Government Peak Race Trail is always challenging, whether you are simply hiking it or actually competing on one of several races that occur throughout the year. But today was a little more challenging than usual because it was the hottest day of the year so far. It was only around 75 degrees, which to the rest of the country sounds rather cool. But for Alaskans, and especially on an extremely steep trail in bright sunshine, it was brutal. The summit elevation is 4781 feet and the trail has an elevation of 2900 feet over around 3 miles to the summit. There is nothing technical about the trail but it is consistently very steep most of the way up. I was feeling kind of light-headed by the time I reached the halfway point, but after lots of water and a little food, I felt better. The cool breeze that we encountered the higher we climbed, the better we all felt. I did this hike with a small group of the Valley Wanderers hiking group. I kept Bella on her leash most of the way up because she tends to run up ahead and I was a little concerned that I may want to turn back. But I managed to reach the summit. Bella was also really hot and was delighted when we finally reached some small snow patches. I joined her eating a few handfuls of clean snow. I was the last one to reach the summit but only a little behind a couple of the other ladies. We had a nice break on the top and ate our snacks while enjoying the spectacular 360 degree view of the Talkeetna Mountains. The trip down the same trail is hard on the knees so we all had planned to descend via the more gentle, although longer, trail that leads to Blueberry Knoll. The first half of the descent is along a lovely ridge, with only a small section of rock piles that we needed to carefully negotiate. I let Bella be off her leash all the way down because she does tend to pull and can easily pull me off my feet when negotiating particularly steep and sketchy sections of trail. She happily ran back and forth to whoever happened to be leading, then back to me or whoever was behind me. Perhaps it's a herding instinct of some sort that makes it appear that she wants to make sure we are all together. At times, if I couldn't see her, I'd simply call her name and she would come running back to me. If Bella is on her leash and we encounter another dog, she suddenly turns into the tasmanian devil and tries to attack even dogs 10 times her size. However, when she ran into other dogs, while off her leash, she was all buddy with them and engaged in typical play as if she had known them for years and they were her best friends. I always find that to be very interesting.
Once off the ridge we entered forest and fairly high brush. Bella sometimes disappeared among the vegetation. Once we joined the Blueberry Knoll Trail it gets kind of tricky because the trail is really just a few miles of tree roots, all doing everything in their power to try to trip hikers. It's still quite steep and in places a little muddy. But I managed to make it the whole way down without any serious tumbles. Although there were a couple of small ones. We took 5 hours to complete the loop.
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| View down the ridge we descended |
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| Bella on the summit |
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