Gold Star Peak

This was quite an adventure. I love hiking up Gold Star Peak. It's such a special place. It's a couple of peaks dedicated to those who have been lost in wars. Gold Star is the first peak, then you can traverse along a narrow ridge to POW/MIA Peak that is dedicated to the prisoners of war and the missing. There is a very small turnout on the Eklutna Lake Road where people park at mile 4.5. From there, hikers walk another half mile up the road to a steep path straight up the embankment and that is the main trail. That trail is still rather primitive and could certainly stand some improvement, but it is still easy to follow. Chris was leading our Valley Wanderers hike today and showed us an alternative route that started right at the parking spot. I was surprised to see there was any kind of a trail there. It was pretty much straight up but easy to follow for a while. But once out of the trees, the trail disappeared into dried grasses and some brush. We generally just kept heading uphill at that point.We finally found ourselves on a nice open ridge with spectacular views out across the valley and the inlet. There were forget me nots and lupine blooming everywhere. It was pretty easy walking once on the ridge. But we needed to eventually connect with the standard trail to reach the summit. We pondered just continuing up the ridge, but no one was sure what we might encounter before connecting to the trail. So we decided to just head straight to the trail that we could see in the distance. There was a lot of brush and lots of thorns and sticky things. I had let Bella off her leash because she kept going under branches and getting me all tangled up. We got separated at one point and Michelle ended up picking her up because she had entangled herself in a bunch of thorns. I took her and carried her until we were clear of the thorny brush. She had a big stick wound up in her hair across her chest. I was able to carefully pick the hair from it and remove it. We were all delighted when we finally reached the defined trail again. We took a short break at the saddle then started the steepest part of the hike up through the scree and loose rocks and finally reached the monuments on the summit. It's a really tough hike even though it's not terribly log. Our unusual route did make it a bit longer. The total length was over 6 miles. We took another break at the top of Gold Star then walked along the narrow path to POW/MIA. I put Bella back on her leash for that part because she likes to chase squirrels and I had seen several scampering among the rocks. I didn't want her taking after one of them and ending up in a treacherous place. It was getting very windy and it was moving to see the flags blowing in the breeze. It's a wonderful place to ponder the sacrifices that our military heroes have made to give us the freedom that we enjoy. I stopped for a photo with Bella next to the dog silhouette monument to the military dogs of Vietnam. The trip back down was very slippery through the loose scree and rocks, so I had to let Bella find her own way without her leash. She would likely pull me to my death! She is really good about staying with the group and coming immediately when I call her. The trip down seemed to take forever, because we were all so tired. We had one nice glissade down a steep snow slope, that was really fun, after so much difficult walking on the loose rocks and scree. It's a fabulous hike but certainly not an easy one. I think I prefer the main trail, although the ridge walk was very beautiful.