Caribou Curse

The Sun about to peak over the Alaska Range at High Noon

This weekend, feeling a little cabin fever from the cold weather that has forced us indoors for far too long, Ben and I decided to try to go for a hike.  It was 25 below outside, but we heard that if you climb Donnelly Dome, which rises abruptly a few thousand feet from the valley floor, that it can be 20-30 degrees WARMER at the top.  0-5 degrees at the summit?  That sounds WONDERFUL!  So, we headed down the snowy road, contemplating the cold weather logistics of our trip, such as how we were going to keep our water bottle from freezing en route up the mountain.  We were prepared with layers upon layers to cover every inch of our skin. We put toe warmers in our boots and hand warmers in our gloves.  We felt we were ready to take on the cold. 

We drove the 40-minute drive towards Donnelly Dome with the sun just about to poke over the mountains.  It was fifteen minutes before noon.  We had timed our departure perfectly.  If the sun poked up shortly after noon, that would give us a solid 2 hours of pure sunlight for our climb before it started its descent behind the Alaska Range again.  Supposedly, we currently have four hours of daylight between sunrise and sunset, but that doesn’t take into account the mountain range blocking our precious sun during its rising and setting.  We were eager to see those rays, even though not a one would actually touch our skin. 

Caribou on the Richardson Hwy

About 2-3 minutes before our hiking destination turn-off, we drove over one of the few hills in the highway to see three caribou sauntering down the road a short ways ahead.  We were very excited to see our first caribou in Delta and felt this was a fortuitous sign for our hike. 

Caribou with Donnelly Dome in background

We watched them for a few minutes and then continued on our way, eager to start our climb up the mountain.   As the pull-out for the hike approached, we didn’t think twice about steering off the highway to park our car there until we were physically in the process of doing it and felt our car sink down into a solid foot of snow and quickly bottom-out.  The pullout had never been plowed.  We both realized our demise instantaneously and Ben, who was behind the wheel, tried to quickly do a U-turn and escape, but it was much too late.  It was at that point that we realized that a shovel was not something on our list of cold weather gear to bring.  We are definitely still rookies.  We learned a few important lessons that day.  First, it made complete sense as to why 99% of Deltoids drive big, burly trucks with high clearance.  Birch, our poor Subaru, didn’t stand a chance in that snow.  Second, it registered why no one ever talks about going hiking in Delta.  And third, and most importantly, we realized that there must be such a thing as the caribou curse.  

  

Realizing a big truck would be a nice car in the future

We spent the next 25 minutes digging our car out with our gloved hands and our ski poles.  The sun poked out behind the mountains and we paused for a few seconds in awe and then kept digging.  We broke branches off some willows in the area and put them under our tires for more traction.  With a lot of car pushing by Ben and a heroic effort by Birch, we eventually escaped the captivity of the snow and pulled back onto the highway with a sigh of relief.   In all of our time being stuck, not a single car passed on the highway.  No sooner than 20 seconds after we got back onto the road, not one, but TWO, massive trucks capable of towing smaller cars passed us.  We could almost hear those caribou laughing at us.  At this point, we had no idea where we could park and we were both tired from digging and digging, so decided to forgo the hike.  By the time we got back to our cabin the sun was starting to disappear behind the Alaska Range again, a reminder to take our vitamin D supplements.   We waved a sorrowful farewell to it and then to boost our spirits, reminded ourselves that the winter solstice was in a mere few days!   Bring on that daylight!