Gold Ridge

Another stellar day today. Sean and I were able to get out for a fun hike up Gold Ridge - a little wallowing in waist-deep drifts on the way up, and a little sledding on our butts on the way back. I'm plotting another adventure, so I don't have much time to blog tonight, but I wanted to post my pictures. Bluebird sky and sparkling snow — it's like a divine, calorie-burning dessert. I'm a happy hiker.

Sean standing over Gastineau Channel. This is before the wallowing began in earnest.

The wind-drifted snow created cool ice formations.

Juneau's version of the desert.

Sean walks along Gold Ridge. I really like this photo.

The Juneau Ridge and a fog-shrouded Blackerby Ridge in the distance.

Looking toward Sheep Mountain and Clark Mountain.

This tower of unknown origin toppled over and was devoured by rime ice.

Sean brought homemade pizza, topped with asparagus, tomatoes and Yukon Gold potato slices, to snack on at the top. It wasn't even frozen yet.

As we slid down, clouds started to move in from the southwest.

Heading back down to town. Total distance was about eight miles. Total time was four hours. The waist-deep wallowing definitely slowed us down, but for the most part, it made for a relaxing morning.

For some reason, I feel a little guilty leaving it at that. Maybe I should take an "Up in Alaska" reader poll. Does anyone think I should spend more time writing and less time taking photos of mountains?

Mount Meek

Two days ago, my friend Bjorn and I made plans to climb Mount Meek on Sunday, "rain or shine." I expected the former to a brutal degree: heavy rain, breathtaking wind, and eyeball-freezing whiteouts above 2,000 feet. But I had never been to Mount Meek before. I didn't even know what Mount Meek was until I finally bought a USGS Juneau map about a month ago. It's the last prominent peak on the Douglas Island Ridge, about 3,000 feet high, accessed by an unmarked hunting trail/muskeg traverse on the north end of the island. And I was going to go there in November. This was an important detail: Mount Meek would be another small step into the hugely intimidating world of mountaineering.

So I first met Bjorn on the Sheep Creek Trail about a month ago. He was the guy who expounded on the cleansing power of Taku winds. With nothing more than my first name and the place where I worked to go by, he tracked me down - the magic of owning a heavily Google-crawled Internet blog - and e-mailed after he saw me prowling around The Alaskan in my tiger costume on Halloween. He's officially the third friend I've met this summer on Juneau's largely deserted trails, which makes me feel lucky - most women have hang out at bars to meet single 20-something guys. (Ha ha, just kidding, Bjorn, since I suspect you'll see this blog post. :-)

The weather was forecasted to be not good, and it hasn't been good since before Halloween, which was why it felt so strange to wake up at 7:30 this morning to soft peach light amid the swirling clouds. Could it be possible? Was Mount Meek going to bless me with an easy passage? It seemed too good to be true, so I packed the face mask, the expedition socks, crampons, ax and a slew of dry layers.

Bjorn was a good hiking partner ... kept an even pace and insisted on breaking trail. Turns out this guy is a serious alpinist with all kinds of Brooks Range and Alaska Range trips behind him. He taught me french stepping and we talked about avalanche signs.

I was so enthralled with the warm light, swirling clouds and sparkling ice that I forgot we were climbing, and suddenly, we were at the top, surrounded by rime and intense blasts of cold air.

As we braced ourselves against the 40 mph winds, I stood facing Mount Ben Stewart and loudly declared my desire to traverse the ridge over to that summit. Bjorn looked over at me like I was crazy and I added, "Probably not today. I have to go to work today."

We lingered on the peak only a few more seconds and quickly dropped below the brutal exposure. He said, "OK, now we're back in a happy place." I scanned the expansive horizon, heart vibrating the way it always does up high, and realized that my inexperience is what makes everything about this so beautiful. Bjorn and I talked about some of his more harrowing climbs, and his tendency to "take all of my angst out on the mountain." I, on the other hand, seem take all of my happiness out on the mountain. I come to a small peak like Mount Meek, climb snowsteps to a summit bathed in the glow of unexpected sunlight, and suddenly I remember what it was like to be 5 years old and clinging to the top of the big slide at Liberty Park with a warm summer breeze whipping through my hair. I remember exactly what that was like.

This is my happy place.

Now it's October

I feel like I should have a better blog post lined up after four or so days away, but, sadly, the weather has just not been conducive to good outdoor blogging. On the indoor front, I have been socializing more than normal, finally worked out of the writing block I've been struggling through in my winter project, and finished the books "Swimming to Antarctica," "Addicted to Danger" and "Me Talk Pretty One Day." I really liked "Swimming to Antarctica" by Lynne Cox. Talk about someone going far in life on pure determination (and a fair bit of natural resistance to cold water.) Highly recommended.

So the weather: Gray and cool and raining. I continue to rave to anyone who's willing to listen to me what an amazing autumn I had. But I'm slowly starting to realize that I didn't actually get a free "out" from Juneau's autumn. It just came a month late. September was August. October was September. This month, this late-year month that is supposed to see a fair amount of white stuff, feels a lot like early October. I've been doing lots of drenched road riding on the Karate Monkey, a couple runs, and a few trips to the gym. On Thursday morning, I got out for a hike with my friend Sean. He wanted to take me to see his favorite place to ski, the dramatic, cliff-encircled bowl above Fish Creek. We climbed to about 2,500 feet elevation and it was still warm and still raining, hard. In November. I could almost hear his skier's heart breaking.

He'd never hiked to the bowl in its "summer" phase (as he described the route, which was still carpeted in bright green plants and moss.) He sloshed confidently across this fast-flowing creek and I followed at the same speed, forgetting what a super klutz I am compared to most people (especially skier types). I went down hard and started sliding just above this waterfall, and likely would have plummeted down it if I hadn't blindly groped at the rushing water and managed to grab a random piece of driftwood wedged between two rocks. I was elated that, while I may have poor balance, my reflexes seem good. Sean seemed to think I should be upset that I fell full-body into a creek when temperatures were in the high 30s. Given the state of the weather, I didn't think it mattered.

After the hike, despite being soaked head-to-toe-to-core, I still took Pugsley for a quick jaunt up the mountain at Eaglecrest. The snow was rain-saturated and as thick and mushy as warm oatmeal. I abandoned the quest about halfway up the hill and hiked without the bike the rest of the way to the ridge, where it was still raining. I think I could skiers' hearts breaking across Juneau. If November doesn't come soon, it's going to be a long winter.