Yes folks, I'm here to report that it IS sunny enough to go on an adventure outside!
Seeing as the climatologists have announced that Southwest Alaska (that's us) is having the cloudiest calendar year in over thirty years, this is a big deal.
I'm moving.
But not yet.
We are taking nothing for granted whenit comes to weather this year. So, when I woke up this morning and saw a literal speck of blue sky and the promise of quite possibly an almost sunny day, I had the boys get ready for an adventure.
Lock and load boys we're going up a mountain!
First I ran to the Ferry Terminal to get my 7 summit challenge sticker. It's $5, it's a great sticker, and it puts us in weekly contests and a prize if we finish. Plus it keeps me motivated.
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| Well now that we're official |
We decided to start the 7 Summit Challenge season with Kashevaroff, also known as The Kash in my household.
This was strategic for many reasons. For one, it gets one of the longer mountains out of the way. This beast is 7 miles round trip, but it's gradual and pretty chill and not at all cliffy at the top, so it's a good "starter" when it comes to big summits.
Second, there's VERY little (if any) shade, so this mountain is HOT. And since it was mostly cloudy today, we decided to take advantage of not being stuck climbing a mountain in scorching Egyptian desert weather (i.e. 60 degrees).
Be that as it may, the lower 1/3rd of this mountain was freaking miserably hot today. The vegetation is so starved of sunlight this year that the warm humid morning plus almost sunshine sent photosynthesis into overdrive, and we might as well have been hiking through a gosh darn jungle at the equator rather than a mountain in the Aleutian chain.
I'm pretty sure Calen and I almost died of heat stroke. At 58 degrees.
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| Cam held his hands up to make a camera and said "click click!" He really has a photographer's eye |
Cam on the other hand is a complete mountain goat. He doesn't feel sore muscles, or pain, or anything. He's only 60 pounds and he just zooms that little body up mountains as if it's nothing. We had to keep slowing him down.
That's why he's in the neon green backpack, so that I can always see him.
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| The long exposure on my phone is a lot of fun |
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| We put Calen in front of Cam to slow him down |
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| Dat view though |
Once we hit the higher elevation though, the temperature was perfect, the views were amazing, and the sun even came out on the summit.
2,282 feet and the summit is ours, baby!
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| Cam wanted to take a photo of me! I'm not in photos ever so this is something new |
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| Summit muscles! |
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| A summit pal took this photo of us! |
Generally, summits mean milkshakes for dinner, but since Soda Jerk isn't in town and McDonald's milkshake machine literally is always broken (lazy turds), we started something new this year that counts for bribery and immediate satisfaction.
Summit candy! On the way we picked out a box of candy and hauled it up the mountain to enjoy on the summit.
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| On the menu: Nerd clusters and Mike and Ike megas (and sour patch kids for me) |
And then the long (albeit easy) hike down the mountain, which is the best part because it takes half the time.
First mountain in the books! Until next summer, Kash!
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