Snake Lake, Part Deux

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! Tomorrow we get a black president. It's pretty exciting.

Today, though, I got up early and dropped Samara off for work. She doesn't get MLK Day off. Then I watched a crappy movie on TV. At 10am, I called Erin and Anthony. I met them out at the place where they're housesitting.

We packed up their Highlander with the three of us, the two dogs they're watching, and headed off to Snake Lake Mountain. Of course, the first time we drove by, we missed it completely. We got almost to Aleknagik before we realized and turned around. We found it the second time we passed it.

Unlike last time, Anthony was able to drive to the top of the first hill and park in the turnaround. We all put on our snowshoes, and walked a little ways before we figured out that we really didn't need them. I clipped mine to my backpack and Anthony carried the other two pair over his shoulders. We let the dogs run loose, and they seemed to really enjoy themselves.

It didn't take long at all to reach the first look-out point.

Here are Erin and Anthony taking a break.

After that break, we kept going. (This is the point where Anthony and I turned around last time, so this was all new views for me. It was easier to walk today, since the snow was much more packed.) The air was really clear today, which made for better pictures.

Here are Erin and Anthony, hoofing it up the mountain.

Here you can see Snake Lake off in the distance, provided you know what you're looking for.

It's kind of hard to tell the difference between snow on the flats and a lake, especially when the light makes the whole picture bluish. Snake Lake is the slightly darker blue that you can see a sliver of just beneath the mountains in the back of this picture.

Here's another good mountain vista. The mountains here aren't very big, and are pretty close.

The dogs had a lot of energy for the whole hike. Anthony had almost as much energy. Here he is, playing with one of the dogs.

After a bit more hiking, we took another break.

Here's a slightly closer view of Snake Lake. No, not the white area to the left of the picture. That's just snowy flats. It's the silvery blue strip just below the mountains in the center-right of the picture.

On the way back down the trail, Anthony decided to climb the mountain up to a higher trail. Can you spot him from a distance?

How about a closer view?

And then, a long view as he summits.

Erin and I took the opportunity to relax as he climbed. My ankle was already a bit sore. I guess my right ankle is just my weak spot. It doesn't hurt as bad as my last hike, though.

On the way back down, we made another stop at the first look-out point.

We sat down, drank some water, and threw rocks down onto the snow for the dogs to fetch.

Even though the dogs aren't really very good at playing fetch, the view was nice.

That's it for pictures. We made it back to the car, and headed back down the road to the place where Erin and Anthony are housesitting. For lunch, they made tomato soup and grilled cheese. Since we hiked from about 11am to about 3pm, we were all hungry. After lunch, Erin took a nap, and Anthony and I took a steam.

Steaming is an Alaskan tradition. Yep, everyone likes going for a steam in the steam. What does that mean? Well, it's a wet sauna. You start by heading out into the little wooden shed, which has an antechamber and a steam room. You start a log fire in the cast-iron stove in the steam room, and let it get nice and hot. Once it is hot, you pour water over the stove and the lava rocks piled on top, and it creates steam.

What's weird, though, is that people actually bathe in these steams. Neither Anthony nor I had ever used a steam before, but once we got it figured out, we enjoyed ourselves. We even soaped up and scrubbed off, using little basins of cold water. Let me tell you, once you're hot and steamy, washing off with cold water is REALLY cold.

Now, you probably figure that once you're done in the 100+ degree steam, it would feel freezing outside, where it's 20 degrees. Once you're dried off, though, it doesn't feel that cold outside. Both Anthony and I were surprised that it seemed more like a 60 degree day outside. It was a strange sensation.

I picked Samara back up at 5pm. I felt bad because she had to work all day, dealing with various silly little crisises, while I had a relaxing day. Well, a tiring day, really, but it was fun. We had some dinner and watched some TV, and we're both looking forward to another day of work tomorrow.