Bodenburg Butte Climb

 Had a really nice energetic run/walk up the Butte today with Bella. There wasn't much activity, so I let her go off leash. It was so nice and warm, even in the shade at the bottom half. The temperature at the trailhead was 37 degrees but in the bright sunshine on top I'm sure it was well over 40 degrees. There were 2 other dogs up on the top. Bella enjoyed visiting with them. She is getting much better about interacting with other dogs, as long as she is not on the leash. She gets pretty noisy and even aggressive when she is attached to her leash. But she really enjoys playing with other dogs. I think she would like me to get another dog, but I think I have my hands full enough with just one. 

It was beautiful and sunny up there.

Hatcher Pass Monument

 Frank Wall, a friend I met hiking in the past, asked if I wanted to hike up to Summit Lake today. It's the high point on the Hartcher Pass Road that is closed in the winter. We hiked past the closed gate and climbed about 1000 feet over the packed snow along the closed road. I was surprised to see that it had been groomed for skiing and had also been well packed down by snow machines. Instead of directly following the road, we could see that the snow vehicles had cut off a few corners. Rather than going all the way to the monument, they had diverted straight down the other side. So, in order to get to the high point, we had to do a little bit of post holing. But it wasn't too bad. There were a few ski tracks going up there and we could see it from where we left the packed route. We had to take the obligatory photos from the monument so people would believe we made it. Frank brought his dog, Maya and his daughter's dog, Oakly and of course I brought Bella. The two big dogs were having a grand time play fighting with each other. They were polite and didn't try to drag Bella into their wildness. She really loved running along close to them, but not too close. All 3 dogs made it to the monument before we did. I really must come back there with my backcountry skis. It looked like perfect ski conditions. I wonder how far down the other side the trail is well packed. Maybe one could ski all the way down to where the road is closed from the other direction. That would be a fun trip, but one I probably wouldn't want to do alone. There is still some avalanche danger, but it is currently fairly low. If we get a big snowfall, I'd want to avoid the whole area though, especially as temperatures continue to warm up. We had a nice quick hike back down with 3 happy dogs.

The Perch

 I hiked the trail to the Perch along the Iditarod Trail from the Eagle River Nature Center with a small group of the Valley Wanderers today. Lots of folks are out of state for the winter so our hikes have been with only a couple of us. Today it was just Jane, Linda and me. Chris showed up at the trailhead, but then for some reason, he turned around and left. So, it was just us 3 and Bella our fearless leader. I got distracted as we started the hike, then suddenly realized I had forgotten something. I had left my backpack in my car! Feeling like a fool, I quickly ran back with Bella running along with me, grabbed my pack then ran back to the others. Fortunately, we had not gone very far before I realized my silly mistake. Since it's at least an 8-mile hike, I thought it best not to hike without it. I had my water and food in it. The trail was well packed down but like everywhere right now, it was icy enough that micro spikes were good to have. It was easy hiking until we got to Echo Bend and the river. From there, we found more icy sections and the trail gets kind of steep and narrow, with lots of tree roots. In a couple of places, I worried we might slip down into the river. The river was mostly frozen but definitely has a lot of open water, and there is water on top of the ice where it is frozen. It's been unseasonably warm and was even a bit above freezing today. The Perch is just a rocky outcropping with a short steep climb where you can get a great view of the river. Bella ran to the edge of it and the snow was very soft. I did some serious yelling at her to get back here, because I sure didn't want her sliding off onto whatever was down below. I kept her close by until we descended to the trail again. It was gorgeous up there and a nice place for a quick snack and a rest. On the way back we took the loop to the Dew Mound, which is just small hill overlooking a tiny lake. From there we also had a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains. The whole trip took about 4 hours, and we covered 8.6 miles. It's not a hard trail but Bella slept all the way home. I think she hiked twice as far as we did because dogs always have to run up and back increasing their mileage substantially.

Bear Point Hike

 I hiked up to Bear Point with a couple of the Valley Wanderers. Initially it was only going to be Kim and me. But Kim brought Amy, a friend of hers, and Chris showed up at the trailhead unannounced like he usually does. It was a perfect day for the hike. Nice temperature and no wind. Bella ran ahead with Chris who was up in front, as usual. He finally got too far ahead so I had to keep Bella back with us 3 ladies. Amy said it was her first winter hike. Wow, I thought, what a tough hike to introduce someone to winter hiking. The snow wasn't too deep, so we never needed snowshoes. But it's a very steep trail and in many places, it was also a very icy trail. I was glad that my micro spikes are very new and still quite sharp. Even so, at times it was pretty treacherous even with them. There has been enough foot traffic that at least we didn't need to break trail on our way up. But we did need to divert around some particularly icy spots. When we got closer to the top, Bella took off running, so she could greet us when we arrived. She is quite the climber. We finally saw Chris once we reached the first part of the summit plateau. He had gone much farther over towards the official Bear Point and had come back to see where we were. We followed his tracks to the official high spot labeled Bear Point on the map. We took a nice break there and had some snacks and took the usual photos. It wasn't obvious how to get back to the route we had taken up and we just trekked back across the snow in the general direction. Chris was ahead and the 3 of us followed him. Finally, we decided he must have some other route planned because we were obviously not headed back to the official trail. He does like to do his own thing sometimes. I checked my AllTrails app and saw that we needed to make a hard right to get back to the official trail. So, we worked our way back and Bella found our old footprints. She is a great scout. We could see Chris way off to the left towards Mt Eklutna and at first, wondered if he planned to climb it. But he did finally turn down in our direction and eventually showed up behind us on our original trail. I always worry that we may have trouble going down, after a steep icy climb up. But we easily found safer ways down avoiding the worst icy spots. Bella tends to stay with me on the way down, so she was close by until we reached the Peter's Creek Trail. We all got back to the cars together. It was a beautiful 4-mile 3-hour hike.

