Hike VII: Exit Glacier & Harding Ice Fields

It had been raining for weeks now, and so far we've been lucky with getting fairly sunny days for our planned hikes, but since it had been moved to Thursday, it had been raining all week and it was WET. But we wanted to try it anyway. Seward is about 2.5 hours away from Anchorage, so we set out at 7 am hoping for better weather that far away. When we showed up, it had been raining, and everything was wet and muddy, but it wasn't raining at the moment. So we set on up the mountain! Oh dear...
We found the trail head and the stats: 
Right next to the trail head, there was a big sign warning about bears in the park. I had my bear spray on my belt, but I didn't think I'd need it: 
The elevation gain, 3100 feet (approx.) almost all happens at the beginning. We were joking that a lot of it was like rock climbing. See this? This was just ONE of the many times where the trail just stopped and you start to climb: 
But then the stepping-rocks made up for the rock-climbing strain. I really liked gaining altitude this way (using my arms helped take the strain off my legs!). 
Some dancing trees: 
Even with everything already wet and slippery, we crossed an even more slippery wood-plank over a river. This picture doesn't really show how wide the river was. I sound wimpy, but the river was actually pretty big!
A ways up, we were rounding the trails around rocks, going up a hill and we heard people clapping, saying "hey bear! hey bear!" When we got to the top, we saw the small black bear, and it was right on the trail between us and another group across the little gap between the two hills. See the people in blue at the top of the hill?
My bear spray they were laughing at me for. I had it out within seconds!
The Exit Glacier. Still quite a bit of snow up there: 
I love how blue the old ice is: 
When I turned this bend, I was thinking, "we're going there?!" I was in my "ballet slipper-Sketchers" and jeans!:
The trail up in the snow. Part of it were really steep, but other parts were really fun to run, jump and slide through: 
A bit of a steeper view, there is really weird red stuff that rests on the snow, sort of strange!
Very close to the top, there is a shelter with a book inside to sign your name in. Everyone also writes their name in the wood inside and outside of the cabin. But we had no sharp objects or sharpies.. bummer! Underneath the shelter there were gas cans, I'm supposing for fires to keep warm?:
When we got to the very top and looked down on the ice fields, there was a HUGE sink hole. This is zoomed in all the way (12x), and it was so strange looking. It looked like there was a person next to the snow pile, but using binoculars, we still didn't know what it was. And that would have been a gigantic size person... maybe Sasquatch? 
Where we had just hiked from: 
Our group + another couple resting and enjoying the snow-shrouded view:
I was happy to have made it in my little slippers! 
The way down was incredible; the most fun part! I felt like Bear Grylls from Man vs. Wild how he just shoots down hills. We would all jump and slide down the snow; we each fell about 8 times each, but it was hysterical! Here is a tiny view on the way back down through the snow. If I can get the video from Bonnie, I'll try to post it soon. 

energy

I have none of it. I just got back (2 hours ago) at 10:30 from the 2nd hardest hike, but now my number 1 favorite hike: Harding's Exit Glacier and Ice Fields. Left at 7:00 am and I got home at 10:30 pm! This picture was taken down by the Eagle River, not by the glacier, but I'm tired, and it is pretty and energetic, so you're getting this instead of a rundown on the hike. 

In about 5 minutes I'm dragging my heavy legs into bed and sleeping very soundly until 6:30. I have an interview with an orthopedic office in town. I'm hoping I land this job; I would love working around my favorite field of medicine. woohoo!

