Fairbanks Snow Travelers

The Yukon Quest folks are needing some help again. So I thought we could get a crew together and help them out. What they need (from YQ Race Manager):

Our biggest trail concern exists off the North Fork of the Chena River where Boulder Creek joins. Larry Vorhees has a trap line farther up the north fork so he cleared that out already. The old fire killed trees are finally falling and are blocking our trail badly.

It is probably nasty for quite a few miles from the North Fork, up Boulder Creek over Rosebud Summit and down the backside of Rosebud to where the trail hits Birch Creek. To run this section of trail you can put in at Angel Creek lodge if you talk to Steve Vrbanec, who knows the trail well, or at 96 mile Steese where there is a pull out to a BLM boat launch on Birch Creek.

This stuff is smaller black spruce blowdown that is a problem because it can trip dogs up if it is close to the ground or stab chests and shoulders if it 12 inches plus. We are looking for help scouting these sections and clearing them. I don't know if the chainsaw stuff is up your alley or if you want to concentrate on straight through runs later.

Cleanup help would be appreciated late in February to early March.

OK, so who's interested in helping on this ? If we can get one or two crews together we can either start from Angle Creek or the Steese.

What are your thoughts ?

When is the Yukon Quest? I may or maynot be in town, if I'm in town I would love to help out.

Quest is in March, any work we do will be in Late Feb or early March, lot depends on the snowfall, which it is currently doing, snowing that is

I'm looking at being back in town from Michigan around the 24th of Feb so any time after that I may be able to assist with something. I'll keep an eye on this thread to see when things are going to happen. Thats good to hear its snowing!

The 2007 Yukon Quest starts in Whitehorse February 10th. The leaders are expected to come through Eagle Summit, Mile 101, Roesbud areas around the 20th. Presidents day weekend.

The section of trail between the trapline in North Fork Chena and Rosebud Summit is about 2-3 miles. Chain saws are needed there because of the big timber.

1 mile north of the Rosebud Summit you start to drop down onto the tree line approaching Birch Creek drainage. Here there are thousands of those 3" diameter black spruce trees. If this area burnt out it would require more work than the big timbered section. I would recommend gas powered brush cutters with saw blades so you could plung the blade down into the snow to get the stump at ground level.

If you come in from the Steese its about 25 miles to Rosebud. Rosebud is 15 miles from CHSP road.

Here's a good P.O.C. raceman@mosquitonet.com (Alex)

I spoke with Alex last night, He said a small team is heading up north fork chena this sunday, mon, tue, to clear the trail through boulder creek, rosebud summit, north side of summit down to birch creek. I asked if he had gotten any response for FST or NLSC, he said he had not! He is hoping they get this task accomplished this weekend. He is still looking for sweeper crews to clean up after the race. To bad Circle Hot Springs is closed. That made for a great run.

It's not too late to plan for a clean-up run. I'm going to be working on the Northern Lights club with the idea.

Diff Topic: Next year I will run the entire Quest trail Fairbanks to White Horse. I need a replacement or replacements to work the Mile 101 section. We could go up the weekend prior of the race and mark the trail. Then you would be in place Sat. start day of race. The teams would all be through be Tue. and your work would be over. It's a great crew up there and they have been doing this for several years. Right now I'm the only one. If you would like, come up this year and see what it's all about.

See you on tomorrows ride!

Guess we had / have communication problem on this. I told Alex I'd get back to him after the 17th Jan., that was the first general membership meeting after he contacted me.

I don't think it's so much getting help, it's more that we need the request sooner. By the middle of Dec folks have their weekend planned and all of our FST rides are scheduled.

So if you do take over for next year, make sure we get a call for help early in the season, like Sept and Oct. 2 to 3 weeks notice just doesn't cut it.

We could even add it as a scheduled event on next years calendar.

Update me tomorrow and maybe at Wed general membership meeting.

I think we need to appolagize to Alex, he did try to contact us back in Nov. Nov 21st to be exact. Unfortunately the email he sent didn't get forwarded or passed to others, thus we (I and others) didn't know about the request until Dec 28.