We are not going to get our Denali view. We don’t know why but the snow machines have ceased going up the road to nowhere. We don’t really want to share our time and space with them, but we are thankful for the way they make tracks for us. It was 23° when we left at 8:00. Most of the day it hovered around 32. We had fresh snow. It was deep and mushy, forming ice clumps on the bottom of Terry’s skis. My running shoes sank with each step greatly increasing my work load.
Three miles in, we saw a moose lying on the road. She was reluctant to get up. She limped off the road, something was wrong with her leg. I texted the state trooper, my landlord. Terry and I decided it was probably a bad move. Basically there is no good outcome for an injured animal. But I’ll assume it was just a Charlie Horse. And the trooper won’t find her because she’s probably out giving birth to twins.
As we slogged and stumbled in this gorgeous scenery at about two miles per hour, we realized that that view we are seeking is covered by black clouds. Terry asks what I want to do. Of course, continue. Why? This is just painful and there is no possibility of a view. Terry reminds me Denali is 100 miles away. You can walk anywhere if you have enough time. That’s BS. Like what about food? This whole plan is foolhardy. And I’m letting myself get deeper and deeper. We go to the exact same spot we were two days ago. Today it was twice as hard. We will never make it back.
We drag ourselves back for four more hours. When you have snow, you can’t sit or lie down. You just drag yourself. Our moose was standing in the spot we left her. Terry tries to encourage her. But she flattens her ears. We were just reading that this is not a good signal. We’re sure the injury saved our lives.
This is our last opportunity to complain about veggie delivery. They arrived today, and Terry picked them up at the NAC terminal. We had 2 boxes. The larger had a big hole in the side. Egg shells were visible. Squire, the only worker for McGrath NAC, agreed to fill out a damage form. Terry said it looked like a misguided forklift stab, but Squire shook his head and said, “raven ate the box.” A few minutes later he said, “how do you spell raven?” Circle Farm boxes are stout, and cold weather strong. The average muscle man cannot tear one open, but they are no match for the mighty raven bill. Then I noticed several other boxes had holes torn in them. Squire said that if he doesn’t get them inside quickly, ravens will inspect every box. We lost 4 eggs.
There were a lot of very expensive snow machines sitting outside the terminal. Squire said they were all shipped over for the Iditarod, and were waiting to go back to Anchorage. Fifty pounds of cargo coming into McGrath costs $50. Fifty pounds of cargo leaving McGrath costs $25. Vehicles up to 17 feet long can be flown on the NAC jet. Anything larger must come by barge on its once yearly voyage.
Mountain Peace 