Permafrost outreach 2009

Today was a big travelling day, both for us and the Iditarod mushers. We were heading down and they were coming up river from Anvik. Since we had to travel 160 miles, we were anxious to hit the trail before noon. But first we waited for the gas station to open up.



Meanwhile Kaltag was getting busier with people and activities. The early arrivals were stting up their make shift sleeping areas in the school gym and foreign reporters were out on the streets filming and intervieweing people. After we said good by to Mike and Jake at the school, we were on th trail by 11:00.






We came accross the current leader, Jeff King, right at Eagle Island, which is a check point for the race. It was 50 miles out of Kaltag in the middle of no where, but a good place to take a break and out of the wind for the mushers. The second musher, Martin Buser, was right behind Jeff King coming out of Eagle Island.





Although there were some winds, and we passed through a brief white out of blowing snow, it didn't feel as bad as it was just a couple of days ago. But that was only because it was a strong tail wind. All the mushers facing the wind looked like they were really having a tough time. I guess the dogs had it the roughest, now that I think about it. The wind was slowing them down and the ice crystals were hitting them in the face as they were mushing on.




Most of the musher were waving or asking how far it was to Eagle Island, but for others the wind seemed to be too much to even lift their heads. One after another, every half an hour or so, we saw another musher pass by.

Couple of hours later around 3:00 we arrived in Grayling. This was another check station and maybe a few mushers were resting there. We just got gas and hurried our way down the river. It would be best to reach Shageluk before dark, especially going through wooded areas.

Anvik was only an hour away from Grayling. The trail to Shageluk braches off from the Yukon River to a narrower on-land trail. Although this section was not that long, it was probably the most intense and tireing section of this trip, with very tight corners with bumps and most of all, very narrow. We came accross one snow machine with a load of fire wood, and it was lucky that we were able to pass each other. Another lucky thing was that we didn't see any mushers along this part of the trail. That could have been a near disaster as well.

As we got closer to Shageluk the trail was going through tusuks, and probably because of the low snow this year, it was very hard packed and bumpy, so hard that it was basically ice.




Around 6:30 we drove into Shageluk. The village was busy with allm the mushers coming in and resting, may be about 10 teams.
We are a little wore out from the trip, and now we rest. Tomorrow we plat to drill here.