My friend Martha and I did an incredible ski trip this weekend. We were supposed to leave on Friday but Thursday we got a foot of fresh snow so Lance put a snow machine trail in for us Friday and we left Saturday morning. The temp on the pickup thermometer when we left for the trail read -17 degrees. We had a great perfectly sunny crisp day and skied 17 miles in 9 hours. The trail mostly took us up the Jack river but it wasn't all flat. We had about a 900 foot elevation gain throughout the day. We were prepared to camp but the cabin was the goal and we were ambitious.....We made it to the cabin and the temperature dropped that night to somewhere around -25 degrees. There was no wood stove but we kept pretty toasty in our sleeping bags...fully clothed with mukluks, coats, hats and gloves! and a hot water bottle!!!! We left the cabin at 8am the next morning and headed into a slight, very cold wind....after we got down into the canyon and around a bend the wind stopped and we had a nice warm ski for most of the day. We skied through an area with 22 moose all grouped together. We were yelling at them to get them to move out of the trail so we could safely slide through. Other than moose we saw some caribou, two ptarmigan and some fox tracks but no canines. At the end, the wind picked up again and although it didn't blow us down the trail, it hit us sideways and cooled us off a bit. There was one last slog up and over a little pass that we had to hike up and from there it was one foot in front of the other to get back to where Lance picked us up......34 miles and 18 hours of skiing later...we were home! Both of us have some pretty dandy blisters but we are proud of our accomplishment and so happy that were were able to see such beautiful country with our own two feet!