Archangel Road Ski with Pam and The Dogs

 I often hike or ski with my friend Pam on Fridays. When I told her how nice the conditions were on Archangel Road, she wanted to meet up there and ski it with me. It was Bella's first time to do a hike or ski with another dog. I was happy that she got along well with Dahla, Pam's Lhasa Apso. I think they will be great friends. We were in the shade most of the way out to the bridge and once again, Bella got cold. I ended up carrying her in my backpack for part of the distance. But on the way back we were in the sunshine and it had warmed up considerably, so she ran all the way back, pulling me on my skis. Conditions were even better than on Wednesday because the groomer kept passing by and smoothing out the trail. It was perfect conditions. Although we did have to move out of his way at times. We went about 4 and a half miles round trip. After our ski, we went up to the Hatcher Pass Lodge and had a nice lunch. It's a great place to eat because they are fine with us bringing our dogs in with us. They behaved quite well also. It was a gorgeous day.

Archangel Road Ski

 Drove up to Hatcher Pass hoping I could get away from the horrendous winds down in the valley. It was beautiful and calm up there. I skijored with Bella on the nice groomed trail. After awhile, she started slowing down and lifting her paws. I could tell her feet were getting cold. I have some booties for her but they fall off. When I get home I plan to make them a little smaller in hopes that they will stay on. Unlike my previous dog, she seems quite tolerant of them. I just had a small day pack with me, but figured she would probably fit into it. It would be a tight fit and I wondered how comfortable it would be since she weighs nearly 12 pounds. I managed to squeeze her in and she seemed quite comfortable. I was surprised how comfortable I was with the extra weight. I continued on to the bridge, where they generally discontinue the grooming. Just before the bridge the trail gets pretty rough because at that point snow machines are allowed. At the bridge we were no longer in the sun, so I kept her in the backpack. Once back in sunshine on our way back, I let her out again. I could tell it was warmer now, and she ran the whole way back without lifting her paws from the cold. The whole trip was 4.6 miles and a beautiful little ski hike. Always a gorgeous place to hike or ski.

The Archangel Creek Bridge, our turn around point.

Rabbit Slough/Palmer Slough

 I met with a group of the Valley Wanderers by the dock at the end of Rabbit Slough Road. we skied a total of 7.2 miles round trip in the downstream direction. It was perfect for skiing except for a few spots of overflow that had frozen causing some icy spots. Bella ran the whole way. About halfway out to our turn around spot at mile 3.6, a black lab came out of nowhere and walked with us, antagonizing Bella periodically. Fortunately they were able to refrain from getting into a dog fight to which Bella would have been greatly disadvantaged. We saw a couple of guys on fat tire bikes and shortly before we got back to our cars, we found the owner of the black lab, who finally had her on a leash. Otherwise, we had the whole place to ourselves. I'm still a little nervous around big dogs, especially when they are running loose. But at least this one was fairly well behaved. I don't want to see Bella get injured or killed the way Baby was. I'm a very protective dog mom now. She is a great hiking and skiing companion. It was beautiful and wild out there today. We could have continued for a few more hours, but everyone was getting tired and ready to turn around. I love this area in all seasons. I've paddled my kayak and canoe in both directions in the summer. There were lots of moose tracks but we never did see the moose. But we saw beautiful views of the surrounding mountains.

Rabbit Slough

I would like to hike or ski tomorrow with the Valley Wanderers along the Rabbit Slough. But I wasn't sure what the conditions would be like. I didn't want to commit to the trip if the snow was too deep for Bella, my little dog. She had a lot of trouble on Lazy Mountain recently in the deep snow. But we skied about 4 miles along the Palmer Slough, which is really the name of that slow moving frozen creek. We found the conditions were perfect. Snow machines had packed down a nice smooth trail for us. So I'll plan to join the others for a longer trip tomorrow. Bella is a great skijoring dog. She tends to run out in front and give me a little extra momentum on my skis. 

Eklutna Lakeside Trail

 I intended to ski at Rabbit Slough today to check out the conditions. But when I got there a man came to my window and asked if I could wait about 20 minutes because they were shooting a commercial there. I promptly turned around and drove up to Eklutna Lake. I was surprised to see that there wasn't a single car in the parking lot. I had the entire place all to myself. It looked good for skiing but I was not sure so decided to first try walking. It turned out to be perfect for skiing but by the time I had walked a few feet, it just seemed easier to continue walking. Bella seemed to really like the trail. It was so well packed that I'm wondering if they had actually groomed it for skiing. I have never heard of that happening before, but it was perfect conditions for just about anything. I wanted to visit the place of Baby's memorial so we left the upper groomed trail and went through the deeper snow on the lower trail to see if we could still find it. Bella wasn't quite as happy with the deeper snow. Shortly before reaching the memorial, I scooped her up and carried her. I was surprised to see a large bull moose down on the lake shore. I managed to get a couple of photos by zooming in with my iPhone. I was glad he didn't decide to come up the hill and join us. I continued past the memorial to the next exit to the upper trail. Bella was very happy to be back on the hard packed snow. We practically ran the whole way back to the car. The whole distance was only about 3.5 miles. But it was pretty cold and I was glad to get back. I've decided it's time to start using my heavier Canada Goose parka. I enjoyed having the whole lake to myself.

