Michael Creek Tour

In very many ways, my wife is amazing. On a trip up Michael Creek she proved once again that she is a sport and pretty dang tough. "Hey wife! Let's go do something fun!" does not always lead to fun. Julia is very patient. 

After making a run at Item Peak the weekend before, I got all excited and decided that we could make it to the top in one day if we started early enough and had good conditions. So Julia and I called some friends and headed down to Michael Creek to see how far we could get. 

Julia and Ella were a bit green when it came to mountaineering so before we left we strapped on the crampons for 20 minutes of fun.

Getting ready to crampon on snow piles at UAF.

 We drove down to Michael Creek Friday night and the four of us piled into our 1- err 3-season tent around midnight with some occasional gusts of wind. The view from the tent in the morning did not indicate good weather.

Crud. Clouds and blowing snow.

 But things cleared sufficiently as we made breakfast and put away the tent. I briefly chastised Julia for the choices she made related to the food she wanted to bring along in her pack. Celery is not a common mountaineering snack. But she was patient with my impatience and we slapped skins on our skis and took off.

Up the creek.

 After a few minutes of breaking trail, blue skies appeared and we were feeling good.

Looking west towards the Delta River and Richardson Highway.

What was not looking good was the lack of trail. The weekend before there had been no loose snow in any portion of the canyon. Now there was a new foot of snow and more blowing snow collecting in the canyon as we moved through. With no groups ahead of us that morning we broke trail through the length of the canyon, paying close attention to areas of avalanche danger.

"Further in and farther up!"

Getting out of the canyon and into the valley.

 It took us five hours of significant effort to travel as far as we had gone in two hours the previous week. Around 1 PM a pair of skiers passed us as we rested. We started following their trail but our expedition began to unravel. Julia's ski boots were treating her very poorly. Five hours of slogging through a foot of snow is very different than an hour and a half of skinning and skiing in the dark at Moose Mountain. The weather began to deteriorate. Lenticular clouds were developing on small knobs on the ridge we planned to follow and spin drift was coming off the ridge as well. The new snow was beginning to do exciting things as well as we moved through it. Jeremy mentioned enthusiastically, "Whompf means the climb is on!" I agreed but the girls were less than excited about reaching our objective.

So we called it good. Julia's countenance changed immediately and even though her feet were very sore, she began to enjoy skiing again because we were pointing ourselves towards the car rather than away from it.

Everybody look at your skis! Nice.

Jeremy maintained a positive attitude for the duration of the trip. 

So we turned around and headed back. I wandered ahead of the group to take some pictures of the descent out of the valley. Julia fell down.

Expressing sympathy for Julia.

A little further down after they had passed me, Julia fell down again.

My turn to express sympathy for Julia.
"Hey, get up."

A little further on down, Julia fell again.

Ella's turn to express sympathy.

 At this point Julia's feet hurt very bad. Bruises on her toes were developing. But she kept on.

Look at that smile. 

Also, the view was gorgeous.

Heading back into the canyon.

 Most of our tracks had disappeared due to blowing snow. We kept on, careful to avoid the open water from the flowing creek below us.

Waiting for the downhill section to clear.

Happy to be out of doors.

Shortly after this, Julia fell down again and started to whimper a bit. This was by far the most spectacular of the four crashes. But we dug her out of the snow and she picked herself up and continued on. I happened to get it on video. Let me know if you would like to see it. It is maybe a little bit humorous.

Scooting down one of the more difficult portions of the canyon
shortly after her big face plant.

We got out of the canyon, loaded up the car, and headed back to Fairbanks a bit earlier than expected. But we had wandered around in a beautiful place on skis for about 7 hours and enjoyed time with good friends.

*I should mention that Jeremy is a very experienced climber/mountaineer. He would not concede defeat and the next week he teamed up with his climbing buddy from the Muldrow Route on Denali and another uber athlete and they charged their way up to Item Peak in one day. They broke trail like we did in our first attempt for approximately 11-12 hours and made it to Item at 7 PM.

In the car on the way home (On the way home! Not even a few days later!) Julia mentioned that she had fun and would like to do something similar again. She even seemed sincere. She had cried twice and her feet were throbbing but she wanted to try it again. I suppose we should try to find boots that fit a little better.

My wife is pretty. And tough. And awesome.

