by Terrie Hanke
The Junior mushers are across the finish line, have celebrated their accomplishments during the banquet held Sunday evening but the midway volunteers and three dropped dogs remain snowbound at the Yentna Station Roadhouse. Being in the hands of the Gabryszaks at the Lodge is a good place to be when grounded but for most of the volunteers who have other Iditarod jobs or other professions, getting back to the road and Anchorage is important.
As the junior mushers arrived on Saturday in a flurry, so did the snow flurries that turned into snowflakes that have fallen steadily since 16:00 hours on Saturday. It’s now noon on Monday and light snow continues to fall. There’s no official “measurement” of how much snow has fallen from this storm but Dan, Yentna Lodge owner, says 30 inches. Mind you, it’s been a banner year for snow in most of Alaska including the early checkpoints of the Iditarod so that amount is on top of 136 inches already on the ground.
Beside the inconvenience for the Junior volunteers that remain at Yentna, the weather has really beat up on the owners of the Lodge. The snowmachine trails opened late for lack of snow but then when it started to fall, it came in large quantities – too much, too deep. While snowing, it was warmer and then the temperature would plummet, far from ideal conditions for snowmachine travelers. It was so nasty over Martin Luther King weekend, that only one snowmachiner stopped at the Yentna Lodge. A big three-day weekend and the weather kept even hearty Alaskans home and inside.
As we ate breakfast, a loud rumble filled the room. Snow was sliding off the roof. What didn’t slide off the roof will be avalanched later. Having had to clear the lodge roof on many occasions before, there is a plan in place. The plan is to make the job fun. Anyone who wishes climbs to the peak and slides down taking snow along, landing in the piles just below the eves, a soft landing. Maybe you shouldn’t try this at home! As the roof clears, huge mounds collect in front of the lodge windows. Then it’s time to go to work shoveling snow away from the windows to afford some visibility.
Gabryszaks advertise an open runway year round. Take the area of their runway – 1,400 feet long by 50 feet wide, and think about clearing 30 inches of snow. Do the math to figure out how many cubic feet of snow have to be managed to keep the runway open. Snow won’t be removed from the runway – as there are no plows or blowers like municipal airports have. Out here on the Yentna River, snow machines and tenacious drivers pack the snow similar to what the trailbreakers have to do for the Iditarod trail and then wait for mother nature to help. As the temperature drops overnight, the packed snow surface sets up or becomes more solid to support sleds, snowmachines and ski equipped bush planes. As for the snowmachine trails, it’ll take steady use to make them solid and fast again.
As it looks now, the snow will diminish and the runway that’s been packed should set up for planes by Tuesday. Until then, the dropped dogs are the center of attention. Every hour of the day, somebody is outside to keep them company, offer a snack, provide fresh straw and scratch where they like to be scratched.
