We are the Brient Family.

When we are not roasting coffee at Atlin Mountain Coffee Roasters, you’ll find us in the backcountry on some kind of adventure. Whether it’s canoeing the Yukon River to the Bering Strait, bike touring in 24 countries, trekking across B.C. with pack horses, or breaking trail with the Canadian Rangers, and so on. Adventure is our lifeline.

We love a good snowmobile adventure. Spring break offers a great opportunity for a longer trip. Last year, during spring break, we did the big loop from Atlin—Atlin via Carcross, Bennett and the Fantail Trail—after we spent the winter trail-breaking with the help of fellow Atlinites.

This year, our 10-year-old son was ready for a more serious adventure. As a family, dog included, we decided to snowmobile from our home in Atlin, B.C., to Dawson City. 

We started on beautiful Atlin and Tagish Lake, connecting them via the Mail Run Trail. Upon our arrival in Carcross, we continued toward Whitehorse using the White Pass & Yukon Route Railway tracks, until we hit the well-marked and maintained Trans Canada Trail. 

After refuelling in Whitehorse, the plan was to refuel again in Braeburn, but unfortunately they ran out of gas the day before we arrived. We calculated that we would have enough gas to make it to Carmacks if the trail conditions were good. But an adventure is not an adventure without challenges or obstacles … 

We were now following the Yukon Quest Trail between Braeburn and Carmacks. The trail follows multiple chains of lakes. It had been over a month since the Yukon Quest came through here, and a lot of snow had fallen, since then, causing serious overflow on the lakes. After getting stuck in the overflow, time and time again, our tired bodies set-up camp, determined to come up with a better plan.

We decided to take all of the lakes, as close to the shore as we could. While still getting caught in overflow multiple times, while doing this, it greatly improved our progress and we started to think that we were going to be able to make it out of these lakes. What a joy to arrive at Mandana Lake, which had a windblown crust thick enough to bear the weight of our snowmobiles.

But we were not out of the woods yet!

The heavy snowfall that fell, since the Quest, had wreaked havoc on the forest between Mandana Lake and Carmacks. It took us an entire day to cover the last 24 kilometres before Carmacks, as we were cutting storm-fall trees all day. What a delight when the Carmacks bridge came into sight!

We faced beautiful, yet impressive jumble ice on the Yukon River. Whenever there was a lake to cross, we kept to our strategy of following the lake by the shore, and while this sometimes caused more mileage, it worked very well and allowed us to continue to make good progress. Our goal was to do about 100 kilometres a day, but during the overflow days, we could only do 55 kilometres, as we spent so much time getting unstuck.

While the weather started out as typical, with -30 Celsius at night and -10 Celsius during the day, things were warming up to temperatures hovering above zero by the time we arrived in Pelly Crossing. Some locals were warning us to be careful of the river ice conditions with this warm weather.

Between Pelly Crossing and Scroggie Creek, we faced some big spring glaciers on the trail, and spring avalanches were coming down the steep slopes. We proceeded cautiously and arrived at Scroggie Creek and the Stewart River.

Only one obstacle now remained between us and Dawson, the infamous Black Hills. 

Accompanied by whiteout and strong winds, we battled big wind drifts and steep sidehills. We had to drop our loads, break trail for a few kilometres, return to pick up our loads, drop them to where we had stopped (breaking trail) and then break some more trail, pick up the loads again, and so on …

… until we stumbled upon a plowed road and it was smooth sailing until Dawson City, except for some big wind drifts and spring glaciers around King Solomon’s Dome. 

After 10 days and 935 kilometres of obstacles and challenges, beautiful scenery, great memories, and friendly people along the way, we made it.

Where to next year? That we’ll see about, but it’s going to have to top this trip now!

Philippe and Leandra Brient

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