On the Upper Buskin River the ice does not get thicker from below but rather from water flowing on top and freezing. This water is called overflow and happens because either the river gets clogged under the ice and flows on top instead, or water flows out on top from small tributary streams and seeps.
The first day when I went way up into the canyon I got to a point when the entire river was flowing on top of the ice (see 5th photo from top). Two days later the river had frozen (see picture immediately below). Of course there was no snow on top of the new ice so I still had to turn around. But after the next snow I will be able to go all the way to the waterfall!
Frozen overflow with no snow on top is tricky to ski on. Your skis can slide sideways. Stuey and I made a video of the 'ungroomed' cross country ski experience on the upper Buskin (see video below -
or click here for Youtube link) ('https://youtu.be/1B-_aidL_l0' for the copy and past link). In it the XC skiing looks terrible. But it is actually exciting and fun to dodge branches and cross frozen (and unfrozen) overflow while trying to go fast. I think it is GREAT cross country skiing.
Going fast on skis while dodging low hanging branches, avoiding thin ice, and rattling across overflow always gets me imagining I'm a secret agent in a James Bond film chase scene.
Patrick
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| Frozen overflow - this was all flowing a few days ago (see below) |
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| Flowing overflow that has since frozen (see above) |
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| A couple of days ago the upper canyon was all overflow - now it is all frozen (see above) |
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| Down at the Lake we ran into Uncle Dicky and Stuey tried the kite wing with his XC skis |
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