ice breaker broken

Last Thursday night, Buckwheat took off down the street to play with a big lab called "Hammer" that he saw. I took off to chase him down (because he LOVES the feeling of freedom). The two dogs (before I got there) chased each other onto a freshly Hydroseeded lot. The people were out there with jaws open and they started to fume. I don't blame them - it was just finished that afternoon! But it had been an hour already and they had no fencing or barriers up, and they thought I was with Hammer's owner who they already don't like. So they started to get really angry at me. If you know me, I cry pretty easily... yea, I started to tear up AFTER I was already upset. I said, "Hand me a rake! I'll FIX it." The nasty landscaping lady (sorry, I'm mad at how mad they got) said, "it's going to cost you at LEAST $350 to get the truck back out here to fix this." Then Mark and I both started to get defensive. "You know this is a natural path for bears AND moose, right? Where's the fence?" "psh, that won't happen." ".. umm.. okay. Well we'll pay for it if animals don't walk through it before Tuesday." Tuesday was the fastest the landscaping lady could fix it. 

So all weekend, Mark and I were crossing our fingers that moose or bear would walk through. Yesterday on my way to the church for the hike, I did my morning-looksey to see if there was more damage. OH MY! There was:    MOOSE TRACKS! Two different moose walked through and COVERED the dog tracks. 

Here's another view. I had taken pictures before and after for 'proof'. This was not a good situation. For them. It was good for us! 
Here's a view from the bottom: 
Then this morning while Buckwheat was staring out the window while partly dozing off, he started to bark like crazy! I thought it was a bear when I looked out the window because all I saw was the big brown bum and the thick thigh. Then he realized it wasn't a bear and stopped barking and continued whimpering like it was on his territory and he wanted to chase it. Then a BABY moose walked out from under our deck. It was adorable! It is the same cow and calf we saw about 3 weeks ago down on Eagle River. She has the hurt front left hoof that can't straighten. But the baby is getting bigger and bigger, so I am happy. Here is a picture of the cute culprits: 
Thank you, moose! We're now off the hook. 

Hike VI: Mt. Alyeska Ski Chalet

I thought this was hike numero siete, but I was wrong-o. It was Monday, so it was the kid hike, but I was pretty nervous. It was a 'moderate' hike in a hard-book done by un-real people. But it was alright. The drive took about an hour, south of Anchorage to the Alyeska Ski Resort again (remember Winner Creek?.. same place, different hike). 
Sometimes from this highway you can see Beluga Whales with their white backs. I still haven't seen any.. but I'm still hoping!
I thought it was going to be green like this the whole way, but I had called earlier to ask "Is the trail open all the way to the top?" and she replied, "Yes, but there's still quite a bit of snow up there." Yeaaah right. It's mid-July! Just shy of half-way up we stopped here to eat our lunch: 
We also saw two different bear-scats. Yuck! Below, we started to see all the snow! And we were getting closer to the clouds. The kids loved throwing rocks and sticks into the big puddles... ponds?
Right when we hit the snow, we started trekking through it and my "ballet slippers" (as they have come to be known through the ward) started to soak through (fortunately they weren't cold). We looked back and noticed that this sign said "Horror Hill". The kids thought it was a bit scary. Me too. 
Then when I was leading the way over the snow, I was right below the brown part where there are 4 people on it.. you see it? I was on the white snow below that and noticed there was a line of water RUSHING below me... I looked back and said, "There's a river under here! Make sure you guys go up to the rock!" That's when I got pretty nervous. I don't like water!! Unless it's a pool. My family knows that all-too-well. 
The snow-part of the hike was about 1/4 of a mile, but then we almost were to the top, I realized I felt just like Mr. Christian Bale in Batman Begins. oo-la-la! Can you see why I felt like Batman? -->
When I got to the top, I realized just how many ways there are you could die (sorry for the positive note). Enlarge the picture below and read the sign and notice the cute little girl SO close: 
I was glad I made it to the top through all the slipper snow with rivers under it. 
One more way to die? BEARS!! At the top we noticed people pointing to us and then to this black dot on the side of the hill RIGHT below the snowy area we were just on. I guess we had walked right by it and never noticed it. It had been on the snow with us! When I got the picture below, it was actually running across the grass to pass over the hill. Then it disappeared. But it was out there while another hiker was out there (about the same distance away, just farther apart), but it was AS BIG as the hiker! It must have been a HUGE black bear. Sorry for the fuzz, it was zoomed in all the way:  
Then we waited for the tram to come take us down the front of the mountain (we had traversed it): 
Mom, don't enlarge this picture, it might make you a little motion-sick. Even if you're standing still: 
This was the lift-employee that took us down. He said he normally lets out a huge scream to scare the passengers about half way down (you're way high), but he said he didn't because he didn't want to scare all the kids. Thank you, Mr.! I would have probably had a nervous break down, then laughed. But the nervous break down first.
When we walked back to the parking lot and looked back up, we saw where we had gone. This is partly zoomed in so my camera could pick up the tram-station. The tram costs to go up, but if you hike up there, it's a free-ride down. Nice!

