Sunday was a completely lazy day, with sleeping in, church, visiting friends, watching movies, napping, eating steaks on the grill, and just basically relaxing. There's been something I've been wanting to do - find a way up to the place where PJ and I saw all of the bears about a month ago. They were on a high steep ridge called "Grace Ridge" that runs between Sadie Cove and Tutka Bay. I tried about a month ago to go up from the other end of the trail, which didn't work out too well because it was too steep. I knew it would be too much work to bushwhack my way up from directly below. Again - too steep, but without a trail - there's generally too many blowdowns and too much devils club, which makes it too gnarly. So, I did some research from a book that is on Maria's bookshelf, and started from a new trailhead. Monday morning was foggy and damp around 4 am, and I had a heck of a time backing my boat down the long driveway in the semi-darkness. But, the landing was vacant of people (unlike the fourth of july weekend), and the ride across the bay was smooth. I had another mishap at the beach - seems like I have to do this once a month so far, to learn my lesson. I beached the nose of the boat, and was going to quickly unload my gear for the day. Then take the boat out to 20 feet of water, moor it, and then use the canoe (which I carry in my boat) to get back to shore. That way I don't have to swim. Get it? Anyway, I wasn't paying close enough attention, and in this case, the beach was steep - so in five minutes, the boat was beached too much to shove it off again, so I had to leave it like that. Above, a look down through the spruce forest and lush undergrowth. What you see is a complex of islands in Eldrige Passage, and some low lying clouds that are right above the water. After only an hour of hiking, I'm already way above the clouds.
Below, two hours into the hike, I break out just above treeline, and come into another completely different kind of habitat. You can see the trail going across alpine tundra now, with scattered spruce, alder trees, and mostly very short moss, likens, blueberry plants, and a mix of flowers that are just starting to bloom.
Once you get up higher, hikers tend to make piles of rocks to "make their mark" even though the trail is still plainly visible. In this pic, you're looking right down on Katchemak Bay. The big island is Yukon Island. It's about 7:30 am by this time, and the lake is still fogged in on the Homer side according to Maria (I have reception, and we are texting from time to time while she cooks breakfast).
I thought this spot was neat, because every time there is a hill, you could see the trail stretching out up ahead. The highest point of grace ridge is ahead in the distance. I still have a long way to go, and will eventually cross over in the saddle just to the right of the highest peak and the little bump to the right of it. A highlight of the day happened at this point, when I looked across a gully to my left and saw something big and furry moving along the edge of the alders. I recognized it immediately as a big gray timber wolf. He was aware of my presence, and he faded off into the alders as I watched with my binoculars. From time to time, I could see him moving around in there. At one point, I saw him lift his leg as he peed on a tree - marking his territory. Then he disappeared for good.
Two marmots are curious what's up? I was seeing some from a distance - but they would whistle an alarm call, and then they would all go down - sort of like giant prairie dogs. These alpine marmots are like a woodchuck from MN, only about 3-4x bigger. This pair let me get within about ten yards, which was cool!
You can see that the environment varies so much up there, and there is all kinds of "mini-ecosystems" present. Sometimes all you have to do is walk a hundred yards, and it changes. This area shows what used to be a snowfield, but has finally melted. The ground is all hummocky from snow and ice movement, and all the drainage that has occured. Because it has only recently been exposed, there is little to nothing growing here, and I expect that it stays that way.
Only a couple of hundred yards away, I am just below the highest peak - and right there, it is very boggy - not a floating bog, but just very wet and marshy, with much more lush vegetation, and because it is flat, it's very muddy with standing water.
Higher up the trail, the actual walking path doesn't show any more - either because there's not enough foot traffic, or because the ground is too hard to show it. Here's where the rock piles become more of a necessity - to show the way. They go all the way up to the peak, and then go peak to peak. Kind of reminds me of the rock piles/fire towers that they used on the Lord of the Rings movies to communicate. Loading these pics takes a long time, so I will have to continue the story about my day later...
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