There were quite a few things I didn't mention in the previous post. I tried to condense as much information as I could but it still was the longest post I've written. So much happened not only on the first day, our quest to get to One fish lake, but every day after that. And trying to keep the timeline straight even with the trip still fresh in my head is difficult.
First, when we pulled into the area where Travis has his property we were greeted by his neighbor, who either heard us coming or was just out for a walk. The plots of land are about 5 acres in size and Travis' neighbor's land is actually about a 15 minute walk away. He was quite a character and has been living mostly off the land for the last 35 years, needless to say he was a little, "off." After we were able to free ourselves, as politely as we could, from his rambling conversation I said to Travis, "yikes!" Travis went on to say he'd come across a lot of other bushman and this guy Gordon wasn't that bad. We both came to the conclusion that Gordon was more concerned about people messing with his stuff than going around and looting other people's belongings. So Travis and I were fairly confident we wouldn't have to worry about him messing with anything on Travis' property.
The next day while we were making our way through the subdivision after the power line trail, we came across a guy that was out setting traps for Marten and Lynx. His name was Jeff, and Travis discovered that they both new some of the same people! This was Jeff's first year giving trapping a go and already had a few Lynx to show for it. He told us that up the trail a ways there were some fresh Grizzly tracks and when he saw them he ran back to his place to grab his .357 magnum. To us that was great news, we told him, that's what were looking for! Meeting Jeff was great, he was a far cry from Gordon and a little more down to earth.
After our nice chat with the trapper Jeff, we continued up the trail and found the Grizz tracks he spoke of. They happened to go right down the trail we were going on. We stopped to inspect them for a moment and I compared them to my very large Pac boots I had on and each paw print was about the same size as my boot! "Keep your eyes peeled." Travis said. And I got my handgun repositioned so I could grab it right away if need be.
I had borrowed a very large rifle from a friend in Fairbanks, a .45-70, but both that and Travis' .30-30 were packed away in one of the sleds we were towing. Travis also had his handgun strapped to his waist so if we ran into trouble we were hoping the two guns together would get us by.
I have some pics of the .45-70 and the round it fires. It is the same caliber as my handgun but the slug is 405 grain versus my 230 grain pistol round! It is pretty much the equivalent of using a 12 gauge shotgun and that's what it feels like when you shoot it! The only reason I brought it was for protection and as soon as we got to the lake cabin it was never out of reach.
The Grizzly tracks continued on down the trail and when we got to our turn off, to head to the Teklanika river, they stayed on our previous trail and led off somewhere up a hill side. We stopped and talked for a minute. Travis was thinking that if we strike out at the Toklat springs area, our destination in a couple days, we'd come back and follow these tracks.
As soon as we veered off from the Grizzly tracks onto the unbroken trail the real work began. As I had mentioned the trail was very uneven and the going was very slow. That also meant I spent more time with my face in the snow, from getting thrown off, with Buster in my arms, than on the machine. And with the trail being so narrow we also got hung up on a lot of trees and had to get off the machine, dig out the bow saw and hatchet to open up the trail. So if we weren't getting thrown off the machine we were cutting trail and that eventually led to a 2 mile per hour average according to my GPS!
The rough going was somewhat expected since we were the first ones on the trail for the season and there wasn't a whole lot of snow on the ground. So we tried to keep our heads up and just battle through it.
After crossing the Teklanika river we had hoped the last 5 miles would be a little easier but it was more of the same. At that point we had to get the chainsaw out of the sled several times to remove lots of large trees that had come down over the trail.
By the time we were a mile away from the lake it was completely dark and Travis was having a hard time finding the right trail. After a couple of wrong turns we had to resort to the "elder in a box," my GPS, to get back on track. Not only being slightly lost but having to deal with those nasty tussocks and getting tossed off the machine made that the longest mile I had ever experienced! Little did I know that this was just the beginning, what lay ahead, after the cabin, actually gets worse!
And to add insult to injury somewhere from the arctic to Travis' property I picked up a cold. It was sapping all my energy and was pretty much making my life on the trail completely miserable. Oh boy, "I sure hope we get something for this." Is all that was going through my head.
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