Bill and I snowshoed today from our cabin in Chickaloon since we have 6 inches of fresh snow on the ground. The temperature today was 20 F, it felt really warm, I just needed my base layer to stay warm hiking up the hill. Just two days ago it was -20 F. We had planned to go out to the Susitna and Yentna Rivers with loaded bikes, but we had some issues with our vehicles and water when it got cold here, so we were busy with fixing those problems and didn't get to go. That was during the latest cold spell and I had been so exited to go when it was really cold. Oh, well, cabin life. Today made up for it, we saw a lot of moose tracks on the trail, it is part of the Matanuska moose range and often on our snowshoe days I have seen several "moose beds" in the snow where they actually bed down to sleep in the snow. Those animals make a lot of heat, amazing the hard crust they leave in a depression in the snow. Well, on one of our bivis I had found the same thing under my Zrest sleeping pad and thought it was time to get a new one after dozens of times of sleeping out. I have used the same pad summer and winter for all of our trips for five years. Amazing the difference with my new Zrest.
Both days we also saw some fox and martin tracks out there.
Castle Mountain was glowing red when we got near the top.
I fell pretty lucky to live here and have this wilderness playground right in our backyard without driving anywhere or ever crossing a road.
With the fresh snow it will be a while before we can ride our bikes again.
Hopefully after this weekend and some snowmachine traffic we can hit the Iditarod Trail again.
Kathi
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