travel day down to the kenai peninsula

Tuesday was a travel day from talkeetna, back down through anchorage and onto the kenai peninsula. we did a little grocery shopping to restock our supplies. 

stopped back in girdwood for lunch at the chair 5 brewpub. I've definitely been enjoying the brews of Alaska! there are so many. a little sad I can't bring any back on the plane. oh well, enjoy them while I'm here. 

back to talkeetna

from the trailhead, we headed back to talkeetna... directly to the Denali brewery for a late lunch and celebratory beers. sooooo good! 

after lunch, we checked into the meandering moose cabin, dumped out all our gear, did laundry, and took much needed showers. gorgeous backpacking trip, body achy but satisfied! 

went back into town for dinner, and tried to go elsewhere, but ended up back at the brewery. ha. go with what works. thought we might go out for a little nightlife, but turns out there was not much going on in town on a Sunday night... fine with me, happy to sleep in a bed with a pillow!! 

...as if it could get more beautiful...

we woke up in the morning to not a single cloud in the sky... stumbled out of the tent with cameras in hand. the day was warm and clear as can be. the amazing and warm weather took us all by surprise a little. not quite what we had pictured for Alaska, we have been totally lucky!! 

the maps had been a pretty poor gauge for time and distance in the trail, so we kinda gave up on them, and just hiked. the trail down was an hour farther than we expected... but super clearly marked when we finally got to it. so gorgeous, there were a good amount of photo stops along the way. 

down wasn't too brutally steep, but as with the end of any hike, the anticipation of being done makes every ache worse. below tree line, we crossed a swamp full of mosquitoes, and we just hauled. poor heather had to speed walk to keep up with our pace determined to be done. ha.

 

made it down to the car by mid-afternoon... and we're stoked to drop packs, and change into flip flops!!! 

evening sun that goes on and on...

by evening time, we were done with dinner, cleanup, and water filtering... and the bugs came back so we retreated to the tent to wait out the sun high sun. heather somehow had cell service, so she was able to touch base with her boys back home. 

the sun eventually won. we finally settled in and read ourselves to sleep. I kept waking up in the night, and was curious to see if it ever got dark. by 2am, there was still glow if light behind the mountains (way lighter than the picture shows), and I gave up. turns out that our headlamps were our most useless piece of gear on the hike. ha. 

lazy afternoon of r&r&h

we had planned to stop just shy of the trail down for the night, but by mid-afternoon, we were achey, and decided to call it. found another awesome little spot to pull out for the night, and we busted out the wine and snacks.... and chilled for hours in the sunshine, reading, napping and chatting. by then we had just enough wind and distance from water that the bugs were gone for a bit. :)

 

warm & clear afternoon hiking

the fog cleared out by noon, and we walked along the ridge line gaping at the Denali range. it was also super still, however, so we has to pull our head nets out for the first time for a very quick lunch stop! 

along the ridgeline

woke up the next morning to a bank of fog hanging over the valley in front of us, covering all the mountains. it was cool and peaceful. nice way to start the morning. knowing we had tons of daylight, and only 8-10 miles to hike, we took our time that am. 

the trail along the ridge line was rolling and a pleasant walk. pretty much what I expected of the hike. we wove from front to back and front of the ridge, over rolling hills. 

midnight sunset

our first night we enjoyed a yummy Mac and cheese with peas dinner, topped off with wine (in "real" camp wine glasses!). the breeze kept up, so we had almost no problem with mosquitoes. 

we turned in to the tent to wind down around 9pm with sun still up and full daylight. there were a few clouds on the mountains, but generally a great view. 

the girls passed out in no time, but I was a little antsy to see the sunset. I crawled out of the tent around 10:30pm to a clear view of Denali, and the sun just starting to tuck behind the mountain range. 

I hung out watching the sunset for over 45 minutes... the sun went behind the range, but it never did get dark. ha. amazing beautiful and peaceful. finally went to bed when my toes got cold. ;)

up up to the ridge line

it took us a couple of hours to drive to the trailheads and leave the car at the end trail. we were all geared up, and on the trail around 3pm. we really lucked out, it was a breezy day, so the mosquitoes were minimal as we made our way up through the trees. we had some maps and trail descriptions with us, but they were all a bit misleading on the distance and elevation gain to the ridge line. first day with a 40+ lb pack on is always slow, but we slogged on. the first half of the ascent was pretty moderate, and as we got above the tree line, it went up at a steeper grade. not a lot if switchbacks in AK... just up. 

we stopped at a river crossing at what we thought was the ridge line to fill water.  through the next saddle, turned out we had more up to go. ha. 

all the efforts paid off, however, because we scored and amazing place to camp on a little plateau overlooking the entire Denali range. 

north to talkeetna and Denali

up and out if the hostel early, we drove north on a drizzly morning towards Denali. uneventful drive, and the weather was clearing up as we drove into talkeetna around 11am. heather had arranged for us to leave all our extra gear and food at the lodge we were staying in after the hike, and a taxi service to help us shuttle our car to the end trailhead of our hike. 

our shuttle driver was running a bit late, so we walked the entire 3 blocks of downtown talkeetna, and rounded out at the Denali brewery for pre-hike tasters. yum. gave us something to look forward to after the hike, fo sho.