Enstar's Ice Road to the Big Susitna River & Shots from Skiing Around the Lower Susitna River Area

My wife and I have a cabin in the Lower Susitna Drainage, so I spend a lot of time there.  I love the place.  The country.  The people and animals that live there.  The mountains, rivers and trails.  It's all very real - real Alaska.  And there is always something going on out there.  Like the powerful currents of the glacial Big Susitna River, "currents" are constantly swirling through the remote settlements of this area.  The tides of civilization and wilderness collide here.  Backwaters of isolation mix with eddies of development.  Here is where the rivers of poverty and wealth, old timers and newbies, backwoods and city, honor and disregard, bush-savy and clueless-ness meet ... head on.  I have a deep respect for the folks that make this part of the Alaska bush their home.  I'm a better person for knowing and learning from many of them.

And I appreciate the fact that folks that live in the Lower Su area have started to tolerate my habit of skiing on every trail that goes anywhere.  And that they've stopped shooting at me!  Just kidding, my neighbors ... just kidding!
     

Skating the Ice Road
This year Enstar made a 12 mile ice road to the Big Susitna River for gas pipeline maintenance work.  Ice roads in this area are rare events. I couldn't pass up this opportunity to skate the ice road, using Nordic Blades. OK - so this isn't skiing.  But it sure was fun.
     

Ice Road Pictures

The reason for Enstar's ice road was to transport directional drilling equipment out to the Big Susitna River.  A section of the pipeline that brings natural gas from the Beluga Gas Fields to the road system was being threatened by the shifting channel of the Big Su.  So a new section of pipe was placed under the main channel of the Big Su.  To do this a mile long, 30 inch hole was drilled down 70 feet, then west under the Big Susitna River and then back up to the surface on the other side.  Then came the amazing part.  Over a mile of 22 inch pipe, that was all welded together on the west side of the river, was then PULLED back through the hole to the east side.  Whenever I was out on ski training loops in this area this winter, I would stop by to see how the boys were doing.  I'd stop and talk to the guys.  I think I asked so many questions that I know how to do this engineering feat now!  Bottom line ... it was very interesting seeing this whole operation unfold.  Thanks to the pipeline workers that took the time to talk to the guy that would show up out of nowhere on skis!!
The ice road started at the end of Ayrshire Road on Pt. MacKenzie.  Thank you Enstar for accommodating local traffic!! This an early stage of the ice road, before the surface was watered down heavily.  It's so neat to drive out here - I was coming up with many reasons to go out the road. Ice bridge across the Little Susitna River.
The folks that live at Alexander Creek and Flathorn Lake got a treat.  A tank truck filled with heating fuel came out near them this year.  This saved them a lot of work snowmobile hauling their fuel to their homes. Finally ... they made a tent big enough for a couple that has Malamutes for pets! Huge Weatherport-like tents were erected on both side of the river to house drilling and excavation equipment.
On Bell Island one mile of pipe was laid out. And then welded together. These side-boom cats are used to move the pipe.
   
  This is a pipe roller.  They had a lot of these - so when they pulled the pipe it would roll along on these.  
     

Skiing Photos
Evening ski with pals. The Mat-Su Borough claims they have over 2000 miles of trails.  I think they are underestimating.  There are lots of local trails, like this great one that hardly anyone knows about.  And that's a good thing. But it can also be a bad thing to go on remote private trails if you are not wanted there.  There is no police out here, so local residents have to do their own enforcement.  And they do.
Here's a panoramic of a lower part of the Big Susitna River.  It's amazing to think that when you are skating along on river trails here, that in a few months, on the exact spot you are skiing, there will likely be 20 feet of water and seals chasing salmon up the river.
Mt. Susitna and a Knik 200 Sled Dog Race marker. Susitna means "sand river" in Denaina Athabascan. I wonder what the Denaina word is for "sand snow".
Winter in Alaska means looooong shadows. With global warming is the rash inducing cow's parsnip plant becoming a tree?!?!   
   
  A moose drops an antler, and a skier has a good ski boot drying rack.  
     

Long Abandoned Cabins

Occasionally out skiing I will happen upon old abandoned cabins.  I respect the property and never take anything except pictures.  But I like to look around and see if I can figure out what the story was "back in the day" when folks lived in these extremely remote locations.  The cabins pictured below were once a homestead where people lived 40 to 50 years ago, I'm guessing.  And for whatever reason, they just left ... and left a good chunk of their life frozen in time out in the boonies.  Who were they?  Why did they leave?  The bush has a lot of mysteries.
One run-down cabin at the site had an interesting relic next to it ... ... a mid 1950's snowmobile.  One of the earliest that Polaris made.  The engine was behind the seat and the track rotated around on wooden rails. I dated the snowmobile thanks to this snowmobile of the same vintage parked in front of Suzie's Cafe in Sterling, AK.
The cabin had an artsy strangeness to it.  There were long strings of colored yarn all over the place.  There were also books and notebooks in the cabin ... the leaky roof had wet them and their secrets were frozen shut by winter. Apparently the homesteaders left a box of colored yarn in the loft.  And now birds and squirrels are trailing off with it for nest material. A nearby storage shed was still locked.  So I stuck my camera in an opening in the back of the shed to take a pic of the contents.  Guess the former owner had a fondness for booze.  But check next to the rightmost bottle - a three pin ski binding!
And from the roof there were still hanging a 40-plus years old pair of cross country ski boots!  Here is the main cabin.  It's falling down, but the curtains still flap in the wind. Down the old trail leading up to the cabin was this wrecked tricycle.  Some kid had a very unique upbringing.
     
Back to 2006 Skiing Photos Photos and web page by Tim Kelley