Twin Peaks Trail

 I haven't done much hiking the last few weeks due to a two week bout with COVID-19.  I'm OK now and no longer testing positive.  I have been able to get in a few last days of the downhill skiing season Ski Patrolling up at Skeetawk though. 

Today I finally got back out on the trails and hiked to the first bench on the Twin Peaks Trail.  I wanted to go farther, but I was so busy with other stuff today that it was almost 2pm when I finally got to the trailhead. It was just me and Baby most of the way.  We did meet a young woman on her way down who warned us of a moose on the trail about one mile up.  I kept on the lookout for it. Baby saw it way before I did and was barking furiously. I finally saw it through the trees.  Between her barking and me trying to get her to be quiet, the moose finally took off up the mountainside. Then we were able to continue on. 

The trail still has a lot of snow and ice, but enough bare spots that it really wasn't reasonable to wear micro spikes.  So I just carried them in case I needed them.  It was pretty warm, 44, on my car's temperature gage. That caused a layer of slush on top of the otherwise icy spots, plus I was able to usually find some soft snow adjacent to the stretches of ice. In some places it was completely free of snow and streams of water were trickling down. But no mud to deal with.  We only went to the first bench because we got such a late start.  But that was fine because I'm still a little weak from being sick. We had a nice rest at the bench where we had a snack and admired the always amazing view of Eklutna Lake down below. Next time, I definitely want to get all the way to the top of Pepper Peak.  I'm not even sure that would have been possible today.  There is still quite a lot of snow on the hills above. Maybe in a couple of weeks I can get an earlier start and we will make it all the way.  But for today, it was a wonderful hike.