I wrote this almost a year ago as an article for an Alaskan Magazine. But seeing as it still hasn’t been published, I have decided to just share it here! Enjoy!
The Alaska Mountain Wilderness Ski Classic.
Galbraith Lake -> Anaktuvuk Pass -> Wiseman
Day 1 “WTF am I doing?”:
The potato gun fired and the Alaska Mountain Wilderness Ski Classic began. I showed off my World Cup racing experience by taking three steps and falling into the soft snow face first. With over 60 pounds of weight on my back I was helpless, unable to move until my teammates David Apperson and Gil Carr hauled me out between fits of laughter. Despite the hilarity it wasn’t a great start, there was a blizzard so bad some entrants had opted to stay in the vans and not even begin. It was -7 F, the wind was strong enough to push skis across the parking lot, and visibility was limited to twenty or thirty yards.
After being pulled out of the snow, I’ll admit I thought “oh boy, is this how it’s going to be? Floundering in powder for 8 days?” Pushing that thought aside I jumped in the ski tracks behind my team. This was no place to second guess my decision.
The race was split into two fields, one contingent chose the East side of the Dalton Highway a route that would take them through Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and along the Chandalar River. Our team was in the other contingent which chose the West side of the highway, through the Gates of the Arctic National Park.
For the rest of the day we hunched our shoulders and skied headlong into the blizzard. We were racing north of the Arctic Circle with three other teams: a team of two, a team of three and, perhaps the strongest team, a group of four sturdy men who had an impressive ability to charge through deep snow. We all took it in turns breaking trail through deep powder, leaning into the harsh wind whipping down from the North Pole. The snowpack was incredibly unstable, with whumpfing occurring all around us.
Due to the rampant avalanche danger we quickly decided to change from our original route of crossing Peregrine Pass towards the village of Anaktuvuk Pass. Instead we decided to opt for a longer but safer route, staying north of the Brooks Range until we could ski down the valley to Anaktuvuk Pass. The benefit was sticking together in a larger group, meaning all the teams could work together breaking trail as one. The downside was being exposed to the biting Arctic wind and slogging through deep powder for days.
The storm eventually broke towards the first evening, finally allowing us to see more than just a few feet in front of ourselves. Suddenly the magnitude of what we were trying to accomplish was laid bare. To our left were huge towering mountains blasted with snow and ice. Everywhere else, a void of white. It was impossible to tell where the sky met the snow, everything just blending together in a sea of white. Only the faint trail behind us cut the smooth rolling hills, showing where we had come from.
We stopped skiing at 10:00pm on the first night to make camp. We dug a snow pit and erected our Mega Light. For those that have never had the displeasure, a Mega Light is simply a glorified, light weight tarp. There are no walls or bottom, just a roof; meaning you have to dig deep into the snow to create the walls and floor. Any gaps allow wind, and snow, to sneak its way in. A Voile strapped bundle of ski poles creates the only vertical support.
After a few dramas, including Dave exploding his freeze dried meal inside his jacket; and then proceeding to scrape said exploded meal from said pocket, we settled down for a brutal night. It was by far the windiest night of the trip, with wind worming its way in every missed crevice. Shivering and shaking all night, we lamented our exhausted camp building. At points during the night I woke shivering so violently that I slipped off my pad. It was miserable. After a sleepless night we all got up early and pushed on, skiing to warm ourselves up.
Day 2&3 “We only skied how many miles?… F@!k me…”:
With the change in route and heavy snowfalls making trail breaking arduous, our plans of reaching Anaktuvuk Pass in 2.5 days were dashed. On the third night we allowed ourselves to celebrate reaching the entrance to the Anaktuvuk River valley with a crisp high five and few spirited jokes, finally feeling like we had achieved a significant landmark in our journey. Joy quickly turned to despair though, as a closer inspection of the map revealed we were still one ridge away. It was heart breaking to know we still had so far to go. This one moment encapsulated our experience north of the Brooks Range. Extremely slow travel, hard gruelling conditions and dashed expectations. We had been trudging along the foothills of the Brooks Range for three days, continuously climbing and descending; always missing our daily travel goals.
Day 4 “Wind Tunnel from Hell”:
On the fourth day we finally made it to the halfway point, the arctic village of Anaktuvuk Pass, battling through extremely harsh winds whipping down the valley.
Here all the teams had stopped for a break, apart from us. Most folk stayed the night, some even ordering pizza. The largest group was going to continue west on a longer trip. The group of three had dropped off the pace and chosen a different route on the first day and hadn’t been seen since and the group of two were seeking medical attention due to some frostbitten toes. After a short reprieve, we headed on our way.
We skied into the mountains surrounding Anaktuvuk at 5:00pm at the balmy temperature of -35F, including windchill. The cold was so pervasive that at one point my glasses became brittle and snapped, falling off my face. We ploughed into the wind for a few more hours, until we finally were able to turn and head into the valley leading to Ernie Pass.