Bear Point

 Today was a hike with the Valley Wanderers. At first it was only Kim and me. But Kim brought, Amy a friend of hers, and as is typical, Chris showed up at the trailhead unannounced. He usually does that. Amy said she had never done a winter hike before. Wow, what a way to introduce someone to winter hiking, going up a very steep icy trail covered in snow. It's really not a difficult hike, but it is very steep in many parts. There was just enough snow on the trail to cover the glare ice beneath it. Conditions like that can be very slippery even with the sharpest of micro spikes. I had a few close calls, but never actually fell. Chris forged on ahead as always, and I was mostly able to keep Bella from taking off after him. But she was usually far out ahead of us three ladies. She was very good about coming back when I called her though. I don't like her actually getting out of sight. We caught up with Chris at the top and we all walked together across the upper plateau to the actual Bear Point. The view from there is spectacular. It offers great views of the Knik Arm and Mat-Su Valley down below as well as a lovely view of Twin Peaks and Mount Eklutna. It was so nice and sunny that we all felt like we could stay there forever. Plus, we were also wondering how treacherous the trip down was going to be on all the icy sections. I was pleasantly surprised that the trip down wasn't too bad at all. Chris tried to find a different way down, to avoid the ice. But he ended up taking a much longer route and coming up behind us. Bella stayed pretty close to me all the way down. I think she gets tired on the way back and loses interest in bounding down at breakneck speed. I was happy that I didn't need to carry her. My back doesn't enjoy that activity very much. But she does ride comfortably in my backpack when needed. The hike was 4 miles, and the elevation gain is about 2000 feet. It was a spectacular hike!

Kim, Me and Amy

Twin Peaks

Mt Eklutna

Eklutna Lakeside Trail

 Pam and I had planned to climb Lazy Mountain today. But when I walked Bella this morning the wind was very strong, and clouds were completely obscuring the top half of the mountain. I texted Pam and suggested we do something else instead. She suggested Eklutna Lake, so we met up there at 11am. It was much nicer up there, calm but a little on the cold side. Our dogs had a grand time running along sniffing and checking out everything along the way as we hiked the Lakeside trail to the Yuditna Cabin. People had camped there that night, so it was still warm from their fire. We settled in for a while and ate some snacks. On the way back we searched for the butterflies that I put on the trees along the trail marking the memorial for my little chihuahua, Baby who was killed there. They are very hard to see but we finally found them. I think I will add a couple more tiny ones the next time I go there. The little, tiny birdhouse I had hung was taken down. I suppose someone didn't like seeing it there. But the butterflies are so small that I doubt anyone would ever see them. Bella started getting cold about a mile and a half from the parking lot, so I had to put her in my backpack and carry her the rest of the way back. We did have a bit of wind on our way back, so we were all feeling the chill in the air. We saw some people skiing on the lake, so we plan to come back on Monday and do some skiing

Independence Mine Hike

I wanted to drive all the way up to Independence Mine to at least have a look at all the avalanches that had closed the road a couple of weeks ago. There were some impressive piles of snow where they had come down. They were at least 20 feet deep. Up at the mine, there is now a lot of snow. Down in the valley we have less snow than I have ever seen around here in January in the 40 years I have lived here. But there is plenty of snow up higher. Some of the mine buildings are almost buried. I walked with Bella up the main groomed road past the gate. She was annoyed about the leash and refused to walk, so I let her run free since there wasn't anyone else up there skiing or walking. We walked all the way up to the mine, then followed the groomed trails way up above the mine. It was really beautiful because the snow was mostly untouched. There were some ski tracks, but it wasn't heavily tracked like I would expect to see this time of year. It would have been very fast skiing on the groomed trail because it was very hard packed. I wasn't even leaving footprints, although I was careful to stay along the side of the trail, so not to mess up the ski trail. We just had a nice 3-mile workout. I think Bella likely covered ore like 4 miles because she ran up and down, covering a lot more territory than I was doing.