Saturday, January 23, 2010

Sledding on Saddleback

It really is amazing and surprising how quickly daylight returns to Alaska. We slept in until 9:00am Saturday morning and had to close the curtains because there was sunlight coming through! One glimpse out the window revealed that today would be the perfect day to climb Saddleback; a mountain just a few minutes from our house that overlooks Eagle River. Daniel and I climbed it on a rainy day in waning sunlight, and Samantha and I climbed it in complete fog. I have been wanting to reach the top on a clear, sunny day because the vantage point from the top is perfect! We donned our snowshoes once again, hopped in Matt's truck, and up Mile Hi Road we went.

The first part of the hike is on narrow switchback trails through the woods. It's a very steep incline, and the narrow trails made it tricky to navigate with huge snowshoes and poles. We were sweating by the time we reached the first opening in the trees, so we were glad for the excuse to stop and snap some photos! This is Eagle River, and Anchorage is past the mountain on your left. You can see some of its high-rise buildings just above where that mountain flattens out.



After you leave the trees, the landscape opens up into a rolling hill of sorts that form a sort of valley between two peaks (hence the name "Saddleback"). It was on this hike that my friend Meghan watched a baby moose be attacked and devoured by a bear, and I imagine that it was in this part of the hike that she witnessed that. The trail headed off toward the left peak, but Matt and I followed some snowshoe tracks toward the right-hand peak, which is the one that I've climbed both times prior.




Although the sun is high in the sky (well, for the winter...this is about as high as it gets right now), the Eagle River Valley remains dark because of the mountains that surround it.




We watched a group of guys that were ahead of us seek some adventure and try to scramble up this snow-slope instead of sticking to the more exposed part of the peak. It took them about 20 minutes to work their way up those last 20 feet! The snow up top is just powder, and your snowshoes slide can't dig in because it just falls away beneath them.




Eagle River from a better vantage point. The puff of smoke that you see toward the top of the photo is just outside Matt's base, so that you get an idea of distance. The ocean is on the horizon.



You can see how the wind (that is usually fierce up here) has all but cleared the snow from most of the peak. Today was the perfect day for this hike not only for the sunshine, but for the absence of wind!



Eagle River from above. You can see how most of it is still in shade even at 2:30 in the afternoon! At the edge of the sunlight you can see Walmart, and our house is in the sun just three streets over. One more



Looking down the Eagle River Valley away from the town and into the Chugach Range.

Butt-sledding down was probably the safest, and definitely the fastest, way to descend! There's a much lower risk for broken bones when you don't fall head over heels down the steep incline. Be careful to keep the poles up, though, or they will dig in and flip you over real quick!


The setting sun...


It's been awhile since we've taken videos with the camera, so we forgot that you can't flip them on the computer...you'll have to watch these with your head turned to the side! Matt took this first one as we sledded down the hill that you saw me snow-shoeing across up above (the rolling hill part).

video

...and back down again after I fetched Matt's gloves! Next time we hike this in the winter, we are strapping sleds to our backs. Anyone want to join us?

video

Monday, January 18, 2010

South Fork Eagle River & My Husband the Electrician

It may be January, but that doesn't mean that Matt has stopped obsessing about fishing. Since we returned home from NY, he has been researching fishing holes with a vengeance! (Probably since he has a new fly rod gracias a mis padres.) Since neither of us had to work today, we decided to kill two birds with one stone and satisfy my need to get out into Alaska and his need to scope out a new fishing hole!

We drove down Hiland road (which is across the Eagle River Valley from our house) to the South Fork trailhead to do some preliminary scouting of the trail back into the mountains. Hiland Road runs halfway up the side of a mountain before dodging back into a mountain pass surrounded on all sides by mountains in the Chugach range. The homes in this valley don't see sunlight for much of the year because the mountains are too high around them. Even so, it's a beautiful place to be! The valley is filled with evergreens and completely secluded from the rest of the world. Although the sunshine didn't hit us, it was a bright, sunny day and the the sky was a gorgeous, crisp blue. Just the kind of day that makes you love Alaska :)

Partway along the trail, we found evidence of a forest friend!


The trail heads between these mountains and eventually ends up at a pair of glacial lakes. We will wait for summer before we hike out that far!


The sun shines over the mountain behind us, but doesn't get high enough to light up any of the homes on this side of the mountain. However, with five minutes of daylight gain each day until June 21, it won't be long!


This is as far as we got!


The view heading home...the white line that you see at the tip of the "V" formed by the mountains is the fogline. It may not seem like we are up very high, but this valley is wayyyy above sea-level! We climbed through a thick layer of fog before we broke into the clear air that you see here! By the time we got home, the fog had settled in even more and the sun was blocked out at our house. I guess we should have stayed out on the trail longer to enjoy the sunlight!!


