Crow Pass

Here we are at the beginning. I'm on the right and my college roommate, K, is in the middle. The girl on the left, M, went to high school with K and we met on my first day of college too. We've done a lot together and have very fond memories of our last 15 years together. K is a nurse in the Air Force and lives in California but M lives in Anchorage with me. M also has a set of twins and a five year old.

We found huge salmon berries on the first mile of the trail.

Here's the actual Crow Pass. It was really, really windy up here. We've climbed about 2000 feet at this point.

K and I with the Raven Glacier behind us.

There are several of these photos because we used to do this in college all the time. On this trip, we did it at strategic points. This is in front of the glacier.

K has no kids but M and I both have three. We are all very excited to be together again and to be without kids. Can you tell?

We started at the bottom of this valley down where the two mountains meet.

We camped next to a gorge. It was noisy but soothing. We only made it four miles in the first night because M didn't get off work until 4pm. After this point, it's a very long haul to a place where you can set up a camp. And yes, we only went four miles the first day. That means I went 22 miles the second day. Yea. Twenty-two miles. Ouch.

Requisite tent photo. K used to have horrible vision but got Lasik surgery courtesy of the Air Force. Now, she rubs it in.

K had a way of flushing out the wildlife. This was the first moose we saw. I had a chance to take a photo. The second one was close enough I could have tossed a stone underhand and hit it. He was not happy we were so close so we moved fast. He was lowering his ears at us which is a big warning sign. I did end up packing the gun and I'm glad I did. At one point K was in front and was less than 10 feet from a grizzly bear that was standing on its hind legs. She couldn't see it because she was too close to the bushes. The bear was right behind the bushes and stood up over her basically. I saw it because she was about 10 feet in front of me. I yelled and pulled my gun. She said she wasn't scared until she looked back and saw I had the gun out. Then she knew something bad was about to happen. She ran back and stood behind me. She never did see the thing because once it figured out we were humans, it took off. Of course, the next section of trail was grass and alders over our heads and dense. We couldn't see the ground and we had to crawl under some of the trees. I kept the gun out during that part because there was bear sign everywhere and it was perfect bear habitat. That was right before the river crossing.

This is the river crossing we had to do. The river was a brisk 32 degrees because it comes from the glacier. We disrobed on the beach and put on shorts. It was buttock deep and faaaaaast moving. It's a good thing we've all done things like this before.

You actually had to cross several channels. So, you froze your legs off, got on land, marched back to the water, got on land, and marched back into the water. They have put up white poles to show people where to cross.

Our legs were red when we got out. These two are wincing and dancing around.

There were several rope/log bridges to cross too. Because the water level is so high right now, many of the smaller bridges were under water too. We forged those creeks too.

This is the end. We all had blisters from wet feet but we are happy and exhausted.

My other college roommate, J, picked us up and gave us wine. She didn't have a corkscrew because someone had borrowed it so she was using a drill. Strangely enough, J also has twins. M, J, and I all had twins within nine months of each other. If we go somewhere together it's three moms and eight kids. My son, who is five is the oldest. So, eight kids five and under. Yikes.

I'm off to get some sleep. Whew.