Hiking the Muktuk Marston Trail Again

Last year I had the opportunity to join a group of ladies on a 5-hour hike along the Muktuk Marston Trail up at the Arctic Valley Ski Area near Anchorage. At that time, we got dropped off at the parking lot and picked up at the other end, at the South Fork Eagle River Trailhead.

It was a spectacular hike with a million wildflowers and amazing views. Truly a beautiful trail, and I loved it so much. The group I was with were all about the same level of fitness, so no one felt like they were slowing anybody down. We all packed our lunches and ate together at the midway point, up in Hunter Pass.

I have been wanting to get my family up there ever since but really couldn’t figure out the logistics of it. Who would drop us off and/or pick us up? How would we shuffle cars with a minimal amount of driving?

Just the other day I found out that the ski lodge at the trailhead offers their ski lift to hikers occasionally and I thought maybe that would be an equivalent option to hiking without needing to shuffle cars around. So, I put the call out to my family to see who would join me!

The plan was to either meet at my house to carpool (sister Noel chose that option) or meet at the parking lot (niece Katy chose that option) to begin our adventure. We would take the ski lift up to the top of the mountain (the blue line). Then take the Rendezvous Ridge trail along the top until it meets up with the Muktuk Marston trail at Hunter Pass and head on back down to the parking lot (the red line) – a total of roughly 6 miles.

Unfortunately, the ski lift doesn’t run in the rain, and it was pouring down rain when we all got there. So, we opted for Plan B: hike up the Muktuk Marston trail until we got tired, then turn around and head back to the car.

Even sopping wet, the trail was truly spectacular. So many wildflowers everywhere we looked! We had fun trying to identify them all, only occasionally having to look them up on the picture we had taken of the signage at the beginning of the trail that had most of them listed.

When we stopped for lunch, we laughed because each of us had packed PPJs to snack on. They’re easy, nutritious, and give a quick punch of energy to continue hiking - so yay for PBJs!

By the time we made it back to our cars, we were thoroughly wet but super pleased with our hike. We had such a great time together – although I really do want to take that ski lift someday. I plan to keep that one on the back burner for a while to try again on a later date.

The drive back down the hill to the highway brought us alongside this handsome fellow: look at that belly! He’s HUGE!

And a little further down, we came across this little lady and her cub! I was a little concerned at how scrawny she is – but then I remembered that she only just came out of hibernation. She’ll fatten up as summer progresses, never fear. Her cub was very healthy and energetic, so she’s doing just fine.

Putting Mother to Rest

We put mother’s ashes to rest last month. She is in the wall along with Stewart now. We are working on getting an engraved plaque for her that will look very similar to Stewart’s, but that will take some time. Everyone was there, and we all talked a bit afterwards, telling stories and remembering her.

A few weeks later, I had everyone over to go through her jewelry. She had a lot of jewelry: I laid it all out on the bed in the guest room so we could all see it and sort through it. Some of it was really nice pieces of turquoise & silver – some was just junk costume stuff. We made sure everyone got something of hers to remember her by, and what was left was donated to the Bishop’s Attic, mother’s favorite second-hand store.

Family Hikes

My niece Laurel asked me to organize some Family Hikes this summer, so I have been putting together various hikes each weekend. People can join in or not, as their schedule allows. This gets me out on the trails again after a long hiatus (I didn’t hike at all while taking care of mother for 7 years), so I am happy regardless. And I get to see my family on a regular basis!

A humorous side note: the one who asked me to organize all these hikes has not gone on a single one yet!

We started the season off with a nice stroll along the Matanuska Lake Trail System. We went at a 2-year old’s pace, with lots of sticks and rock throwing along the way.

We followed that with a hike along the Matanuska River Walk Trail, an easy stroll with fantastic views of the river peeking periodically through the trees.

The next week, Kelly and I walked the old railroad trail from Moose Creek back towards Palmer. You can’t go the whole way any more as the river has eaten away the middle section of the trail. But the portion that is left is still a beautiful walk.

I did the same trail the following day with Katy, but this time we did it from Palmer walking towards Sutton. Henry had fun with his new binoculars and hiking pack – adventuring in the tall grass.

Eklutna Lake was scheduled for the following weekend, and again Kelly was able to join me. She is a fast walker, just like I am, so we really traveled going much farther along the path than I’d ever been before. We treated ourselves to some ice cream on the way home.

The Crevasse-Moraine trail system is not my favorite, by any means, but it is nearby and convenient. We all had other obligations that day, so our hike was a brief one. But we were together, we were outside, and we were moving. That’s a win in my book!

Our most recent hike was just this past Tuesday. Bryan was out of coffee, so Noel and I used that as an excuse to take a little road trip out to Girdwood (about 1.5 hours south) to get some from his favorite little coffee shop. And while we were there, we went ahead and hiked up to Virgin Falls to stretch our legs and give the pups a break from the car. Such a gorgeous hike, with a spectacular waterfall at the end!

