Avalanches closed Hatcher Pass Road for a few weeks. Some slides even crossed the trails. I saw a late post on Facebook that they had opened the road all the way up to the mine. So, I grabbed my skate skis and drove up to Archangel Road to take advantage of the freshly groomed trail. It was only 8 degrees at my house but had warmed up to about 20 up there. It was also a beautiful clear sunny day. I was so happy that it was warm enough that Bella could run around without wearing booties. She refused to walk at all on her leash. But once I unhooked her, she was quite happy to run along ahead. It's harder to skate ski with her attached to me anyway, so I was ok with her off leash. Not very many people knew that the road was open, so I didn't see very many other people up there. We did encounter a couple of loose dogs, but Bella mostly behaved herself around them. When I was close to the bridge, I ran into one of my hiking friends, Holly. We skied together to the bridge. The last part of the trail was really messed up by snowmachine traffic. I miss the old days when they didn't use that road. There were many avalanches visible in the mountains and there were a couple of large ones that had actually reached the trail. They were some impressive piles of snow. I can't imagine the horror of being buried in something like that.
The trip back from the bridge was much quicker because it is much more downhill. I really struggle skate skiing going uphill. But gentle downhills are a great way to practice. In some places it was so steep that it was easier to just straight run with Bella running beside me. She definitely got a good workout today.
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