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Tuesday, February 16, 2016

On the Yukon Quest Trail near Carmacks and a dog sled racer coming into town

Out on the ice on the river where the trail leaves Carmacks and heads out to Coal Mine lake. Trail leaves the Rec Centre and heads under the bridge and back onto the river.



On the trail just past Coal Mine Lake, narrow and not a lot of snow, not great skiing at all.


Apparently this musher is local, from Tagish down by Carcross. This checkpoint is about three quarters of the way of the 800km race. Dogs all have booties on, which come off all the time and are picked up by locals on the track and use them on their dogs lol

Friday, February 12, 2016

Down towards Atlin

Went to check out some of the easier to access ice down towards Atlin after breaking trail to the climbs across the lake past Carcross the previous day. Early morning fog over the lake and some ice to boulder on at road side. Short 20m grade 2 ish at the White Mtn. trailhead had plastic ice even though the AM temps were in the minus teens whereas Whitehorse was around zero. A fair amount of driving for not a lot of ice, nice views though.


Some road side ice to play on - until the pillar cracked, then I set up a rope. Apparently in some years this will fill right in and be 30m wide, this spot is the cover shot of the now outdated ice guide.



Thursday, February 11, 2016

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Mount Nansen area west of Carmacks

The Nansen road is plowed in the winter and gives access to the old mine site, some placer mines, some heritage and trailheads. Went out for a ski a few weeks back. Low snow conditions on a prospecting cutline that lead up to a hill top that was cairned and had a whiskey bottle for the summit register. The paper was frozen into the neck of the bottle so no getting it out, which speaks to the integrity of the bottle's seal.
Variable snow down the west side allowed for some cautious turns, missing most, not all, of the rocks under the thin snowpack. Saw two moose on the way up , who watched me for a while before heading through a low pass and down to tree line






some evening light on the frost / snow covered trees on the way back down to town. Lots of inversion here with temps easily ten and sometimes fifteen degrees warmer than in the valley by the river.