Sunday, April 12, 2009

Exploring more of the area...

In 2006, I made a trip up with both of the guys to see our land and do some exploring. On the morning of the day we met with the grading contractor, we took a hike up Round Mountain. The guys had already made this hike all the way to the top of the mountain on their scratch-and-burp trip in 2004. Time restraints kept us from getting all the way to the top, but we did hike a good ways.  Here, James and I point to the trailhead sign that describes the trail as "strenuous" and warns of bears.


Jim and James on the trail:


Our property is only about 15 minutes from the ocean at Cook Inlet. The beach is not pretty at all. There is no sand, and the beach is a mud flat that can trap you and you can drown in the tide, so for safety's sake, you can only walk where there are gravel and rocks. But ocean is ocean, and we're right near it, which is still pretty cool. We walked the trail at Captain Cook State Park there, which was very pretty and wooded. Right outside the park, we saw a small black bear, but it hurried into the woods before we could get our cameras out and take its picture. Here's me and James on a high rock on the beach:


As a little bit of proof that bears really ARE roaming around all over the place in Alaska, here are two of the ones the guys saw when they were fishing. Fortunately, the bears were far more interested in fattening themselves up than they were in any of the humans nearby.




It seems there's a limit on the number of photos I can put on each entry, so I'll have to add the next couple pics separately....

2 comments:

  1. Jim (of the wild ride variety)April 12, 2009 at 5:33:00 PM CDT

    James and I hiked this trail in May of 2008. When the temperature is 45 degrees with snow on the ground and you aren't carrying anything it takes about 3 hours to go to Upper Fuller Lake and back. It was exhilarating, and we were amazed at how quickly we did it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jim (of the wild ride variety)April 13, 2009 at 3:00:00 AM CDT

    The pretty thing about the inlet isn't the near view, it is the far view. Denali and Mt. Redoubt are right there. You can get 140 degree view of the mountain ranges across 40 miles of water. Get the sun low in the sky to generate some color and either face-light or back-light the mountains and it is beautiful.

    ReplyDelete