhill was just as steep, but not nearly as long, it ended at a saddle between hills.  The wind just howled along the top and made visibility less than optimal.  We followed the trail we could see and missed seeing the winter trail altogether.

At this juncture in our trip we learned the reason for a winter trail.  The summer trail, which we followed, went around the south side of the mountain.  Well the wind almost always blows from the north and the south side of the hill collects all the blown snow into hard packed drifts.  The trail we were on quickly disappeared under the drifts.  Instead of being on a horizontal trail, we were trying to walk across the steep face of the hill at a sharp angle.  Needless to say I slipped, the sled tipped and the sleeping bag rolled down the hill.  Since I was the lowest on the hill I got to go after the sleeping bag.  The trip down was great, I just slid, about half way down I realized that I would never get back up and started digging in to make footholds in order to get back. Where I had made footholds the going was easy, but eventually I hit the hard packed, flat face of the hill.  I had to crawl, using my knees to dig in to the snow.  I slid back several times, and really thought I wouldn't ever get back to the sled.  Once I got back to the sled, we righted it and tied everything in tightly.  Once we got off the steep face of the hill, we still couldn't find the trail for the drifts, so we slogged through soft drifts and slid over ice across the southern face of a smaller hill.

Eventually we found the trail and got off the hills and into the woods.  By this time it was starting to get dark.  At the top of the last hill, the wind had erased the trail, again.  Luckily Chris had been there before and could tell which direction we needed to go.  We thought we were close at that point and kept going in the twilight, with a strong wind in our faces.  We crossed a snowmachine track and followed it down the hill, and across the river.  We were the first people to visit the hot springs , since the last several snows and we had to break trail in snow up to our knees, in the dark.  We didn't go far before we made camp and ate dinner.  Then we dug out our snowshoes and went to enjoy the hot springs.

It was completely dark by the time we got to the hot springs.  We sat in the warm water and watched the stars.  It was nice to relax after the long trek.

The problem with winter camping is waiting for the sun to rise.  We spent several hours in the tent waiting for the sun to brighten the sky enough for us to pack up.  Once packed we headed home, with everything tied into the sled well, or so we thought.  Halfway down the first hill, we discovered that Chris's coat had blown off the sled.  Chris went back to the top of the hill to look for it, but couldn't find it.  We lost about an hour looking for the coat in addition to waiting for the sun to rise.  Luckily we did find the winter trail and followed it through the trees and up the backside of the really steep hills.  We came down the second set of hills just as it was getting dark and made camp at the bottom.  The next day we packed up crossed over the last hill and got home by lunchtime.

We had not seen anyone in our two and a half days out, but when we got home, people kept calling to tell us that Deuce had found Chris's coat.  We live in such a small town that everyone recognized it as Chris's.

Have a good holiday.  We're planning to hike to the other hot springs over our break, it's only 30 miles away.

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