Eklutna Lakeside Trail Ski

 Cross country skiing today up at Eklutna Lake with my friend Diane. It was very cold, only 8 degrees at home and in Palmer. I wore four layers of coats. Baby wore her warmest coat, but she was still cold. She ended up riding in my backpack where she could stay warm and cozy. Diane's huge black German Shepherd, Tobi was totally indifferent to the cold and kept Diane far ahead of me most of the way. The snow was wonderful powder, but not quite as deep as I would have liked. The rocks often had very light coverage and we had to be careful not to catch a ski and topple over as we skied over them. Happily, I remained standing. On Thursday I woke up to 8 inches of snow, and it looks like this area got about the same amount. At those temperatures, it was very light powder. The lake is still open and reflected the beautiful golden sunrise that continued through to nearly sunset during this short Alaskan winter day. The trees were heavily coated with snow, making the whole scene look like a Christmas card in every direction.

Eklutna Lakeside Trail

 We've had several recent snowfalls, so I decided to grab my cross country skis and see how the snow conditions are at Eklutna Lake. What a disappointment! There is practically no snow anywhere up there. Just a few small piles in the trees, but the Lakeside Trail is about 90 percent ice. Not nice ice that you could ice skate on either, but rutted, rough lumpy ice. Even with my micro spikes on my boots, it was at times, difficult walking. I was wearing my snow boots because I had planned to wear my ski boots. But I found that the spikes worked well with them so I figured I would just walk, in spite of the ice. But, Baby my dog, quickly got tired of dealing with the ice. It seemed a little odd because she doesn't seem to have problems walking on snow. Maybe the ice was sharp on her feet. I ended up carrying her in my backpack. She seemed pretty comfortable with that idea. I only walked to the one mile marker and back. It was beautiful as usual, but the sun never reached us even though it was a totally cloudless day. I guess I will need to go elsewhere if I want to ski.

Matanuska Peak Trail

 I hiked today with the Valley Wanderers. Our original plan had been a snowshoe hike at Independence Mine. But they changed it due to freezing rain. Instead we hiked the Matanuska Peak Trail intending to go to Stonehenge. The trail was in great condition, with hard packed snow. I had been feeling exhausted all week and considered passing on this hike. But since the trail is so close and I felt I really needed the exercise, I decided to go. All was well for the first mile, but as it got steeper, I found I wasn't able to keep up with the other three ladies. I am generally slower than most of them normally, but today I was really dragging. I was very glad that Baby was happily running ahead and it didn't look like I would need to carry her. That really slows me down. When we got to the 9000 foot marker, the others decided to hike along the trail to check out a large landslide instead of heading up to Stonehenge. That part of the trail was deeper snow and not packed down. I could see right away that Baby was having trouble and I would need to carry her. At that point I decided there wasn't much point in continuing, so I let them know I was going to head back. It was pleasant descending and Baby was still doing fine. It wasn't the best day to be out there anyway because it was overcast and obscuring the mountain peaks, plus it was snowing lightly. I'm really glad I went and I hope I can get a little faster and in better shape because I love hiking with those folks. But I don't like being too slow, because I feel like I'm dragging them down. I think I'm just not quite in the winter mode yet. It's so much more complicated than summer hikes. But I really love the snow covered scenery.