Snacking with Denali...
We put in some good miles today, making it to a beautiful place where we are camping above a long, skinny lake. This morning, it was so foggy we couldn't see more than fifty feet off the trail, but by lunch time everything was clear, the best weather we've had so far. The landscape here is so amazing. Kesugi Ridge is my favorite place that we have been, all these rolling hills and weird, huge walls of rock. We stopped for a snack on this big slab of rock, and we could actually see Denali! It was huge, bigger than any of us expected. There were clouds around a lot of it, but then the top was high enough that it was above the last layer of clouds. We all just sat there in the sun for an hour, enjoying this spectacular view.
-Skylar
The tides of Alaska...
I had never sea kayaked before but it is now my most favorite thing to do. I love being out on the water when it is really flat and we have the tides going with us. There was a seal that was really curious and followed us into this little inlet, and we just drifted and watched him pop up and down to check us out. Last night, Kristin and Carl did a demonstration on how the tides work, and they had us form a circle around Michael and start spinning. I could not stop laughing and ended up falling down, making everyone else fall, but it wasn't really my fault. Since it was Michael's birthday, we had a no-bake cheesecake, and then Carrie pulled out these Hershey bars she'd brought for the occasion. It was sooo good. There's something about having chocolate in the backcountry that is so much better than having it in town.
-Tenley
Naming the peaks...
The trail to Lost Lake was pretty straightforward, but I was glad to get off trail once we reached the lake. I feel that when we are off trail, we get to explore more, we get to spread out and see more of the scenery. We actually had to choose our route on our own, trying to figure out what the best way to reach our next destination would be. Looking at the map, we saw that a lot of the mountains around here had names like Right Mountain and Wrong Mountain, and a lot of them didn't even have names. David said we should start naming them ourselves, so tonight we are camping near Ramen Hill, and the big mountain with all the jagged peaks Lisa named Chris Hair Mountain because Chris's hair has been sticking up for like three days straight. We saw two grizzlies today, though from kind of far away. We dropped packs and sat there watching them, and they never saw us. It was cool to see them just wander around, looking for food, out here in the middle of nowhere. The only sound was the wind.
-Carl
Live long and prosper!!...
The Matanuska is a cold, cold river, and I couldn't believe that we were going whitewater rafting in it! It's cold enough that you have to wear dry suits, which was pretty funny, as we looked like the cast of Star Trek. Jeff kept yelling "Live long and prosper!" every time we hit big white water. After a couple of hours, we pulled off the river to take a quick break. The guides took us on a short hike up to this lake (which was a lot warmer than the river) and we jumped in. Our dry suits made us float around like marshmallow men, but they are not 100% waterproof, so then we filled up with water and sloshed around as we walked back to our rafts. The whitewater the rest of the day was bigger than the morning, and it was really exciting to paddle through it. When we finished rafting for the day, we made Willie's Taco Delight, which is by far the best meal to have.
-Chad
