Lazy Mountain Climb

 I usually hike on Fridays with Pam and her dog, Dahla. She asked for suggestions, so I suggested climbing Lazy Mountain. The weather has been so nice, and I'd heard others had been climbing there. So, I figured the trail would be well boot packed. We didn't meet until 11 am because she was tired from a long work week. It was very icy going up the steep Lazy Mountain Trail. We both had on very new Kahtoola Micro Spikes, so it wasn't too difficult to negotiate the ice. But higher up the trail gets ridiculously steep and at one point, I heard Pam call out to me from farther down the trail. She had fallen and was stuck somehow and couldn't get back up. I climbed back down to help her, but she was able to get up on her own. It was a bit treacherous descending down to where she was, on that nasty ice. Once she was moving upwards again, we jointly decided not to return on the same trail. At least for sure, I knew she would have no parts of it. I wasn't too excited about picking my way back down through that ice either. 

We took a break at the first picnic table and had a few snacks. The rest of the way up was perfect hiking conditions. There was just enough snow to cover any icy spots, and the snow was well packed down, making the trail easy to navigate. Bella was forging ahead so I moved ahead to keep her in my sights. Bella ran right to the highest point of the summit and waited for me. It's a little sketchy to climb up those last few rocks, but I always like to go all the way up and have a nice seat in the rocks to admire the view. Pam was moving a little slower, but I waited at the top for her. She doesn't like the last little rock scramble so didn't come all the way to where I was sitting. I took lots of pictures on top plus a 360-degree video looking in all directions. Bella wanted to continue on down the other side and would probably have been willing to walk along the ridges until she finally dropped from exhaustion. But I put a stop to that, and we hiked down and joined Pam. Her dog did come up to our spot but wasn't able to convince her to come up with us. It was a little scary up there with ice patches here and there among the rocks. But we had no trouble. 

The trip down was lovely on the hard packed snow to the picnic table where we took another nice break. From there we took the longer Lazy Moose Trail. It was still mostly frozen with some snow and ice. But easy to negotiate. Once we got about halfway down though, it got quite miserable with black gooey slippery mud. I almost fell once but one of the trail markers caught me before I landed headfirst on a fallen log. I'm glad I avoided doing that. It took us a long time to get down, and the longer trail turned a 4-mile hike into a 6-mile one. But at least we didn't need to negotiate the ice. Although I imagine the lower part of the main trail had also turned to steeper gooey slippery black mud. My dog was so muddy that I put in in my shopping bag and plopped her into the car seat to avoid getting my new car filthy. At my house, I carried her in that same bag directly to my kitchen sink for a much-needed bath. It was one of the most beautiful Lazy Mountain climbs I have ever done, and well worth the little hardships. Such a perfect day!

Bella on the summit

Ptarmigan along the trail

Matanuska Peak

Summit Video