Crescent Lake

Headed out again last weekend to Crescent Lake, starting only about 5-10 miles from the trail we took with Brigit. This time we went with Pat and Jenny, two of Beth's coworkers, their dog Danny, and our landlords' dog Maui, who we borrowed for the weekend. The weather forecasts were pretty dire, but it ended up mostly just raining at night, so we were able to get out in a rowboat a bit, do some fishing for Arctic Grayling, play with the dogs, build fires and generally have some good old fashioned fun. As a bonus, we stopped by a stream on the way out where we could see a bunch of salmon making their way upstream to spawn. At this point in their journey, the salmon are basically inedible zombie-fish, but they look really cool with the classic red and green coloring and hooked jaws.

When it rains, the dry firewood's up in the trees.

Beth was a rowing machine!
Maui loved her time out in the woods. Good to get off the leash for a couple of days!

Jenny and Pat with some of our Grayling dinner which they caught. Delicious.

Me 'n my lady on the trail.

Some of the spawning salmon in Quartz creek.

Brigit's visit

So my little sis came out to visit a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately the weather to stop its whole "beautiful for weeks on end" act just before she got here, but it still stayed pretty dry the whole time at least. Our main activity was a backpacking trip to the south of Anchorage, where we were greeted at the trailhead by an ominous sign:

But fortunately this was the only bear that we saw.... yes, I'm talking about the tiny dot just above the middle of the picture:



The only animals we saw up close were ducks, ptarmigan, magpies (yes, Brigit, they're a real animal) and some trout. We were staying in a very pretty cabin on the shore of a lake in the mountains, which was all very scenic:





And here's just a couple shots to prove that we were there, too:

I want this!

3 blind meese

Went for a bike ride with Beth on Saturday afternoon. It was a lovely 21 miles along the coastal trail, highlighted by these 3 moose on our way back home.