Symphony Lake & Hope....Here comes winter

Symphony Lake Camping

What to do with a couple days off?  Go hiking and camping of course!  This was an absolutely beautiful trip to symphony lake & Eagle lake.  It was really nice weather...not too many bugs.  It was no trip for a slouch though as it was a 3 1/2 hour hike out to the campsite with the last several hundred yards climbing over big boulders.  The trip out wasn't bad, but I must say I was completely exhausted after the trip home.  The dogs were pretty worn out as well.  they were both laying down in the back of the car before I pulled out of the parking lot, which is unusual for them.  It was absolutely beautiful scenery and fishing was great.  An exhausting trip, but as usual well worth it.

I guess there's not much more to share than pictures.  It was a fun time as usual with Todd and the puppies!

At the beginning of the trail headed out

View of our campsite from above

view from our site

Bree, Brew and Todd serious about fishing

Even Bree enjoys a good bed time story

Just relaxing 

Hope, AK

Our fall trip to hope was pretty nice.  It poured rain the whole way there, but when we actually arrived it stopped raining.  It was wet, but the fall colors were pretty awesome.  We stayed in a cabin that we rented through the ski club that we belong to.  It was roomy, warm and just perfect.  Since we were in a cabin and not a tent Todd wasted no time popping a bottle of wine and making top notch spaghetti.  Have I mentioned before what a fantastic cook he is?  We hiked a little bit of the resurrection pass trail. It was only one night, but it was a great trip.  I'm looking forward to going back during the winter to ski and explore more of the area.  As usual the pictures can't really do it justice, but here you go.

Doggies excited for a road trip as usual

Our little cabin

cabin living area

raging river with all the rain

Giddy

brew and Bree posing

Todd and the pups

Me and the mutts

Here comes winter!!!  

We've already had our first snow.  It didn't really stick, but the sticking kind will be back soon.  I look forward to when we have enough to start skiing on.  The days are getting shorter very quickly.  Some people start complaining when winter approaches.  I say bring it on!  There are so many great things to do.  Skiing and snow shoeing for sure, but there are some great restaurants and breweries here to meet up with friends.  Also lots of gathering opportunity at peoples houses.  I'm hoping to create some sort of pot luck group that meets now and then.  It really helps make the winter a fun time!

This past year has been really good to me.  I've got a lot to be thankful for.  Here's till next time!  Cheers

More Summer fun

I'm trying to stay a little more on top of things so as I'm sitting here doing nothing I thought to update.  Life is really good right now.  I mean I need to sell my stinking house in Texas, but other than that annoyance life is awesome.  I've been working on the weekends more and having more time during the week to get out and do things.  I'd much rather work on the weekends when everyone else is out doing things. I like to be out at the times when everyone else is at work.  For instance, the other day I went to hike at Flat top on a nice day.  I drove there and saw the parking lot was pretty full.  I didn't even go in the parking lot.  I just turned around and went home.  I hike to get away from people and enjoy the quiet of nature....not to fight crowds or follow annoying people that are going too slow.  Don't get me wrong I'm enjoying summer in Alaska, but I really do enjoy the winter.  There's not as many tourists in town and it's just nice to get out without so many people.  Anyway.....I digress

I had off most of this week due to the whole weekend schedule thing and one day it ended up Todd didn't have to go to work either....sweet!  We usually always pick something fun to do.  Since he's been here for several years he's been to so many places.  I'm enjoying him showing me all of these awesome places.  There are so many places here in town that we've gone.  It's so nice that even in town if you have the physical ability to go farther than others you are out there totally alone.  I think that is primarily the reason that I enjoy trying to stay in shape.  One day I won't have the physical abilities that I have now so I feel that I should use what God gave me to enjoy His amazing creations.

This day's trip was the Rabbit Creek Trail.  It was a good 1.5 hour hike out to the lake the was a slight uphill grade the entire way.  I can't lie, I was pretty tired by the time we got back to the car.  I was also happy that I had brought my hiking poles and that I knew if it was up hill all the way out, that it would be down hill mostly on the way back.  We brought the dogs and of course they were loving life.  Along the trail there were several light streams to cross along the way so there was plenty of water for the dogs to drink and cool off in.  It's so much fun to watch the dogs loving their life so much.  They were pretty tired by the time we got home too.  They slept all night and most of the next day as well.  Good Dogs!  Well, here are some pictures from the trip.  I'll explain more about them in the captions if needed.

