It was such a nice weekend my friend Rob and I decided to go for a hike out to Ptarmigan Creek. We had hoped to camp out overnight, but life got in the way of those plans so we went on a day hike instead. And what a hike it was: absolutely gorgeous out there. The sky was clear blue with hardly a cloud in sight, and the bugs were at a minimum.
The trailhead is about 20 miles short of Seward, just off the Seward Highway. We sat in the parking lot for a while and ate our sandwiches and geared up. Rob had his pack on with extra water, the bear spray, and a windbreaker incase the weather turned on us. He also carried his .44 but thankfully didn’t need it. We hoped to see bears, but preferably on the OTHER side of the creek!
Ptarmigan Lake is about 3.5 miles from the trailhead; the trail continues on for another 3 miles or so, but we only went another half mile or so to find a nice quiet spot to eat our cookies and enjoy the lake. All total, we probably hiked a good 8 miles.
On the way back to the truck, I managed to trip on a concealed root and did a face plant in the ditch. Really, it was quite a spectacular fall – I’m only slightly embarrassed about it. It hasn’t shown up yet, but I’m fairly certain I’m going to have a huge bruise on the side of my knee. I’m also quite sore in the shoulder and hip areas. I even managed to get bruised on the top of my foot – which I really don’t understand, seeing as how I had my hiking boots on.
Once we made it back to the truck and ate another sandwich, we decided that since we were so close to Seward, we couldn’t NOT go to Seward. I do love that place! We parked the truck near the docks and took a walk along the boats, then took a little drive up to the waterfalls. I could easily live there, you know? We daydreamed about that possibility, coming up with all sorts of things we could do to make it work.
By the time we got home again, it was midnight. Certainly a day well spent!
No comments:
Post a Comment