Snot Rocket Walks Continue

The trail back to Eagle and Symphony lakes is relatively snow free, but super muddy. My intentions were to go to the lakes, but I reevaluated that plan during a hailstorm and decided to take my snottiness out of there.

Triangle Peak

 

 

 

I Gotta Say..

Flat Top is becoming my new favorite hike. I used to never hike it out of self righteous ideals that it was below me, with all those switch backs and people...yuck. But now I can appreciate the gentle grade and stairs, I smile at the people as I walk by. Its easily the best view for the least amount of effort.

 

And then I got sick for two weeks...

Being sick has got to be one of the most frustrating wastes of time I can think of. I knew I was getting sick the morning I woke up. There was a dull ache in my lungs and yellow lugis, then it went to my nose and I spent a lot of time on the couch hacking and blowing snot rockets. Not pretty.

Turnagain Arm

 

Floating with Friends

My friends Matt and Krista are back in town and we decided to met up and go floating. I invited my friend Caitlin along, and she invited to of her buddies and thats how all 6 of us ended up floating part of the Matanuska river from Keiths Road to Hicks creek.

 

It didn't take us long to get to the take out so we decided to move the cars and float some more.

Photo by: Krista

 

The Chickaloon river was running low and the water was a beautiful semi translucent green. There were a couple of fun splashy sections, it would be fun to do at higher water.

Photo by Krista

 

Matt and Krista took one for the team and did the car shuttle and took pictures. It was a super fun day out.


Photo by: Krista

 

Slide Show of Krista and My Pics

The Kiliak Wall

Ryan and I decided it was time to try and do some rock climbing. He is partial to the Kiliak wall in Eagle River since he has put up a lot of the routes. I like it up there because the views are awesome. The mosquitoes were terrible, but we had mosquito coils and within a 1/2 hour we had smoked them out.

 

All the routes were dry and it was fun to be climbing outside again.

 

Training at Eklutna Lake

My good buddy Rapheal said he would ride his bike with me while I went for my run at Eklutna Lake. I'm trying to build up some mileage so I can be in shape for more interesting runs and trots through the mountains this summer.

 

Rapheal had fun encouraging me to go faster, jump over more obstacles, and work harder. He got into his imaginary role as my personal trainer and decided I should be a triathlete and when I ran he would bike, when I swam he would row a boat, and when it was my turn on the bike, he would ride a motorcycle. We had a good laugh over that one.

 

The lake is still frozen but the trail is mostly dry. The mountains are still full of snow and look beautiful.

 

Every spring I wish I would have maintained my running shape through the winter, and every winter wish I had spent more time climbing in the summer. Its hard to stay in shape for everything.

 

Icy Banks: Spring Float on the Matanuska

I'm craving summer. Even though the mountains are still full of snow I am just mentally over winter, maybe have been for a while! So Ryan, Rapheal, Bobbie Jo and I all decided to float part of the Matanuska river from close to King Mountain lodge to the King River.

There was still a lot of ice along the bank which influenced where Rapheal could launch his big raft.

 

The ice along the bank fractured into long spindly pieces and the tinkling sounds it made as it sheared it off the banks was musical.

 

The float was pretty mellow, low water but not butt boating, a perfect first float of the year.

 

Me, Rapheal, Bobbie Jo and Ryan

 

It took about 3-4 hrs with stops along the way, a great day out.

Rainbow Peak

Caitlyn had the morning off and both of us wanted to walk on dirt instead of in the snow so we headed south to Rainbow peak. Definitely one of my favorite early season hikes, the ridge can be as interesting as you want to make it, and the views are beautiful.

 

 

 

First and Last Day of Back Country Skiing

Ryan, Kyle and I left the parking lot of Arctic valley at about 5pm and toured to the top of Mt. Gordon Lyon. This was the first time I went back country skiing all year. Usually the ski season starts in October up at Hatcher Pass, but a low to no snow level up there prevented that, then I went to Hawaii and then it was climbing season. Pretty disappointed in myself on letting a whole season slip by....skiing can be so much fun!

