A very satisfying day, indeed

The mountain in the front yard: Pioneer Peak.

And, a beautiful fall day, too, the first clear sunshiny day in quite some time, perfect for one of those Alaska adventures. Snow on the mountain has been late this year.  Only Wednesday, when the sky cleared enough to see, there was just a sprinkle of white at the very peak. That's about a month late for termination dust.

Today when I looked up heading out the driveway, a good cover of snow looked like it came down to about the 4,000 foot level.  That mountain is 6,300 feet tall and it looks like the snow came down about one-third of the height.

In addition to the mountain here, for most of the trip I could see Mount McKinley resplendent in the sunshine as well; it is part of the scenery that makes life a little calmer the farther north I go.

I made a quick trip to the East Pole today to retrieve some items needed here, principal among them, the 16-pound maul I need to split the remaining huge rounds of birch.  With all the rain lately the trip got put off again and again while I tackled those rounds with a wedge and sledge hammer.  That takes about 20 or so licks just to make the first split, hardly an efficient way to do this, not to mention the wear and tear on arms and shoulders.

With the sun high in the sky I ventured onto the trail, which it turned out was not nearly as nice as the day. but the sun has a way of smoothing out the bumps. All told, 14 miles of mud,  standing water and deeply rutted, hard-packed mud. I have never bottomed out the four-wheeler more in one trip as I hit moguls, some I couldn't even see because they were covered by muddy water. The trail is taking a beating these days, what with someone running four-wheeler tours on it, and today I learned several people with cabins in the area are now using those raised, mud-bogger pickup trucks to go in and out.  They are much higher off the ground so when they spin their tires in the mud they dig deep enough to raise the center above four-wheeler level. At one point I came as close as I ever have to tipping over in one of those lakes. Thanks, neighbors.

I even stopped for a while to catch up with an old friend whom I hadn't seen in many years. He built his cabin a year before I built mine, 28 years ago. It seems like a much shorter time than that. We caught up for a few minutes and then went off in opposite directions to find more muddy lakes.

Despite the trail, I made it to the pole without too much trouble, though the machine and my Helly Hanson rain gear pants picked up a good coating of mud, not to mention the splashes on my face and glasses and just about everything else.

An hour on the trail and I was there, my one secure home in the world. I found everything I was looking for, including a blanket for Walter and even cut some firewood with the chainsaw. I had started cutting up a blowdown last time I was there and today finished the job. There's a nice pile of it now up the hill from the cabin where I can go get it with a sled once the snow flies.

Then, with all the needs satisfied in about an hour and a half, and the cabin checked out for any damage, there was none, back to the trail and the mud the blood and the beer, so to speak.  Funny how you get much more confident with the mud going out than you were coming in.

Then an easy drive home listening to softer music than usual, just feeling a sort of satisfaction with life after quite an upsetting week.

Here is a link to the Spot track for the trip.  The actual trail to the cabin is the short track off to the right at the north end.  It can be enlarged quite a bit. The longer curved track is the road trip involved. A click on any of the little flags will give a position for the signal at that moment. The black bubbles with a footprint are trail position signals sent at intervals automatically, the ones with the three curved lines are check-in points and the one toward the bottom with a text bubble in it is the message I send when I am leaving to say when I'm going and when I expect to be back. A click on any of the items in the list on the left makes the specific spot flash for a second.  The ones that say check, are times when I sent a message to my daughter that all was all right.  The ones that say track are signals sent at intervals while I am moving. That long straight line happened because I didn't start tracking until I got to the trail, so it gave a track straight from the house to the trail head as those were the only two signals sent during that part of the trip.  Some day this could all  become very important, but for now it is just fun to watch.  

Unfortunately I set it to post my check-ins on Twitter, so about every 10 items on my feed there is one that says:

"Tim Jones ‏‪@tjonesak

7h(ours ago)

‪http://fms.ws/DwmVd  Everything OK"

I need to do something about that. Giving that feed a look a little later, I discovered the link that is attached to the feed actually opens a map with that specific spot identified.  This particular one marks the trailhead. Maybe I can think of something a little more interesting to put into the message that shows up on Twitter.  I can't change it on the go; it has to be done on the computer ahead of time.

And a result:  With all that wrenching the four-wheeler around in the ruts and moguls of 14 miles of trail I am so stiff and sore, I doubt I'll be swinging that 16-pound maul any time soon.  Still a bit of physical soreness adds to the feeling of satisfaction after a good day in the woods.