Waiting Waiting Waiting
Northern summers can be AMAZING things OR quite frankly they can be CRAP. It was a fabulous summer last year and there are lots of comments going round that those only happen once in ten years – UGH…. Either way, we are not off to a resounding start and this is definitely having an impact on us emotionally. Looking to build adventure into every day is a bit of a challenge right now.
Our goal was to spend the summer mountain biking and kayaking, with some work fit in around the adventures. Although the weather is not fabulous, we are getting out biking 2-4 times a week thanks to Hunter being in the Team Boreale Kids program. We are also fitting in some road biking as we train to participate in the Haines 2 Haines bike race (officially known as the Kluane Chilkat International Bike Relay) in a few weeks. We did this last year with some other families and had so much fun that we had to do it again.
The paddling side of things are not so great, which is an understatement… Rivers here are fed by glacier & snowpack melt and usually run for a brief window of time. It’s a bit of river hopping that you hope will work out with respect to when one river runs it’s cycle vs another. A “normal” season has the Wheaton run from late May to late June, the Tutshi from early June to mid July and then the Lapie from late June to the end of July. Our minimum level for the Wheaton is 15 (discharge), which means you are not having to walk your boat around gravel bars to make your way down the river but you are still leaving some paint in some places… Flood is around 60 and happy is in the 30’s. The last 2 weeks paddlers across the Yukon have been glued to the gauge readings and not thrilled. It looks like this is going to be a year of no flood and little Wheaton paddling 🙁
We did get out in the rain last weekend to test out some paddle boards on a local lake as we are thinking of buying 2 inflatable ones to be able to travel with.
There have been lots of wildlife sightings, which remind you about the beauty of the north, even when it is constantly on your mind when you are out on the trails…
The weather prognosticators at the Weather Network think that this is going to be an “above normal” summer season here in the Yukon – at this point, I’m wondering if we have the same definition of summer…
Either way, we continue to search for ways to have fun and be active every day, to continue our efforts to purge and simplify and focus on what is important to us as a family. We’re also busy learning spanish for our winter adventures – more details to come!