Hike III & IV: Pioneer Ridge & Pioneer Summit

Phewwwie! I am tired this week. Tired from hiking! Tuesday was the 'women's hikes.' There were only 4 of us, and one of them was a sister-in-law of one of the lady's. So really only 3 from our ward. It was a rough hike! No wonder there were only 3! We did the Pioneer Ridge north of Anchorage and near Wasilla. Starting out, it was really warm and pretty gentle of a hike (compared to later on!). In parts (you can see a little bit of it above) we would go through canopies of bushes and trees. It was beautiful, muddy, and pretty humid inside all that brush, which meant mosquitos! The mud was pretty hilarious though trying to hop around it or make it to the little rocks; but if you missed the little rock then you landed in sometimes 5 inches of mud. There are three picnic tables along the trail, we stopped at the first one (about half way up) to eat half of our lunch. It was beautiful.

Here I am near the top. This is where we stopped to eat the rest of our lunch. My legs were exhausted but not shaking yet. If you can't tell, right when she took this picture, a cold breeze hit me. There was SUCH a temperature difference from down at the bottom (warm and humid), to up top (cold and windy). I can't believe my wimpy sketchers have taken me on so many hikes! No blisters, even. See my bear spray? We didn't need it. Thank goodness.
Here is the view from the other side, where I was facing in the picture before. We were as tall as the clouds!

This hike was classified as 'moderate' in this book we're using. It was a tough, tough hike. It was 9 miles total, and nearly a mile of elevation gain. In this video, from where we were, we kept going a little higher, I think. I say I think, because I can't really remember where I took this video. I would have taken a lot more pictures, but I didn't feel safe holding the camera out like I have in other hikes. There were some really steep scrambling parts and some ledges that we walked right next to. 

Comparing it to one of Mark's hikes, the hardest one he's done, it was Pike's Peak in Colorado. He did 26 miles in one day; 13 up, 13 down with a total elevation gain of 7 thousand feet. We did 5200 feet in 4.5 miles up! So much steeper!! But his was harder, because of the distance, and it was longer.  

Pioneer Ridge Stats: 

Distance: 9 - 12 miles

Elevation: 5200 - 6400 feet