Alaskan Outdoors

Catching up on a bunch of weekends.  The end of winter, beginning of spring brought a few weekend and one-day trips.  After a winter of not much snow, spring gave us at least a little to work with, and though there wasn't time for any long trips, there's always something to be doing in the Alaskan out of doors.



Jess' Ironman training has modified our outdoors schedule a bit, but it's still something that can be worked around.  We headed out towards Knoya Peak in the Chugach Front Range one weekend for a quick day hike.


At our turnaround point.  The weather was cloudy, but otherwise good.


Looking down towards Anchorage.  Every trip in the Front Range is a reminder of how close awesome mountains are to town.


Work does a decent job of getting me out, too.  This photo was taken after we got dropped off by helicopter for a couple of hours of hiking out in the northern Alaska Range.


This photo's also from work - in between pulling boat party for water work, we got to tool around Prince William Sound.  It wasn't awful.


We did take advantage of one long weekend to do an extended trip.  It started in the Summit Lake area, with a stay at the Manitoba Huts.  We hadn't been there before, but they've got a couple of awesome yurts set right at the base of Manitoba Mountain.


You can head from the yurts right up Manitoba, which is a mellow backcountry skiing spot.  This was the view from the top.


The ski down was mostly breakable sun crust gnar, but there were a couple of sweet turns to be had as well.


We went from Manitoba down to Homer for a couple of relaxing days.  I'd never spent much time down there, and don't know if I'll catch better weather than we did while we were there.  The view from our room at the end of the spit.


On the way back, we busted out the bikes for a ride down towards Hope and back, in keeping with the Ironwoman's schedule.  The weather was pretty good looking across the arm as well.

I've been in Alaska off and on for getting close to seven years now, and on these couple of trips still managed to do or see two or three spots I'd never gotten to before, even though they're fairly close to Anchorage.  As I'm often reminded, there just aren't enough lifetimes to hit everything in the state.