Long Lake Loop Again

 We.ve had about 4 days of extreme winds with 3 1/2 days of no power. Trees are down everywhere from the 80-90 mph windstorm. Pam and I usually hike on Fridays, so we decided to repeat the hike we did last Friday. My back still hurts, but that trail is not terribly steep. We still walked the whole loop of about 5 miles. It was very icy today and my rather worn-out micro spikes were not doing a very good job negotiating the icy conditions. I decided to buy a new pair as soon as we got back. Pam had nice new ones and had no problem. The wind has mostly subsided, but it certainly left a path of destruction along this trail. There were trees down across the trail all over. Sometimes we had to crawl under them, other times we could climb over, and sometimes we had to find a totally new path around them. Our dogs were small enough that they could usually just go under them. It was only around 10-15 degrees and even with multiple layers, after a while, we were all getting a little chilly and glad to get back to the cars. More wind is forecast for the next few days, so it was nice to get in at least a short hike in between windstorms. Still hardly any snow, with not much hope for a white Christmas. That's annoying considering most of the lower 48 states are having tons of snow, along with other areas of Alaska. I guess we're just going to have a windy Christmas! Not what I've been dreaming of.

Long Lake Loop Trail

 Bella and I met Pam and her dog Dahla at the Matanuska Lakes Trailhead and took a nice 4.5-mile hike along our usual loop around Long Lake. I had a bad fall earlier this week when Bella yanked on her leash while I was walking on my icy boardwalk. I landed on my back hitting it really hard on the edge of the step right next to my spine. I've been pretty uncomfortable ever since. So, I didn't want to do a long, or hilly hike. I especially didn't want to do one where I might need to carry Bella. I didn't even want to carry my pack with snacks or water. We ended up walking farther than planned, but it was a lovely day, and it didn't seem to make my pain any worse. I let Bella run the whole way off leash. She wore her booties and her warm coat since it was in the mid-teens before we started. It was very cloudy but no wind. We managed to avoid the heavy fog down along the river. But the sun through the clouds was very beautiful.