Ryan at the Top

 

Looking Down

 

Looking Up

 

Self Portrait

 

Grand Canyon: Bouche and Hermit Trail

Our grand plan was to try and do a rim to rim trip in a day at the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately there was still to much snow on the North Rim and so no way to do a car shuttle. I joked about a rim to rim to rim, but we all decided that was a bad idea.

Instead we decided to do a lollipop loop connecting the Bouche and Hermit trails. The guy at the park head quarters told us that we were nuts, both trails were rugged and it took some people all day just to get to the bottom. I have to admit he kinda made us all doubt our ambitions, but the facts were it was still only 22 miles with a 7,000+ gain. I just couldn't wrap my head around why those numbers were impossible...Lynn and Andrew agreed so we just decided to get an earlier start, and we decided on a turnaround time if we were moving to slow.

 

The weather was perfect, blue skies with wispy clouds, temps from 45 in the morning to maybe 75 at height of the heat. The walking was fun, similar to a maintained trail in Alaska.

 

The layers of rocks, amazing shapes and colors truly made every mile enjoyable.

The Colorado River

 

A worthy day out, and we even got back to the car before we needed headlamps, and still had time to eat out!

 

Slide Show of Lynn and My Pics



T.12:D.22:EG.7700

Restoring the Power: Sedona Vortex Link Up

Lynn, Andrew and I decided our power centers needed some replenishment so went and hiked to 3 of Sedona's vortexes. There is a lot of infomoration on the web, but the jist is this, "In Sedona vortexes are created, not by wind or water, but from spiraling spiritual energy. The vortexes of Sedona are named because they are believed to be spiritual locations where the energy is right to facilitate prayer, mediation and healing. Vortex sites are believed to be locations having energy flow that exists on multiple dimensions".

 

I'm not sure if I felt the spiritual energy, but I can say the vortexes that we visited were absolutely beautiful. My favorite was Catherdral rock, a slick rock trail that wound its way up to the base of these beautiful red rock formations.

 

Leave it to Lynn to have us crawling down some scrubby trail instead of staying on the main route!

 

An amazing day out, definitely a highlight of the trip. All the hikes were relatively short, which was good because I was feeling some soreness for the Hot Loop trail the day before!

 

Slide Show of Lynn and My Pics

Hot Loop: Not Just a Name

I flew to Arizona and met my good friend Lynn and Andrew for some fun before they got married in Sedona on April 9th.

We all wanted to get out for a big day or two while we were in Arizona. We picked one close to where we were called Hot Loop Trail, it seemed like the perfect warm up day, 17 miles and only a 2,000 ft or so elevation gain. The funny thing was that the first sign we saw out of the parking lot stated that the trail wasn't a loop, and well just read it below. We debated for about 30 seconds then kept going.

 

The hike took us up to the top of a scrubby mesa, which we followed till it reached a deep canyon, it was pretty but not spectacular. It was about 90 degrees, and we all agreed that Hot Loop was a very appropriate name. Going up the last big hill I somehow lost my GPS. I almost died of heatstroke running back down and up to try and find it, then Lynn and Andrew retraced our steps again, but no luck.

 

Even though my GPS was gone Lynn and Andrew still had their garmin watches, and at mile 14 we were all pretty sure that we had more than 3 miles to go and began to wonder how accurate the sign at the beginning really was.

I had brought 3 liters of water, which is always more than enough, but I was close to out and when we came to this slow moving stream that appeared out of the ground, I couldn't resist filling up. I can't believe how much energy the heat can suck out of me, or how thirsty I constantly am. I figured possible giardia in 2 weeks beat dehydration right now.

 

Twenty one miles later we reached the car in the dark. Our book proved to be about 4 miles off, but at least it was a loop unlike what the sign had claimed!

 

Slide Show of Lynn and My Pics