I'm beginning to think my friends don't believe me when I insist that the Far North in wintertime is my version of heaven. That if somehow consciousness goes on after death, mine will reside here, on the snow-covered tundra under the incandescent light of a low-angle sun. And it will be cold, too — so cold the air chimes, silence echoes from miles distant, and I'll know the peace and clear-minded lucidity I find only in fleeting moments here on Earth.
For our annual Christmastime trip to Fairbanks, Beat and I booked two trips in the White Mountains. Usually we visit the Magical Land of Tolovana Hot Springs for our first overnighter, but the availability was limited to one night although we were required to pay for two, and the costs have skyrocketed in the past few years. It seemed unreasonable, so I argued that "Colorado Creek is just as fun." Sure, there aren't any hot springs in which to frostnip one's scalp while scalding the nether regions, but you can't beat the price. Or the setting.
The route to Colorado Creek starts at the Tolovana River — one of the lowest spots in the region, where dense cold air settles in for a long winter's nap. Lows were forecast to hit 20 below overnight, which is mild for the Fairbanks of yore, but still a harsh introduction for our first night of the trip (we arrived at the Fairbanks airport at 11 p.m. Friday, grocery shopped for eight days' worth of trail food, slept a few hours, woke up early to unpack all of the gear as Beat re-built the sleds, repacked our gear, drove two hours north on a snow-packed and frost-heaved Elliot Highway, and hit the trail around 12:30 p.m. Saturday.)
From its start at the Tolovana River, the Colorado Creek Trail features 14 miles of gradual but infernally noticeable climbing. Snowpack is low for this time of year, and the trail was coated in packed but slippery sugar snow that barely masked the tussocks. Beat had been suffering mightily from our Death Cold less than week earlier, and had so recently recovered that I wondered if this first trip would happen. He felt better but was still dragging, enough so that I could almost keep up with him ... almost. Darkness came early, and it would have been jarring if I wasn't already jet-lagged from sleeping about three hours the previous night.
It's also interesting to note that the Colorado Creek trailhead, which is only about 50 miles north of Fairbanks, received nearly 20 minutes less daylight on that date. The invisible line marking the Arctic Circle, less than 150 miles north of the trailhead, saw only a few seconds of the tiniest sliver of sunlight. Degrees of latitude really matter up here.
We arrived at the cabin a little before 6 p.m., which felt more like 10 p.m., and went about the usual cabin chores: Starting a fire in the wood stove, firing up the white gas stoves to quickly melt snow, stringing all of our ice-crusted gear on clothes lines, chopping firewood (this cabin had a bunch left behind, which is always a incredible boost in places where the only sources of deadwood can be a half mile away or more), and rehydrating dinner: Hot chocolate and a bag of something mushy and bland but simple and hot, which is what matters. We crawled into sleeping bags and I spent a couple of hours scrolling through my Kindle, not landing on anything terribly interesting to me right now. I felt worked but was actively trying not to doze off. I'm one of those night-circadium-rhythm people who can't easily shift to early bedtime. I will wake up in a few hours and, like a child who took a nap at the wrong time, remain awake and grumpy for the rest of the night.
We slumped out of the sleeping bags a little before 7 a.m. Sunday morning, which looked like 2 a.m. but felt like a bizarre version of late day. Having let the stove go out overnight, the air was frosty inside the cabin and my hydration bladder was partially frozen. Most of the muscles in my upper legs ached, and my lower back was stiff. Blame that one on poor sled-specific fitness. The last time I even strapped on a sled was the fateful March 18 trip to Eleazars cabin. This last experience so destroyed me that I nearly swore off the notion of dragging a sled ever again. These resolutions never last, but selective memory did help me forget the level of strenuousness, especially in uneven, soft, and entirely uphill trail conditions.
We had Colorado Creek cabin a second night, so our Dec. 23 plan was a day trip up the nonexistent Big Bend trail, climbing a wide and weather-exposed ridge. The wind here blows incessantly, so even if a trail was broken, it would be gone the next day. We packed slightly lighter sleds — carrying most of our gear as a safety buffer, but leaving the food behind — and hiked into the slowly awakening dawn.
Windchill, on the other hand, is sinister in its razor precision. It can cut into even the tightest protections, and finds every weakness in one's system. Wind pulls warmth away from the body constantly. If one doesn't have the energy to continuously regenerate core heat, it becomes more troubling much more quickly than similar ambient temperatures. I've never been comfortable in subzero windchill, although I can manage it with care.
It's still early in the winter, and I was lax about my care. My experience is rusty, and I need to re-learn these lessons all over again. I'd neglected to put on goggles. With my hat pulled all the way down and wind-proof buff pulled up to my eyelashes, I could barely see through the thin slit but still ended up with a frostnip scab on my right cheek. Beat with his wolverine fur ruff wasn't comfortable, either. He's spent long blocks of time in ambient temperatures near -50F, and still agrees with me that windchill is worse.
When we returned to the cabin, we were surprised to see our friend Eric. He had told us he might come out, but he was also sick with a cold, and trail conditions had not been all that conducive to fun biking. But he loaded up his panniers and rode out anyway, and we had a fun night of low-level cabin partying with ice cream cones, a big bottle of Fireball and more warm mush in bags.
