Twin Peaks Trail

 This was a bone-chilling hike up the Twin Peaks Trail with Pam. She had to leave her dog home, because she was having her monthly grooming. I was worried Bella would miss her and not want to walk with us. I was even more worried when our car temperatures said it was -17 Fahrenheit in the parking lot at Eklutna Lake. I tried hiking the Eklutna Lakeside Trail a week ago and Bella refused to walk. It wasn't nearly as cold that day, so I was prepared to carry her in my pack. But she surprised us both by running on up the trail like it was the middle of summer. She was dressed in her coat and bright red booties though. It was a gorgeous day in spite of the cold. Once we got to the first bench, we were all pretty cold. My feet and thumbs were numb even though I was wearing foot and hand warmers. Sometimes it's just too cold to be comfortable. So, we elected to not move on to the second bench. Bella was trying to continue on though. But by the time we got back to the car she was shivering and seemed quite happy to be back with the car heater. The lake is now frozen so we can look forward to skiing on the lake soon. The trail didn't have a lot of snow and was well traveled and hard packed. We did need our micro spikes on our shoes though.

Independence Mine

 First hike of the new year to watch the first light of the new year with the Valley Wanderers. We would need to spend a few more hours to actually see the sun itself, but we did see the first light of dawn. We met at 8 am and hiked up the closed road to the mine buildings in the icy cold and dark conditions. The temperature varied between -5 and zero on the hike but had warmed up to +11 by the time we got back to our cars. Since we started out in the dark, we all wore headlamps and some even wore Christmas lights. Bella wore her lighted harness. That was a good thing too, because she tended to run far ahead and would have totally disappeared except for her flashing multi-colored blinking harness. At least we always knew where she was. I did have to take a couple minutes out 3 times to replace escaping booties. But for the most part, they did stay on. She was mostly the leader and seemed to know exactly where we wanted to go. It was like the wise men following yonder star because we just followed her lead up the trail. I was so glad I didn't need to put her in my backpack. For being as cold as it was, she was a real trooper and did really well all the way. But she was shaking pretty hard and very happy when we got back to the car. It was only about a 2 1/2-mile hike, but in those temperatures and the dark, it was long enough. 

Happy New Year!