Eklutna Lake Ski

I always keep my Saturdays free assuming I will go hiking with the Valley Wanderers, a local hiking group here in Palmer that hikes every Saturday and Monday. They have stopped sending me their weekly emails, so for the last month I have not done a hike with them. I also hike with the Alaska Walkabouts, the hiking group from Anchorage. My friend Pam is also a member of that group. Today they had planned to ski on the frozen surface of Eklutna Lake. I heard the conditions were perfect there right now, so carpooled with Pam to the lake. We stopped at the bottom of Eklutna Lake Road and picked up my friend Alice. Alice has ski boots but no skis or poles. So I used my skate skis and downhill ski poles and loaned her my classic cross country skis and my adjustable ski poles. She has only skied a couple of times, so skiing on a flat frozen lake is the perfect place to learn how to handle skis. There were 17 of us on this trip. I had passed on the report of the great conditions after my friend, Diane told me of her trip there the day before. That brought the whole gang out for a glorious trip along the lake. Pam brought her dog, Dahla, and Madeline brought her bigger dog, Biscuit. I kept Bella on her leash at first because she seemed intent on letting Biscuit know who's boss. I wasn't worried about Biscuit hurting Bella but about Bella biting Biscuit with one or two of her few remaining teeth. Bella finally mellowed out and since we were way out in the middle of a huge lake, I let her run loose. She was great. She would run to the folks in front, then back to the last skier, likely running twice the distance of the rest of us. Frequently reminding Biscuit that she was the lead 10 pound Yorkshire Terrier. Biscuit just wandered away rolling his eyes! Bella always comes running back when I call her. We went to a cabin on the far side of the lake and had a few of Madeline's delicious coconut brownies. It wasn't the beautiful sunny day we had yesterday, and was even snowing a bit in the beginning, but still fairly warm and quite calm. I kept Bella off her leash until we started getting close to the trailhead on our return, where we started seeing other people and a few dogs. I hooked her up again and suddenly found myself moving a lot faster as she raced her way back towards the parking lot. She certainly has a lot of energy. We did a total of 8 miles but I'm sure she did more than 10. She has a bit of arthritis and has been favoring her left rear leg. But it sure wasn't slowing her down today. I'm sure she will sleep well tonight. 
It was really fun skiing with this group. I suspect I'll go back to doing a lot more with them on my Saturdays from now on, since the other group seems to have dropped me from their list. Here in Alaska, especially, it is safer to hike with others since there are bears and moose that can be very dangerous. I do often hike alone on the weekdays though.

Bella at the cabin

Me and Bella with her snow beard