Ski Chalet Stats: 

Distance: 1.5 - 2 miles (one way)

Elevation Gain: 2000 feet

High Point: 2200 feet

Hike Difficulty: moderate

magnets

Going from best to 'least-best', here is the debut of my magnets! I have had a couple people see these in person and their comments are always, "oh! They're so small!" These are really small. They are less than an inch across, and rest perfectly on the 5/8" magnets I glued them to. Also, it seemed that many of you thought I hand made these... sorry to let you down. I DID hand glue them to the magnets. Very difficult.  .. teasing! But I did get a nice burn; so as not to let you down. It hurt.

Here is the second set: 
These plastic little cut outs came with words printed on them, so I just added the paper backing. Some of my favorite papers, too, so I really love these. The magnets I used are really weak though, so I may have to add some more (maybe from a magnet tape). 

The last set I didn't include a picture because they aren't as picture-impressive, but they're big and powerful. You can see one in the bottom right corner of the above picture. I used different papers from my favorite collection and also a couple sheets I found for 10 cents while browsing Joann's. Now go make some magnets! It's super-duper fun. 

raincheck

Canceled on account of rain: our Tuesday's Hike. So I'm inside in comfy sweats (can you believe it Chelsea?) making magnets for our fridge. I didn't want to pay for some I just liked O.K., so here is a teaser of some I'm really going to love:
I think this is the first time in my life that anything has been canceled by rain. I love living here!

thanks anyway

I went to Fred Meyer last week to buy some black and grey socks for my low supply. I found these socks called "Peds" that were supposed to be eco friendly. I bought 4 pairs; for 2 pairs it was $6. Seems pricey right? Well that was about average. I spent 45 minutes looking only at socks so I could get the best deal. When I went to check out, the cashier girl rung me up and said $26.--. I handed her my card and said, "Why can't socks be cheap??" She laughed and said, "I know, huh? Nothing's cheap anymore." 

I went home, was really excited for supporting the green cause in a such a little way, and put on my socks. Nice and smooth, soft and still thin. Perfect! Well I washed and dried them, like I normally do my other low-maintenance socks and this is what I got. On the left is the end result after Mark and I both tried stretching it out. Thanks for the shrinkage, Peds. 

Independence Day

Fireworks last night at our Town's middle school at midnight; and this is actually a pretty dark night because of the thick cloud cover. It was a really great show! We pulled up to one of our churches (there are two LDS churches in town), and we watched the show across the street. There were a couple of the loudest fireworks that Mark and I had ever heard. It was setting off car alarms, dogs were barking, babies were crying, and all the kids were laughing and cheering. Mark and I loved it!

Hope you all are having a wonderful celebration! Happy Fourth of July!

Hike V: Thunder Bird Falls

I think I've officially turned Granola. Well... maybe san the tie-dye and hemp jewelry, but I love these hikes. My legs have been in pain since Tuesday, even if I walk Buckwheat around the neighborhood, I still have to slowly go up the stairs. So yesterday I knew I had to do something more strenuous to get my legs in action again. So... another hike! Way easy this time. 2 miles with a family who has 3 young boys. And one that I could take Buckwheat on: easy! But still beautiful. The above picture is from the lower view of the big falls. It was so pretty. The mist came off and I had to hurry to take the photo because I was worried about my camera. It was that wet. 
Mark was wearing a full sweatshirt, and still got attacked by the mosquitos. I on the other hand, only got two - maybe its because he likes candy more than I do? Poor Mark. But Buckwheat had a great time!
And so did my legs! Happy 4th of July!

