Pat's Mountain

I took our visitor from Michigan, Justin, up to Pat's mountain on an overnight camping trip. The trail was a little muddy and steep in places.

Once at the top we had the opportunity to play in the snow. It looked like I could have skied about a thousand vertical feet on the north face.

After we set up camp we decided to hike back to the summit to cook our supper and watch the sunset. The sun was happy to oblige and gave us a spectacular array of colors.

Looking at the mountains north of the Stikine River.

This Way Down

One of my last photographs of the evening. But by no means was the sky done with its show. The beautiful light lasted well beyond my ability to stay awake. A ptarmigan woke me up at about 11:30pm... or was it later... can't quite remember and the horizon was still on fire. I also got to listen to wolves howl in the valley far below before a little rain chased me into the tent at about 2:30am. Yes, it was still bright.

Just looks over the the landscape from our campsite.

The only flat non-snow covered site at a decent elevation. The entire north face was covered with snow but the ridge and some of the south face had melted.

Justin takes his time negotiating a steep snow covered slope.

Fools Inlet Hike

On the 21st of June the Wrangell Hiking Club scheduled a short trek to the Fools Inlet Estuary. We started just after a light rain had stopped and by the time we finished out picnic lunch the sun started making appearances.

Stepping off the end of the closed road and onto the trail.

The bottom of the trail is in a floodplain and has many large spruce and hemlock trees and a lot of lush green vegetation.

Chocolate lilies.

Wildflowers

Looking down on Indian Paintbrush.

The flowers (a lot of lupine in this photo) and green plants at the estuary were lovely.

Chocolate Lilies and Indian Paintbrush decorate the foreground

My friend Ryan works on a composition that later appeared in the newspaper.

Hiking Out

Indian painbrush painted the meadow red.

The confluence of the two streams that flow into Fools Inlet.

The group negotiates a hillside to avoid crossing a stream.

A few of the hikers make their way through the alder that is taking over the old roadway.