Baby's Butterfly House at her Memorial

Bella on the trail

Around Reflections Lake

 Yesterday was a long day of skiing. I did a bunch of snow shoveling this morning and just took our usual little walk around Reflections Lake. It was really spectacular there today. I love how the sun lights up the mountains in winter. It's such a beautiful little place. It was really chilly out there today though. 

Skeetawk

 Between Christmas, a new dog, food poisoning from Christmas dinner, and some horrible weather, I have not had a chance to get up to the Skeetawk Ski Area to get in a Ski Patrol duty day. I finally went up for my first day downhill skiing this season. I couldn't leave the dog home for the whole 8 hours so brought her along. She stayed in the car bundled up in her blankets. I came down at least every hour to hour and a half and warmed up the car and took her for little walks around the parking lot. Most of the time I found her sound asleep under her blankets. It was a pretty good day and not terribly crowded for a Sunday. We started out before sunrise and ended in the dark doing the sweep wearing our headlamps. We do have lights on the slopes now. It wasn't a great day for pictures but I did do one selfie with Bella inside my car. 

It was nice to get out skiing. Once I convince her to use the doggie door, I will probably be able to leave her home. But it was kind of fun visiting her in between runs. She didn't seem to mind it too much.

Lazy Mountain Hike

Bella and I met with the Valley Wanderers at the Lazy Mountain Trailhead, before the actual sunrise. Their plan was to hike the steep main trail to the picnic table at the junction of the longer, more gradual Lazy Moose Trail, then descend that trail, avoiding the slippery steepness of the main trail. I always prefer to go all the way to the top of the mountain rather then end the climb at the table. But today I just didn't seem to have any energy. I'm often the slowest of this group, but today I was really dragging. Sandy tends to like a slower pace so she stayed with me as I slowly plodded my way up. I have no idea why I felt so tired, but we did finally reach the picnic table. The others had been waiting for a while so they took off down Lazy Moose.  The steep trail was well packed down and all we needed were microspikes. But as soon as we started down Lazy Moose, our snowshoes were definitely needed. It was hardly packed at all. In fact, I think the only tracks were made by the rest of our group that had started down ahead of Sandy, Bella and me. I was relieved to be heading down and my snowshoes made travel easy even though the snow was quite deep. But Bella wasn't a fan at all. The snow was deeper than her body. After only a very short distance, she stopped and started trying to back out of her harness, she even worked her way right out of her winter coat. She was determined to get out of that deep snow. I had to tell Sandy to go on without us because I didn't want to carry the dog. I didn't have a pack on that would work well for carrying her either. We went back to the picnic table and Bella took off running back down the steep icy trail as fast as her little legs could carry her. I ended up becoming a mountain runner most of the way since I always keep her on her leash. I think that was my quickest trip ever back down that trail. I spent most of the time shouting, slow down, please, slow slow slow. Words she obviously chose to ignore. I made it all the way to the tiny bridge just above the parking lot before she finally pulled me over, landing on my knees. It was an odd hike, slightly disappointing, but still a beautiful day to be out there in the mountains. The sunrise was amazing too. 

Thunderbird Falls Hike

 I was all ready to try cross country skiing up at Eklutna Lake this morning. The weather looked great and the road was in good condition. I made it almost halfway to the lake when traffic came to a dead stop. There were only a couple of cars ahead of me, but I could see that a large trailer had jackknifed and partially lodged itself into the snowbank. It quickly looked like a major project to get that huge vehicle out of the way to clear the road. I decided after a couple of minutes that I really didn't need to go to Eklutna Lake today. So I turned around and went back down the road. Instead, I pulled into the Thunderbird Falls trailhead parking lot. I love this trail. It's only about 3 miles round trip if you descend all the way to the base of the falls. Bella and I walked to the overlook then down to the creek and to the base of the falls. There was so much snow that you could hardly see the waterfall but there were breaks in the ice where you could see it was still running. At one point the trees were so heavily loaded that I had to crawl under the branches to follow the trail. It was well packed and I didn't need snowshoes, although microspikes were very helpful. We only ran into a couple other hikers. So it was very peaceful. 

Reflections Lake Walk

 It's been very windy and snowy with drifts making travel difficult. I've been getting supplies and dog food and other things needed to keep Bella happy and well fed. We've been doing our daily morning walks in the dark, but it's always nice to take the beautiful one mile stroll around the lake in the daylight. Bella enjoys all the different smells because this is often a very popular trail for people who want to take their dogs for a short outing. The sun was bright on the mountain peaks making for some interesting views beneath the low clouds. 

Reflections Lake

It was a beautiful day with fresh snow on the trees at Reflections Lake. This was Baby's favorite spot so I thought I'd take such a beautiful day to introduce this lovely trail to my new dog buddy, Bella. I think she liked it. It has been windy in town but seems to have missed this spot. The snow was still heavy on the trees, making everything magical.