Moose Range Ski

 Today Bella and I cross country skied out on the Moose Range trails with Pam and her dog Dahla. The conditions were amazing. The trails had been groomed and the snow was beautiful fresh powder. It was also calm and fairly sunny. We stayed on the main trail to the swamp area and from there we took off along the swamp edge on the fresh snow. It was mostly now just a snowmachine trail but once again we intersected another groomed trail. It was heavenly skiing. The trail turned into the woods once we got to the end of the swamp area. It was now much narrower and had some fairly steep hills. With the dog pulling me, I get uncomfortable if the terrain gets very steep when I'm on my skinny cross country skis. I finally crashed into a pile of snow and had quite a hard time getting myself back up. I had hurt my right foot recently and it was seriously complaining as I tried to get myself back to standing. Once I was upright again we decided to turn back and follow our original trail back to the cars. It was a beautiful little 4 mile trip.

Snowball Bella

Kings Mountain

Arkose Ridge

Butte Hike

Very icy hike up Bodenburg Butte today. It was so icy I almost turned around as soon as I reached the gate to the trailhead. I was wearing my micro spikes on my shoes and they seemed to be keeping me from slipping, so I decided to continue on. The trail had been hard packed snow but it had since melted due to a week of warm temperatures. But now it was cold again and it had turned to nearly glare ice. Bella and I continued on. I figured I would make my go or no go decision once we reached the long series of wooden steps that climb the steepest part of the trail. Without spikes, they would have been impossible, but by gripping the ropes and handrails I was able to climb the stairs safely. There were a couple of places where I had to lift the dog up because she couldn't climb on the clear ice. But the rest of the way up was pretty good. Right at the top, I found the snow was rough and potholed, although still ice. It was kind of tricky footing, but we made it up into the rocks on the summit. It had been calm at the start but on top the wind was extreme and we quickly found shelter behind a big rock outcropping. We didn't stay long, took my photos and we quickly started our descent. Bella thought it would be nice to run down the whole way. I spent most of the way down the stairs shouting, slow down slow down, because I didn't dare take her off the leash on that trail. It is heavily used by people hiking with dogs. We only encountered two women about halfway down the stairs. Bella tried to run to them, and I had to do some tricky maneuvering to get past them still standing. Once we were past the stairs, we were both able to run all the way down. Near the bottom we did run into a woman with a dog, but I picked up Bella and we passed them quickly. She does like to start something with every dog we meet. All in all, it was a fun little hike and a nice run down. Thank goodness for micro spikes. 

Pioneer Peak from the summit

Twin Peaks from the summit

Knik Glacier from the summit

Mountains to the north from the summit

Ptarmigan Valley Trail

 This was a hike with the Valley Wanderers. I invited Pam to go with us because she wanted to do something fairly local so she could get home to get ready to go to dinner in Anchorage later. She was tired from our Lazy Mountain hike the day before so decided pretty quickly that the speedy Valley Wanderers were too speedy for her today. I felt like I was keeping up at first, but I almost always end up being left behind, so I was quite happy to go at Pam's pace instead of pushing myself to total exhaustion. I admit, I was a bit tired from Lazy Mountain also. Our two little dogs got along great and seemed to be having a wonderful time. They certainly didn't seem tired from Lazy Mountain yesterday. Although, Bella has been sound asleep ever since we got back home. Our goal was the bridge over the Little Peters Creek. We ran into the returning Valley Wanderers group about 1/4 mile from the bridge, so they really weren't very far ahead of us. It was overcast so not quite the beautiful clear blue sky weather of yesterday, but it was a nice temperature and the snow was perfect for hiking. There were a few snow machines on the trail so I kept Bella on her leash the whole time. She does delight in chasing things like that. She handled them and the few dogs we met, pretty well. But I was glad she was on her leash. On the way up we had beautiful views of Denali (Mt McKinley) beneath the clouds. But on the return trip the clouds had lowered and obscured the beautiful view. It was my first time to hike more than a short distance on this trail. I'm looking forward to trying it again in summer and exploring beyond the bridge. Today's hike was 7 miles round trip with a 1600 foot elevation gain over rolling hills.

Alaska Range in the Distance

Denali

Bella and Dahla at the Bridge

Bella on the Bridge

Perfect Climb of Lazy Mountain

 This was Bella's first Lazy Mountain climb. She did great, especially since she had surgery just a couple days over 2 weeks ago and had her stitches out 4 days ago. It was an absolutely perfect day to climb Lazy. It was sunny but not warm enough to turn the hard packed snow trail to nasty mush. It stayed fairly firm the whole way up and back. Pam and her dog Dahla were also with us. The first half up the main trail, is very steep but there were good footsteps to follow so we could avoid the slick areas where people had been sliding down on the wet snow on warmer days. Bella slid down a couple of them, but I stayed off of them. I kept her on her leash all the way to the summit. The last ridge to the summit was kind of intimidating. It was the width of my foot with steep snow down each side. I kept Bella on a short leash and scurried over that as fast as I could. I really didn't want her to try exploring down either side and sending me careening down onto the steep slopes on either side. We found a nice rocky prominence on the summit and spent a few minutes sitting there admiring the view of Matanuska Peak. Bella was quite interested in exploring the rocky points, an activity I refused to allow. There was a man with a huge black dog on another rocky point near us. I made sure Bella didn't decide to start a bark fest with him! We were a little worried about how conditions may have changed for our trip down. Pam is not a fan of steep downhill and neither of us were interested in a slip sliding descent if the snow had softened. It was obvious that the less steep Lazy Moose Trail had not been packed since the last storm, so we knew the steep route was our only choice. Happily, once back to the picnic table at the halfway point, we found the snow was still firm and fairly easy going. Bella had been trying to race all the way down, so I gave up trying to keep up with her on her leash. Walking down on steep slippery snow is hard enough without someone trying to pull you down at breakneck speed. I let her off the leash most of the way down and was delighted that she obeyed me immediately when I called her to stop or come back. Once past the picnic table, Bella and I ran all the way down that last steep mile. It was invigorating and a wonderful workout. 

