I was up near Rabbit Lake this past weekend, and I happened to notice that the creek was still covered in snow in some places. Rabbit Creek is really cool because the first few miles of it are in a U-shaped gully. When the conditions are right, it makes a sweet halfpipe. Was it possible that with our cold summer, the halfpipe could still exist in late July? I had to find out.

Tuesday evening, I ran up the trail about forty minutes and endured plenty of snickers when other hikers caught sight of my skis. But when I dropped down to the creek, I was the one laughing. I was amazed to find the creek completely covered in a solid layer of snow for as far as I could see in both directions! The halfpipe lives!

I quickly put on my skis and skied uphill to the end of the snowfield. Then I turned downhill and ripped up the pipe. It took me about 5 minutes to ski from top to bottom, so I’d guess that the snowfield was somewhere between one kilometer and one mile long.

Incredibly, the skiing was not terrible. It was extremely slow because of the embedded dirt, but it was relatively smooth and solid. Check out the photos.

I like to bike to work as often as possible.  Today when I woke up, it was raining and the temperature was a cool 46 degrees at our house.  I wanted to bike, but I was not looking forward to having my butt get sprayed with cold, grimy water for an hour or so.  So I decided to rollerski instead.  It was just as wet as biking, but at least I was working harder, so I was warm.

So there I was striding uphill on Arctic Boulevard at 7:30 AM, soaking wet and preparing myself mentally to do battle with the midtown traffic on slick roads.  From the sidewalk next to me I hear a man’s voice.

“Dude, you are out of control.”

I look up just in time to see the guy give me a quick nod and a smile.  I like to think he was saying something along the lines of “You’re crazy to be doing that, on a day like today, in a place like this.  But I like your style.”

It made my day.  I broke out in a huge smile.  The comment was perfect for two reasons:

1) It was in almost the exact same spot where recently I was biking, when a waste-of-flesh teenager in a pickup truck coming the other direction cut me off by taking a left-hand turn in front of me.  As I slammed on my brakes to avoid a collision, he swerved towards me, gave me the finger, and then yelled “get off the fucking road” for good measure as he sped away.  So now maybe I won’t think of that experience every time I pass through that intersection.

2)  These days I feel like I am under control a lot.  Not much craziness happening in my life as a family man.  And I believe that being out of control every now and then is good for me.

So if rollersking through midtown Anchorage on a rainy day brings me back a little bit of craziness, well, I guess I’ll take it.

Toby and I decided to go packrafting on Sunday. After looking at the weather forecasts (cloudy, chance of rain, same as every day this summer) and the river levels (high, from rain), and my recent luck (or lack thereof) on new routes, we decided to stick to a known entity.  Recently, a number of people have raved about Resurrection Creek in Hope, so we decided to head down there and check it out.

We parked at the Resurrection trailhead and walked upstream past the impressive river restoration project.  After scouting a canyon, and deciding that it was more than we were interested in tackling, we put in just below the canyon.

Wow, was it fun!  The restored section of the river had quite a few boulders that created big (for a packraft) waves and holes.  We had a great time hitting the drops and popping in and out of eddies.   After the restoration area, the river eases slightly, and the rest of the run (about 8-9 miles total) is fast and lively but without any major dangers until near the very end.  There was very little wood until the last half mile, where we encounted a number of strainers and sweepers.  Some were across the whole river and we had to portage around them.  I could have done without that part, but it was well worth it for the rest of the run. We completed the loop with a bike shuttle back to the parking lot.

The water seemed to be pretty high.  Where we took out in Hope, the river was above its banks and flowing through the willows.   There is no gauge on the creek, but nearby Six Mile was at 10.8 feet.  My best guess is that the restoration section was easy class III at this level, and the rest was fun class II.

Because the river kept us busy, I didn’t take many pictures.  So all I’ve got to show you is this one picture of Toby near the end of the run.

…from the ass-kicking I took on Saturday. I did the Knoya Ridge/Dome uphill running race. It is a simple, no frills race up a great single-track trail into the foothills of the Chugach Mountains. It is just over three miles long, and just under 3000 of climbing (according to my watch). Trond Flagstad, fresh off his Mount Marathon victory last weekend, was the winner in 39:27. He was a whopping seven minutes ahead of me. In truth, I am not disappointed with my performance, even though I barely squeaked into the top ten. It was a very tough workout, which is all I was looking for. I can’t say it was fun, but I am very glad I did it because intensity has been sorely lacking from my exercise recently.

Knoya Ridge / The Dome Results 2008

While I’m linking to race results… I haven’t posted any orienteering results in a while, so let’s catch up. Our traditional meet season has finished, and now we are into the “fun” events for the rest of the summer. I think I probably finished third in traditional meet season points, behind Ian Moore and Bill Spencer. That’s pretty good for me. Here are the race results since the last time I posted:
May 28th - 1st place RouteGadget
June 11 - 3rd place
June 18 - I missed this one RouteGadget
June 25 - 3rd place RouteGadget
July 9 Score - O - 1st place

Many of the outdoor trips I do are fairly standard. They are on well-defined trails, doing routes that many people have done before. But the best trips are always the ones that are unique. In Alaska, a land with an infinite number of outdoor opportunities, it always seems like a shame to do the same old, same old. So I constantly have the urge to step out and do something a little different. Sometimes these ‘different’ ideas turn into successful trips. Other times, not so much.

Recently, my batting average on successful trip ideas has taken a nose dive. I’m hitless in my last three attempts. I think part of the reason is that I am searching for adventures closer to home. With greater family responsibility in the past year, my windows for play time have become shorter and less frequent. The problem with this strategy is that I live in a city of almost 300,000 people, many of whom are avid outdoors men and women. Chances are, if there is a great trip to be found within an hour’s drive of Anchorage, it has already been discovered. But that doesn’t stop me from searching. It just means that my failure rate goes up. Way up. Maybe someday I’ll learn to stick to the tried and true, but it hasn’t happened yet.

The unsuccessful trips rarely make it onto this website, especially when they get stymied in the first few miles. But I am making an exception for this one, for two reasons:

1) Its the only thing I’ve done recently
2) It was supposed to be the first ‘adventure’ that Linda and I have done together (just the two of us) since our son was born. So I felt added pressure to make it successful.

But alas, it was not. My plan was a day-hike/packrafting route on the Kenai Peninsula. I estimated about 6 hours of hiking and two hours of rafting. The area is not remote by any means, but I did think I had selected a unique route that could potentially become a packrafting favorite. I’m not going to tell you where, but maybe you can figure it out from this photo…

… or maybe not.

I knew there would be some nasty bushwhacking, which I thought we could handle for a mile or two. But the vegetation was even worse than I expected. Additionally, I hadn’t planned on dealing with a steep side-hill while bushwhacking, and the fact that the creek was raging, which prevented us from being able to cross in search of easier terrain. Plus, it was raining. Eventually, I admitted defeat, and we pulled the plug.

As a consolation prize, we went to the Johnson Pass trailhead in Turnagain Pass and hiked into the bridge over Center Creek, and rafted out to the road. I did this a few years ago as part of another trip, and it was a fun, relaxed float with a few sweepers to keep us on our toes. But today the creek was raging (Six Mile was at 11.4 ft, ‘action’ stage), and there were a lot more sweepers, especially in the first mile or two. Center Creek, usually on the easy side of class II, seemed closer to class III. But after three portages in the first mile, it opened up a bit and we enjoyed a nice run to the road.

So not exactly what I had planned for the day, but it was still nice to get out and about with Linda for the first time in forever.