16 December 2007 Far North Bicentennial Park

Finally, the temperatures are wintry and we've got a few inches of snow so it looks like winter. But there's still no skiing here in town, so we're hiking again. This weekend we explored the Blue Dot Trail in Far North Bicentennial Park (near our house) and searched out a couple of geocaches. We only heard of the Blue Dot this last year and sought it out for the first time earlier this fall. It's a singletrack trail that winds through the woods, mostly on the uplands. It's called Blue Dot because whoever maintains it (it's unofficial) has painted blue dots or nailed blue reflectors to trees along the way. When it reaches Campbell Creek, there's a questionable-looking bridge. The first time we reached this point, we decided to hike along the creek to another nearby trail with a sturdier bridge. But on this day, the bridge appears to be frozen into place and we tried it. I let Paul load test it before heading over myself.

A little farther along, we started tracking a geocache and decided to leave the Blue Dot and head directly to the cache. That got us into some wetlands along the creek and some overflow. We eventually found our way to this pond with this view of the Chugach Mountains.

We found the cache near the pond and joined the main trail nearby. Not being quick learners, we sought out another cache that required getting off a real trail. This search was even more of a thrash through alders along a small creek. But geocaching can become a bit of an obsession, and even though we don't do it often, it's hard to turn away when you know one is close. So by the end of the afternoon, we had found 3 caches and followed the Blue Dot almost its entire length back to the car. Between the Blue Dot and the caches, we'd explored several corners of the park that we hadn't been to before.

8 December 2007 Hilltop - Prospect Heights Loop

Without snow for skiing, we turn to hiking on the weekends. Cold nights and mostly cold days mean that the areas that are too wet to traverse in the summer are mostly frozen and crossable now. One of our favorite fall hikes is a loop from Hilltop, a municipal park about a mile from our house, up to Prospect Heights, a state park trail head.

We start out on the Spencer Loop trail, going opposite to the travel direction of skiers. In this direction, we won't be surprised by anyone from behind and there are many fine views of the Chugach Mountains beyond. We meet a trio of hikers and one crazy skate skier, who is striding more ice and dirt than snow. After hitting the peak of Spencer Loop, we drop down toward the Campbell Creek Canyon and head off on a single track trail up along the canyon. The canyon trail brings us near Prospect Heights where we pick up the main trail and head to the parking area. As we get there, that same crazy skate skier is schussing along. He has come up the Gasline Trail, which we are about to head down, and it has even less snow than the Spencer Loop. We surmise that he must be on the college team and is desperate to get in his workouts if he'll skate on this base.

In fact, the woods are almost bare of snow and the only white stuff -- ice -- is on the trail. We're wearing studs on the bottom of our boots, so we aren't slipping.


We step off Gasline onto the Llama Trail, a singletrack that is mostly ice. We see a few bike tire imprints but meet no one. The Llama Trail tops out at Hilltop Ski Area, where a few kids are skiing. We walk down a ski run that is still closed due to lack of snow, climb in the car, and drive home.

November 2007 The Cruelest Month

Ask an Alaskan which month they dislike most, and you'll likely hear January, February, April, or November ... for a variety of reasons that come back to two factors: darkness and snow. The latter can be either lack of snow or snow that lingers too long.

November is the month I find to be too long. Snow is unpredictable while the nights are guaranteed to be getting long as we plummet toward the winter solstice (also known as the longest night of the year). Throughout most of the winter, the presence of snow brightens up the night by reflecting light from stars, moon, and street lights. Without the snow, the night seems to suck up any light that's out there. In a good November, snows arrive early and remain on the ground. Early snows also bring activities that we haven't done in 6 months, like skiing, snowshoeing, and sledding.

This has not been a good November. Temperatures have been above normal, with an average above freezing. The second week looked promising, with some light snowfalls that frosted the trees. Paul fired up the snowblower and we finally put away the last flower pots and lawn furniture. I even strapped on my cross-country skis one day to make tracks in fresh powder. Then the winds whipped up from the Gulf of Alaska, bringing warm temperatures and rain. So we string colorful LED lights on the house to brighten up the nights until the snows return or December arrives.

5 November 2007 western Cook Inlet

Paul and I took our first helicopter ride to see a property on the other side of Cook Inlet that The Nature Conservancy is considering buying. My job was to inspect the site for hazardous materials and incompatible uses, and Paul volunteered to sketch the site for my environmental assessment. He folded himself into the seat behind me, and I took the much roomier passenger seat, to the left of the pilot. On my left, in front of me, and above me, was glass. When the helicopter lifted off, I felt like I was levitating.

We flew northwest, skimming the northern shore of Cook Inlet before heading south to the property. Several creeks and rivers empty into the inlet, forming a vast wetlands of grasses and shrubs. Duck-hunting shacks dot the high ground along muddy creek channels. The only waterfowl we saw were a family of tundra swans, still gaining strength to begin their southern migration. We also saw a family of otters running over a frozen pond, and a snowy owl spooked from its ground burrow when the helicopter flew over low.

And we saw more moose than I've seen in any six month period since moving to Alaska. Moose are not a herding ungulate. They gather some in the fall during the rut. I once saw five bulls pestering one cow and her calf. Those seven moose on one park field are the most I've seen gathered together, though we had walked past maybe a half dozen more moose that same evening. From the helicopter, we saw 20 moose -- 19 cows and calves with one lone bull -- in a cluster. We saw many other groups, for a total of 40 - 50 moose. All within a 15 minute period.

At the property, the pilot circled the boundary twice and then set down near the group of cabins and outbuildings that was once a family's fish camp. The only sign of wildlife was a bear-skin rug hanging in the larger cabin and a wasp's nest tucked into toilet paper holder in the outhouse. Thankfully someone had left a can of Raid handy.