Ice and Fire

Today I learned the real meaning of being cold at -10. My friend Braxton and I were waiting for Dries to come into our checkpoint at Circle City. We decided we wanted to walk down to the Yukon River and look at the trail. It was mostly jumble ice and we ventured out a little ways onto the ice. As we started to make our way back to the bank we heard the worst sound possible. The ice was cracking! We basically had just enough time to realize what was happening when the ice gave way beneath our feet. We both dove forward towards the solid ice, but that ice gave way as we hit it. We were going in! Braxton was able to grab a hard section of ice and only went in half way. I wasn't so lucky. As I fell, I hit my chin on the ice (which probably stopped my head from going under). I hit the water as Braxton tried to pull me up. The current was strong but he eventually got himself out and was able to pull me out of the water as well. Luckily, we were only 200 yards away from the local fire station so we went inside and threw off our gear. They had a nice fire going so we were able to warm up. We are both ok, but THAT was cold!