I always love Cantwell in March, the weather is usually starting to get warmer and the snow is fluffy and soft. We headed down on Friday the 20th for the Backwoods Lodge, Mike and Kathy are the best of host and always treat us well. This year they were swamped and out of rooms, but we got our regular which was good or I’d of had to drive another 45 miles to Byers Lake, also a good riding area, but it wasn’t on my schedule, at least not this weekend.

So Tyler, Trish and I got checked in and ready for a great weekend. I got up early Saturday morning and let Tyler sleep in a bit while I double checked our gear and had some coffee. The schedule was to meet folks at the Killer Smoke Café, the only place to eat that was still open in Cantwell, have breakfast, and decide where to ride and head out. When Tyler and I got there the wind was howling, the wind chill was way cold and I wasn’t so sure about riding, but after eating we all decided to go up the Jack River to Caribou Lakes and see what M...

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What a beautiful day for my final ride of the season. Yup, I said final ride for the season, I know there is lots of snow on the ground still, but it''s melting fast and the rivers and creeks are starting to show open leads.

We started this morning with a great breakfast at Chatanika Lodge (not a surprise there) and then headed up to 42 mile Steese Hwy, off loaded and headed out. This was not a scheduled FST club, but a "hey were not going to Arctic Man, lets go to the White Mountains" and so we did. When we left Chatanika Lodge the temp was around 25 above, the sun was up and already generating some heat, so we knew it would be a warm day, and we weren''t disappointed.

We rode up the hill from the 42 mile parking lot to the information sign about 5 miles in. From here we ''pow wowed'' as to just were to go. Our general direction was towards Cache Creek Cabin and Windy Gap, but we didn''t make it . About 4 miles before the Cache Creek Cabin you connect with the trail...

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So the Iron Dog is about half done already. From what I've read and heard it was one of the toughest races for the racers. Little to no snow in places and rough as a cob to boot.

As of this AM, 13 of the 29 Pro Class teams have scratched for one reason or another. Either mechanical issues or injuries. I just hope no one gets hurt to bad.

Mike, the mechanic at Darby's came in third in the Rec Class, not bad for Rookie on his first Iron Dog Race.... Good show Mike.

My plans for the weekend were changed do to unforeseen circumstances, and since I already had the sleds loaded to go, why waste a nice sunny day with snow on the ground.

So my neighbor Jake, along with Tyler and I headed out to the flats via the ice bridge at the end of Cushman St. and enjoyed a good 50 mile ride. We started by going up to Clear Creek Butte, headed southwest from there and cut trail back to the ice bridge and made a good loop.

The sun was out most of time and the snow was pristine, most of the time. We rode down to the Intertie and didn’t see a soul until we got close to the river. At this point we also started seeing more tracks and what trails there were did become hard packed and well used.

But hey, as you can see in the photos below, there were lots of open fields with untouched powder. Seems folks like to come up the slough from the Tanana and didn’t do much riding to southeast of there, thanks all, I really appreciate you leaving me all those open fields of pow...

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The Trail of 98
By Darrell Bohn
On Saturday March 21 Bob Hoxie and I drove from Fairbanks Alaska north 160 miles to Circle City. We got started on the trail at 1PM. The first engine check found the radiator cap leaking on my 440 LC Polaris. Failing to stop the leak we dropped the sleds 30 miles out of Circle and headed back to Circle for a cap but of course there weren’t any caps in Circle. We drove back to Fairbanks arriving at 5 PM.

Unable to get a radiator cap from the dealer I stopped by Telford's Toy Shop. Bob Telford was unavailable but Edna, Bob’s wife told me I could call Sunday morning and Bob would get me on the snow again. At 7:30 Sunday morning I’m on the phone to Telford's and Bob is in and ready to help. I got the cap and gave the machine a test run. Hoxie and I are off to Circle again at 08:30 AM.

Arrive Circle at 12:00 up river we go. The river is so rough this year we were forced to use sloughs, so instead of jumping ice jams we were jumping beaver dams.

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