OK, one last time looking back. It is time for me to start working on more recent excursions, but I need to bring Alaska full circle in order to get there. What can I say, I'm crazy about this place! When I had another opportunity to visit this beautiful state, I took it. This time we would be visiting in September, a full 5 months since the last trip.
We flew from the same airport and took the same flight path as last time only now, being the end of summer, there wasn't as much snow. As a result, there was so much more detail in the landscape as we flew over Alaska. I was able to make out geographical features that I hadn't seen back in April because many areas that now stood revealed were originally obscured due to cloud cover or snowpack. Details such as this volcanic caldera, which you can see is tall enough to delay the clouds, had been so overfilled with snow that it passed by unnoticed. That's a lot of snow.
Earlier in the year, the snow was still heavy and had managed to pack every available nook and cranny beyond the point of saturation. The image crafted by the winter landscape was one of smoothness and ambiguity. In stark contrast, the end of summer exposed the mountain ranges for the craggy peaks they actually were. I can't say which I found to be more beautiful. I can say, had the snow given way beneath us, I have no doubt we would not have been found until well after the summer months, after the snow had melted enough for us to be revealed to the world as a cautionary tale to remember your snowshoes.
It is amazing, the difference a few months can make. We made it a point to revisit most of the places we had originally stopped to see. Each place we went to felt like it was the first time I had ever seen that particular area, the landscape now was just so vastly different.
For instance this:
Is the same place as this:
I initially thought that those huge grey objects in the top photo were rocks from the bottom of the river that had been exposed once the water at higher elevations froze and stopped flowing downhill. I didn't realize that those grey objects actually were the river until that fact was pointed out to me. Even then, it took me a moment to make the connection that it gets cold enough in the winter heres to freeze a river in place. That would not be the first time I found myself in awe of Alaska and it wouldn't be the last.
Similarly, this was how I saw Hatcher Pass our first time through:
This was Hatcher Pass now:
Crazy, right? We were able to make it all the way to the clouds!
What I noticed most now when we set out to explore was how accessible everything was. In April, we turned back more often than not simply because we couldn't get to where we wanted to go. Many of the passes were still closed and, while we could see the paths we wanted to take, trudging through snow that went past our knees could make even the simplest excursion a tiring exercise in futility. Now that the areas we had visited five months ago were cleared of their winter burden, the world was our oyster. It was time to see what lie beyond the next mountain.
As it turns out, this is what was over that next mountain.
Hatcher Pass (the namesake of prospector Robert Hatcher and located in Alaska's Talkeetna Mountains) was one of the first stops on our agenda. I was looking forward to see if I would still be able to grab that moment of perfect stillness that I had experienced the first time around. We made it to where we originally had to turn back and, this time we were able to go even further. The Willow Fishhppk road snaked for a few more hundred yards, winding around the pass, taking us through the cloud cover, or fog (or whatever it's called when you're at the same level as the sky) where we reached the other side of Hatcher Pass. It was here where I was able to find that same level of peace I had achieved in April. The backside of the Pass is home to the April Bowl, a beautiful, clear basin of water that was fed from higher up in the hills and, in turn, fed a stream that carried the water back down the mountain.
The water here reached about halfway up my arm. Aside from how cold the water was, I marveled at how clear it was as well. There were no distortions, no debris, no cloudiness. The April Bowl was just another reminder of the stillness you can find by walking these Alaskan trails. This side of the trail was also a geologists dream. There were signs of upheaval everywhere. Signs warned of the danger of possible landslides and the evidence was clear that they occur. Heavy boulders were strewn about the landscape, exposing clusters of quartz and other minerals. Layers upon layers of sediment had been compressed over millennia and later ejected back upon the surface of the earth. I wish that I had paid more attention in science class because, even for someone like me with the most rudimentary understanding of what I was looking at, it was facinating.
We had several more stops to make before we would call it a day so it was time to move on. Next stop, Byron Glacier.
In our first visit, we made several attempts to visit a glacier. We had little to no luck, either we would be turned back by terrain or by the price of having to hire a tour guide. This time, however, the snow had melted and the path to Byron Glacier was open to us. With the area now looking so different, it took us a while to find the trail we wanted to take to the glacier but, eventually we were successful. The trailhead wasn't too far off from where we had stopped in April, just off of the parking lot in front of Portage Lake.
Here is a little bit of trivia for you, most of the trails we came across had a log book at the beginning for visitors to sign. Some people will sign their names, some will write poems or draw pictures, some won't write anything at all. It's fun to read through the notes, yet I also can't help but to think this also serves as a 'last known location of' in case anyone goes missing...
The Byron Glacier Trail only takes about 45 minutes to an hour to walk and it isn't a challenging hike at all. The ground is level, the trail is clearly marked, and this babbling river is a constant companion. You may find yourself easily lost in thought only to be snapped back to reality once the trail opens up and the glacier comes into view.
I don't know how much of the river originates from melting glacial ice, but i'd bet the glacier is a major contributor. The land surrounding the glacier is scarred from the glaciers slow movement and hills of slate dot the riverbanks on both sides. This sediment had been pulled along as the glacier made its way through the area and deposited wherever the ice decided to melt that day. Face on direction and you see where the glacier is, face the other and you can see where the glacier was (or is going, it didn't stop to ask me for directions).
As we made our way over the mounds of slate, we passed by several areas where gigantic pieces of the glacier had broken off. There were several other people out there that day and everyone was making their way up and around these landlocked icebergs. Some of this ice we could walk under and, if you got very still and held your breath, you could hear the ice cracking all around you. The noise was eerie but it was exciting to me that I could hear the landscape in transition.
We decided to move in closer in order to get a better look at the glacier and, in order to do that, we had to nimbly make our way across the mounds of rocks that stood in our way. It went about as well as you'd expect it would. I fell. I fell a lot. I am not ashamed to admit that I would have made a horrible ballet dancer as I lack any sort of balance and grace that would have been helpful at this moment.
It was hard, alright? But I made it and I am glad I took advanrage of the opportunity. So, one cut hand and one bruised ego later, we decided to head back to the car and back to our hotel. Of course this meant we had to make our way back across the rocks that had threatened our safety on the way over. I am typing this article so we all know I made it and I was an amazing rock climber and nothing bad happened to me on the way back to the trail.
As we were heading back to the hotel, we were also heading into one the most beautiful sunsets I had the pleasure of witnessing. Alaska is filled with vistas and vantage points, each displaying some natural marvel that is worth at least a couple minutes of your time. On the way back to Anchorage, we took highway 9 and were about to pass through the Chugach National Forest. To our left was Kenai Lake and it was there, right before we entered the forest, that everything came together perfectly. We found a place to pull off the road that was already filling with other motorists, grabbed our cameras and hopped out of the car.
It was a thing of beauty. The sunset was hypnotic, changing colors and becoming richer with every passing moment. The water on the lake was still, aside from a slight ripple caused by a passing breeze giving us an unexpected bonus in the reflection on the water.
We stayed until the sun sunk completely beneath the horizon.
Worth it...
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