A Snowy Walk in the Wilderness

I know it's been a while since my last post. Sorry about that! I've been super busy at work and haven't been able to take many free runs, so I usually don't take my camera out unless I'm riding for a couple hours at a time. Now that the holidays are over, I should get to go out and ride a bit more, and hopefully have some awesome photos to share.

Yesterday was our first day off in what feels like forever. My plan was to sleep in, stay in my pj's all day, and not do a damn thing. But what happened? I was up, wide awake at 5:30AM, which is when I normally wake up for work. I tried to go back to sleep, but it just wasn't happening. Our friend Jake invited us to go on a hike, and since our original plan of having a lazy day wasn't really working, we figured we might as well do something in the great outdoors.

I've been fascinated by the Dan Moller cabin ever since I first learned about it. The hike up there was supposed to be pretty easy and only take a couple hours, so we decided to check it out. Well... that didn't exactly go as planned either! Even though the days are getting longer now, it still gets dark around 4PM, and we didn't get our feet on the trail until around 2PM. Instead, we just hiked as far as we could with the daylight we had to work with, but it was still a gorgeous stroll in the snow.

The snow was pretty deep, but the trail was decently packed down. Occasionally I wouldn't be paying attention and step off the trail, making me sink down way past my knees in the snow. We almost brought snowshoes but decided not to at the last minute. After a few minutes up the trail we were all wishing we had them. 

A guy on a snowmobile passed us, which just made me want a sled really bad all over again. Those things look like so much fun! We ended up only about a mile away from the Dan Moller cabin when we decided to turn back. We had flashlights, but being out in the Alaskan wilderness without a gun after dark wasn't a very comforting feeling. 

Next week when we are off work, I definitely want to hike the entire trail and check out the cabin. I've heard it stays rented out pretty steadily during the winter, but hopefully we'll catch it on a day when nobody is there and we can check it out. 

Here are a few photos from our short little snowy walk...