At -34 temperature in the dark, at 4:30 AM, I head to the river bank. It’s only a 50 yard walk. Our landlord had texted last night at 10:30 that the northern lights were out. I read the text at 4:00 am. Who’s up at 10:30 pm? Before leaving the house, I checked the tracker and a couple of mushers in Ophir’s -55 temperature were heading back to McGrath. Mushers don’t usually complain about cold, but they were this morning. Dallas Seavey was ahead. It was clear he’d be back in McGrath this morning.
The Aurora was disappointing. But the quiet and stars were worth the jaunt.
Every morning I wake about 2 hours before Terry. Under headlight glow, I make coffee, gather my laptop and books and teeter up the ladder. The loft is warm. I sit on a mattress on the floor and set my laptop on a bed stand. Now the sun comes early enough that it will grace me before Terry does. I love this space.
When the sun sheds its first light, I reached up to remove my headlamp and the elastic string wound up a clump of hair near my forehead. I heard Terry rising. Help! He patiently tried to unravel it, but the scissors had to be employed.
Our morning brings many futile efforts. We both will need Covid tests to leave here. The clinic’s phone has been down for two days, nevertheless, we keep trying the number. Our Full Circle veggies due Wednesday did not arrive, old story, but we repeatedly check the message board. Even though everyone I know has receive their Covid shots, I can’t get an appointment, but I continue calling around Santa Cruz county venues. Just bothersome problems.
We watch the progress of Seavey – he’s getting close. Coming from the west into McGrath, we lack a viewpoint to watch mushers arrive, but Terry wants to go down to the ice and then he can search for more booties. We underestimate how fast Seavey is traveling, bingo he’s in. We guess that he’ll take his mandatory 8 hour rest, so this frees us to do chores until 5:30 when we can watch him leave.
Dragging the sled to the incinerator with our week’s garbage, the packed snow crunches and squeaks. Returning we notice NAC has made an attack. NAC is the Northern Air Cargo jet that arrives on an unpredictable schedule. Locals call it a NAC attack. It’s impressive to see the lumbering 727 jet rising over this tiny village. Will we have veggies and mail today?
No word for three hours, then suddenly it is on the message board. We head straight away to the terminal and sled two boxes home, trying to beat the freeze. PO closes at 5:00. We make it with 2 minutes to spare. We have a box of homemade cookies from Sue Walkup. Thanks so much. Now we have to make it down to the river to see Seavey leave. And there he comes.
At 9:30 PM, we’re back on the river bank watching the headlamp of Brent Sass illuminating the churning paws of his team with a green ribbon of norther lights on the horizon. And the real race begins.
Mountain Peace 