Fall Hiking in Hope

Facebook is telling me that approximately 100% of my friends who live in Washington and Oregon are upset about the weather.  I would just like to take a moment to point out that the weather in Alaska right now is absolutely incredible.

Minus Monday.  Monday was not nice.  I'm going to pretend that Monday didn't happen.

Thankfully the snow went away and we're back in solid fall mode.  To celebrate the briefest of seasons in Alaska, we grabbed Ann and Steve and headed out to Hope, a teeny town on the north end of the Kenai Peninsula, to go hiking.  Hope is actually just a stone's throw from Anchorage, but it takes a little work to get there.

Hope is "B" - we hiked from the B west to where the Turnagain Arm opens up

Just look at the day we had yesterday.  If people ask me why I live here I'm just going to show them this picture:

As we drove along the Seward highway, we even saw some dall sheep.  You know it's going to be a good day when you see the sheep along the road.

This one was tiny and adorable.  Aww.

After about 90 minutes, we got to the trailhead for the hike to Gull Rock, which is located in the Porcupine Campground in the Chugach National Forest.  We're kind of sad that it's so late in the season (i.e. cold) because camping there would be great.  It's really isolated and, because it's right on the inlet, has amazing views.

Right now everything is totally lit up with fall color, especially the birch and aspen trees.

 So pretty!

The forest on this side of the inlet is very different from Anchorage.  I think it rains more in Hope and is a little warmer in the winter, so the trees grow a lot taller - even the evergreens.  The scenery was very Oregon-esque to me in many places.  None of those little Dr. Seuss spruce trees we have in town.

The hike was great - mostly flat, great and varying scenery, and long enough to wear you out (11 miles round trip).

Andy was excited to get started:

The beginning was pretty thick aspen and birch forest:

Look at the colors!

Every once in awhile, there would be a clearing in the trees and you'd get a great view of the water.

Sometimes only peek-a-boo.

Some parts of the trail were very wooded.

In the wooded parts we saw a lot of mushrooms and weird fungi:

We made Ann put her head by this one for size comparison.  This is a head-sized 'shroom.  And no, she did not eat it.

At times on the hike the trees would really open up and we'd get fantastic panorama views of the Turnagain Arm:

Ann and I were perpetually at the back of the line because I kept taking pictures (and because we were being slow).  The boys were mostly patient with us.

This is them waiting patiently.

We saw a lot of bear scat on the hike, but no bears (thankfully).  Really we only saw a few critters along the way:

Squirrels:

Ripley:

And a sloth:

The end of the hike was the best.  I've said it before and I'll say it again - I love a good scenery payoff. This is why I go hiking:

The end of the hike was Gull Rock - basically a huge cliff with awesome views all the way to Anchorage.  Couldn't have picked a better day for this hike.

Ann and Ripley did some bonding at the end.

Ann and Steve were nice enough to bring beer.  Hiking is always better with beer.

After getting back to town we all went to the Spenard Roadhouse (which is an awesome restaurant in Anchorage) for more beer and a much-needed meal.  What a great day!

Bodega Fest

Ann and Steve invited us out to Bodega Fest - a beer tasting festival put on by a local beer and wine store here in Anchorage. For $25 we got 15 tastes and a teeeny tiny glass..

There were a ton of local (and northwest) breweries represented and we loved it! To top it off, the weather was ah-ma-zing. A perfect fall day. It's hard to believe that it was snowing this time next year. 

So sunny, we didn't need the tent, but we did need sunglasses!

Don't they look related? I joke that they look like the ginger twins, but the more time we spend together the more I am convinced they were separated at birth.

It got really crowded there. The people watching was almost as good as the beer selection. 

Another highlight - food trucks!  I got the ultimate tots. Excellent with beer! 

So...good food, great beer, excellent weather. What more could you ask for? How about a sweet band comprised of exactly ONE person?!

Yes, that guy is playing the guitar, the drums, and singing. And doing it well, might I add. He was my highlight for sure. That, and the Moose's Tooth Foul Weather IPA. Yum. 

We had a great time! Hope you had a nice weekend! I want this weather to stick around forever!

Nice Rack!

If you couldn't guess by the title, there's moose in this post.

First, a little story about why you should never listen to people who tell you to leave everything behind when the fire alarm goes off...

At about 8:30 this morning at work, our fire alarm went off.  I'd never heard it before and it was pretty terrifying because in addition to the loud screeching sound, a voice says EMERGENCY PLEASE PROCEED TO THE NEAREST EXIT about 500 times on repeat.  Since I figured it was just a drill, I didn't grab any of my stuff and headed to the stairs (Side note - I work on the 18th floor of a 19 story building along with about 1200 other employees and judging by the amount of time it took me to get to the ground floor, I would certainly die if my building caught on fire, which is a comforting thought).  Once we gathered in the predetermined spot in the parking lot, the safety people ushered us into the convention center next to our building, which seemed kind of weird.  Finally, at about 9:30, instead of giving us the all clear to return to work, a woman yelled at us through a megaphone that our building was to be closed until at least 1 p.m. and that we could call a 1-800 number for more information.

About 50% of the people in the room (the men in the room and those women who were smart enough to grab their purses) were really excited because they suddenly didn't have to go back to work and could go home.  The other half of us began cursing at our dumb selves for leaving all of our stuff in the office.  Ann and I didn't have a cell phone, a wallet, or a set of keys between us (but we did have two cars parked snugly in the parking garage just waiting to take us home!).  Thankfully, our coworker David said he'd drive us to my house where we could use my land line to keep in touch with people and I could at least get my spare keys, assuming I could get a ride back to town.  Also, we picked my house because even though I live much farther away from work than she does, I have cable, and Ann doesn't have TV.  Priorities.

Eventually, after a few hours of watching the Food Network, Ann's nice husband Steve picked us up and gave us some cash and dropped us off downtown.  It was really nice of him to come and get us, but also kind of like having your parents drop you off at the mall in junior high.  By 2 p.m., after a delicious lunch at the F Street Station, a restaurant that, amazingly, I had been to but Ann had not, we headed back to the office to find that work was canceled for the day and the security people would give us NO MORE THAN FIVE MINUTES to grab our things.  Thank you, security people, for not making me drive around town without my license!

Sadly I think we have to go back to work tomorrow, but I did learn an important lesson today, which is, despite what you've always been told, when the fire alarm goes off, you should grab all your stuff because otherwise they might close the building and then you'll be without all of your stuff and bumming rides off of people like a 15 year old girl trying to get to the mall.  But I digress...

When I got home around 2:30, the sun was out so I grabbed Ripley and headed up to the mountains to take some pictures of the fall colors and get us some exercise.

Alaska may not have a bunch of maple trees that turn colors in the fall, but the brush in the mountains turns the most amazing colors.  The pictures do not do it justice.  When it's sunny, you can even see the red color on the hills from downtown.

As I was walking out of the Powerline Pass area, I saw a bunch of people looking across at the hillside:

You can't see from here...let me use my crazy zoom lens:

Two bull moose!

And yes, those pictures were taken from the same spot.  One at 18mm and the next two zoomed ALL THE WAY.  I love my new camera lens.

Here's a computer enhanced one of one of the moose:

A little to the right, there was another large group of bull moose (first a far shot):

I think there are three, maybe four more in this patch of woods.  They're really easy to spot because of their huge antlers AMAZING RACKS:

It's already zoomed in pretty well with the camera, but here's a closer view:

I guess it's about mating season.  I didn't see any lady moose around, so I think this is that pre-mating phase where they butt heads until the one with the thickest skull wins the lady, which is exactly how Andy got me to go out with him when we were in law school.  (rimshot)