Resurrection Pass hike

This weekend, some fellow clerks (and an ex-clerk) and I went on a great hiking and camping trip on the Resurrection Pass trail near Hope, just round the bend of the Turnagain Arm from Anchorage. On Saturday, we hiked 11.6 miles in to a forest service cabin at Fox Creek, spent the night, and hiked back out the next day. It was raining when we started hiking, and we were steeling ourselves for a wet weekend, but after the first couple of hours, the rain stopped, and didn't start up again until moments after we got back into our cars on Sunday. It made for lots of lovely views across the valley.


View from near Fox Creek
Originally uploaded by t-dawg.


The fall colors were gor-geous. The trail was awesome, mostly flat, pretty muddy in places but well-maintained, lots of nice little bridges and whatnot.


Caribou Creek
Originally uploaded by t-dawg.


For quite a ways, we were following a really fresh set of really large bear tracks, but we commenced loud singing, and didn't end up seeing any big fuzzy friends, only evidence of their passing:


Bear print on Resurrection Pass trail
Originally uploaded by t-dawg.


We also saw a ton of moose tracks, and a few ptarmigans. When we got to the cabin, we had to track down and chop wood. We also had to make it past a super scary outhouse in order to make it to the real outhouse, fifty yards further down the trail. The cabin was a great deal--warm and toasty, and SO nice not to have to set up a tent after hiking 11.6 miles. The weather held for our hike out, then started pouring on our drive back. We stopped for pizza at Chair 5 in Girdwood, and the power went out just as our pizzas came out. Lucky timing--we still got to eat!