another dispatch that never made it to print

From the Serum Run ski, Ned and Andy, this time of year, a few years back . . .

WHITE MOUNTAIN–We did it! We waxed our skis!

     With 77 miles remaining to Nome, we took an opportunity to drench our bases with hot wax at the White Mountain School (home of the wolves). White Mountain is another lovely Seward Peninsula village, this one perched on a hillside above the Fish River. As I type this, the late light of spring is tinting the snow on the river blue.

     I just took a late walk around the snowmachine-packed streets of White Mountain. I wanted to see the groomed ski trails on the east end of town. They look awesome winding smoothly through spruce trees, but I'm just not in the mood for a 5-K loop right now. It's neat to see cross-country ski tracks in the village. Every school on the Bering Sea coast has a rack with skis in it, but White Mountain is the first place we've seen skiers.

     I also took the stroll around town to check out the old cabins, wave to people in fur hats, get barked at by dogs, and soak up the atmosphere of the last village we'll visit before hitting Nome. I'll miss this traveling life.

     Andy and I plan to get into Nome in two more days. Tomorrow, we'll ski 28 miles to a public cabin at Topkok Head, about 50 miles from the burled arch on Nome's Front Street. Day after tomorrow, we'll try to punch it in. Most of our joints are still working, so we should be up to it. Plus, we just added glide wax to our skis, the first such care and feeding since the night before I left. Though our skis have performed without glide wax for the last 22 of the 24 days of this trip, I can't help thinking we'll do a little better with wax. I remember removing my former wax with the following non-snow items: dirt, for a few miles near the Yuki River; rocks, in the Blueberry Hills outside Unalakleet; dog manure, from skiing behind the Serum Run and Iditarod mushers; and mysterious briney snow on the sea ice, caused by overflow of salt water. That last one is the most frustrating; the snow looks fast, but it rides like sand and makes you eat lots of cookies.

     Despite the need to ski over many items with high coefficients of friction, this trip has featured some excellent days. We skated here all the way from Golovin today. We haven't shuffled since retreating to Shaktoolik in the wind and drifts one week ago (we have a patent pending for our "Hack-a-Shak" technique). I was afraid this trip could feature day after day of death marches, but I only remember one, the second day out of Nenana, when we walked on skis into Old Minto through a cold headwind and annoying drifts. If a road existed into Old Minto, I would pulled on my down booties and hitchhiked back to Fairbanks. But this trip has taken me places I didn't think it would. Good places inside myself that I haven't visited in awhile. It'll be great to get to Nome, but I'll be sad to stop, too. I'm glad there's no road to Old Minto.