Alaska Trip Overview

I brought paper and pencil on our hike but rarely had time to write. But here are some thoughts from the night after we emerged from the mountains (Friday July 24).

The trip is over and we survived! I am happy and sad that we're done. It was very rough - mainly bushwhacking for 4 days wears you down! It is constant work and can be so slow. Even beyond the physical work is the constant searching for trails/routes and being as aware as possible of potential bear or moose around. So this was not like the usual backpacking trip when I have lots of time for reflection or good conversation with my fellow hikers. The brain and body were either completely engaged or shut down. We slept about 10 hours a night, if that is any indication of how exhausted we were!

Today we were on a trial that was mostly easy, and I had some time to think about why I like backpacking so much when it is so hard?! I decided the main reason has to do with accessing places you can't see from a car. And not only that, it's experiencing the landscape instead of just viewing it. Now I know a little bit about what the Alaskan wilderness (or at least this small part of it) is really about. It is rough and tough and wild! It tried it's best to beat us down, and sometimes it succeeded.

Another spectacular thing about backpacking is getting lost ... lost in the routine of just living, day to day, hiking, eating, sleeping, gawking, joking about summer sausage. Life might be harder but in many ways it is also simpler in the backcountry.

We saw 5 black bear, 4 moose, 32 ptarmigan, 1 dall sheep or mtn goat, seagulls (strange), and 1 unidentified gray ferret looking creature that made whistling noises (plus we heard the whistling a few other times). We also saw grizzly fur on an island between Raven Creek and Eagle River, and a lot of poop (everywhere), so we named it Grizzly Island and were very noisy as we walked across it! Chris and Eric even had their hands on their bear spray like gunslingers, ready to fire should anything brown and large cross our path.

..............
The rest of the trip was spent exploring the Kenai Peninsula and eating. I have never been so hungry before - we ate HUGE meals and then were ravenous a few hours later. This continued until Sunday when Chris and I ate 25 wings and a 1+ pound salad. :)

Pre-Alaska backpack trip: T-5 days!

Wow, planning for this trip is a lot of work. Especially since so much of it is being done last minute. Saturday night we spent several hours grocery shopping. It was fun looking for foods with the most calories and fat. Our food will mostly consist of granola or oatmeal for breakfast; summer sausage and cheese for lunch; trail mix, dried fruit, and bars for snacks; and dehydrated dinners. Last night was the real challenge, we spent almost 5 hours getting together all of our gear and agonizing over how to fit all of our food into a ~100 cubic inch canister ("designed to carry 6-person days of food"). There were a couple of things that we kind of skimped on because of space. I think we have enough food but I don't think I will ever feel full. If you know me at all, you know I like to eat, so this will be a challenge. The bear vault is frustrating because normally I wouldn't mind at all carrying extra weight in food. But that's not an option unless you want to lug around another heavy, bulky canister that you won't even need after the first two days. You aren't required to use bear vaults in the Chugach, but it seems pretty necessary since I think treeline is pretty low up there.

Tonight we went to Jax and bought some mosquito netting, liner gloves, and bear bells. Actually the mosquito netting we bought is made for bee keepers. It is very stylish and I'm sure we'll have some great pictures.

Chris just stressed me out because he thinks we have less than 1700 calories per person per day. I am pretty sure this is how much I burn in a day when I sit on my ass. So I'm going to go and reanalyze this food situation.

According to: http://jwbasecamp.com/Articles/Weight_Loss/Weight_Loss.html
Basal calories = 1392
+ Calories burned in 6 hours of backpacking: 3672
= 5064 calories.
Also apparently you burn 10% of the calories you consume just digesting it.
And if you burn 3500 more calories than you eat, you lose 1 pound. Usually I would be super excited to lose some weight, especially since it will probably be fat as we'll be building muscle as we hike. But ... 5000-1700 is almost 3500 calorie defecit each day. I could potentially lose 7 pounds in one week and this does not seem very conducive to my half ironman training/racing. That is why I am a little stressed about it. I've been trying really hard all summer to take care of myself, and this might negate some of it. Then again, coming back from Alaska leaner might make me faster. Who knows. All of this talk is making me hungry though, so I have to go eat.

