Matanuska Lake Trails

 I usually hike or ski with my friend Pam every Friday. Bella, my dog needs to still refrain from anything too strenuous but since she gets her stitches out in just a few days, I felt we could try just a short hike on the Matanuska Lake Trails. I knew I could simply carry her in my backpack if it seemed she was having trouble or getting tired. I was surprised how peppy she actually was. She was delighted to be on the trail with Pam's dog, Dahla, her best buddy. She bounced along for the whole 5 mile Long Lake Loop Trail. The weather was pretty miserable and we couldn't see the mountains or much of anything. So I wasn't even inspired to take any pictures. But I can see she is ready to be done with stitches, and taking things easy.

Independence Mine

 Bella still has stitches and can't do anything too difficult yet. But she is healing well and is very anxious to get outside and get moving. The weather was beautiful so I drove up to Independence Mine in Hatcher Pass and we just went for a short walk on the snow. We only walked a little over one mile but Bella was happy to sprint along, barking at anyone and any dog that we happened to see in the parking lot or on the trail. Only one more week then we will have the stitches from her second surgery removed and can get back to our normal routine.

Gold Mint Trail Hike

 I wanted to do a short hike today with Pam and our dogs. Bella had another surgery on Tuesday and is not supposed to run, jump or do long hikes. We have been doing short walks up and down the road with her on her leash. Gold Mint Trail is pretty flat so I figured if I kept her calm we could do a short hike there. She walked about half a mile then seemed tired. So I put her in my doggie backpack and comfortably carried her the rest of our 4 mile hike. She stayed nice and warm inside the fleece bag I made for the inside of that backpack. I think she was quite comfortable and enjoyed it a lot more than staying home. It was pretty warm, about 35 degrees yet it was still snowing lightly most of the way. We turned back at mile two because there the trail gets kind of rough and Pam didn't have enough time to go much farther anyway. I'm looking forward to a week from Tuesday when Bella gets her stitches out and we can resume our normal hiking schedule. But for the next week and a half we will either take it easy or she will be my backpack rider. Even though it is now technically spring, there is still so much snow that spring looks pretty far away. At least we have longer days now.

Eklutna Lake Ski

I always keep my Saturdays free assuming I will go hiking with the Valley Wanderers, a local hiking group here in Palmer that hikes every Saturday and Monday. They have stopped sending me their weekly emails, so for the last month I have not done a hike with them. I also hike with the Alaska Walkabouts, the hiking group from Anchorage. My friend Pam is also a member of that group. Today they had planned to ski on the frozen surface of Eklutna Lake. I heard the conditions were perfect there right now, so carpooled with Pam to the lake. We stopped at the bottom of Eklutna Lake Road and picked up my friend Alice. Alice has ski boots but no skis or poles. So I used my skate skis and downhill ski poles and loaned her my classic cross country skis and my adjustable ski poles. She has only skied a couple of times, so skiing on a flat frozen lake is the perfect place to learn how to handle skis. There were 17 of us on this trip. I had passed on the report of the great conditions after my friend, Diane told me of her trip there the day before. That brought the whole gang out for a glorious trip along the lake. Pam brought her dog, Dahla, and Madeline brought her bigger dog, Biscuit. I kept Bella on her leash at first because she seemed intent on letting Biscuit know who's boss. I wasn't worried about Biscuit hurting Bella but about Bella biting Biscuit with one or two of her few remaining teeth. Bella finally mellowed out and since we were way out in the middle of a huge lake, I let her run loose. She was great. She would run to the folks in front, then back to the last skier, likely running twice the distance of the rest of us. Frequently reminding Biscuit that she was the lead 10 pound Yorkshire Terrier. Biscuit just wandered away rolling his eyes! Bella always comes running back when I call her. We went to a cabin on the far side of the lake and had a few of Madeline's delicious coconut brownies. It wasn't the beautiful sunny day we had yesterday, and was even snowing a bit in the beginning, but still fairly warm and quite calm. I kept Bella off her leash until we started getting close to the trailhead on our return, where we started seeing other people and a few dogs. I hooked her up again and suddenly found myself moving a lot faster as she raced her way back towards the parking lot. She certainly has a lot of energy. We did a total of 8 miles but I'm sure she did more than 10. She has a bit of arthritis and has been favoring her left rear leg. But it sure wasn't slowing her down today. I'm sure she will sleep well tonight. 
It was really fun skiing with this group. I suspect I'll go back to doing a lot more with them on my Saturdays from now on, since the other group seems to have dropped me from their list. Here in Alaska, especially, it is safer to hike with others since there are bears and moose that can be very dangerous. I do often hike alone on the weekdays though.