Bella on the Summit

Matanuska Peak from the Summit

Pam and Dahla descending from the summit

Hay Flats and Dike Road Snowshoe

 I met with Frank Wall a fellow member of the Adventure Alaska Facebook Group, at his house for a hike on trails he has packed through the Hay Flats and Dike Road. He had created beautiful ski trails but for several days we have had extremely unseasonably warm weather, which had ruined his trails. Nothing out there was skiable, but could be traveled using snowshoes. Even with them it was pretty tough going. It was all quite rutted from his attempts to hike it the last two days, sinking in making big holes. Now it has cooled off again turning all the mess to icey crunchy post holes. But we were able to crunch our way through it all the way to the Matanuska River. There is an old Dike Road that in the past folks were able to drive. But it has been closed off for some time. Now the only official way to access that area is directly from his back yard or maybe from a couple of his other neighbors. It's quite wild out there. We passed and even crossed a few streams that had been frozen but were now open water. The Dike Road itself was nice going though. We hiked exactly 5 miles out and back. The temperature was just over freezing but the north wind came up as we started back. My dog stayed on her leash and did surprisingly well considering she had surgery just over two weeks ago. I was happy I never needed to carry her. This snow didn't tend to create giant snowballs on her legs like we encountered yesterday. It all went quite well. I enjoyed Frank's stories of how things had changed in the area in the 30 years he had lived there. We had some beautiful views of the local mountains and the frozen river.

Pioneer Peak and the Matanuska River

Part of the dike

Twin Peaks and the Matanuska River

Bella, Me & Frank

Our route

Archangel Road Ski

 I hesitated going up to Hatcher Pass today because of the avalanche warnings. But I was not planning to try to climb up onto avalanche terrain. I decided to cross country ski on Archangel Road, a very popular groomed ski area that is on a road they close in winter. It's been quite warm for February in Alaska, 40 degrees already in the morning. About one mile in on the road I came across a very recent avalanche across the road, likely from yesterday. There were enough ski tracks across it that it obviously had not just happened. I had to kind of pick my way across the avalanche debris. I found it to be a little disconcerting, but I still continued on. I was wearing my avalanche beacon but since I was not traveling with a partner also wearing one, I figured it really wouldn't do much good if another slide came down and buried me and my dog. 

Avalanche debris across the trail

Looking up towards the start of the avalanche

Soon after crossing the avalanche path I ran into a couple of my hiking friends. I ended up skiing the rest of the day with Cindy, who is a very good cross country skier and instructor. The first few miles of this trail are very smooth and also groomed, making for easy travel. Once we reached the bridge over Archangel Creek, where I usually turn around, we were now traveling on multi-use trail well tracked by snow machines. That's where the nice groomed trail ends. Cindy was planning to go farther, so I decided to go too. The conditions were fairly good in spite of the choppy motorized tracks. At one point the tracks had actually left the road and gone off to the right. We could still see the road so followed it over varying conditions. I wondered how tough the trip back down was going to be. I'm fine on downhill with my downhill skis but it gets more challenging on skinny cross country skis where my heel is not locked down. We made it all the way to the gate where summer car travel ends. It was getting kind of late and we were both getting a bit tired. So we turned around at that point and started down. My dog, Bella only weighs 11 pounds but those little legs can really move. She was attached to my waist by her leash and was ready to break all speed records downhill back to the start. My lack of downhill skill on cross country skis immediately showed itself. I did fine on the firm snow but in the rutted breakable crusty areas not so much. I was continually begging Bella to slow down, which just sounded like a bunch of noise to her. I finally crashed into a pile of snow and had a terrible time finally getting myself back upright. By now Cindy and her dog were out of sight. I picked my way down as carefully as I could until suddenly Bella came to a complete stop. She has long hair and had accumulated gigantic icy snowballs the size of golfballs on all of her legs and was busy trying to bite them off. I tried breaking them off myself but with no luck. So at that point I took off my backpack and plopped her into it. At least she wasn't pulling me anymore but my shoulder and back were killing me. I think I smacked my right shoulder pretty hard on the fall. Happily I caught up with Cindy and we eventually reached the nice groomed trail again. I found I did best if I just stayed in the groomed tracks and it was good sailing the rest of the 8 mile round trip back to the car. It was a gorgeous little trip but I think I'd prefer to go that far back on my backcountry skis if I decide to do it again. Then I'd have the luxury of locked down heels and much better downhill control. 

I now have a very tired dog!

The partially buried gate where we turned around

 

Gold Mint Trail Hike

 We've had a couple of weeks of extremely cold temperatures, -20 to -30 Fahrenheit and even some high winds making things worse. My dog, Bella also had to have surgery that included spaying plus a number of mammary tumors. She was not able to do any major activity for two weeks. Yesterday she finally got her stitches out. So, today we had a really nice 4 mile hike up on the Gold Mint Trail in Hatcher Pass. Those cold temperatures are gone and it was actually over 40 degrees up there and here at home. Things are melting fast. There is major avalanche concern but we stayed down in the valley and there wasn't any sign of avalanche activity along the mountains above us. It was so nice to finally get out and go on more than a short walk up and down our street or the short walk around Reflections Lake. I could tell Bella was really happy to be out there trying to pull me off my feet the whole time. By mile 2 the snow was getting pretty deep and the trail was no longer well packed, so that's where we had to turn back since I didn't being my snowshoes. I think things will be back to normal now.