Skyline Trail

This last weekend being July 4th weekend and a long one, there was lots going on and lots to write about!  But I believe I'll start with our hike up Skyline Trail Sunday afternoon because it was so beautiful and I'm a little proud of myself.

The trailhead is located on Sterling Highway between mile marker 60 and 61, and when we pulled into the parking lot there were plenty of cars there.  Why not?  It was almost seventy degrees and a beautiful sunny day.  We started rather late, I don't remember the time but I'd hazard to say it was somewhere near 4:30 pm, which we weren't too terribly worried about because it gets dark (if you can even consider it dark) so late here and we had no place to be until midnight (Seward for fireworks!).  So we headed off towards the trail and  I wish I had a picture of the information board about the trail to share with everyone, but alas and alack...  But basically the trail was labelled as being a mile long (though we ended up going up the full length which is more like two miles) with the difficulty as strenuous, which caused me some pause as I'm out of shape and only recently quit smoking.  I jokingly mentioned to my hiking partner this would help clear all the junk out of my lungs, ha ha ha!  There was also lots of useful information about bears and how to act to avoid any run ins (whistling is the most frequently mentioned advice I've come across.. I suppose the bears appreciate a nice jaunty little tune as well as anyone else...) with them and what to do in case you crossed paths.  Rudie, my companion, was perhaps more prepared for that situation as he had brought his .357.  Exercising his right to bear arms against bear arms on the Independence Day weekend!

The trek was one of the most grueling hikes of my life...  I was wheezing too hard to whistle within the first thirty minutes, and the whole thing usually takes 3-5 hours to complete.  The path was fairly steep going for probably two thirds of the way, and we encountered many people coming back down on our way up, half of them strapped and ready for the revolution!  .. Err, I mean, bear encounters.  A lot of people coming back down the trail were also running.  Running on incline grades I had no concept of running on.  There was also a lot of water on the trail, yet it didn't slow the runners down.  I was consistently inspired and impressed by the nimbleness of some of our trailmates. 

Just to give y'all an idea of the incline the trailhead starts at 450 feet and the true top is at 3,295 feet elevation.  In two miles.  We went through so many different levels, the shift in elevation altering our landscape dramatically..  The beginning was verdant and wet with lots of rich black soil and thick, sweet air and plants growing everywhere.  The growth began to thin out some as we got  closer to the treeline, we could see the ground clearly and there were lots of evergreens.  The last species before we hit the treeline was probably the "squiggly trees" (so called by a trailmate, and without realizing this is what she meant I commented on how funny the wavy trees looked to Rudie once we reached them) or a species of willow I'd been pointed out on an earlier hike near Anchorage.  Unlike the weeping willows back home, these willows have fairly normal branches that grow up instead of listlessly trailing on the ground in that beautiful, romantic way weeping willows are wont to do.  I'd thought people were fibbing about the bugs here but after this hike I can ascertain that the mosquitoes are the size of what I imagine Mesozoic mosquitoes would look like.  And they were hungry. 

After the treeline we entered a beautiful section which was my favorite part of the hike, rather rocky with plenty of lichens and moss and little flowers.  I was reflecting on the beautiful alpine scene, imagining the Swiss Alps when Rudie's voice rang out and he stated that it looked like a mountain he had hiked on in a small village in Switzerland.  Huh, how about that.  Once we reached the very top there was still snow on the ground!  And lots of rocks.  And we found a little box of trail magic, unfortunately neither of us had brought anything to put in it.  We each put down our mark in the trail log and I asked Rudie "Will you take a box of the orangered for me?"  Translation:  Will you take a picture of the box?  Apparently the elevation or exhaustion or both were effecting my speech.  We both had a good giggle at that.  I found more giggles in the pages of the trail log, my favorite entry by far being:  The woman who lets me live with her wanted her ashes spread on this mountain.  But she is sneaky and keeps breathing I will try again later."  Oh brilliant anonymous satirist, I'm sorry I don't recall your name as well as your wit!  At this point I had already put on my sweater, the temperature at that elevation was much colder (about 45 degrees, maybe?) and some dark misty cloud were rolling in laden with moisture..  In fact, on our way back down it started raining.  Which made our adventure even more exciting.  No lies, I wiped out at least three times.  But it was exciting!  My first attempt at earth surfing!  I cannot begin to say how treacherous the trail was on the way back down with that incline and rain, needless to say I was bouncing from tree to tree for stability and sliding sideways through long swaths of mud.  Certain legs of the trail will forever be known as slip-and-slides for me.  But I was grinning like a fool and so happy, it was such a trip.  At one point coming down we were above a rainbow!  It was really magical.  But as our conversation ran coming down the mountain, we got out alive and so we won!  (Though Rudie didn't know the mountain was trying to take our lives...  The fool!)  All the rain on the trail and us being unaccustomed to such insane downhills it took us significantly longer to reach the bottom!  We loaded up and were in the car by 11 pm and we still had to make it to Seward by midnight for 4th of July fireworks! 

Stay tuned for the next episode of Weekend Alaska to discover whether Rudie and Mary make it to the fireworks in time!   

Here's the photos from the hike!  Enjoy!  Skyline Trail Gallery
And an awesome article about Skyline from a local paper!  Read more!
Safe travels and happy trails...