Thursday, February 7, 2013

Stampede Ride

Went out for a ride on the Stampede Trail recently with our friends, Bruce and Bonni!  What beautiful country in general and always a treat, but in the winter....awwwwwesome!  Such easy travel over the snow covered tundra and frozen rivers.  You can see all the recent animal activity and the entire landscape sparkles all around you!





Quick stop just to make sure everyone is good.
Bruce in the lead.
Bonni bringing up the rear.
About 10 miles out, we reached an open area and something broke on our machine.  All of a sudden we had no steering.
Upon inspection, Bruce and Andrew discovered a tie-rod had broken.  Not a bad place for a breakdown though....notice the Big Mountain in the background (above Bruce's head) which is about 70 miles away.



 Denali stands tall and clear today!  Bonni and I wished we would have brought lawn chairs and the bbq.
 The machine fix...a spruce tree!  If it was just Andrew and I out there by ourselves, I don't know if we would have ever figured out a great fix like that or if we would have ended up walking home.  But Bonni immediately said, "get the ax and chop a tree down."  Just like they had done it a million times, when in reality they have done it more than a few times.  For true Alaskans, its just another day on the trail.  
 Andrew and Bruce pooling spare parts to fasten the small spruce tree to both skies.  With this crutch we were able to drive the machine back home.  We were so fortunate to have had this happen with two very experienced Alaskans.  However, before we headed home we all hopped their two machines and rode out to the Savage River for lunch.
 We crossed the river upstream from here where it was completely frozen over, then rode down to the area where the summer trail crosses the river.  It was still open down there.

 Nearby there was a snow bridge that we ended up crossing to make a loop back to our snow machine.
 Andrew and Bruce on the other side of the river.
 Heading home.

Great trail!
What a fun day!  Hope to do it again soon!  There is so much to explore out there.

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