Alaska Archives will chronicle a spring spent ski touring out of an RV around south central Alaska.
Item 1: Arrival and Thompson Pass Item 2: Gone Skiing Item 3: A Full RV Item 4: Alyeska Bound Item 5: Harvest is the Season to Behold
Words and photos courtesy of Zach Paley. See more on his blog.
When traveling on a budget in an rv, modern conveniences have a tendency to be left at home. Even though the sun was out frequently this April to help keep us warm, it got pretty cold on Thompson Pass. Heat would be shortly turned on in the mornings, though it didn’t prevent getting out of sleeping bags from being a battle. Afternoons and evenings, our down gear came through when we needed it to and kept us warm enough.
Drying gear, a critical step to staying warm, was difficult at best. Boot liners, shirts, socks, etc. were slow to dry with the help of the sun and simply didn’t dry at night when temperatures would drop well below freezing. As a guy who gets sweaty feet, I worked a few different systems. A combination of newspaper in boot liners, leaving them in the late day sun, liners in the sleeping bag, and putting them under the heat vents in the morning successfully gave me dry boots about three times in April (all after multiple down days). Wet, numb feet became part of the morning program. It’s a system that will be thoroughly reworked this summer.
Admittedly, we were and still are new at motorhome living. One of the biggest conversation topics of the trip is what to do differently next time we make a trip to Thompson Pass.
