A little late this post, but here we go.. Tolovana Hot Springs is a favourite winter/spring weekend trip for outdoorsy Fairbanksans. I did it a year ago when Lise has soaking up rays and sipping on Chardonnay in Breaker Bay, and loved it. A few days after getting back from Vancouver, we were on the road.
The 105 mile drive on hilly, icy, bumpy roads is just long enough that you unfortunately need to pee at what must be the most exposed and windy pull-out in all of the interior. Lise and I chose to snow-shoe the 11 miles each way rather than (x-country) ski as some of the hills are a little sketchy especially in the twilight with full backpacks. A week after a slid, skidded, and face-planted down the steep first downhill last year, a poor chap went one better by breaking his femur. Thankfully the Japanese travelers he was with were able to drag him up the hill, plonk him into a car and drive him in town. So snow shoes it was. And while some of our group skied ahead, and Tim zipped through on his snow machine, we plodded along in 30 below. Once moving and in the absence of any wind to speak of it was actually quite comfortable and enjoyable.
Guy Dubuis on his skis.
We spent a neat two nights in the rental cabins rading books, eating chocolate and working our way through the keg. Occasionally we'd dash out to the hot spring in the evenings too. Two dogs and 12 people is a lot to fit in one cabin during the day, but thankfully four of us slept in another smaller cabin and it was quite comfy. At those temps, cutting the wood for the stove is easy - the spruce is so brittle that its almost a no-contest chopping kindling.
Sunday morning dawned, at about 10:30, and we staged our staggered start to hopefully all arive at the cars at about the same time. The cars! I hope the little red subie will start after two nights out in - 35 C ! Normally we plug in the car overnight if its below about -10C, to power heating pads for the battery, engine block and oil pan, so I was pretty nervous on the way out. At some point I had enough of the snow shoe plotting so decided to open up the throttle and try to get some endorphins pumping. The Dukes of Hazard narrator would at this point make some forboding comment about the idiocy of this option: You see, I failed to think too much about generating so much body heat that I'd need to strip down to no hat, only polypro gloves, and a single icebreaker layer unzipped. That would be fine if it weren't 35 below, and although I didn't know it at the time, it would be 2 full weeks before I got full feeling back in several fingers, and that followed only after losing a good layer or two of skin of all fingers and my ear lobes. Live and learn.
Guy's best Gandalf impersonation!
Lisa on arrival at the cars.
Anyway, my car anxiety proved to be well founded. Feeling justified in this conern provided little comfort as, over the next hour we tried to start our car and one other. Jeremy's car finally fired up after jumping the battery, and using a long-handled shovel to slid a burning pile of bbq brickettes under the oil pan. At those temperatures, the oil is just so viscous that the engine can't turn over. Not wanting to melt the bank's investment, we ultimately ended up splitting our gear and selfs into the other cars and abandonning the subie for another night alone.
Operation car-recovery was staged the next day. I picked up a new battery and borrowed a 1000 W generator and a fuel-powered 'space heater' (ie. hot air cannon for heating construction sites) and Lise and I got a (2.5 hour) ride out with Jeremy. After about 45 minutes of blowing hot air under the car and a new battery, she finally fired up to much relief! (The varsity back four have never seen me as dark as I was before then.) We stopped at the Hill Top for the fries that I couldn't bring myself to eat the previous evening and got back into town in one piece.
Car resuscitation.
Moral of the story: we are tiny warm units in a very big, very cold, very unforgiving environment. And next time, take a baking tray to go between a camp stove and the oil pan, or better yet, take someone else's car ;)
More trip photos at:
Heike's picasa pages
This morning I found him all curled up and chilled beyond hibernation in one of the traps. Poor little guy, his was just doing his own thing. For scale, the trap is about 3 inches (7.5 cm ) across.
