July 28, 2013

Today was a beautiful day! We thought we'd get out, take a hike, and enjoy the peace and solitude. Unfortunately, it seemed as if everyone else had the same idea. We drove up to the trailhead for Thunderbird Falls. This is a nice two mile round trip hike. Upon nearing the parking lot trailhead, it was obvious that neither peace nor solitude would be found here. There were cars everywhere! The parking lot was full and people had parked along both sides of the road. We decided to leave this hike for another day and so we headed down toward Mirror Lake.

This 62 acre lake is about thirty minutes north of our home.

 Mirror Lake State Wayside Park was full of people out sunning and swimming. We drove up to the boat launching area.

It was much quieter here with only a handful of others enjoying the beautiful scenery.

 This lake has a maximum depth of about 10 feet and is supposed to be only 6 feet deep in most parts. We had no tackle or else we would have tried to catch something. There are trout and grayling in this lake.

Instead we just walked around, played in the water, and enjoyed the beautiful surroundings.

 We topped off this great afternoon by treating ourselves to burgers on the way back to Anchorage.

Back in Alaska

I returned to Anchorage late last Sunday night and it's taken me about a week to get readjusted to being in Alaska, the cool temperatures, and the long days of sunlight. Today we got out and about.

We took a drive down to Beluga Point.

 It was very windy, as always, but the wind was not bone-chilling cold as it is most of the year. There was just a hint of snow left on some of the mountains across Cook Inlet. There will be much more snow on them soon enough.

On the way back toward town, we stopped at McHugh Creek.

We walked up the trail and checked out the area for a bit.

We took several pictures from the upper area but since we had no bear spray we decided to explore the trails further on another day.