Trip to Tununak

This weekend offered another unique opportunity, which I grabbed for a number of reasons. The varsity basketball team was traveling over or around the hill, depending on the route you wish to take, to Tununak for a basketball tournament. The team was just going to take snow machines (snow mobiles for those readers in the lower 48). I agreed to go along for technical support. I also got out of the Friday staff meeting, which is okay to miss every now and again. Because I don’t have a snow machine of my own, I was stuck using our old school snow machine, a true dinosaur of the snow machine world. A Ski-Doo Tundra II. I felt like I was riding one of those “old school” bikes with a banana seat, coaster brakes and tassels on the handlebars. Everyone else was sporting their newest Yamaha speed machines. To put it in perspective, their snow machines could easily top out at 80 – 90 mph, while I would be lucky if I could hit 40 mph. No one got above 40 mph thankfully, because I would have been left in the snow dust. Needless to say, Katja had to stay home for this adventure. She was sad.

I ended up traveling over and back three times with Marty our Athletic director and NYO coach. Marty has a pretty fast machine, although it is a few years old, and was hitting all the jumps along the way, flying several feet into the air on occasion. I was just putting along, trying to keep from tipping over. We covered the 7 miles in about 15 minutes, which was moving plenty fast for me.

The basketball team stayed over night in Tununak because they were playing both Friday and Saturday morning. Marty and I went home on Friday night around 10:00 pm with a couple of other friends from Toksook. It was very dark out and neither Marty or I had head lights on our machines, but we had head lamps. Anyway, it was quite an experience riding in between the two machines with lights. Occasionally I couldn’t see the trail ahead of me at all for a few seconds, then it would appear dimly again as I used the lights of the machine behind me. When we returned on Saturday, it was starting to storm, so we decided to follow the power lines to keep from getting lost. Here is a picture of what I was wearing when I was outside. Notice the new malaggai (seal skin hat). I didn’t feel any wind or cold at all. I highly recommend getting one if you are going to be out in sub zero temperatures for extended periods of time.

Until next time, don’t let old man winter bite.

Dirk