While in Anaktuvuk we had seriously considered not progressing on. We knew we were travelling slower than expected, and with the amount of food and fuel we had brought, we knew we would be cutting it close. However none of us were in the mindset to quit. We had all committed to the race and wanted to see it through till the end even if it meant meagre food rations.
We stopped relatively early that night, around 9:00pm. We had been told temperatures were expected to dip below -25F that night and we wanted to be well dug in. We were also exhausted from just trying to stay warm and battling the winds, each of us was quietly hurting. All of us were starting to carry injuries as well and we had the first pass of the trip to cross in the morning. We put our heads down and put in a huge effort to get the tent ready for the long, bitter night, our clothing crackling foreshadowing the deep cold to come.
The next day dawned perfect and clear. With the prospect of finally crossing into the south side of the Brooks Range we got moving early. Crossing Earnie pass Dave chose a poor line (on accident, but we still hated him for it), gaining much more elevation than necessary. We accidentally skied high up on the pass, instead of lower into the saddle. It was frustrating to burn so much extra energy but ultimately no ones fault (except Dave’s, if we’re honest). On the south side of the pass we were greeted with beautiful river ice and gorgeous sunshine. Things were finally starting to look-up. We were able to rocket along the frozen rivers, covering miles of ground. The only obstacle was convincing Gil the ice was stable and safe. Gil is a fearless ice climber but is not overly enthusiastic on the horizontal version. Towards the final hour or two we hit a small snag. The frozen rivers lower down had been covered in snow the consistency of sugar with a crust in sections slowing progress. The day ended with over 31 miles in the books and a feeling of finally being close to the finish line. Personally it was my lowest point in the trip, somewhere in the last day or so I had hurt my knee. It was starting to buckle under my weight and I had to ski with a massive limp. Walking around camp it would unexpectedly collapse on me. Eventually I was forced to crawl around with my leg locked out. The next morning I strapped it heavily and pushed on.
Day 5 “The Breakthrough”:
Our first full day on the south side dawned beautiful and bright, full of promise but quickly turned into a nightmare.
The Koyukuk river continued to be covered in deep un-packable sugar, covered by a half inch thick crust. The going was tough as we slogged/skied up to our waist in powder, only managing a mile or two every hour. As the day progressed, we kept slogging along. It was gruelling. We even put climbing skins on our skis to make trail breaking easier in the loose snow, foregoing kick wax that is much more efficient. We continued to take turns and pushed on.
Our progress was made a little easier when we finally found a week old snow machine trail. It was still punchy, but it was a much smaller sink into the snow, only a foot down compared to the two or three without it. Amazingly we weren’t the only ones following the trail. A pack of wolves were using the packed trail as well, hunting up and down the river taking advantages of game floundering in the sugary snow. Every time we lost the old trail we were able to find it again by following the wolf tracks. We came across a caribou kill at one point, the pack left few remains and I certainly kept looking over my shoulder for an hour or two.
At roughly 7 pm that same evening we came across our first major hurdle. Completely open water. The river had melted. After a bit of a debate, I suggested fording the river. Instead, we decided to bushwhack downstream through the forest until we could cross on more solid ice. We slogged through the forest and eventually came across some rotten ice and made the call to try and cross. Conditions didn’t look much better anywhere else. We all managed to cross without incident and started moving again. I tried skiing the river ice a little more, hoping it would become solid again. It didn’t. It broke under me, but I was able to avoid getting too wet by quickly spreading my weight. Only one leg fell into the river wetting my lower leg and foot.
By this point we had lost the snow machine trail and were floundering through the snow. It was a mess. Dave was ahead maybe 100 yards and Gil and I were a little behind, Gil having stopped to check I was ok. Dave began to cross the river again in a “safe looking” section, just as the whole section around him collapsed under his weight. Gil and I charged forward to help but it was like we were in quicksand, unable to move at any real speed in the deep snow. Dave fell to his waist before he was able to stop his fall. Without being able to touch the river bottom properly. David held onto the ice with his pole tips, clawing his way out of the river using his pole tips like daggers, stabbing the ice. We couldn’t do much to help. Not knowing how thick the ice was we couldn’t just rush to his aid and drag him out. Eventually David got out of the hole and I snapped a photo when we all made it to the other bank. Angry-Dave quickly put on a few more jackets and we pushed on. We reasoned that we wanted to keep his core temperature high and so David broke trail hard, pushing as hard as he could go. The idea was to make his own body-heat dry the wet clothes out and keep him warm at the same time. However we came upon another section of rotten river ice after only 5-10 more minutes of skiing. Everything was rotten and punchy. I broke through again, soaking both my lower legs just as Dave plunged through too, standing in the river up to his waist in water, not looking too pleased with his current life choices.