Stay tuned....we have a couple days off together here soon.  Where will our next adventure be?  I don't know but I can't wait!!!

Me, Brew and Bree at the lake

Rabbit Lake

Todd and I on the way back to the lake

View opposite the lake

Me with Bree in the back cooling off in the lake.  Snow still going into the water...way too cold for me

Post Todd's swim....ooh too cold for me.

The water was super cold...like maybe in the 50's...maybe.  There's still snow melting into it.  The last picture is after Todd took a little dip in there.  Totally crazy...I would have died.  Anyway, there it is.  Just a short day trip but oh so awesome.  The adventure continues!

Summer 2012 so far

Summer in Alaska Begins
This will be my first full summer in Alaska.  Winter was awesome.  I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.  I was really enjoying skiing and was a little sad to see it go.  So I'll be ready to embrace it when it comes back around.  Right now I'm enjoying summer.  It's going to be a short season but enjoyable.  The following will be a synopsis of the trips I have taken so far and some of the side adventures.

Denali National Park
Denali National Park was great.  We stayed at the Grizzly Bear Lodge which was perfect.  It was outside the park, so a lot less expensive, but not too far away.  Cute little cabin with electricity, plumbing, etc.  More than I expected.  Private cars aren't allowed inside the park so we rode a bus to our selected destination.  We lucked out in that our bus was pretty empty and there was no one that was too annoying.  We saw all sorts of animals (caribou, moose, dall sheep, mountain goats, grizzly bears, etc).  The landscape wasn't a bad site either.  Denali wasn't out so we missed that, but have seen it clearly many days all the way from Anchorage.  I think they say the mountain is only visible 60 or so days out of 365 so not seeing it isn't so unusual.  Here are some of the pictures from the park.  I hope you enjoy them.

me at the park entrance

caribou

The mountain stream that we hiked to and ate lunch at

not a bad view

mountain goats with their babies

Fishing & Kayaking in Seward
Todd's sister Laureen joined us for the trip to Seward.  It was her first trip to Alaska.  We did make stops along the way to Seward which included Girdwood, Portage and the Alaska Wildlife conservation center.  The weather was pretty overcast so I was worried about our fishing and kayaking trip, but oh well.  The next morning we woke up and it was like the clouds parted just for us.  The weather was absolutely beautiful and the water was as calm as could be.  The fishing trip was great.  We saw so much wildlife that even the captain of the boat said he'd never seen that much in one day.  Fishing was a little slow for a bit, but we did catch a couple of chickens (small Halibut).  We caught our limit in rock fish and others so it was a good day in all.  The next day the clouds and rain came back for our kayak trip, but it was still enjoyable.  We paddled out to bridal falls.  That was it for that day.  We were going to go up mount marathon, but with the weather we decided to just head home.

Rest of the week
Seward and Denali were our big trips.  The rest of the week we went on hikes/runs most every day.  We ate and drank too much and had a blast.  Here are some of those pics.

Girl Time Alaskan Style
On Laureen's last day in Alaska we went out to Eklutna for an all girl 4 wheeler trip.  It was a nice trip where we saw some bears and an amazing rock slide.  I'm so glad for my Alaskan girlfriends....you gals rock!

Hiking out to exit glacier

Playing with some future iditarod puppies at the Alaska native heritage center

Heading up to flat top

seward waterfal

In front of exit glacier

Swan Lake Canoe Route

Our private boat dock.  This picture was taken right around midnight on our first night

Miscellaneous pictures from the summer

Our next adventure was a 3 day canoe trip with the dogs on a chain of lakes.  This was not so much a leisurely canoe trip.  We traveled on several lakes which included multiple portages.  This meant we picked up the canoe (well Todd did) and carried all our things to the next lake.  The dogs of course just got to romp and play and carry only sticks.  They swam and chased sticks every chance they got.  The mosquitoes were the worst part and then even they weren't that bad.  It was beautiful and we had the entire lake that we camped on to ourselves.  I look forward to doing this trip again.  Enjoy these pictures.  That's it for now, but there will be more adventures to come.

Good times

Todd and the puppies enjoying the lake swim

Just a nice view

Relaxing

that's one tired puppy

One of our morning runs...not bad scenery