Aqua Aerobics Man’s new truck had to go to the shop for some maintenance work the other day, so I agreed to take him to his recertification class that night. Since it was out in Chugiak and would be 4 hours long, I browsed thru my hiking book and came up with a trail I had never been on before and decided to check it out.
Contrary to all visual evidence, it is springtime in Alaska – and that means bears, so I brought along my backpack loaded down with bear spray, books, binoculars, a water bottle, and my bear whistle. Unfortunately, what it did not contain was mosquito repellant. I really need to get some in there, because springtime in Alaska also means mosquitoes, and they are hungry.
They had the actual parking lot for the trail blocked off, so I had to park my car down the hill a ways at a gravel pit and start my hike out there. That should have told me right off the bat that I was looking at an up-hill hike. Of course, I should have known that to begin with since the book did say that there was some elevation gain.
Ptarmigan Valley is a multi-use trail, so it’s nice and wide to allow for snowmachines, dogsleds, 4-wheelers, you name it. Springtime in Alaska also means break-up: there’s still quite a lot of ice and snow left on the ground, interspersed between patches of mud the occasional dry spot. I had on my good hiking shoes, though, so wasn’t too worried about the terrain.
The elevation gain was a problem, however. I just don’t do up-hill very well: even though my legs have no problem tackling the hills, my head starts pounding almost immediately. Normally I would take some migraine medication prior to starting a hike like that, but I had let my purse run out so didn’t have any on hand.
I would love to say that the surrounding area was just gorgeous, with a view to die for – and I can tell that further on into summer it actually would be. But right now, with no green to be seen and nothing but mud and volcanic ash everywhere – it really was awful looking.
On closer inspection however, I did find that green is beginning to peek thru the winter debris. Trees as just starting to push out their first leaf-buds and plants on the ground have started to send out their first tendrils. Having just attended that lecture on edible wild plants, I actually had a light snack as I headed up the hill.
I end up at Little Peter’s Creek Valley before having to turn around due to trail conditions. Little Peter’s Creek Valley is listed as being 2.5 miles from the trail head, which puts my round trip hike was 5 miles. I must say, that pretty impressive given that it’s the first real hike of the season and I’m NOT in shape.
As always, even on level ground, heading back to the trail head is much faster than the trip out – so I was back in my car a lot sooner then I planned on. Rather than try another trail, I simply drove back to the high school where I’d dropped Aqua Aerobics Man off.
I had forgotten to bring along the book I’m currently reading (Deeper, by Jeff Long) so got the books out of my hiking pack and read thru those instead, re-familiarizing myself with them:
- Hiking Alaska: a Falcon Guide, by Dean Littlepage
- Animal Tracks of Alaska: a Lone Pine Field Guide by Sheldon & Hartson
- Birds of Alaska: a field guide by Stan Tekiela
- Alaskan Wildflowers by Verna Pratt
- Alaska Trees and Shrubs by Leslie Viereck
It was such a nice sunny day I laid out on the hood of my car. I had the windows rolled down so I could hear Norah Jones singing thru my CD player. The birds were playing up in the sky. The high school baseball team was practicing in the field off to my left.
Everything was going great until all of a sudden the music stopped. I thought maybe there was something wrong with my disc (which greatly upset me, because I love Norah Jones) but I could‘t see any visual scratches or anything like that. When I tried to put it back in the player, it wouldn’t go back in.
That’s when I figured out what had happened. Apparently in my car, you can’t listen to an entire CD without turning the car back on = the battery died! I couldn’t believe it, but I was stuck with no jumper cables and a dead car.
Thankfully one of the staff members took pity on my and got my car going again before Aqua Aerobics Man got out of his class. I felt really silly about the whole thing and didn’t really want to admit to him that I’d done that.
So of course, that was the first thing I said when he came out of the door and walked over to my car. But, we had a good laugh about it and headed back in to town.
Our first stop was Fred Meyer’s to get some jumper cables. I had to put my shoes back on since I had taken them off after my hike, so we sat in the parking lot for a while till I got everything put back in order. I stood up, locked the car and shut the door.
Then I turned around, looked into the car, and saw my keys sitting there on the driver’s seat.
This just wasn’t my day!
We actually had to call a cab to come break in to my car to retrieve my keys for me…
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