Lazy Mountain

 I'm trying to climb Lazy Mountain once a week for the rest of the summer or longer. But last week, life got in the way, and I missed doing it. Today looked beautiful on my morning dog walk so I decided that if I wanted to do my Lazy Mountain hike this week, I'd do well to grab the chance today. Bella and I started up the trail right at 9 am. I was feeling really good and energetic in spite of how steep that trail is. I still wasn't running up it though. I'd love to be strong enough to do that. I am always in awe of the mountain runners who go screaming by me running up the trail, while I huff and puff and pull myself up with my trekking poles. But today we pretty much had the trail to ourselves because of our fairly early start. Since it was just me and Bella alone on the trail, I wore my noisy bear bells to try to make enough noise that any bears out there would scurry away. I'm not sure they really help, but psychologically they do help me feel less nervous. I also talk to my dog a lot. I kept her on her leash until we were above the first picnic table. She tends to tun off on her own, and I didn't want her getting in an altercation with a bear or a moose. We grabbed snacks at the table and made our way to the top. The wildflowers were just gorgeous and dotting the hills everywhere. I was a little disappointed that the sunny blue skies from our morning walk had quickly deteriorated to solid clouds. As we progressed the sky did open back up a little and we did get some sunshine. In fact, I got pretty hot for a while. We got to the top and I took my usual 360-degree video.

It was beautifully calm up there and so green everywhere. The clouds were not yet obscuring the mountain peaks, and I had a full view of Matanuska Peak and the surrounding mountains. We spent a few minutes on the top until I saw a couple of other hikers who had reached the flag. Bella and I went back down to the flag so they could have room at the top if they wanted to scramble up the rocks to the summit. I made my way fairly carefully down through the loose scree from the top, then was able to at least halfway run along the ridge. I started running into many other hikers making their way to the top. I even ran into Dan and Karen, 2 hiker acquaintances making their way up to the top, much faster than my pace, I might add. Both of them are way out of my class. I wondered if they would both reach the summit and still pass me on their way back down to the cars. Once to the lower picnic table, I figured out how to really run down the steep rest of the way. I really don't call it running so much as more of a hop skip and a jump method of descending. I managed to make it all the way down without falling on my face, but I did have a few close calls as I tripped over tree roots that I used as steps. Bella mostly stayed right with me on the way down. I was now used to the idea that bears and things could be in the brush but kept her running leash-free, so she didn't pull me to my death on that extremely steep trail. We did the whole 4-mile trip in 3 and a half hours, which is faster than my typical 4 hours round trip. I still took 2 hours to get to the top but made up for my slow ascent by mostly running down. Once back at the car, I found raindrops on my windshield. Soon afterwards I looked back and saw the summit of Lazy Mountain was covered in clouds, and it started to rain at home. I'm glad I started early!

Summit View of Matanuska Peak

Bella on top

The flag has been replaced after I found it missing recently