Bella at the cabin

Me and Bella with her snow beard

Archangel Road Ski

I downhill skied up at Skeetawk all day yesterday. But Fridays are usually the days I spend hiking or skiing with my friend Pam. Today we skied the groomed trail along Archangel Road in the Hatcher Pass area. Of course we had our two dogs, Bella and Dahla. They get along with each other so well. I generally keep Bella on her leash, but especially on this route because signs remind us that there is trapping along this road. Dogs tend to run off the main trail, which could result in a tragedy for our dogs. Pam doesn't like keeping Dahla on leash, which is generally OK because Dahla tends to stay right by her side. Gahla is an 18 pound Lhasa Apso. Bella is much smaller and loves to run after people and other dogs. I never want her near loose dogs that are often seen along this road. The ski conditions were perfect and it was a gorgeous sunny warm day. We skied to the bridge, which is where we meet the area that allows snow machine traffic. It's our usual turning around point. I felt like I barely got a workout because Bella likes to run, and pulls so hard that I could almost have made the trip by simply standing still. But of course, I do push hard enough that she doesn't end up doing all the work. On our way back as we were flying down a steep section inside the groomed ski tracks, I noticed Dahla was on longer in sight. We stopped and Pam called and called out to her and we still didn't see her. We turned back with both of us calling. I suddenly thought I saw movement a few hundred feet to my left in the deep snow. It was Dahla. She was intent on investigating or chasing something way out there. It took awhile to finally get her attention and she eventually started moving, but not exactly towards us. There was a deep slope between her location and ours and we weren't sure how well we could negotiate that on our skinny skis. She eventually made her way back to us, but it was quite a scare. Pam put her on her leash as we continued on back to the trailhead. Dahla tends to walk beside Pam, but Bella acts more like an Iditarod lead dog headed to Nome, by pulling me at breakneck speed, especially on the steep downhills. I had a couple of interesting encounters as we passed other skiers with dogs heading up the trail. Bella forgets that her destination is straight ahead and suddenly veers in the direction of the other dogs. This causes me to do some serious yelling and grabbing onto her leash as I try to keep from getting pulled off my feet into a pile of broken bones. She is gradually starting to understand the command "On By"!
All in all, it was a beautiful 4 mile ski trip.

The Archangel Creek Bridge

Gold Mint Trail

It's a beautiful day for a walk in the mountains. Bella is still supposed to take it easy as her mouth continues to heal after so many tooth extractions. But she insists on getting out of the house. So we did a fairly slow flat walk in the snow up on the Gold Mint Trail, 4 miles round trip. It is such a spectacular place any time of year. But I think I love winter best. Everything is so pristine and clean looking covered in snow. It wasn't very cold so I was almost too warm some of the time. We only encountered a couple of other hikers. One couple had a big dog in a sled that they were pulling. Bella went crazy barking and I had to pick her up. She thinks it's necessary to bark her head off anytime she sees another dog. Dogs can be so silly! I love this trail and I plan to hike to the end of it and camp in or near the mountain hut on the glacier at 9 miles in. I can never find anyone willing to do that backpack trip with me so have decided to simply do it by myself. I'm sure in summer I won't be the only one on the trail. Bella will be a good hiking companion even if she gets tired and needs to be carried. 

Eklutna Lakeside Trail

 I've had to keep Bella fairly calm since February 29, last week when she had her teeth cleaned. Her teeth were in extraordinarily bad shape resulting in having to have 13 pulled. Because she has so many stitches, the vet doesn't want her doing extremely strenuous hikes for a couple of weeks. She has been very restless, missing our hikes. So I have taken her on our regular morning and evening doggie walks around the neighborhood, plus started taking her on the one mile walk around Reflections Lake. Today I drove up to Eklutna Lake mainly to see the conditions there. We started out on a short walk but ended up walking 3.5 miles and paying a visit to the little butterfly memorial I had made along the trail for Baby, my chihuahua who was killed there last May. Bella did great and was full of energy. She didn't seem to be in any kind of discomfort so we will likely start gradually getting back to our old routine. I'm still keeping her on soft food. She does still have 7 teeth, 3 canines and 4 tiny front teeth. She doesn't have any trouble eating and she is not suffering from loss of appetite. She keeps begging for her usual treats, but I'm holding off on those since most are very hard. I still give her the soft training treats.

The trail was nice today. I don't think it was too conducive to skiing, mainly because there were sticks and debris scattered all over it from the recent wind storms. I did see one skier out on the lake, so maybe it was good skiing out there. But I didn't bring my skis today. We just walked. It wasn't a very pretty or photogenic day due to the low overcast, but it's always pleasant hiking up there.