Tuesday, March 19 – We got an early start after a hearty breakfast and headed out onto the ice. There’s something purely mysterious about traveling over frozen salt water. Imagine the forces of nature needed for that phenomena to occur. The ice around Elim was said to be about five feet thick and heavily traveled but I just kept imagining that stuff waving like a ribbon in a breeze. We loved traveling fast on the smooth flat trail, Rohn in lead, his yellow helmet a little dot on the horizon. At one point those precious orange topped stakes just disappeared and Rohn came to a sudden halt. The morning fog had engulfed us as we rounded Moses Point making the ice even more ominous than before. Martin zoomed to the lead and there we were going from stake to stake at a quick clip. During those times, we know on an intellectual level the ice is safe, but the idea of lots of water under us looms in my head. I was so happy to get to the trail along the beach evidenced by beach grass sticking up through the ice.

We stopped in Koyuk but couldn’t go into the main school as they were taking mandated standardized tests. We went to the Early Chilhood Program and had a blast with the little kids. Of course, I felt right at home. The little guys wanted to know what kind of snow machines we were driving. It became apparent to the boys that snow machines are like bicycles. It’s just how folks get around and everyone has one, old and young alike some fancy and some barely moving.

After a fun time in Koyuk, which by the way, is the northern most point on the Iditarod trail and pointed out to us by the locals as a little know fact, there we were again heading onto the sea ice to Shaktoolik only this time it would be about 35 miles straight out. With clear sunny skies, Rohn zipped out ahead to set the pace again. After about 20 miles out with nothing on the horizon but blue sky and ice, Rohn comes to a sudden stop again. I had noticed the same change at the same time and became somewhat anxious but since I’d traveled in the desert I knew what it was…water mirages. The reflection of the ice appears a darker blue above and below the horizon and you get this feeling that something is different and even though the immediate area is frozen, it looks like there could be large pools of water ahead and we sure didn’t want to encounter that. Nothing rational about it but your mind can play tricks.

Martin took the lead again and we flew over the ice to Lonely Rock, which is a group of rocks that jut out into Norton Bay. It’s also the spot where Libby Riddles spent the night in a blizzard while everyone else hung out in Shaktoolik in the cozy shelter. It’s the place where she changed clothes in her sled bag and got up the next morning to take the lead in the race and become the first woman to win the Iditarod.. I really always wanted to see that spot only now it was, thankfully, sunny and calm. We followed the beach trail for 18 miles to Shaktoolik.

About 3 miles from town, we could make out an unnatural shape along the trail. You can see things from a long way away so you have a lot of time to try to figure out what things are. I had no idea but when we got there we found Palmer Sagoonick, lounging on his snowmachine waiting to guide us into town. Palmer had just completed his second Iditarod and was back in town already.

We immeditaley went to the school where everyone had gathered in a pep rally type affair. Martin had been to Shatoolik as the graduation speaker many years before and has always enjoyed the village spirit there. People were so excited and welcoming. They even wanted autographs from Nikolai and Rohn and I. Rohn ended up outside on his snowmachine as the crowd was a bit overwhelming.

Palmer had us over for a lunch. While we were there, a friend of Palmer’s called and heard we were heading down the trail and wondered if we could bring him some muktuk in Nikolai. So we loaded up with muktuk, which is whale’s skin with fat on it. I knew we wouldn’t starve now.

One of my biggest shocks was looking over the snow berm on one side of town and seeing open blue water. Yep the ice had gone out a long time ago on that side of the spit. So we left another warm friendly village and traveled along the beach trail with ice and sand on one side and open sea on the other.

We began a long ride up and over the blueberry hills to get to Unalakleet. The hills started out pretty snowy but as we gained elevation we found lots of bare ground as the warm spring sun had melted the southern facing slope of the hills. This was our first, but not last, encounter with driving on high tundra with close brush encroaching into the trail. It was pretty fun as the view of the ocean on one side and the snowy mountains on the other was so different than anything we had seen. This is sometimes a place where thousands of caribou travel. We didn’t see any.

We arrived in Unalakleet at dinner time and were invited to Jeff and Donna Erickson’s for a spread fit for kings. We ate heartily and enjoyed visiting with friends we had know from Nome and town. Donna and Jeff have five boys so we had lots of notes to compare. Our boys even got some time on the computer playing games their boys had. Donna had baked two loaves of fresh bread and Rohn and Nikolai ate almost a loaf alone. We indulged in Donna’s tundra cranberry pie, the best berry pie ever, before heading out for the Tripod Flats cabin about 50+ miles from UNC (airplane abbreviation for Unalakleet).

Jeff and his son Austen would ride out part of the way with us. I’m so happy they did because the Unalakleet River was glare ice with water on top and few markers to be seen as they had been knocked down by so much local traffic. Jeff got us into the hills without much skimachining (water skiing over ice on overflow) at all.

The portage from Unalakleet to Kaltag is basically a high pass. The trail was smooth and Rohn and Nikolai disappeared into a bright snowy night. I could catch a glimpse of headlights every now and then. When the trail made a deviation through the trees they’d stop and wait up for us.

We all took a break at the Old Woman Cabin where some folks were camping. We went in and read the guest book from many years past. Jeff and Austen headed back to UNC and we were set to go on to camp at the BLM cabin at Tripod Flats. Martin stopped to leave the old woman some food, so did Rohn and I promptly ran into the back of his machine not anticipating his long stop to pay tribute to the ghost legend in the area. No major damage to any machine but I owe Trina a new bumper when we get home. The machine already had a bandaid there as she had done a similar move weeks earlier near Big Lake.