Spring Break 2005 WSEN

By Keith & Laurie Rowland

MCCARTHY, AK—March is our favorite time of year here in the Wrangell Mountains. Rivers are frozen highways, snow is at its maximum depth, skies are often clear, and a returning sun means even a nippy night turns into a pleasant afternoon. All winter long we dream of places to go and things to do. The children work hard at their school lessons, and then—“YIPPEE!” It’s a Friday afternoon in March, school is out, and spring break is finally here.

We always try to share our spring break with a passel of out-of-town friends and relations. This year our spring fun crew consisted of Fairbanksans Dave, Renée, Lee, Wyatt, and Ben Persón; Jay, Kim, Erin and Nick Williams; Scott, Kathy, Wil, Lora and Sara Randby, and Jeff Green. The following is an account of this year’s activities.

Saturday, March 12—Our friends and relations all arrived at the end of the McCarthy Road with pickups sagging under the ponderous weight of multiple snowmachines, sleds, fuel, food, gear, and people. Excitement and anticipation shone from each eager face amidst the hustle and bustle of getting all the machines and gear unloaded and everyone comfortably settled in.

Sunday, March 13—After the morning service and lunch at McCarthy Kennicott Community Church, we pointed our snowmachines towards Bonanza Bowl, halfway up the mountain behind the Kennecott Millsite. Five feet of powder was awaiting our twenty-one snowmachines, skis, snowboards, and more than 30 bodies. Although increasing cloud cover made it hard to see the terrain, snow fun seemed inevitable.

For a couple hours, some of the boys bombed around on Tundras and an Élan while other kids skimmed down the slopes on skis and snowboards. The men were doing the important and necessary chore of carting these future Olympiads on snowmachines up the hills to ever higher jumping off places (also high-marking and doing jumps), while the women at the top of the bowl cheered and hooted them all on to greater feats of bravado.

Old and young alike were having a great time—until. Don’t you just hate the ‘untils’ of life? Of course, in retrospect, the light was bad, we had already had enough fun, we should have quit half-an-hour earlier—but how could anyone have known? At any rate, all were having fun—until Erin, René, and Lora, all in their mid-teens, were making their second snowboard run—lickety-sizzle!—down a near-vertical slope.