TrailRunner, July 2008

July 14, 2008 at 8:16 AM

After reaching the top of Skyline yesterday, Kim and I followed the ridge across the Mystery Hills traverse. Most days, things are pretty quiet up there, but to our surprise, we were approached by a couple of curious ewes and a kid on their way to Skilak lake.

The forget-me-nots are in full bloom now, and they decorate the slopes with electric blue.

I also got to mark off "white tailed ptarmigan" in my bird book.

I found this intriguing benchmark on top of No Name peak, one of the nine mini-summits on the ridge, but it has no elevation marking. We estimated it to be 2900 ft.

We descended the ridge into an overgrown thicket resembling Jurassic Park, wading through calf deep water on the flooded trail next to Fuller Lake. The birds flying over the lake in this photo are actually mosquitos.

It was a lovely day for a hike despite the bugs. Today, I opened up the June issue of TrailRunner to discover that they had written an article on the very trail we'd traveled. Did they post photos of the epic landscapes, the jungle thickets, the teeming wildlife and brilliant flowers? On the contrary, they only included one photo from that hike, nearly identical to this one that I took yesterday:

From Tom Holzman
Posted on July 14, 2008 at 1:55 PM

Very cool pics.

From Bill Rose
Posted on July 14, 2008 at 3:05 PM

Lovely pictures. Do you carry your bow to fend off bears?

From Rosalind Porter
Posted on July 15, 2008 at 12:55 AM

GORGEOUS photos, absolutely stunning, thanks for sharing! Is that a brown bear paw-print? Do you ever see bears on your hikes? Unfortunately I know that if I'd gone along that path with one square inch of bare skin I'd have been devoured alive by the mosquitoes... they really seem to love my blood whenever I am within biting distance.

Hope you took the cute choc lab along for the walk!

From Emily Grossman
Posted on July 15, 2008 at 5:46 AM

We see bears, usually from a distance because we make so much noise. I only surprised one once, a small black bear, and he scampered up a tree like a large squirrel. They don't usually want to have anything to do with you, so if you can keep from surprising them, you're probably okay.

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TrailRunner, July 2008

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