Hike at Baldy trailhead again

We will be hiking tomorrow up baldy. For directions refer to previous post. We will be hiking to the ranch gradual uphill stroller friendly.

Directions for Thursday July 24 @ 10:30

Directions:

From Anchorage, head northbound on the Glen Highway for roughly 8 miles. Take the Eagle River Loop exit, head right, then take a right at the intersection, onto Hiland Road. Follow this road for several miles until it winds it's way into Hiland Valley. After passing through a steep gourge, look for South Creek road on your right. Turn, then turn right again onto West Creek Drive shortly afterwards; the parking area where the trail begins will be on the left.

Trail description:

The South Fork Trail leads to Eagle and Symphony lakes, two strikingly different lakes nestled close to one another at the back of a large valley. The path starts from a short wooden walkway, then proceeds through an initially hilly section. Just over a mile from the trail head, a bridge is in place which crosses the south fork of Eagle River (hence the trail's name). This is probably where we will turn around.

From memory I do not believe this is stroller friendly. You are welcome to try but I wouldn't recommend it. Hope to see you there:)

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Hike Thursday July 17

These directions are to the meeting place of our next hike. It will actually be at my parents house up skyline. They have a great road to hike on and some trails through the woods if some would like to take those.

Take the exit toward Eagle River
Turn right at the yield sign coming off the exit
Go straight through the light on Old Glenn Hwy through town.
Turn right at N Eagle River Loop Rd at Tesoro and Williams
Turn left at W Skyline Dr right after the Skyline church lots of road construction right now, Skyline's road changes name every corner all the way to the top.
Keep going till the road's name is Canyon View. There will be a blue painted sign post with the names of Canyon View and Golden Eagle, turn on this dirt road. Follow this dirt road through the gate don't make any turns.
You will come to a steep part of the road. THis is the drive way to the house. Once you are up the hill there is only one way to go, keep going till you get to the house/parking lot.
We will hike the road and if some want we can take a hike through the woods. Fairly easy hike through the woods. Good elavation gain down and up hill on the road. Sorry for the late post. I have been pretty busy this week. Hope to see some of you there tomorrow.


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Hike for Thursday July 10

We will be returning to the Eagle River Nature Center (at the end of Eagle River Road) this Thursday, July 10, at 10:30. This is a jogger friendly hike, and not very strenuous. Come and join us and we will all have tons o fun!

Carolyn might post more later, but I just wanted to make sure you all had a heads up!

PS- There is a $5 parking fee to park there that you pay inside the building.

Pics from Thunderbird Falls

These are some of the pictures from our Thunderbird Falls hike. We got there a bit late (which is somehow becoming kind of a pattern that I want to break out of!) so it took us a little while to catch up to everyone, so we were at the back of the pack again! The first picture is at the destination. From this platform deck, you can see the Falls. I tried to get the kids all together to take a picture, but you probably know what that can be like!
Here are the dads resting at the top of the hike!
The view of the Falls from the viewing deck.
Then on the way back, we took the side trail that takes you down to the river. The kids liked playing down there for a bit, but the mosquitos were out in force (as usual for these kinds of hikes in Alaska), so we didn't stay too long.
At the bottom of the hike, in the parking lot, we sat on rocks and ate our packed lunches and snacks.

The kids all do such a good job hiking! This was a nice, relatively easy hike. The one from last week had some issues (like a bear up the trail, so we took a detour, directions that were not directly to the hike because it shows a road that exisits, but really doesn't- so sorry if some of you came and weren't able to find it! Carolyn did wait for a bit to try and lead everyone to the right place- and our detour trail dead ended) but we had fun anyway, don't we always?! I will post pictures of that hike in a few days. I haven't downloaded those pictures off the camera yet.

Mt Baldy Trail Head

This next week we are going to split up in two groups. The older kids will go up the mountain and the younger kids will walk up to the farm. The farm walk is fairly easy and low elevation gain. The older kids will be going half way up the front of Baldy. Quick elevation gain compared to previous hikes. If you have both older and younger children it would be okay to let your older child go with the older group and the parent stay with the younger group.

Directions to Mt Baldy Trail head -

Take the exit toward Eagle River
Turn right at the yield sign coming off the exit
Go straight through the light on Old Glenn Hwy through town.
Turn right at N Eagle River Loop Rd at Tesoro and Williams
Turn left at W Skyline Dr right after the Skyline church, Skyline road changes name every corner all the way to the top. Keep going till you get to the end of the road and there will be a gate across the road and a parking lot. Should be about 2.2 miles from the beginning of skyline to the end of the road.

Hope to see you there.

How to get to the Bear Mountain Trail Head

Our Hike is again Thursday @ 10:30. Hope to see you there. It's in Peter's Creek area.

