Hanging Valley, 9/2008

Another hike from the archives…

 

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Making Some Fun:

Keith got up on Saturday morning with a bit of an attitude over his morning paper:  "There's never any fun in this house!"

After I went to check his birth certificate, and assured myself that my husband is, in fact, an adult, and not a grumpy teen, I got to thinking about our Options for Fun.  And, no, Mr. "I'm Bored" wasn't offering suggestions.  

To be honest, I'm not sure that he was protesting the absence of fun so much as the presence of many chores that would require his putting down the paper and leaving the bathroom. (Love ya, Babe! )

Yadda, yadda, yadda, a couple of hours later, we found ourselves out hiking the trail to Hanging Valley in Chugach State Park, not too far from our house.

The colors are...quite nice.

 

 

The entrance to our destination, Hanging Valley, as viewed from across another valley:

The scene as we make our way across the valley:

Real men aren't afraid to hydrate via a hot pink water bottle:

 

Har, har, har…

 

Finally, heading up to the entrance of Hanging Valley:

 

 

And here we are; the valley was incredible.  Vast would be the word.  Admittedly, "vast" to the point where one occasionally wonders, "Where the heck is the end of this trail?  I wish I had brought some peanut clusters.  Or brownies.":

The bright green bits are the places where the snow piles up after avalanches, and is the last part to melt:

A Hidden Lake!

 

 

The sky was gloomy the entire time, and the rain was intermittent.

Wild Dall Sheep on the mountainside; I crept as close as I could:

It looks like snow, but it was some sort of plant; a lichen, I think.  The ground here was very spongy.  There was a sheep trail along the ridge:

We inadvertently ended up following the sheep trail, instead of the regular trail on the way back, and found ourselves in a somewhat precarious position; had to pick our way down the mountainside:

No worries, I didn't fall.  This was my attempt to entice Keith into a "Wacky Poses for the Camera" game.  My hope was that he would eventually be convinced to do the George Costanza pose:

which I would gleefully post, and we'd all laugh and laugh! 

But Keith was having none of the hijinks.  He did offer to trade some posing for a game of trailside Slap and Tickle.  I considered his offer, but the thought of exposing my Lady Parts to the autumnal Alaskan chill dissuaded me; not worth the potential Blog Hilarity.
So, moving on; actually, we're heading back out of the valley at this point, and on our return to the trailhead:

 

Keith donned his rain hat:

A good time was had by all...