Thunderbird Falls Hike

 I was all ready to try cross country skiing up at Eklutna Lake this morning. The weather looked great and the road was in good condition. I made it almost halfway to the lake when traffic came to a dead stop. There were only a couple of cars ahead of me, but I could see that a large trailer had jackknifed and partially lodged itself into the snowbank. It quickly looked like a major project to get that huge vehicle out of the way to clear the road. I decided after a couple of minutes that I really didn't need to go to Eklutna Lake today. So I turned around and went back down the road. Instead, I pulled into the Thunderbird Falls trailhead parking lot. I love this trail. It's only about 3 miles round trip if you descend all the way to the base of the falls. Bella and I walked to the overlook then down to the creek and to the base of the falls. There was so much snow that you could hardly see the waterfall but there were breaks in the ice where you could see it was still running. At one point the trees were so heavily loaded that I had to crawl under the branches to follow the trail. It was well packed and I didn't need snowshoes, although microspikes were very helpful. We only ran into a couple other hikers. So it was very peaceful.