This morning, while we were waiting for the sun to come out so that we could hike, we went to Lowe's to pick out a paint color to match the BEAUTIFUL bedroom black-out curtains that Mom made us for Christmas and hunt for a ceiling fan. Matt spent the evening wiring the fan and....voila! He is amazing.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Moose at the Butte!

It was a miracle! After a long week of transitioning back to work and a long morning drumming at church, Matt wanted to spend Sunday afternoon exercising! I told him about the beautiful afternoon that Sam and I had spent at the Butte while she was here, and we decided to attempt to beat the setting sun out to the valley for a snowshoe ascent of my new favorite spot.

The snow has a thick frozen layer on top, which made for a very noisy hike as we crunch, crunch, crunched along with our snowshoes and poles. The first half of the trail is a gentle slope that winds back and forth up the first part of the Butte. At one point when I was leading, I turned around to look back at my amazing husband and was SHOCKED to see a moose trotting straight up the hill from where Matt was! I shouted "MOOSE!" and beckoned for Matt to come get the camera!

Unfortunately, someone (*cough* *cough* ME!! *cough*) didn't charge the camera, so it kept turning on and off before it finally died. The photo story, therefore, is quite incomplete. My apologies.

The trail runs parallel-ish to the bottom of this photo, then winds up along the right-hand side before zipping back to the left, where it passes right by where you see the moose up top.



We snapped a few quick pictures of the moose after it reached a small plateau and stopped for a snack, then decided that we wanted to get closer! I searched for the closest tree so that I knew where to run if moosey went into attack mode, and we quietly started "tip-shoeing" up the path toward Mrs. Moose. She stayed relaxed and was much more interested in her food than she was in us, although she paused every 30 seconds or so to stare at us for a bit before foraging once again.





It's easy to understand why it is so difficult to spot moose when they are not out in the open! They are queens of camoflage.





Just before this picture was taken, we were probably 15 feet away from her as she stood off to the left of the trail. She finally decided that she had had enough of us and trotted off the trail to the right, where she stayed just inside the treeline until we decided that it was time to move on.



We high-tailed it to the top, but the sun was already back in hiding
behind Pioneer Peak.

However, our adventure for the day was far from over! Once atop the butte, we found two more moose friends that spent a half hour with us as we hiked up to the highest point on the Butte's top. We would advance, then they would, then we would, then they would. It was awesome! These two were much larger than female that we saw on our way up.


Mountaineering Moose



The Summit



The Valley


When we arrived back at Matt's truck, I started texting our moms to tell them about our exciting moose encounter. No sooner did I send out the message than I had to send out two installments of updates because we passed two huge bull moose that had already lost their racks for the winter.

It is so good to be home!

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Labor Day Weekend

So I realize this is very late, but we didn't take any pictures on our trip to Homer, Alaska over Labor Day Weekend, and I just got these from a friend (I knew she had some good ones and I was looking for a Christmas Card photo!). We spent the weekend with our Bible study group at our friend Gary's parent's home. His parents own like four radio stations, so they live up on top of Diamond Ridge, with a beautiful view of the ocean and Mt. Redoubt!!

Homer is famous for its spit, which is a long, very narrow strip of land that sticks out into the ocean. There are tons of trendy little shops all along it. Almost everything closes up on Labor Day weekend--on Saturday everything was open, and when we came back on Sunday 2/3 of the shops were boarded up for the winter. Crazy!

The pictures are a little backwards...the first three are from Sunday lunch--deep fried halibut!! YUM!!




The weather that weekend was unheard of. It was our first time in Homer, but we were told to expect cold, WINDY days. It was around 70 and completely still the entire time we were there.

Saturday, we made grilled cheese sandwiches on the beach on the spit.






The girls waiting for the men to get back from picking up sandwich materials (we waited FOREVER!). Sheri, me, Dana, and Jenn.

And...notice the mountains in the background? Amazing.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

The Bex in AK

Ken and Melanie arrived for their much-anticipated trip to Alaska on September 17!! We were so excited to see them and to show them the beautiful place that we now call home!!

Matt and I both worked on Friday so that they could sleep, but as soon as we got out, we headed down to Seward to enjoy what would probably be the last nice weekend of the year.

We stopped at Beluga Point on the Seward Highway...




Then arrived in Seward LATE on Friday night...we don't know how it happened, but somehow the trip took four hours with only two stops and Matt driving 75 mph on average. Weird, right? We think we were in a time warp. We ate dinner at Ray's Waterfront and had some delicious seafood :)

Then woke up early Saturday morning to see as much as we could!
We spent the morning at the harbor...

This was the bald eagle that Melanie woke up to!

Jellyfish in the harbor


We spent most of the afternoon at the Alaska SeaLife Center, which was SO awesome!!

