Hope Point Climb

 Yesterday the weather was gorgeous. Today not so much. It was raining a little at home, but I hoped the forecast was right for Hope and we would only see clouds but no rain in that area. The drive to Hope takes about 2 1/2 hours, so I left a little early in case of road construction hold-ups. But I got there in plenty of time. It was cloudy in the mountains and overcast everywhere, but not actually raining when I left the Hope Point Trailhead with the Valley Wanderers. The trail is mostly fairly gentle for the first few miles as we climbed the switchbacks put in a few years ago. The original trail goes straight up the fall line. There were fields of wildflowers blooming all over the slopes. It was only about 55 degrees so I didn't get too warm like I so often do on steep hikes. When we could actually see the peak of Hope Point, it was obvious that it was obscured by a cloud cover. But we hoped the wind we were feeling might blow that cloud away. We pushed for the nob we saw up ahead and took a nice food break in a little meadow below that instead of waiting until we reached it. It was quite wet where we sat, but I sat on my raincoat to keep myself dry. After that break we again headed for that pointed knob, since now the actual peak was fully obscured. It wasn't looking very promising. But we were now able to get fairly good views of the inlet, through a bit of fog down below. When we reached the knob, we had a more official lunch break. By the time we were done eating, it was officially starting to rain. I put on both my light raincoat and my heavy Gortex shell and we pushed on through the rain, which soon started including a bit of icy sleet. Then came a very strong wind. At this point we were also climbing over fairly slippery rocks. It was quickly becoming very uncomfortable with no chance of seeing the beautiful view from the summit. Someone said they didn't want to continue. We looked at each other and were in unanimous quick agreement. We hurried back down to slightly drier and less windy parts of the trail. We took over 5 hours and hiked a total of 7.45 miles according to my GPS. I think we were all happy to get back to our cars and out of the rain. By now, it was raining everywhere. Most of the group was staying in Hope for the night, but I had to head home because of a trip I had planned for tomorrow. I drove through the rain and got stopped at Girdwood due to an accident down the road. They closed the Seward Highway on both lanes for about 4 hours, then finally allowed single lane traffic, alternating between north and southbound lanes. By the time I finally got past the accident scene, I had been sitting there for 6 hours. I took the same amount of time to drive home from Hope, that I took to drive to Hope, and climb and descend Hope Point, about 8 hours. It was officially a very long day!

But a gorgeous hike in spite of the bad weather.