Other When Hiking In Alaska

Sup Brawlers!

So I was super bummed not to be with all you War players this past weekend at the event. I was spending time up in the mountains, and I have a little story to tell about the hike I did yesterday..

So this hike I was going to do, it was 8 miles long. It went up a ridge, and across some snow fields to get to the top of a glacier.

So I started this hike at 9:30 in the morning. At the trail-head, it was cool but clear out. I started hiking up the hill to get to the ridge.

The hill was a forest. If you haven't been to Alaska before, I will tell you now... The bugs were horrific.

I have now renamed that forest "fly forest". You couldn't stop and get a drink of water with out getting brutally attacked by 30 flies at a time.

So as you can imagine, I was trying to get out of treeline as fast as possible. This ran me out of the water that I brought fairly quickly, and I still had 2,000 feet of elevation gain.

So as I started to get out of treeline, I heard a very odd sound. The sound is hard to imitate.

It was a sort of wailing. It sounded like a chicken crossed with a goat. But I heard it more clearly then.

Coming from Alaska, I knew what this was. It was a baby bear separated from it's mama.

It kept wailing, and I saw it coming down from a cliff above, about 50 feet away. It went down into some brush, and then the wailing stopped.

I waited a few minutes to see what would happen next, and after about 5 minutes or so, I saw 2 baby cubs come out into a clearing. I couldn't snap a picture fast enough, but then a minute later, the mama and another cub came into the same clearing.

They walked slowly out of sight, and I kept on hiking. I soon came to a cliff out of treeline. This had a great view of the upper part of the glacier. I had to snap a pic.

I kept on hiking up the trail where I crossed snow fields. I still had about 800 feet of elevation to gain. Hiking up hill when it's humid out is one of the few things from the devil.

I kept on trudging along and saw a heard of mountain goats.
Mountain goats are boring creatures. They don't really do anything except walk around eating little patches of grass. Much like real goats. These guys can handle the cold though. They took a little nap in the snow while I was up there.

There was a drastic change in climate once I got up this high. In the trees, I was hot, sweaty, and covered in bugs. Up here, it was cold enough for a light jacket and some pants.

I came to my destination soon after. The destination wasn't more than a pile of rock (a moraine in glacier terms) but it had a great view of the ice field.

This thing is huge and ancient. The ice-field is the size of Rode Island in the United States. It has been there for over 20,000 years; from the ice-ages. It was the first time I had ever been up there, and it was truly an amazing sight.

On my way down, I did something called glassading. This is basically downhill skiing without skis. It is quite enjoyable, although I fell on my butt a few times. When It got flatter, I was just bounding through the snow like a gazelle bounding through tall grass.

I made it down to the trail head after 2 hours of feet pounding downhill. When your going up on a hike, you think "Ugh going up is absolutely the worst. I'm tired, I need water, I just want to die." when your coming down your thinking the same thing. "Ugh going down is so horrid. My feet hurt like the devil. I don't think I have knees anymore."

But the whole thing was absolutely worth it.

 

Howja know bae?? xD

 

Ye bruh <3