Hatcher Pass

We were both already thinking about the boat trip we had booked in Seward. We were excited about the possibility of seeing whales, and puffins, and glaciers and, and...

But we had to wait. It was like Christmas. There was this shiny gift under the tree, but we had to wait two more days to open it. So, on our second day in Anchorage we considered our options and ultimately decided to visit Hatcher Pass. This was not something we had planned to do months in advance, but something decided the night before. We had mulled through a list of things that caught our attention and somehow ended up with Hatcher Pass. I am not sure at all what it was that led to that decision, but that is where we ended up going. It was nice being flexible and making "game time decisions", but that approach also has some downside to it. More about that below.

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Hatcher Pass is located in the Talkeetna Mountains, north of Anchorage. As you enter the Talkeetna Mountains, the road begins to parallel the Little Susitna River (not to be confused with the "regular" Susitna River, a bit farther to the west) as it tumbles down to Cook Inlet. We took advantage of the scenic opportunities with the river that were provided to us.

Eventually you turn off the paved road onto a gravel and packed dirt road. This is the road that actually takes you through Hatcher Pass. It isn't maintained once the snow starts falling, and thus usually gets closed in late September until the following June or July. There were lots of potholes, which made for quite the bumpy ride.

Hatcher Pass was beautiful. The views were stunning (even on a cloudy day). When we got out of our car and just listened, the silence was amazing. The only thing I heard was the hum of my aging ears. No cars, planes, music, or other people. Every now and then we would hear some animal or bird, but otherwise this place has become my new standard for "quiet".

We got out of the car to explore a couple of times, but unfortunately we were not prepared for much more than that. Had we done more research, we would have known that there are several hiking trails located at Hatcher Pass, that took you up a little higher on the mountains next to the dirt road. These were easy hikes that, out of ignorance, we simply had not prepared for. We would have definitely taken the time to explore those trails had we known. Without exploring the trails, I still found it difficult to pull myself and my camera away from the views and the carpet of lush growth on the mountain sides.

Just beyond Hatcher Pass you come to tiny Summit Lake. We explored here and tried to capture the quiet beauty of this lake with our cameras.

While we explored, the quiet was interrupted fairly regularly by nearby critters. There was some type of varmit hanging out on nearby rocks, making this squeaking noise. Varmit, of course, is technical jargon for something that looked like a marmot or ground squirrel. It had four short legs, was furry all over, made me think of Ewoks, looked like it might be willing to take food from a human, and seemed to call an underground burrow its home. And it was squeaky.

Then there were the Ptarmigans. On the rocky side of the mountain above us there was a flock of Ptarmigans. They were fluttering about, moving from roost to roost, making all kinds of interesting noises. The noise that was the most memorable to me was a frog like groan sound. I have not been able to find a recording on the web that matches the sound I remember (which is more likely a factor of my memory than the recordings on the web). I had my binoculars with me, but my scope sat back in the hotel room (sigh). Beyond the fact that I was seeing and hearing some type of Ptarmigan, I was unable to conclusively identify them as one of the three Ptarmigans that occur in North America (Rock, White-tailed or Willow...that sound I remember seems to be closest to White-tailed). Any of them would have been a lifer for me. Another example of where some more planning might have saved me some frustration.

Never mind that. Look at the beautiful views!

The ride down the opposite side of Hatcher Pass continued to be very scenic. To a point. Somewhere in the drive down to Willow it turned from scenic Alaskan valley into a very bumpy, pothole filled drive through a forest.

Hopefully this post did not come across too negatively. I am absolutely happy we visited Hatcher Pass, even with some of the frustrations. It is one of the most beautiful places that I have ever seen. On some future trip to Alaska, if I had the chance to visit Hatcher Pass again, I would come better prepared: plan to hike, plan to bird watch and don't bother driving down the far side of Hatcher Pass to Willow (just turn around at Summit Lake).

Flattop Mountain

Before we departed for Alaska, we did some research into possible day hikes. I found that one of the most popular hikes in the Anchorage area is Flattop Mountain. It is only about 3 miles long, so I was not expecting it to be very demanding, and the panoramic views it offered were touted to be outstanding. It sounded like a winner.