Girdwood

Following the Kenai Peninsula adventures, we parked ourselves in Girdwood, a little ski resort town surrounded by large mountains. While Julia taught young skiers how to work hard, I wandered around the Chugach Mountains trying to do fun stuff.

The first endeavor was to check out a little trail that followed Winner Creek. Very pleasant.

Looking east up the Winner Creek Valley.

Winner Creek

 Winner Creek sneaks through some tight spots and down a waterfall into Glacier Creek. There is a bit of a canyon and a tram has been installed crossing Glacier Creek. It is kind of fun to cross. I had heard this creek was good for packrafting so I scouting things out a bit.

Looking down Glacier Creek from the tram towards to the Winner
Creek confluence coming in on river left.

I ended up getting to packraft Glacier Creek from the tram down to the Girdwood library. It was really fun. A video is provided in another post that gives a pretty clear picture of what I got to do. I had to dump my boat out a few times due to a dysfunctional spray skirt but I was laughing and enjoying the whole process. About an hour of exhilaration/fear/amazement.

Next up was a run/hike on the Crow Pass Trail with a spare afternoon. Julia got sucked into coaching so I was on my own for this one. Boo. It's more fun when she is along. Also, no bears spotted. That is good.

Looking south down towards Girdwood and Crow Creek. 

Old mining equipment. 

A public use cabin at Crow Pass. On sunny day I can only imagine the views.

Raven Glacier from a moraine just below Crow Pass.

 On the way out there were a few clouds on both sides of the pass.

Looking north down Raven Creek towards its confluence with
Eagle River.

At one point on the trail it is necessary to cross a little tributary that meets up with Raven Creek. Hiking in Alaska often involves wet feet. It's just part of the deal. Thankfully I learned not to wear cotton socks while hiking a while back.

Cold.

A little waterfall on Raven Creek.

Hello moose. He was pretty content. No aggressive behavior observed.

On the trip back the sun came out on the north side of the pass.

Flowers along the trail just before the creek crossing.

Still cold.

The south side of Crow Pass on the way back to the car.

Great hike. There is a marathon that follows this trail from Girdwood to Eagle River. Apparently people tend to hurt themselves by tripping a lot. Understandable.

One more adventure was involved in this trip but I forgot the camera. With a new confidence in my packrafting ability after Glacier Creek, I joined a group of packrafters for a trip down the South Fork of Eagle River. I am not a skilled enough paddler for that one yet. Also, within 15 seconds of getting in my boat at the put in I hit a rock, cut a hole in the bottom and punctured the seat. That made navigating around rocks and brush pretty tough, though I probably couldn't have pulled it off anyway. The hike was pretty nice though.

Hooray for South Central Alaska. And we hardly even began to explore.

Kenai Peninsula Fun

More summer fun!

Camping on the Homer Spit

Before spending a week in Girdwood, AK, Julia and I first headed down towards Homer, AK to try to see some beautiful places. Along the way we where able to see some sights that Midwesterners don't often have a chance to see. 

Apparently there are often beluga whales spotted in the Turnagain Arm. We stopped at Beluga Point to make an attempt to spot some. Julia said she did. I think they were whitecaps from a seriously powerful tide. Either way it was a great place for a stretch of the legs.

"I think I see a whale!" "I think it's a wave." "Whale."
"Wave." "It's a whale!"

Towards Homer, the mountains were peeking out on the west side of the Cook Inlet. Very large volcanoes are fun to look at. 

Mt. Augestine

After making arrangements with a water taxi for a trip across Kachemak Bay the next morning, we set up camp on a beach on the Homer Spit. This was a good decision. 

Sunset on the Homer Spit.

Preparing dinner.

The next morning we woke up to a bit of wind. There were plenty of waves and our tent and rainfly were making attempts to free themselves from the rocks we had attached them to. But the day was spectacular. 

Preparing breakfast.

After adjusting our adventure plans with the water taxi due to a stiff wind from the southwest, we headed across the bay to a place called Halibut Cove. We brought along packrafts so we could see the glacier from a bit closer up and give ourselves a few more options when it came to trails we could wander. From Halibut Cove, we hiked up over a little saddle and headed towards Grewingk Lake. 

Halibut Cove

On the trail to Grewingk Lake.

We paddled out to a rocky peninsula that endured the advance of Grewingk Glacier and was left as the glacier has retreated. 

