About Town

Just when I was getting embarrassed by our "way fun life", Mr. X caught the crud that's circulating around town. This basically means everything has come to a screetching halt. Hiking has been limited to what I can do on my lunch hour a.ka. the Flume Trail.

Last Monday, I exited the trail to see Sasquatch crossing the street. I looked again and recognized Bigfoot was really a black bear hugging a telephone pole, getting a good scratch. Some nice lady I walked past, kept telling her young daughter that it was a "little bear". Since it was at least 8 feet tall, I disagreed with her assessment. Of course, my opinion may have differed based on the fact that they were getting in their car and I was headed, on foot, toward the bear.

Thunder Mountain

Saturday, we got together with Brad, G and J to hike Thunder Mountain. This was the first time we'd tried the DOT side trailhead. The trail was difficult to follow, was muddy, and definitely needed planking through the muskeg!

I was pretty wiped out from out trip the day before so I was slogging along. Brad even called me a "Debbie Downer".

When we got to the shoulder, we saw 7 mountain goats checking us out. Mr. X and I filtered fresh water draining off the snow sheets for everyone, and then we summitted only to find, crystal clear water at the top, oops.

We wandered around the mountain, sat down and had lunch. Then we attempted Heitzelman Ridge.

I scrambled up after everyone else and then decided I wasn't interested in going farther. J and I hiked back down into the Thunder Mtn bowl. Mr. X, Brad and G continued up the ridgeline, traversing a 30 foot climb with only a piece of rope tied to an alpine scrub keeping them from falling over the edge. Mr. X then felt sick (calories) and turned around to check on me.

With G enthusing about the ridgeline, Brad and she hiked the ridge to the farthest point without snow, while we watched reclining on cushy, sun baked heather (if you look closely you can see them on the ridge in the picture - they are the specks on the right side).

Since it was late afternoon we decided to hike down. We slid down as much of the snow as we could and then hiked quickly through the trees. We made the correct turn down to the DOT side trailhead, and followed tagging until we realized we were lost - following the wrong tags. Thankfully Mr. X and Brad were able to deduce where we were using GPS and we bushwacked the last .40 miles through skunk cabbage, devils club and rotting nurse logs.

When we got back to the car, the temperature read 88 degrees. Suffice it to say, Saturday was a record breaking weather day. Brad suggested we buy popsicles so we went to the store. I bought Mr. X a carton of vanilla ice cream, which he ended up eating all by himself - an easy way to get alot of calories. The rest of us enjoyed banana popsicles.

Echo Cove to Berner's Bay

The Weatherman  said we were headed for 80 degrees on Friday and Saturday. Thursday afternoon when it poured rain, I didn't believe it, but by 3:00 pm it was heating up, so I hurriedly asked for Friday off work - and then noticed that half the people in my office had done the same thing.

Friday morning we drove out the road, pausing briefly as 2 sitka deer and a marmot decided whether to cross the highway. At Eagle beach, we learned the Miller Construction was blasting rock to improve the road for the next four miles, so we'd have to wait for the pilot car. Not a bad place to be stuck for a few minutes.

We drove through the construction zone; the dump trucks backing out of our way as we came through.

We spotted lots of bear scat along the road, but no bears.

Once at Echo Cove - also the end of the road - we loaded up the rafts and hiked down the beach. The first part of the hike was easy on sand and rocks. Then we had to boulder which, trust me, is difficult while carrying a paddle. It was low tide so we easily crossed the cliffs on the blue mussels/barnacled rocks. We spotted whales feeding just off shore.

For lunch we stopped next to a crystal clear stream running right into Echo cove.

We put the boats in at Cascade Point because there as a small cove which sheltered us from waves. As we came out of the cove we were confronted with 3 and 4 foot swells, which is always a little unnerving. We paddled toward Berner's Bay and eventually the tide whipped us into the bay. Concerned about the tides, we turned around and paddled back to the boat launch at Echo cove. We were grateful that the whales were now feeding of Bridget Point, but a seal popped up a few times to check us out. We enjoyed riding the rolling waves back to the boat launch. With great luck we rolled up to the construction zone just as the pilot car was pulling away. An full day of good fun.

Happy Solstice: Auke Rec

We'd been told to expect three more weeks of rain, but the sun appeared on Wednesday evening, just in time for the Solstice. Mr. X and I took the rafts out to Auke Rec for a little paddle around the inlet and around Point Louisa. The fish were jumping and we joked about what we'd do if a fish landing right in our laps. It was a nice, relaxing evening, until we landed and were swarmed with bugs.

The sunset was remarkable, at least for Juneau.

Sledding

 

Saturday, we went sledding with friends at Eaglecrest. We hiked up the mountain about a half hour and then spent the next two hours sledding down.

It was the first time we used our flying carpet and we decided it's too short for adults. Mr. X climbed in our friend's sled and went for a terrifying ride down the slope. He's got bruises to show he actually came somersaulting out of the sled. I think he had a great time.

Got yogurt?

Saturday afternoon Mr. X and I sat down and listened to Radio Lab. This week's story was on "Guts". The whole program was good but this particular piece was particularly interesting. Medicinal yogurt? Yum.



Sunday was a doozy of a day. It included a biting, snotty two-year old, me yelling at a member of the bishopric and a solid punch into the squishy part of my friend's chest.

Feeling pretty pathetic by bed time, Mr. X and I were talking in the living room, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement in the front yard. I jumped up from the couch to watch a bear turn over the garbage can, shake out his selected bag and drag it to the neighbor's yard (Juneau recently switched garbage collection and the cans are not bear resistant!!!).

We cleaned up the rest of the garbage dumped in the yard armed with an air horn and bear spray and called JPD dispatch to record the rifling. 

When I said I didn't think I could now sleep, Mr. X smiled and generously offered to share some of his yogurt.

East Glacier rafting

Tuesday night the sun was shining so we packed up the boats and took the trail to Nugget Falls. While we were inflating the rafts an old friend from the University spotted us and came over to discuss our rafts. Lori is an avid outdoorswoman (and my inspiration!). Instead of focusing on tempering my raft I talked to Lori. Meanwhile a horde of Japanese tourists flocked around us wanting to take pictures. We hurriedly launched into the icy Mendenhall lake.

Not too much later I realized my boat was getting soft, so I hugged Mr. X's boat while he used the mouth valve to finish filling my boat. We hid behind an ice berg to finish tempering, away from the eyes of tourists.

Then we paddled toward the glacier. Along the way we heard this ice berg crack and then watched as it rolled over. We thought a massive wave was headed our way, but luckily it dissipated before it reached us.

Deciding to land back at the pavillion instead of on the trail, we navigated through an ice berg flotilla. We were grateful that none of these bergs rolled over.