Yesterday I had a new experience. I drove my car on the river ice road. Not quite like those truckers on Discovery channel, but hairy scary enough for me! My heart was pounding!! I took the Smart family for a quick visit to their village which is about 10 miles south of Bethel on the Kuskokwim river. The trail is generally easy to follow due to the visible tire tracks and for night driving there are reflectors tied to large branches along the trail. However there are several spots where drifting snow make the trail less obvious and one must be alert to stay on the main road and not wind up following joyriding tracks that might lead to trouble. I had one such brief encounter when I realized I had strayed slightly off the main road (so much for my local guides - they weren’t paying attention) and jerked back to the correct direction which caused my car to fishtail and threw my passengers around roughly. Talk about getting my heart rate up!! Probably the worse that would have happened was for my car to get stuck, it wasn’t as if I could go through the ice, but stuck is bad enough. I had many questions - who moves off the trail into the powedered snow when there is an on-coming car? What’s the protocol if I’m driving slower than others, do I pull off to let them go around me? Whats the speed limit? All my questions ellicted chuckles and the reply to “just drive”. (there is a snow machine trail along side the road which has flattened the snow and the car traveling on that side of the road drives on the snow when there is an on coming car) When it was time to exit the river and drive up onto the bank and into the village, even the locals had a hard time discerning the correct trail as there were so many snow machine tracks. We made it safely and the drive home just before sunset was beautifully golden. I look forward to driving on the river again but taking more pictures next time.
Hugs
Vikki