- Showing our support for Angry Dave, we crossed the river and waited for him to get ready.
We pushed on for a few more hours that evening. Our spirits were the lowest for the trip and for the first time since we began, there weren’t too many jokes being bandied about. We were wet, we had lost the semi packed snowmobile trail and we had not covered as many miles as we had hoped. We knew we were getting close to running out of food. That night we set up camp and David immediately set about trying to change, dry out and stay warm.
After a hot meal and a change of dry clothes, the spirits rose and the banter slowly came back. We were even able to laugh about us all getting wet. We’d all had that fear of falling in the river and it seemed we had managed to get through the tense situation.
On reflection this could have been very serious, daytime temperatures were still only in the low teens and night time mercury dipped below 0 degrees Fahrenheit.
Day 6 “The Pain Train”:
The next day quickly became another slog. Stepping up onto the crust and then having it collapse under our weight before dragging the other ski through, up and out of the crust before starting the process again. It was relentless and exhausting skiing. After 11 hours of slogging, we had travelled only 16 miles…. It was a rough day…
At 6:00pm we had reached the last of two small passes separating us from the finish in Wiseman. Our excitement was back.
We were getting off the river!
What was even more amazing was a fresh, firm snowmobile trail! Cause enough for Gil to bend down and kiss it. Finally some easy, straight forward skiing, only 25 miles of skiing left! However we were nearly out of food so we decided to go for it. I suddenly could smell the finish line and was eager to get there! I couldn’t think of anything else but finishing no matter what. We re-waxed skis and decided to charge on, suddenly with a little more spring in our step. Delay Pass was our first pass, short but steep. Too steep to ski so we boot packed up the snowmobile trail. My knee was a mess, Gil had some huge blisters on his feet, and Dave quietly hid a deep shoulder ache. We both struggled to keep our footing in the soft snow as we kicked in steps up the hill. Once on top we were greeted with amazing meadows and frozen lakes. It kept our spirits up and was beautiful to ski through. As the day slowly faded, we each took a caffeine tablet and pushed on boot packing up our final obstacle: Glacier Pass. Following the glow of our head lamps, we skied into the night. Gliding through the dark I had no concept of speed or distance. At times it felt like we were flying and at other times standing still.
At 2:00am, with only a few more miles until the finish, the northern lights began to dance across the sky and we stopped to take in the amazing show of green light rippling across the sky. It was a perfect way to end the trip and complete our goal.
As we skied into Wiseman, the finish of the race we saw the parking lot was empty, apart from our car and one other. It baffled us that the other teams on the ANWR side had been so strong that they had had enough time to come back to Wiseman, shower, eat, sleep and leave. We were a little disappointed to be finishing last or second to last, but we were so ecstatic to be finished, that in the end it didn’t matter to us, “We probably had more fun than them anyway,” Gil stated in a tired but merry voice.
We all crossed the bridge, the ‘finish line’, with the northern lights dancing above.
We knocked on the door of the Arctic Getaway B&B and stumbled through the door of Igloo #8 and into the dining room. After waking up the owners, the generous Hicker family, we were greeted with pizza, beer and amazing hospitality. It felt fantastic to be done!
Finally we mustered the courage to ask how far behind we were, and which teams had finished already. “You’re the first” they replied. Deliriously we considered this news, “Yeah we know we are the first on the Gates side but who was first on the ANWR side?” They just laughed and said the same thing “You are the first, everyone else had to bail. You’re the only ones to have finished the race so far! You’ve won!”
The feeling of finishing the race was extraordinarily rewarding. It was the most satisfying thing I’ve ever done. But then the realisation that we had won one of the hardest races in Alaska was just crazy! It was mind blowing. There are so many ambitious, strong, and experienced adventure athletes who have completed the race and many who have tried many times and come close. Many of those tough athletes had raced this year and we felt humbled to join the ranks of Classic winners. We just couldn’t believe it.
A few hours later two athletes on the Gates side finished the race. Ultimately of the 40 people who registered and were allowed to enter the race, only 5 people finished in Wiseman. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) side was extremely dangerous due to avalanches and competitors were forced to turn back. No one was able to finish the race on that route.
Spending a week in the Arctic Circle, skiing all day with great blokes was an amazing and extremely rewarding experience. We were all battered and bruised. Gil’s feet were a mess. My knee was rough and I’d managed to frostbite one of my toes. David had hurt his shoulder and lost most of his dignity in the river. Yet I think all of us had a glorious time with nothing but positive experiences. I’ll certainly never forget it.
I can’t wait to do it again next year with them.
After all, we are the defending champions…
Paul Kovacs. Elite Cross-Country Skier 
Fantastic article! Well written, thoroughly enjoyed getting an inside look at the adventure!