Dehydrating Experiment

For Father’s Day this year, Bryan invited his family over for an early dinner at our house. I had to work, unfortunately, so I was not able to attend, but we apparently had a house full of family & friends to celebrate fatherhood. Just doing a quick count in my head, I believe we had a good dozen people over! Each person brought food with them, so we had quite the spread: stroganoff, garlic bread, salad, fruit, rhubarb crisp, and a huge pan full of watermelon slices!

I got home just in time to sample the food and give a quick hug to everyone before they headed on back to their homes. Almost all of them left food behind, so we have a refrigerator full now.

So, instead of letting that huge pan of watermelon go bad before we can eat it all, I decided to do an experiment! I dehydrated it!

At first, I set my dehydrator to 145 degrees and 18 hours, but once that was up, I set it for another 10 hours. Those slices were pretty thick…

But I must say – I love the results! Tasty little triangles of watermelon jerky just perfect for taking on hikes!

Otter, Maw-Maw, and Woof

Our monthly book club meeting was at my niece’s house this time. While getting ready, Katy was talking to her 2-year-old daughter, letting her know that everyone would be coming over. Eloise just wanted to know 3 things: “Otter? Maw-Maw? Woof?” That’s her way of asking if her cousin Autumn, her grandma, and her Aunt Ruth would be there!

So, from now on, we are calling Autumn “Otter”, and my new name is “Woof” (rhymes with roof)! Consider that one of my older names was “Aint Doofy” I can certainly live with Woof.

The meeting itself was a good one. Katy made lasagna for everyone, even making a small vegetarian one for me, with garlic bread and a tasty salad. Strawberry Shortcake with ice cream and/or whipped cream was the perfect dessert, and she even had cut up fruit to snack on between courses.

While eating, we talked about the book we had just read: The Door on the Sea by Caskey Russell. The book is part one of a fantasy trilogy based on Tlingit culture and is being advertised as “the Tlingit version of The Lord of the Rings.”

I liked the book, but it was difficult to read because all the names of people and places and things were all in the Tlingit language, and I have absolutely no idea how to pronounce any of them. Book club members who listened to it on audiobooks said that was no better, because they did not know what the words meant. I probably will not continue with the series but am very impressed with the book as a whole, regardless of the language barrier.

Our evening together ended with Tara letting us know which book she had chosen for our next read. She said a friend of hers has been telling her for months to read Swan Song by Robert McCammon – so she figured now would be a good time to do just that.

Whiskey Infusions

Last year for Valentine’s Day I got him this Whiskey Infusion Kit, but apparently, we had forgotten about it. I recently “found it” again and decided it was time to dig into it and see what it was all about.

The whiskey we chose to use for our infusions was a nice Jameson triple-distilled; it’s got a mellow flavor that wouldn’t over-power the infusions. Jameson holds a special place in his heart as he was able to actually tour the distillery during his Ireland trip a few years ago!

Since there were two empty bottles in the kit, we each claimed one to make our creations with. We each started out with half a vial of the Vanilla Chips, which are currently soaking in the whiskey. They recommend infusing that for a couple weeks before adding in any other flavors you might choose. Since we did that last week, ours should be ready for the following steps sometime next weekend.

He plans to use the Coffee Beans, Orange Peel, and Bird’s Eye Chili for his bottle, while I plan to use the Chai Mix, Cinamon Chips, and Cocoa Beans for mine.

I’ll let you know how it turns out!

 

A Much-Needed Break – for Crafting!

I got to go on a crafting retreat a few weeks ago, and it couldn’t have come at a better time in my life! So many negative things are going on right now, I really needed something positive to counter all of the yuckiness.

I joined a group of 9 other crafty ladies at the Pioneer Ridge B&B for 4-days/2-nights of paper crafting and lively chatter. We all gathered at the B&B on Thursday afternoon and set ourselves up at our chosen table. There was plenty of room for each of the crafts going on: two ladies worked on felting, several had card-making crafts, and a few had sewing or embroidery projects.

Our rooms were lovely, with comfortable beds and luxury baths. We were assigned roommates which worked out perfectly well since we were only in the room to sleep at night. All the rest of our time was out in the common area or the dining room/kitchen.

Meals were handled quite well, I thought. Breakfast was of course provided by the B&B. We were on our own for lunches, but we had all brought plenty of snacks I almost didn’t even bother eating what I had intended to eat. For the dinners, we were divided up into three groups, each group responsible for one dinner. My group cooked a lovely pasta dish, and I was tasked with providing the salad.

As an added treat to the whole weekend, they invited a masseuse to come give full-body massages, if we so desired – and I, of course, took full advantage. She was reasonably priced and was quite good. I will never understand how those people manage to do what they do – she did at least 5 massages back-to-back each day Friday & Saturday! How do her hands manage that?

I had such a good time, and really got a lot done. I am looking forward to possibly joining them again for their next retreat!