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Published: September 11th 2009
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Well, it finally started raining, but before it did (at 3:00 pm) I managed to complete a great hike and drive most of the way to Seward. I'm going to call it a "mostly non-rainy day".
To get to Seward I had to drive through Anchorage again this morning. Just east of Anchorage I took a little detour to Flattop Mountain and went hiking to the top. Flattop Mountain has an elevation of 3510 feet with an elevation gain of 1280 feet from the trailhead (that's a pretty hefty gain for a trail that's only about two miles long!). Yesterday at the bike rental shop I overheard two guys talking about their regular "runs" from the trailhead to the top of Flattop Mountain. One guy said he could do it in 25 minutes and the second guy said that he could do it in 20, so I figured that it couldn't be "too" difficult. Well, I was wrong; this trail gets progressively more difficult and during the last 100 yards I was carefully deciding where to place my next foot so that I didn't tumble down the mountain. It took me 90 minutes to do the trail (carefully!) and I'm
now VERY impressed with anyone who can RUN the trail in 25 minutes or less. Anyway, the top, as you might expect, is "flat" (about the size of a couple of football fields) with fantastic views in every direction. As a bonus, even though it was mostly cloudy, there was an absolutely clear view to several mountains in the distance including "The Great One" (Denali). Several locals that I met along the way told me that it's extremely rare to see Denali from this location at any time of year. I just pulled out my map and it appears that Denali is about 150 miles away from Flattop Mountain, and yet today is was clearly visible. Flattop Mountain has the distinction of being Alaska's most frequently climbed mountain (probably because of those two guys who keep running up and down the thing!).
OK, this next part is rated PG-13: When I got back to the trailhead, I was packing things in the Miata when a guy drove near me in a pickup truck and stopped to talk. He was rather excited and said, "You need to go down that trail over there and look at the moose that are
mating! They're really going at it!". The way he was talking you'd have thought he'd just seen a naked lady in the woods. Anyway, he got my curiosity up and I walked down this trail until I spotted the two moose in the distance. Well, by the time I got there the party was over. Papa moose was looking very smug and was smoking a cigarette (OK, I lied about that part, but he WAS looking smug). Mama moose looked less than satisfied and was wishing she could teach this guy a thing or two about how to do it. And so it goes in the woods of Alaska!
After spotting the two moose lovers, I saw four more moose nearby (moose voyeurs!). That brings my Alaska moose count to eight!
I'm now at a beautiful B&B near Seward. It's on a small lake (two miles long) with lots of woods and mountains all around. I'm hoping to go canoeing and/or kayaking here, but first it needs to stop raining. We'll see what it looks like tomorrow.
One more day and it's time to start the long journey home.
Jack
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