Twos

My life since the last post can be summed up in a series of 2s: 2 hikes, 2 parents, 2 fantasy football drafts, 2 abstracts submitted for a conference, barfed 2 x 2 x 2 times in one night and now the next 2 weekends I'll be on the road for Beth's brother's wedding and some vacation time.

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.

All's quiet on the northern front

Things up here in Alaska are pretty quiet these days, although while the rest of the state is counting down the days until Sarah Palin leaves office, I'm counting the days until my little sister shows up (admittedly, mostly because this is easier, as I currently only have to count to 2). Unfortunately, our glorious summer weather seems to have taken a turn for the worse, but it should be a fun visit regardless of whether it clears up before the weekend. Plus, it could be a valuable chance for us to teach her the lesson about "if you're not going to go outside just because the weather's no good, you probably shouldn't be in Alaska." And sis, if you read this and get worried, give Gareth a call and ask him how his lesson in shitty Wyoming weather went. Or maybe I'll just tell you: awesome.

While the rest of the world was all abuzz about Sarah Palin quitting as governor, I spent the fourth of July hiking just to the east of Denali National Park. The weather was great, and although it was too hazy for good views the last two days, the first day was spectacular, and up here you just can't complain about 76 degrees and sunshine.

You can complain about bugs, though. This may have been the buggiest trip that I've ever been on, and I took this picture at a moment when I thought the bugs weren't that bad. There were times when stopping was unthinkable.

Here's the view over my tent with Ermine lake in the midground and the foothills of the Alaska Range in the background. This one goes down as one of my all-time favorite campsites.

Here's what the terrain looked like for much of the hike. We were up on a high (~2500 feet) broad ridge, with a few scattered trees, but mostly just wide open.

I think I said something about views, right? They were awesome.

I wish this picture were better. Hopefully if you click on it it will enlarge.

This is from our hike up to the top of the ridge. It was really steep, but the rest breaks came with nice views.