Getting Stuck x3

Middle School Basketball had the district tournament in Kotzebue last weekend. We went there on Thursday and came back on.... Wednesday. We barely squeaked into Kotzebue before the weather went down. School canceled on Friday and so did the games. The whole tournament was played on Saturday. We were supposed to fly home on Sunday, but it was still stormy. The weather partially cleared on Monday, but went down before our flight left. Same song, second verse on Tuesday. On Wednesday we were scheduled to leave 10 am, then I got a call right after we finished packing our things up to, "Get ready, we are sending you out ASAP due to another incoming storm." We made it into Noatak on the same plane that the varsity girls were heading down to Kotzebue on a day ahead of schedule because another storm was scheduled to hit. 

After a few days rest we thought it would be a good day to try running the long trapline as a family. We were wrong. The trail had been covered with snow and was difficult to maintain. The snow off the trail was now 4 feet deep instead of 2 feet. That meant that machines slanted off the trail easily. Instead of being able to keep driving and blaze a new trail the snow was up the the windshield. We made it to the trail beginning without too much trouble. Then as I was leading I went too far ahead. I stopped and waited for Kayla for a bit, but she never appeared. I decided to do a 10 point turn around on the narrow trail. Just when I got turned around she came around the corner, so I had do the 10 point turn again. This time, feeling overconfident from already making the turn once, I figured I could make a 6 point turn. Nope. Ski caught on willows while backing up, track buried in to the running boards, and unable to lift the backend of the Widetrak because it is so heavy. Unloaded the machine, dug out the sides, and cut willows to make a "ramp" out. 30 minutes later we were unstuck, sweating heavily, and rethinking our idea to check all of the traps. "Maybe we should just build a fire and cook hot dogs?" Thumbs up to that idea. We still had to get to a good opening to turn around.

We made it to a turnaround without any major excavation undertakings, but still a couple of minor ones. We build a fire under a blowdown in an empty creek bed. Cooked and ate hotdogs, drank tea, and decided that next time I would have to break the trail all the way before going trapping as a family. On the way home we took the scenic route through the back creeks. I made Kayla powder ride without passengers to let her get a feel for the machine in deep snow. It's not that it won't go in deep snow. It just reacts a whole lot differently.