9/6/03

Every morning we first look to see if Denali is visible, then took out at the mountain beside us. Today dawned sunny, bright and almost cloudless, and we decided to climb it. The mountain beside us, that is, not Denali! The trailhead is located just a mile or so up the road from us at 1800 feet. The first part of the hike was through scrub brush, but we quickly left that behind and broke out onto open tundra, which we hiked through for the rest of the day. Walking on tundra is kind of like walking on sponge; it has an interesting “feel” to it. We mostly stayed on the packed trail, though. Cecelia was very disappointed that we didn’t get to see any bear, but we both carried pepper spray while walking through the scrub brush!

The trail was very steep in most places. Not quite hand over fist, but we did have to step up sideways in some places. The views just kept getting better, and we kept taking more photos. Once we made it to the ridge, we finally got a look over the other side and had a wonderful view of Anchorage. We topped out at just under 4000 feet after 2 ½ hours of hiking.

We had a light lunch, then started heading down. We’re talking serious toe-jam here! After 2 hours of straight down the mountain, we made it back to the car. Very nice to be on flat land again, and to sit down! I know we’re gonna pay for this come Monday, but it sure was fun and we

Denali, as seen from our front window. The mountain we didn’t climb!

got some really great photos. I’ve separated them on two pages as there were just too many to put on one.