July 5, 2007

We have climbed over a mile in the last week. While discussing weekend activities with a friend at work, she sarcastically noted, “It is a shame you don’t get out and do much.”

On Saturday, we climbed O’Malley Peak. This was probably the first time we have been over 5000 feet of elevation in Alaska. It was a long climb to get there. The peak was over 3000 feet higher than the parking lot. One part of the climb was up a steep scree field. It was two steps up and a half step back as the loose mostly gravel sized rock slid downward. The return was even more exciting. It was really just a matter of wiggling our feet and the scree would start sliding beneath us. I sent a couple larger rocks rolling on ahead, hoping that no one was down below.

Above the scree slope, things got serious. We navigated along the ridgeline, favoring the moderately steep slope on our right as the ridgeline dropped near vertically to the left, probably close to 2000 feet to a lake below. We couldn’t really tell since our heads were in the clouds. When we got close to the dropoff, it just fell away into a fog. A couple places it was nearly knee buckling as we stepped within a few inches of the edge. We picked our way across the steep slope, finally climbing to the top of a sharp rocky peak. We were fairly certain it was the highest peak since someone had placed an orange marker. Occasionally another slightly lower peak would appear through the clouds only a few hundred feet away.

Returning to the scree field proved more difficult than we had imagined. The steep slope, now to our left, invited us lower and lower while we tried to find the right place to pop back over the ridgeline to the right. We had to find the right chute but they were all starting to look the same. We looked at the chute carefully before deciding that even if we weren’t in the right area, we wouldn’t be the first people down this particular route. Within a few hundred feet, we were confident we were in the right place.

Sunday was rainy. We had planned to go mountain biking, but we just took a hike along some of the mountain bike trails, scoping out some opportunities for dryer weather.

I had to fix the brakes on my mountain bike. I had almost no brakes on our ride with Joyce and Jim and that is not a good thing on steep slopes. I suspected the problem was air in the hydraulic system. I am not sure why hydraulically actuated brakes are used on expensive bikes. Sure, they are smoother to actuate than cables and the fluid wastes less of the mechanical energy than a cable, but it is a pain to maintain such a system. I expected it to be easy so I rigged up a quick approach to bleeding that didn’t work out so well. I ended up having to pay 20 bucks for a plastic bottle, a small piece of tubing, and about a dollars worth of brake fluid, but my brakes are better than new now.

I went fishing a couple evenings. The trout are anxiously awaiting spawning and dying salmon. They are attacking almost anything. The bigger trout are more cautious, often coming out from under a log to take a look at a lure, but rarely hitting. I caught one fair sized trout and about a million tiny ones. I mistakenly cast a nice lure into a favorite pool only to find out the hard way that it was full of king salmon. The one I hooked was probably less than 3 feet long, but it was an unfair fight with my 4 pound test line and lots of logs. I actually held on for awhile, hoping to retrieve my lure, but eventually breaking it off. I hooked another accidentally with a cheaper lure so I put no effort into that one. I learned to pull the trout out of the back of the pack, but almost made another big mistake as a large dark head appeared from under a log with a wide open mouth. I jerked my lure away and the king surged in response. I gave another quick jerk, throwing my lure onto the shore behind me.

Yesterday was the 4^th and we took advantage of the day off by climbing another mountain. It was rainy, cool, and a holiday. This kept a relatively popular trail fairly lightly traveled. We climbed Bird Ridge which provided spectacular views of Turnagain Arm behind us, the Bird Creek valley to our right and the Indian Creek valley to our left. Starting out at practically sea level and climbing to the top of the aptly yet boringly named 3505 Peak gave us one of the largest vertical climbs we have ever taken on. We had hoped to go further on the ridge, but the rain was wearing on us and we had taken a rather slow pace up. We turned around and headed down the slick trail.

We saw several groups of people poorly dressed for the conditions. Some were in shorts as the cool rain and high wind chilled us in our appropriate layers. Some wore jeans which with the rain, had to weigh more than my 20 pound pack. We kept our slow pace on the way down. We seemed to be getting passed by these ill equipped groups, most of whom only went about half way up. Two members of a group of three that went by slipped and fell on the wet steep trail as we waited for them to pass. I guess you can go faster if you aren’t concerned about your safety. Perhaps they were just in a hurry to get out of those wet jeans.

We found some snow along the ridgeline. We had a snowball fight. Everyone should have a snowball fight on July 4^th. I even glissaded down a short stretch, building more speed than I had planned with my plastic rain pants on the surprisingly firm snow. Kris was a little surprised as I was over a ridge from her and all she could see was my upper body smoothly moving forward at a quick pace.