Hiking
After a long hike yesterday we decided on the shorter hike up to Alice Mountain today. It was only 5 miles round trip to the top, but it gained about 2500 feet. Ultimately we failed to reach the peak because of snow but we stopped only 300 feet below the summit and the views were extraordinary. At least, they were extraordinary for anywhere other than Alaska where such thing are as commonplace as being on the Seattle/Bainbridge ferry and seeing the Olympics to the west and Rainier to the east.
There were places on the hike where Strava reported a grade of 50% with many others in the 30’s and 40’s. My 60 year-old wife raced up the hill and I tried not to be dropped. Here is a picture that tries to capture how steep the ascent is.
The view from where we turned around was amazing since we were standing not on Alice Mountain but another high point where the terrain fell away in all directions so quickly that simply standing felt precarious. We could look down on Resurrection Bay and across the bay was Seward stretched along the base of more mountains including Mount Marathon which would be the setting for a race later in the day. Here are two usies from the same spot; one is roughly east and one is roughly west toward Seward.
This next picture is an attempt to show the cliffy nature of the environment. (Arlene refused to stand on the top.)
On the way back down I snapped a picture of this guy which I think is a Pine Grossbeak:
Mount Marathon Race
After the hike we went back to the AirBnB for lunch, then returned to town to check out the race. The weather was great; it has been cloudy all week but today the clouds mostly abandoned the sky exposing the snowy mountains on both sides of Resurrection Bay. The environment around the finish line of the race reminded me of Fairhaven after Ski-to-Sea with crowds everywhere and people in the streets. I heard one person say that the population of Seward quadruples on July 4th for the race.
Looking up toward the top of Mount Marathon we could make out a group of spectators who had climbed partway up and eventually we could see a tiny line of pixelated races moving slowly up. The racers on the descent were more spread out and could be located primarily by the dust clouds they produced. Arlene and I couldn’t determine if the racers on the descent were visible. And the picture shows the spectators and racers even more poorly than our eyes but you can see the puffs of dust created by the racers on the descent on the path on the right.
Finally, here is a picture that Arlene took of Alice Mountain from Seward. It is in the clouds but you can just make out the outline of the mountain.
