Skiing from Noorvik to Selawik

At the end of a week in Noorvik, a small village in the Northwest Arctic region teaching skiing with NANANordic, myself and four others had the opportunity to ski 35 miles from Noorvik to Selawik.

I hadn't skied since early February - I'd been on the Grand Canyon and then I went ice climbing in the Canadian Rockies to get fit enough to fall in a crevasse.

The five of us the evening before: (left to right) Lauren, Paul, Boy Wonder, me, Rob

The week before skiing to Selawik I spent five consecutive nights in five different cities - a night in Canmore, a night in Calgary, one blissful night in my bed in Fairbanks (a 24-hour layover which was mostly spent repacking), a night in Anchorage, and then on to Noorvik. During all that, unsurprisingly, I caught a cold.

Though 35 miles is a distance I should be able to handle pretty easily, it felt hard. I didn't know that we would be able to do this trip until I arrived in Noorvik - had I known, I would have brought a few different things, including a different pair of skis. Also, I would have been fitter and healthier.

Now that I've listed my excuses, I'll get to the important part - the people I was with were all my co-coaches in Noorvik, and are WAY better skiers than me. Paul and Lauren are full-time competitive skiers; Paul is on the Australian National Team but living and training in the states, Lauren skis for APU. Rob is a former Olympic biathlete and currently coaches the US Paralympic program. Luke - hereafter, Boy Wonder - is a bit of a delicate subject for me: he's a 15-year-old high school freshmen. Getting beaten by a kid at something I hold dear - long distance skiing - chafed. But there's no getting around it - he's an excellent skier, and a super strong dude. Expect big things from the next generation.

We took off in the morning, joined by a teacher from the school, Kari, and a student, one of the standout skiers named Tyrone, that would stay with us for a few miles until we were out of town and on the correct trail.

Rob is the epitome of Old Man Strength.
This is about five miles into the ski, when we climbed up onto a hill and felt like we were really out of the sphere of the village. It was also much colder than we expected.

Western Alaska keeps it real.

Being the weakest skier and the self-appointed trip photographer creates logistical problems. Fortunately, Lauren and Paul were good about waiting for me.

These skis are not my favorite for two reasons: in soft snow they're extremely slow, and they're squirrelly. The trail was quite hard, so that was fine, but keeping the skis under control was a constant problem, and the balance muscles in my shins and feet were completely exhausted by halfway into the ski. Had I known I was going to do this, I would have brought different skis...
However, they did attack the open expanses of the Western Arctic, and for that I applaud them.

This is the Western Alaska that I came for. 

At almost exactly halfway there is a small drainage, with trees and a shelter cabin, which I forgot to take a picture of. But here Boy Wonder enjoys an apple.
It was here that I realized the most important thing that I'd forgotten - caffeine. After leaving here I slipped into the usual afternoon funk, which a depression (easily cured by caffeine) that comes from having gone far and being tired, but not being almost there. I slowed down substantially for quite a while and couldn't stop thinking about the pain in my shins from controlling the skis. During this time I fell well behind the group.

Rob waited for me while the others went ahead (we had a plane to catch and we were going slower than expected, but Rob was staying in Selawik). This plain was the "home stretch", with Selawik visible on the left horizon 10 miles away. 35 miles shouldn't be a big deal for me, but it felt like a big deal today. However, the "afternoon funk" had been replaced by "almost there", so I was feeling a bit better and sped up.

Rob.

The windmills of Selawik. We'd been able to see them since we first hit the flats, 10 miles previous.

Selawik is three islands. Rob walks across the final bridge to the airport after 5.5 hours of skiing.

In the end, we had lots of time to catch the flight, and the other three only beat us to Selawik by about 25 to 30 minutes. But for a while it looked like time was going to be pretty tight

Next time, I'll be healthy and in better shape so that I can crush the ski in fine style, as I am accustomed.

On the flight to Kotzebue.

Thanks guys for being great company, and thanks for waiting for me.

And Boy Wonder, we'll be expecting big things from you in the future!