In my research I found several descriptions of the hike on the web, but this one caught my attention. In particular, the summary mentioned "bad trail conditions at the top", "several potential hazards", "exercise extreme caution", "several hikers have been injured", and, my favorite, "novices may have problems". Hmmm...Wikipedia says that Flattop Mountain is the most climbed mountain in the entire state of Alaska. It seemed a bit ironic that such a popular trail would have so many warnings attached to it. Also, how do I know whether I am a novice or not? And a novice at what, exactly? Never mind that ominous trail description. After spending the first half of the day at Potter Marsh, we decided to give Flattop Mountain a try. How bad could it really be?

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The day had thus far been fairly cloudy. And when we got to the trail head we realized that we would have to contend with another issue: fog. It was like pea soup. Did that stop us? Ha! We ignored both the ominous trail description and the annoying fog. Onward!

So, up we went. As we approached the summit, the trail got steeper and steeper. And, the trail got less and less reliable. Lots of loose dirt and rock to consider, which required me to use my hands a lot more for balance and leverage. I would take a step, and then wait for my boot to stop sliding before taking the next step. And even though the fog was thick enough to prevent me from seeing any of the great views, I had this sense that any tumble would be a long tumble. It was when I found myself crawling up the side of the mountain (instead of walking...I think the correct term for this is "scrambling") because the angle of the trail was that steep, and the footing was that loose, that I reconsidered my interest in actually making it to the summit. Never mind the group of middle school aged kids who just bounded past us without any apparent concern, I was having second thoughts. I realized that I was perhaps a novice at whatever it was that this particular trail expected of its visitors. And because of the fog, there were no views. To me, the absence of views reduced the value of reaching the summit considerably.

We were within a few hundred yards of reaching the summit when we decided to reverse direction and head back down. That must have been an important decision, because about a third of the way down the mountain we noticed that the fog had finally begun to lift. I was a bit frustrated that I did not technically make it to the top of this mountain, but maybe we could get some nice views on the way down.

A view of the summit after the fog had lifted showed a rocky wonderland. If you stare at this photo hard enough, you can see a couple of successful scramblers taking in the now fog-free view from the advantage of the summit. They are the teeny, tiny little tip on that bump of rock in the middle of the summit.

Before we made it back to our car, the fog had completely evaporated, and the views came to life. On one side there were the Chugach Mountains. On the other was the sprawl of Anchorage.

While the fog was in place, it had washed away all the contrast and color. With the fog gone, however, clarity came to the small things too. I found this beauty next to the trail. It is called Alaskan Burnet.

And these young purplish cones are from Mountain Hemlock. I love the purple on green color combination.

No Birds

The first place that we visited in Alaska was Potter Marsh, just south of Anchorage. Potter Marsh is an excellent location for bird watching, but we managed to find a corner of the marsh that was pretty darn quiet. We went first thing in the morning, and decided to first visit the east side, which is opposite from where the parking lot and boardwalk are located. On the east side, there is a small gravel lot, and you can really only walk up to the edge of the marsh. And that is just what we did.

After about twenty minutes, however, the only sign of a bird was a nearby Black-billed Magpie, apparently scolding us for daring to even exit our car in its presence. Since I knew we were still headed over to the parking lot and that boardwalk, I did not fret over the apparent lack of birds. Instead I turned my attention to some colorful plants that were next to the marsh.

First up is some type of grass. It caught my eye because of the purplish hue that it had, so I squatted down in order to frame it against something green. I have no idea what name to give this grass.

Next up is a wild flower with a couple of cool names: Yellow Toadflax or Butter-And-Eggs. Its flowers have a very interesting shape and color. I was disappointed, however, when I got home and tried to find a name for what I had photographed. A bit of research gave me the name, but also let me know that this cute thing is actually an invasive species in Alaska.

Last up is Fireweed. We saw plenty of this beautiful purple flower the entire week. I crawled around in the weeds and grass to get this photo, and managed to pick up a tick as well. Happily, I can report that this tick turned out to be my only insect encounter for the entire week. I came prepared for masses of mosquitoes, but I never even had to apply repellent. I think I got lucky.