How to get there:From Anchorage, take Alaska HWY 1 north past Eagle River- Take the exit toward Peters Creek - 0.2 mi
- Turn right at Ski Rd - 0.7 mi
- Turn left at Whaley Ave - 0.2 mi
- Whaley Ave turns slightly right and becomes Tulwar Dr - 0.1 mi
- Turn left at Seika Dr - 0.3 mi
- Turn left at Solleret Dr - 0.3 mi
- Solleret Dr turns right and becomes Thornton St - 0.2 mi
- Turn left at Malcolm Dr.
- End of the Road is the corner of Malcolm Dr. and Seirra Mesa Cir.
SPECIAL NOTE: The hiking trail is called Big Peters Creek “Chugach State Park”. You’ll travel down this trail about 50 yards give or take and you’ll see a small trail on your left heading into the woods. Bear mountain hike is not well published, but the trail is pretty well established up this hike.

Thursday, June 19- Thunderbird Falls

Our hike on June 19 (I know this is a bit of a late post, but if you get to see it before we hike, then you will benefit!) will be to Thunderbird Falls. We will meet in the parking lot at 10:30. It is a State run park trail, so there is a fee to park there (I think it is $5), or if you have a Parks Pass (that you can get from the Parks Office in Anchorage- but probably not for this hike if you don't already have it) you don't have to pay.

To get there, you just head out towards Palmer and Wasilla along the Glenn Highway. On the right, there will be an exit for Thunderbird Falls (I believe it is the one after the Mirror Lake Exit, but before the Eklutna Exit). Take that and it should take you right to the parking lot.

There are outhouse facilities available at the bottom of the hike, by the parking lot. This is what it says on the parks webpage about this hike:

Thunderbird Falls TrailAccess: Mile 25, Glenn Highway, Thunderbird Exit, follow signs one mile to trailhead parking.Travel Means: Foot.Distance: 1 mile or 1.6 kilometers one way to view of Thunderbird Falls.Elevation Gain: 100 feet or 30 meters.Difficulty: Easy - rolling terrain with boardwalk and viewing areas.Special Features: Birch forest on steep hillside overhanging Eklutna Canyon. Views of 200 foot high Thunderbird Falls.Winter: Often, the falls freeze, producing ice sculptures. <http://www.dnr.state.ak.us/parks/units/chugach/trails.htm>

We hope to see you there!

Pics of Chugiak High School Trails Hike

Our hike on Thursday, June 12 was to the Chugiak High School Cross Country Trails. This is part of our group as we decided which trails we were going to walk. We chose one that had lots of ups and downs. I was at the end of the group, so I didn't get that many pictures!
This is the Suttons- or part of the family anyway! They are troopers. Bringing their twin babies, their little girl in the jogger, and then two others who are big enough to run on ahead and keep at the head of the pack!
See, I was at the back, so I only got backs of everyone else! I think this was the start of the ups and downs!
The mosquitos were bad! So I guess that means that summer is officially here! The kids love to run on ahead and wait at the fork in the path. What good little runners they all are.
At the end of the hike, the Bundys and the Suttons had a picnic in the parking lot to keep away from the mosquitos. There were some others that ate on the soccer field as well.

Pics from Nature Center Hike

Our informal class given at the Nature Center on hiking safety. We learned to stay in a group, and have an adult as the forward hiker, that no kids are to pass.
At the viewing deck. What a gorgeous view! The kids loved running around on the deck, and then climbing up on the sides and looking down into the water. The parents got a chance to visit a bit more, without trying to keep up with the kids!
See, they loved looking down in the water!
Heading up the trail from the viewing deck. This is our hike organizer, Carolyn. And all 3 of these moms have a baby on their backs!
This was our place to stop and snack or lunch before we turned around to head back. It was a good turnout and a nice hike!

Chugiak High School Trails June 12

This week we are meeting at the high school for our hike. We had a great week last week and a great turn out. We went over hiking safety and etiquette. Thanks everyone for coming. We had kids from 7- 4 month olds. So there is a big range in ages and they all seemed pretty happy. I don't think the older kids were bored at all. Hope to see you guys there tomorrow. Pray for clear skies. I will post some pictures later I just need to get them from my sister.

Check out the Calendar

Please check out the Calendar. I have some open Thursday so if anyone has ideas of places to add let me know.

Thanks

Hiking Thursday June 5

Hello, We are starting our first hike tomorrow. Please come join us at the Eagle River Visitor Center at 10:30 sharp. Ute a naturalist will talk to us about hiking safety, right at 10:30. So please be there and ready by that time if you would like to hear what Ute has to say, she will only be about 10 minutes and then we can start our hike.