Hunter Pass via South Fork Trail and Rendezvous Ridge

 Today was a very interesting hike with the Walkabouts hiking group from Anchorage. It was raining at home and forecast to be mostly rainy.  But I carpooled to Eagle River with Pam, in spite of the forecast. I had not hiked the South Fork Trail before so this was a new one for me. We started up the trail intending to hike up to Hunter Pass.  A short distance in we encountered a sign and a barricade telling us that the Hunter Pass Trail was closed. But the trail we were on does continue on to Symphony and Eagle Lakes as well as on to the Rendezvous Ridge Trail. Two of our group chose to go on to the lakes, but the rest of us took the trail to the ridge. It started to rain and at times it was quite wet. The clouds rolled in and out and I wondered if we would be able to find our way back to the trailhead once we got in the clouds. It was a little muddy and the brush and fireweed was very high and very wet. My poor dog was soaking wet.  But she didn't seem to mind it even though she generally hates rain.  I forgot to bring her raincoat so was feeling quite guilty.  Although, I do know she really doesn't like wearing her raincoat. So maybe she was glad I forgot it. It was a wet and slippery slog to the ridge, where the wind came up and the rain was harder. We discussed going back the way we had come versus continuing along the ridge to our original destination of Hunter Pass. Learning that the trail down from the pass would be easier and nicer than the way we had come, we chose that route. . Upon reaching the high point of the ridge, Baby started climbing up my leg.  That's her way of saying in 'dog talk' that she'd had enough of the rain and would like me to carry her.  Reluctantly I stuffed her into my doggie backpack and tried my best to protect her head from the rain with my sunhat. I'm not sure it helped much, but she seemed to tolerate it.  Every time we stopped, I felt Baby start to tremble.  I don't think she was cold, but just worried about why we weren't moving. Once we started down things got a little better.  The clouds moved away and the visibility was much better.  About halfway down, it even mostly stopped raining.  We got to a spot where our trail intersected with the closed Hunter Pass Trail and once again we were facing a barricade and closed sign. No one was about to turn back, so of course we ignored that and went down the trail anyway.  We actually avoided the new trail that they had been creating, which caused the closure, and we went down the original trail. It was a lot nicer than the trail we had taken up. It had a lot less brush and was fairly easy going. I took the dog back out of my pack and she happily walked down the rest of the way. When we got back to the car, we were all completely soaked. But it was still a beautiful and very enjoyable hike.