Wildflowers

My camera played second fiddle to my binoculars during my week at the this year's ABA convention. There were too many new birds for this Virginian, and my bins were much more suited for keeping up with them than my camera. But this was my fourth ABA convention, so I already knew that, by the time the last day got here, I would be tired and it would be difficult to keep focused on the birds.

So, when the last day of the convention got here, and focusing on birds, birds and more birds became more and more challenging, my thoughts switched back to my camera. And, much to my delight, I found myself surrounded by wildflowers. While most of the group still focused on various feathered things, I began to focus on flowery things. I wasn't the only one (if you follow that link and look at Steve's impressive photos, I am the "conventional DSLR guy" in the third from last photo...my back only ached a little after that shot :-).

Here is a collection of eight flowers that I managed to capture with my camera. Click on them to see larger sizes in Flickr. I managed to put names on some of these, but just barely. I really do not know what some of these beauties are.

Flora of Rapidan Loop

A selection of four pictures showing some of the interesting colors seen while hiking the Rapidan Loop. I identified these as I wrote this post by comparing my pictures to the pictures found here.

1. Yellow blooms of Black-eyed Susan.
2. Pink petals of Purple-flowering Raspberry.
3. Vivid orange of Turk's-cap Lily.
4. Red fruits of some variety of raspberry. I wanted to make this the fruit of the Purple-flowering Raspberry that is in the second picture, but the leaves of the plant looked different (I have other photos that show this difference better than these photos). I bumbled around the web trying to identify the berry (or actually...not berry, but aggregate fruit), but I ran out of patience before I could make the ID. So for now, it is just a raspberry.

International Rose Test Garden

What can I say about the International Rose Test Garden? I thought that we would be here about an hour. I figured that it was too late in the year for many roses to be blooming.

I was very wrong.

There were roses everywhere. Both my eyes and my nose were thrilled with this place. I have way too many pictures to choose from. Follow this link to "All My Pictures" (on the right) to see many more photos of roses (probably going to be lots of duplicates until I have a chance to go through them). Also, it will take some more time to get all the full size images uploaded (238 more to upload as I write this!), so you may need to check back later to see to full image (but thumbnails should be there now).

Lawn Mower - Part 3

Last week I convinced Rich to loan me his lawn mower. My mower is on the fritz, and he does not need his because he is building a house surrounded by a moat of dirt.

Hey, maybe he can set it up like in that one movie. The good guys disguised a moat of oil to look like regular ground so that they could trick the bad guys and burn them all crispy. I think that movie was The Beastmaster with Marc Singer. Rich could build a moat like that and then use it as necessary to dispose of annoying people, pets, etc.

Anyway, after mowing my lawn with Rich's mower I realized two things:
1. My lawn mower sucks (even if it were able to start).
2. I have this giant orange flower growing in my yard (see picture).

I think this is a Tiger Lily. I did not plant it. It just grew out of the dirt this spring and now I am taking pictures of it.

This is a bad picture (in my opinion). I still have not figured out how to control the depth of field on my camera. I could get the petals in focus, or I could get those weird "corndog on a stalk" things in focus, but not both at the same time. I suspect Jim is going to ask me if I have looked at the camera course on a CD that he loaned me like two weeks ago because that probably would clue me in. Obviously, I have not yet looked at it.

I bet the fire in Rich's moat would be nearly the same color as this flower!

Big Flowers

I remember Tammy telling me what these flowers were, but it had gotten so hot at that point that my brain had turned to mush. All I can remember is that they were big (softball diameter?) and pretty. Big and pretty. I am such a guy.

The Italian Garden

Here is a picture of the Italian Garden at Maymont. Lots of cool colors.

We walked into this garden from the far end, down where that dome is on the left. When we first got there, a man in purple nylon jogging shorts (the kind that are just maybe a little too short or just maybe a little too loose fitting or both) was under that dome singing. Loudly.

We were a bit stumped on whether he was part of the overall Italian Garden experience, or just some guy in purple jogging shorts who decided that the accoustics of that dome were worth experiencing. He was not singling badly, but he was in our way. And he was wearing those shorts.

We decided to avoid him and his scary shorts for a few minutes. We took a small detour and then came back. He was gone.

:-)