Flat Tops Wilderness - Devils Causeway

Ok, this is about 6 months late, but I was looking through old pictures and wanted to put up an overview of our backpacking trip to the Flat Tops with Mollie and Rob. I had read an article about this trip in an issue of Backpacker several years ago. It has been on my list for a while because it sounded completely amazing and was a doable weekend loop. The article suggested 3 days but we figured we could do it in 2 longer days.


We went Sept. 5-7. The Flat Tops are located north of Glenwood Springs and southwest of Steamboat Springs. We went in at Stillwater Reservoir, which you can get to from the tiny town of Yampa. From Fort Collins, it's about 4-1/2 hours (180 miles) and the best way to go is over Trail Ridge and then through Granby, Kremmling, and over Gore Pass.

We left Fort Collins Friday afternoon and so we didn't get to the Flat Tops until after dark. We set up our tent right off the road and had no idea until the next morning what a beautiful spot we had selected, right next to Yamcolo Reservoir!

Saturday morning we headed northwest from Stillwater Lake. It was 2.5 miles up on the East Fork Trail. It got pretty steep at the end, but the views at the top were worth it.

View back down the trail from Stillwater near the top of the saddle:

At this point you can go left to get to the Devils Causeway, or head back down the other side of the saddle to do the loop. We continued on and had amazing views of some massive cliffs along the "flat" mountains around us - one in particular called the Chinese Wall was really neat.


Heading down from the saddle with the Causeway behind us:

The views kept being great but the day dragged on. We were disappointed that the turn off for Lost Lakes Trail (which we took) was not the lost lakes themselves. They are aptly named! This day was supposedly 9.5 miles but it felt a little longer. We found a nice campsite above West Lost Lake, and we were the only ones there. It was very serene, and the next morning we were awoken by the sounds of elk bugeling.

Unfortunately we had to wake up around 5 AM. Sunday's hike was probably one of the best I've been on in Colorado because it was almost all above treeline, but that meant we had to complete it (somewhere between 12 and 14.5 miles!) before any afternoon thunderstorms rolled in. Also unfortunately for our butt muscles, the trail was straight up almost right away. What a way to wake up! We still beat the sunrise to the top, though, and then the trail became breathtaking.

You would be making these faces too if you were ascending 2000 feet before sunrise:

The top of the Flat Tops aren't exactly flat, there is some up and down, but in general you are walking in an alpine meadow for miles and miles. It was incredible. Here are some pictures:



We eventually reached the Devil's Causeway. The Backpacker article describes this part of the hike pretty accurately as "a sphincter-clinching dash across an eroded arete". The Causeway is 50 feet long and only 4 feet wide in some places, with 600-foot drops on either side. I found it completely terrifying, especially with a heavy pack on. My dear husband tried to reassure me at one point by telling me, "Don't worry Anna, if you fall it's only certain death!" Thanks. Lucky for him, he had no trouble crossing it. Anyway, it was exciting!

This is me hanging on for dear life and Chris just hanging out:

Here is the hike down from Devils Causeway. You could just do a day trip to the Causeway, it would be about 6 miles round trip, but you would have to hike up this!

After that you rejoin the East Fork Trail and head back to Stillwater Lake. All in all, it is an amazing hike that I would highly recommend. I think the Flat Tops get a lot of snow so you might need to wait until July to go. September was a nice time but a bit past the peak wildflower season. I'm sure those meadows would be spectacular covered in flowers. I hope we get to go back sometime, there are miles and miles of other trails that look equally enticing through the Flat Tops (a 235,000 acre area). (And thanks to Shannon Davis, who works for Backpacker and emailed me a scanned copy of the article because I couldn't find it. Chris met her climbing Longs Peak in Sept. 2007.)