They say the best adventures start with good planning. I planned this trip carefully. I had good winter gear, marten traps, grub, and a snow machine … what more did I need? 

After spending several winters in Bettles, Alaska I became intrigued with the unused mail trail between Bettles and Wiseman, Alaska. Until the airplane took over the mail routes in the 1930s and 40s, postal runs were made by dog team. The mail drivers were tough men with tough dogs that traveled throughout bush Alaska for many years. Many of the current trails throughout Alaska are remnants of the mail routes these men maintained.

It was Christmas break at the University of Alaska Fairbanks where I was a 27 year old freshman. I had three free weeks in the middle of winter to break that trail and explore new country.

I flew up to Bettles with my gear and a used Skidoo Alpine. An Alpine is a twin-tracked snow machine that is excellent for making trails in deep snow. Today, they have powerful paddle-tracked machines that can go almost anywhere but dig deep trenches in the powder. An Alpine floats on top of the snow and makes a wide flat trail. I had purchased the machine in Fairbanks and barely tried it out before shipping it to Bettles(remember the planning?).

After spending a day at my friend Dave Schmitz’s house, I headed up the trail to a cabin at the confluence of the North and Middle Forks of the Koyukuk river. I told Dave that I planned to return Christmas Eve for a couple days. It was about 20 below zero Fahrenheit (F) when I left, with colder weather forecasted.

Dave had been using the North Fork cabin as a base for trapping. He was the only school teacher in Bettles so he could only make it out on weekends. I planned to break the trail that roughly paralleled the north bank of the Middle Fork toward Wiseman and set traps along there.

Since I planned to return to the cabin that same day I left my sleeping bag and sled full of gear at the cabin. I was wearing good winter clothing, had two chocolate bars for lunch, a can with a wire for melting snow for tea, and some matches. With my axe and snowshoes lashed to the back, I was set. I planned to travel light to enable the Alpine to break trail in the deep powder.

It was very cold and clear as I set out. I was impressed with the Alpine’s ability to run over the deep powder and was making good time. When I stopped for lunch I wallowed through hip deep snow gathering dead spruce boughs to make a fire to melt snow for tea but the Alpine stayed right on top.

Shortly after lunch the trouble began. The Alpine began to struggle. It would get stuck over and over. If you have ever waded around in hip deep powder trying to horse a heavy machine back up on top of the snow you know how exhausting it can be.

While panting after another digging session, it began to dawn on me that something might be wrong with the Alpine. It was running OK but not breaking trail as well. One look in the rear of the machine spelled it out. I had broken the adjusting bolt for one of the tracks, it was rubbing on one side and slowing me down. I didn’t have another bolt and could think of no way to fix it. I jockeyed the machine around 180 degrees by hand so that I was heading back. I intended to limp back to the North Fork cabin.

After only a few miles it became apparent that I would not reach the North Fork cabin. Dave Schmitz and I had explored an old mail carrier cabin on the Middle Fork the previous year. He planned to use it as a trapline cabin in the near future, and I remembered him mentioning that he dropped off a stove and a roll of fiberglass insulation at the cabin the previous summer. It was only about five miles from my current location, so I headed straight downhill toward the Middle Fork. Before I reached the river my snow machine stopped for good. The motor ran fine but the left track just would not move at all. I tried to get it to move but I could not budge it.

After only a few miles it became apparent that I would not reach the North Fork cabin.

I strapped on my snowshoes and walked the last mile to the cabin. By the time I arrived I knew it was cold, real cold. The cabin had not been occupied for probably 50 years and it looked like it. There were one to two inch gaps between most of the logs. Some holes, more than a foot in diameter, allowed the snow to blow through.

I got to work with Dave’s stove and roll of insulation. The stove was a small sheet metal wood cook stove. The type your great-grandmother used when she was a little kid only made out of sheet metal instead of cast iron. The fire box was only about 8 inches square with a larger oven next to it. I set up the stove and stove pipe to go outside.  

After gathering enough wood to start a fire in the little firebox I hurried to plug all the holes in the cabin. This took more than an hour during which I replenished the wood in the stove.

The little firebox would not create enough heat to feel the difference even when it was crackling nicely. Although I had no thermometer, I could feel the cold, even through my down parka and down pants, if I stood still for too long. Thankfully, the bunny boots were keeping my feet toasty. 

Since there was no place to sleep except the floor, and since the floor was the coldest spot in the cabin, I decided to make a bunk. The sun had set but the moon was bright as I cut spruce poles for a bunk. I made the bunk in the warmest spot in the cabin, right over the stove.

I piled enough branches on the bunk to cushion the spruce poles and climbed up for a nap. It soon became obvious that I needed more heat than the stove was capable of producing. The fire box was just too small. I climbed down, grabbed my axe and cut a hole between the firebox and the oven. After filling the oven with wood the stove was soon red hot.

I was able to sleep this way without a sleeping bag for an hour or so at a time. When the wood burned up, I woke up. It isn’t hard to get out of bed when you are shivering. My only hope was to add more wood to the stove.

The next morning I was hungry for my remaining chocolate bar. I found it sitting on a log with mouse teeth marks all around the edge. That took the edge off my appetite, so I melted some snow for breakfast instead.  

The cold, the ever-present cold, was much more of a concern than anything else. I spent some time in the morning gathering wood and then hiked back to the Alpine. After several fruitless hours trying to get the track loose, I grabbed a couple traps and headed back to the cabin.

On the way back I stopped to make a huge sign on the Koyukuk River. I wrote, “Pick Me Up,” in letters about 50 feet long. These were outlined with spruce boughs to make them stand out from the air. Surely some plane would see them. I hadn’t thought about the fact that pilots really don’t like to fly when it’s colder than -40F.

After another night in my bunk above the stove I was hungry enough to eat part of the chocolate bar, mouse tooth marks and all. I ate a quarter of the bar and saved the rest for later. I finished my chocolate the next day.

Each day went on like the other. I set some traps for rabbits but they were holed up and not moving much. It was downright cold. I found out later that my friend Dave Schmitz had asked some pilots if they might not want to check on me since I was supposed to have come back Christmas Eve, but they said I was likely holed up from the cold and it was not wise to be flying in weather colder than -50F.

On the fourth day I was laying on my spruce bough mattress above the stove trying to get a little shuteye when I heard a motor. Thinking it was an airplane I jumped off my bunk and hurried outside. It was Dave Schmitz motoring up on his little Skidoo Elan. I expressed surprise because I didn’t expect someone to come for me by snow machine. I was 40 miles from Bettles and I knew it was very cold. I said, “What are YOU doing here?” He explained that he was just trying to raise some money by selling magazines door to door.

We both had a good laugh. He took a quick look around. I was grateful that he didn’t berate me for ruining his oven. He was amused with my sleeping conditions, gave me something to munch on and said we better head back soon because we had a long way to go.

Our trip back was long and very cold. In a river valley the cold settles to the lowest spot. Much of the trail back to Bettles was on the Koyukuk River, by definition the coldest spot in the area. I rode standing up on the basket sled, made by Moses Henzie from Allakaket, while Dave drove the poor little Elan. He would occasionally stop so we could check each other for frostbite. We both had little grey circles on our cheeks that we tried to protect as we rode along.

We arrived in Bettles near midnight and Dave drove straight to the FAA service station to find the official temperature, -68F. We both knew it was colder than that back on the river but we were thankful to be back.  

By the way, my Skidoo Alpine is still where I left it. I tried unsuccessfully several times to get it out. Someday someone will probably put a placard in front of it about some long lost trapper whose story is a mystery. That is until they find a copy of Last Frontier Magazine.