We got to touch starfish and anenomes and lots of things!!

The majestic sea lion

Jellyfish!! Matt took an awesome video of them swimming.


Then we drove to Exit Glacier on our way out of town
Mel found moose poop! She thought it was a rock and she picked it up to keep and give to Corine haha!


At Exit Glacier


Melanie was brave and waded into the water that was freezing this SUMMER...she was in pain!!

Our first trip to the Moose's Tooth--on the way home from Seward on Saturday night.

Bonfire!!


Disc golf at Peter's Creek

They braved the drive up to Jack and Jeannie's to see the view--it was cold up there!!

Matt took his parents to the Nature Center on Monday morning...








Friday afternoon, we visited my classroom (this is my Promethean Board) and Matt's work, but of course we couldn't take any photos there! Top Secret stuff and all, you know...

Of course we HAD to go back to the Moose's Tooth...Ken and Melanie love it just as much as Matt and I do!!

Look--they are in love!! Aww...




Saturday morning, we got our first snow!! It melted as it hit the ground, but it was enough to let us know that winter is here. Thankfully, the weather warmed up and the sun came out, so we went back to the Nature Center that afternoon. There was lots of dying salmon to watch, and a wedding!!

Look! We're matching!!
There are lots more pictures on facebook if you're interested :)

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Harding Icefield

After I had such an awesome time at Exit Glacier with mom, dad, and Matt (photos to come...sometime), I couldn't wait to get back to Seward with Daniel to hike the Harding Icefield trail, a 7.8 mile round-trip, 3000 ft. elevation gain trail of wonders. Unfortunately, Daniel is a trail master. We summited in two hours--and there were NO breaks for breathers anywhere on the almost four mile climb to the top!! It was an awesome workout, but I can't say that I enjoyed the views on the way up--I was too focused on the ground beneath my feet! But that's why there's a thing called a descent...

At the trailhead down by Exit Glacier

Oh no! He is falling off the bridge!!


Daniel in the tundra + Glacier



First snow crossing


The Harding Icefield, from where Exit Glacier "flows"


The glacier spills out of the mountain pass...


So, I realized when I saw this picture that I LOOK LIKE DEATH, thanks to my lil' bro's grueling pace.

"The hole", where the glacier has melted away. Water was rushing from it!


GOATS! From far away.


This was the coolest thing for me...those are MOUNTAIN TOPS!! And they are BURIED in glacial ice and snow! How incredible.


Feet + Glacier

I asked Daniel to get a beautiful scenic picture of me sitting and viewing the landscape, but instead he got a picture of me sitting an eating. Awesome. Also, I'm making an expression that my mom always makes...yikes.

Goats! There were about ten, including a mama and baby!!


Let's focus on the beautiful landscape.


Perched

I apologize...you're about to see a lot of photos of Daniel's back side. But since I didn't have time to stop and take photos on the way up, I had to get them some time. And since we literally ran the whole way down, I had to get motion shots. Ah well...


Up in the clouds


Rock, glacier, mountain


Around the mountain


Picking his way through a rock-field...a glacier deposit


I think the sun breaking through the clouds onto the mountain is super cool.


Running through the arctic tundra...


A waterfall



After we finished our 7.8 mile hike to the Icefield, we decided to do a SEPARATE one mile hike up to the edge of the glacier, where I had been about a month ago with Matt and my parents. Here is Daniel and the glacier!

The Icefield trail was awesome. It is very well-maintained, and the views are incredible. Pack cold weather clothes for the top, because the temperature drops off VERY quickly once you pass through the clouds. Like I said, we summited in two hours, spent about 15 minutes on the top, and descended in 1.5 hours for just under a four hour climb. Pretty exhausting for Daniel's first day here in Alaska! We headed back home for SHOWERS because we were STINKY!!

Flattop with NAOMI!

Naomi came to visit for about three days last week (she was in AK for a week, but spent the rest of the time with an aunt that also lives up here). I had the most special time catching up with her, and I was sad that it had to be so short. Naomi is awesome!

Our big event was climbing Flattop, which is the most climbed hike in Alaska. It's fairly easy and very accessible, with stairs built into most of the trail. It's about 1.5 miles up and 1300 ft. elevation gain.

Downtown Anchorage is to the right of Naomi's head.



The Cook Inlet


At the summit!

I don't think that I will ever climb Flattop again...I didn't like the stairs that they had built in (although they are necessary because of erosion on such a frequently used trail), and the last portion of the climb was straight-up rock climbing. There were too many careless people trying to pick their way around for it to be safe and enjoyable. But it offers stunning 360deg views of Anchorage and the Chugach range. AND I was glad to do it with such fantastic company :) Naomi, U R D Best!