The drive up Eklutna Lake Road was a little disconcerting when I had to stop for a black bear at mile 3. This hike was a bit disappointing for me. I absolutely love the hike up Pepper Peak, and that was our goal today with the Valley Wanderers. However, it didn't look promising at all. There were low clouds obscuring all of the mountain peaks, and I knew that even if we made it up there, we wouldn't have any view at all. We started with 8 of us. Chris, Karen and Virginia took off immediately and were quickly out of sight, which is typical for those speedy characters. The rest of us made our way up the Twin Peaks Trail. It was still quite beautiful, and we had a great view of Eklutna Lake from the first bench overlook. We could see the clouds lowering and wondered if it was even worthwhile to continue to the 2nd bench. But we decided to press on at least that far. Once there, after pondering and considering, we decided to ascend into the clouds and go partway up to the ridge toward the next overlook and Pepper Peak. We stopped at a huge rock and most declared this as our final destination. We pondered a little and I assured them it wasn't very far to reach the upper ridge to see if we could get the view from there. We all pressed on. We made it to the ridge but could barely see each other, let alone the view of the lake. At that point, we collectively decided we were done, and it was pointless to try to find our way up to Pepper Peak. At some point, Sarah received a text from Virginia saying the 3 speedy folks had made it to the top but couldn't see anything. I was a little disappointed, but without seeing the view from the top, it was pointless to continue. We went back down and had an enjoyable 6-mile hike total. Bella enjoyed running up and down the trail going twice the distance we did.
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| Mile 3 of Eklutna Lake Road |
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| View of Eklutna Lake from the overlook at the 1st bench |
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| The upper ridge in the fog |
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