Another Ski-less Weekend

Well, technically, we could have skied by driving north an hour or so to Hatcher's Pass, but Brian thought we'd skied that spot enough this winter, and to tell the truth, our minds have turned to hiking and putting in longer workouts since the skiing hasn't been so readily available.  We've tried to climb Wolverine 3 times, beginning with the first year we were here, out with a Meet Up group.  The first time we turned around when we were just 1/2 hour from the summit - big mistake as it turned out.  I had tickets to the symphony, we pushed the time too much, and we ended up missing the concert anyway - and our opportunity to get to the top. 

The cairn is about halfway up (and a good turn-around point!)

Twice since then we've gone out, gotten to the cairn or further even, but had to turn back again for lack of time.  Wolverine is a popular peak, so it's in all of the hiking books, with an estimated distance of 11 miles.  It has about a 3500 ft. elevation gain, and it is 4,455 ft. above sea level.  Books mark it as moderate to strenuous, depending on the one you're reading - I'd go with strenuous.  Today we finally got to the top, and I'm happy to say we were down in 5 hours and 20 minutes, since one book estimates 5-7 hours and another 10-12 hours (that seems excessive!)  And .  . . I was the only woman up there and the oldest person besides - on our way down we saw two women at separate points climbing by themselves, but they were only halfway, so I'm not sure they were going all of the way up. 

We started from home with fog completely socking the city in, and you can see in these pictures we're looking down on fog across the entire city.  It was, again, warmer than we had expected - about 31 degrees, but really sunny - and the sun finally has some warmth - not that January "weak winter sun!"

The ridge to the top but facing away from the summit

Ridge to the top facing towards the summit

 Hiking Alaska describes Wolverine as "the prominent triangular peak at the intersection of two alpine ridges above south Anchorage" with "a fine overlook of the upper valleys of North and Middle Fork Campbell Creek and a view of some of Chugach State Park's rugged inner peaks."  I asked Brian on the way down why it was called Wolverine, and his answer, while lame, was confirmed by the guide book --someone once found wolverine tracks on the summit ridge.  This time, it definitely felt good to get back to the car - this was a push!

Yay!  Right on the top of Wolverine with inner Chugach peaks in the background.

Looking out from the summit of Wolverine

What do you do when there's no snow to ski?!

Winter hiking of course!  Conditions have been near perfect, as long as you take your Katoolah's (otherwise known as spikies, but not the non-aggressive, help-you-across-the-parking-lot kind --- the substantial ones!  Last weekend we took a hike with Lance, our former landlord, on the Middle Fork Loop trail, from the Prospect Heights trailhead.  A loop that we did a month or two ago, it's described in "Hiking Alaska" as "A Chugach Mountain sampler - a lower elevation and therefore good marginal-weather hike" with moderate difficulty.  The total elevation gain is about 1300 feet, and it is a 9 mile loop - it took us about 4 hours and 15 minutes.

The day was MUCH warmer than we had expected, especially the first half of the day - about 46 degrees when we started.  About halfway through the hike a breeze started up, and a welcome one, as we were all over-dressed!  We had half-expected rain, so the hike overall was a huge success - a dry day, hardly anyone on the trail, and we even had partial sun!  You can see how little snow there is though - highly unusual for this time in February!  You can't see well in the picture, but there is water running across the frozen ice field here, so it was kind of an unusual spot.  Four hours is a long enough hike that we were happy enough to stop, but it was another glorious day to be outdoors!