Putting in.

The view of Grewingk Glacier from the little peninsula.

We had a breezy lunch.

How excited is Julia to be outdoors on glacier smoothed peninsula?
 Not very excited.

We paddled back along the east shore of the lake and found another trail that wraps around back to west side of the lake and Halibut Cove. There was at least two piles of bear skat on the trail but it appears that Julia has adjusted to Alaska hiking quite well. We continued on without incident.

A creek to cross (float?).

We need to cross the creek that flowed out of Grewingk Lake and into Kachemak Bay on our way back to the trailhead. Thankfully there was a convenient tram to use. I have since read about a few folks who have packrafted this creek down to the ocean and Glacier Spit to meet up with another trail. That sounds like a lot of fun. Hope to try it soon. 

Useful.

On the way back up to Girdwood, we camped in a pleasant campsite with a nice gurgling creek nearby. That evening we had one of the more satisfying campfires and several of the tastiest s'mores ever. 

We also took a detour to Whittier, AK. This was uninspiring due to significant amounts of rain. But it's easy to see how Whittier could offer some great views. It was very exciting to drive through a mountain via a long and narrow tunnel. 

Windy and rainy but kind of nice.

"Hey! I like trees too!"

 And then on to Girdwood for more fun...

Item Ridge

In the past few years I have come to understand that emotions are an essential part of the Christian life. These emotions are not primarily moments of intense religious experience. The emotions that are often described in the Bible are related to sustaining a love for God that is not altered or destroyed by any specific circumstance or experience.

Affections for God arise from understanding something about God and enjoying it. The emotion arises from seeing and responding to a reality. Just as we see a reality and respond with emotions in our relationships with each other, we can see a reality about God and respond with emotion. Feelings of happiness and awe rise out of me as I consider what I understand about God.

Heading back to our camp after attempting to reach Item Peak, I started singing. One way to think about Christians singing is that we are remembering God's word, we responding to God's grace, and we reflecting on God's glory. The song that my emotions produced as I was walking along a snow covered ridge and considering what I know about God was "How Great Thou Art."

Oh Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder

Consider all the worlds thy hands have made...

...When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur

I hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze.

Glory!

And when I think that God, His Son not sparing,

Sent him to die, I scarce can take it in.

That on the Cross, my burden gladly bearing,

He bled and died to take away my sin.

Grace!

It was a pleasant trip.

The Alaska Alpine Club puts together weekend trips each spring into the Eastern Alaska Range and the Delta Mountains. A group of us attempted Item Peak last weekend. We drove to Michael Creek along the Richardson Highway Saturday morning and made our way up to "the headwall," where we set up camp.

Skiing up Michael Creek past some open water.

Setting up camp below the headwall.

We decided that the window of mostly sunny skies on the Saturday should be taken advantage of. The original plan was to make camp and attempt to reach the summit the following day but the weather report called for mostly cloudy skies with snow likely on Sunday. We strapped on the crampons and headed up the headwall towards the ridge in the sun.

Looking south towards the head of the Delta River. One of many
rock formations called Devil's Thumb.

Moving upward along the ridge. Photo by Nick.

We came to a bump on the ridge and quickly realized we would not be making it to the top of Item Peak. Another half mile across a saddle and our turn around time 15 minutes away kept us from the top. We stopped at this knob on the ridge and took in the views. 

At our high point (not Item Peak). Photo by Nick.

Item Peak further up the ridge.

Looking north towards the Jarvis Glacier and the slopes of
Mount Silvertip. 

Looking down on ridge we ascended. Our tracks are barely visible
just below the rock line.

Returning to camp. (Photo by Nick)

Grant and Nick moving down.

Crampons are useful at this point.

We were all pleased with the effort, even though we didn't reach the summit. The last stretch back to our camp involved several hundred feet of cramponing down the headwall that was not difficult. So we waited on the ridge above camp and watched the sun go down.

Glory!

The next morning we slept in and returned to the cars. By about noon the clouds had rolled in and snow was falling, which was encouraging as the morning had presented few clouds and I was wondering if we could have made the summit. But had it been a spotless sunny day, we all would have been content. We agreed that the evening before was so enjoyable that it was worth missing the top. 

Then sings my soul my savior God to thee! 

How great Thou art! How great Thou art!