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We had such a good time skiing skiing in the Trapper Creek area last weekend, that we headed two hours north again this weekend for an overnight trip. The red on this map is where we skied. The X is approximately where we camped. The yellow lines show
Date: 03/28/2005
Views: 1010
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The East-West Express trail was in great shape for skating. Packed powder conditions and very few snowmobiles. We saw probably 20 snowmobiles on Saturday and zero on Sunday. In the woods, the trail got bumpy and chewed up, but in the open areas (there
Date: 03/26/2005
Views: 847
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We put most of the gear in a sled, which I hauled. Sometime soon I hope to build a sled specifically for hauling gear like this. But I haven't come up with a design, or the time to build it yet, so for now I had to juryrig this setup.
Date: 03/26/2005
Views: 804
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I pulled the sled by attaching a ski pole to my CamelBak pack with a carabiner. Then attached the other end of the ski pole to the sled with a bungee cord. It worked really well, except for one downhill where things got a little out of control and I had
Date: 03/26/2005
Views: 1124
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The East-West Express is a great trail with beautiful views in nearly all directions. It was a cloudy day, but we still caught peeks of the Alaska Range, the Talkeetnas, and the Chucach mountains. We decided to set up camp at the high point of the East-W
Date: 03/26/2005
Views: 783
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Here Linda is packing down a platform for the tent with her skis. We also dug a kitchen in the snow nearby. The kitchen was basically a hole in the snow about 8 feet long, 6 feet wide, and 3 feet deep. We built a bench on one side to sit on and a bench
Date: 03/26/2005
Views: 785
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Once the camp was set up, it was time for a few photos of the place.
Date: 03/26/2005
Views: 824
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Date: 03/26/2005
Views: 779
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Date: 03/26/2005
Views: 728
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Date: 03/26/2005
Views: 537
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After camp was set up, I wanted to explore some of the other trails in the area. So I headed down the East-West trail another 2 miles to a four-way intersection called Reflector Tree.
Date: 03/26/2005
Views: 519
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At Reflector Tree, I headed north on the Safari Lake trail. On the way to Safari Lake I passed through this area called Pondarosa. It is basically just a pond with a couple of cabins on it.
Date: 03/26/2005
Views: 503
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Here is a view of Peter's Hills from the Safari Lake Trail.
Date: 03/26/2005
Views: 505
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A shot of a creek just to show how much snow they still have in this area. My estimate was about 6 feet of snow.
Date: 03/26/2005
Views: 595
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It was cloudy the whole night, so we didn't get any aurora displays. This was the only moment all night that we could see a few stars. The next morning, we awoke to a dusting of fresh snow. I did another short ski, this time to Cat Ballou's cabins, the
Date: 03/26/2005
Views: 677
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