From the Facebook page yesterday. Looks like 300 miles to go!
I made it from Galena to Kaltag yesterday. Mixed feelings about leaving the Yukon River behind. It can be tough, but it's so unique too.
Hopefully tomorrow I'll see the Bering Sea. It's always cool to see it. I think it'll be especially so this time. It feels like I left the Gulf of Alaska a year ago, or as part of some other trip.
Since I've whined about all the bad trail and weather I figure I need to acknowledge the other side of that coin. Yesterday was beautiful!! Cool, maybe between -15 and +5 or so, brilliant blue sky, light winds. There was some minor intermittent drifting but for the most part the trail was good. The last 20 miles into Kaltag saw a sidewalk trail and a tailwind, and the most beautiful two hour long twilight you can imagine. It felt like after kicking my butt for 9 or so days the trail finally gave me an 'attaboy' and a pat in the back.
Hoping
Heather shows up here soon so we can get rolling. She'll be with me for however much longer this thing lasts.
One last 'incident' that I can report now that I'm off the river. About 2am the night I left Bible Camp I ended up in some overflow. Like WAY into some overflow. Me and half my bike in 28" of water on the Yukon. I don't think there is a Type-(blank) fun to describe that situation. It's the proverbial shit sandwich.
There was about two seconds of "I'm gonna die" type panic. Which I think is the correct response. About 17 seconds of assorted f-bombs, and five minutes of dealing with it. Luckily it was about 30 degrees. I got hiking as fast as I could. Within about 20 minutes I knew I was gonna be uncomfortable for a while, but I wasn't in any danger.
For scale, that was about the third toughest day I had on the river.
I didn't want to put that out there until I was off the river. I figured if my mom found out she wouldn't sleep until I was off it for good. It happened like 5 or 7 days ago. That'd be a long time for her to go without sleep.