I Finally Did It!

I have lived here in Anchorage for well over 15 years, and have never actually made it to the top of Flat Top.

This weekend, I finally did it!

According to the books Flat Top has an elevation of 3,510 feet, but trail head is most of the way up the mountain so the actual gain in elevation is only 1,350 feet. Still, it’s a very steep trail – and it was completely covered in snow and ice, which just made it that much more difficult.

I had my friend Noah pick me up so we would only have to pay one parking fee. Plus, my car doesn’t have its winter tires on yet, so I really didn’t know if it would make it all the way up there. As it turned out, his car didn’t have any on either – but he made it just fine.

We both dressed lightly, knowing that even though it was really cold at the trail head we would quickly heat up on the climb. I didn’t have the right gloves on, though. Those little cloth gloves I like so much really are not made to handle snow and ice: and I did have to actually handle it, too, pretty much the entire way back down was on my butt and hands.

Noah is a retired paratrooper with the army, and an avid mountain biker as well – so this was a piece of cake for him. He very gallantly went at my pace however, and even kicked toe-holds in the worst spots so that I could more easily make my way up. He made sure I stopped occasionally to ensure that my head didn’t explode from the exertion (well, that what it feels like it’s trying to do sometimes – not that it actually would explode) and kept handing me the water hose to keep hydrated.

With surprising ease, we actually made it to the very tippy-top!

First thing I did was text my Mother: I’m standing at the very top of Flat Top! The next thing I did was eat a protein bar and walk around the top and take in the view. OMG! What a view… unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me so couldn’t take any photos. Noah had his cell phone with him so got a quick shot of the two of us. Hopefully I can get him to send me a copy of it.

Then we had to make our way back down the mountain. That was a lot harder as the slope is really, really steep when you’re looking down at it instead of up at it. I developed a technique for some of the worst spots of crouching down and using my feet as sleds with my hands to help guide my descent. It worked really well, except that the snow and ice still managed to find its way inside my pants to thoroughly freeze my butt.

The entire climb took a lot longer than I expected it to. We started out at 11:00 and didn’t get home till around 4:00. I had planned on heading out at 10:00 and being home by 1:30 ish…

Oh my gosh, am I a sore puppy today. Rob laughed at me all day yesterday as we walked around town: every time we came to some stairs (which of course there were a lot of them) I would very gingerly easy my way down, biting my tongue the entire time so as to not groan.

But it’s a good kind of sore – the kind that reminds me at every step that I JUST CLIMBED FLAT TOP!