Thunder Bird Falls stats: 

Distance: 2 - 2.5 miles

Elevation gained: 200 feet

tall ships

My dad sent me and my sister these pictures that he and my mom took today. He said that on the 4th of July weekend every year these Tall Ships gather in the bay that they can see from their house. I don't know much about these boats, or the exciting gathering; Aubrey, you probably know a lot more about it then I do. But if you were to edit out the other little boats, it reminds me of one of two movies: The Goonies, or Pirates of the Caribbean. I'm so happy they get to experience such a different lifestyle now that they are in the northwest. What a cool sight to see!

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

Hike II: Winner Creek

Today was numero dos in my 50 hikes goal. It was the Monday's 'kid hike,' but it was still beautiful and fun. Winner Creek is a hike near Alyeska Ski Resort, south of Anchorage. For the most part, I had only seen 'new forest' with aspens, not pines, but this was an older forest with no aspens, and all I could think about was the Twilight series and the forests that Edward and Bella 'run' through towards the meadow, just lighter than I pictured in the books. So that is what the above picture is for. I still can't believe how green the plants are here, they almost glow. 
I was about in the middle of the huge group, and behind me there were two boys who were trying to "ATTACK!" me. They each had 'swords' and when I hear them shout "attack!" I would turn around, shriek, and then run ahead. They got a big kick out of that, run faster towards me, then stop and pant, and the older boy (in the red) would get out the younger boy's water bottle so he could recharge a bit. It was really cute. 
The mile was only 5 miles round trip - perfect for a kids' hike. Almost there!
There were two bridges you could choose to cross, and we all chose the one with the loud, rushing water beneath it. It was so loud and the water was moving so quickly! After passing that bridge, we got to the end of our hike: the hand tram (you can see it on the wooden sign above). 
Above, we were about half way across the little canyon. It was this steel cage that we rode across in, and the gate-door thing's latch was broken off, so I had to keep my foot in place (with one scary moment when it swung open half way over the river), so it wouldn't budge.
Here is the river as we cross over it. It was a little nerve racking! All it was was rope and steel... 
Here I am with Julie making this difficult task look oh-so-easy. There were a couple of pictures where we really look grumpy, but here is the smiley, happy picture for you. When we got each other's rhythm down, we were actually making some pretty good time. Until the end (it got really heavy) and Julie told the Belgium man (who was taking pictures), "you! Pull!" I was laughing so hard, then she started laughing at how she said that. 
On the way back, we passed over the rushing little river, the water was so blue!
Here is the Alyeska Lodge and tram station. To the left of this picture was the ski-lift, but they were doing some construction, so I'll spare those pictures.

Winner Creek Stats: 

Miles: ~5 

Elevation Gained: not much! 

crows

Scary crows!! Just now I heard what I thought was a woman screaming/yelling behind our house. Then I heard the second crow that sounded more 'normal' and more 'bird-like'. So I got Buckwheat all nervous by running to the screen door to see what they were 'cawing' at. Nothing. Just a scary, stupid crow!

This is not something you just don't blog about, of course; Mark's at the base, so I blog. So go on and share in my crow-hating. (:

films

While watching TCM movies when Mark was gone, I spent an enjoyable evening watching this romantic comedy. It really had me laughing! I knew these two were good together, but oh goodness. If you are into classics and want to laugh easily at how 'gentle persuasion' can turn into a romance, put this movie on your queue. It was filmed in 1961, the version I saw was in color, and the characters are so personable. Enjoy!