The Interruption of Conversation

There is a hiking group that meets twice a week and who hike the local trails.  With all the talk about wolves and bears recently, I decided that I would give this group a try - partly out of consideration for my safety (after walking on trails alone for the past two months) and partly to meet some like-minded people in the area.

The group this morning was scheduled to meet and hike up to John Muir Cabin in the Auke Bay area. 

I walked part of this trail a few weeks after I arrived in town, but turned around after about an hour because I had neither food nor water with me.  I remembered it being a beautiful trail though, and was looking forward to exploring it further today.

This trail begins as a smooth and wide open trail.  Last time I walked it (in late January) I only walked for a few minutes before I hit ice and then snow, and had to put on Yaktraxx in order to continue.

This time the trail was free of ice and snow for a good part of the trail walk.  The first 20 minutes or so is all a gradual uphill.

A few of the group I was traveling with this morning and the early part of the trail.

This was the bridge where I turned around last time.  On the way back last trip I was glad that I had made the decision to stop there, because I ran into people carrying both cross country skis and snow shoes, and realized that there was a good deal of snow up ahead that I was not equipped for.

The next portion of the trail was primarily wooded boardwalks that travelled over muddy and boggy areas.  There are multiple open fields in this section, and the people that I was travelling with today told me that in the summer the fields are filled with wildflowers and blueberries.  I can hardly wait to see these fields filled with summer flowers.........

These boardwalks are very slippery in places when they are wet.

Finally we began to reach more and more snow, and as we continued to climb higher into the mountains we all became eager to put on our snow shoes and cross country skiis.

And finally...........we climbed into blue skies, warm sunshine, and enough snow to put on skis or snow shoes.  Someone loaned me the snow shoes to try out a number of weeks ago, and I have been very eager to give them a shot.  Happily I found out that the learning curve is very short, and I quickly got used to them.  I had heard that snow shoeing was great exercise, and after trying them out today I have to agree.  Excellant workout for the legs and heart!  

They were very fun to use.  And after watching some of the others cross country skiing, I am very eager to try that as well.   I am not sure if that will happen this winter or not, but I definately want to try it.  And it was fun to watch these folks moving so smoothly across the snow, while I was lumbering along in my snow shoes. 

John Muir Cabin. 

Day use of the cabin is free and available to anyone who happens to wander up there.  The cabin contains a number of bunks and a wood stove, and that's about it.  The cabin is also available for rental at a cost of $35 per night.  There is absolutely nothing surrounding the cabin but mountains and trees, and it is absolutely peaceful, quiet and beautiful up there.

Yes.........these are MY feet in my borrowed snow shoes.  They are the same LL Bean snowshoes that I was considering buying before I moved up to Juneau.  They are easy to put on, easy to use, short enough to easily stash in a mid-sized pack or attach to the outside of the pack.

There were unbelievable views from the area surrounding John Muir Cabin.  I had no idea (although after living in Juneau for two months now, I should have been prepared for them).  There were harsh snow-covered mountain peaks and unbelieavable wide-open views of the entire Gastineau Channel - wetlands - City of Juneau region.

I would have LOVED to have taken pictures of them, because they were presenting perspectives of the area to me that I had not, to this point, seen. 

Only..............my camera battery died. 

I squeezed out one more picture (below) but couldn't get any more out of my overworked Walmart digital camera.  I now have a reason to visit John Muirs' Cabin again, because I really want to photograph some of those rugged mountains and sweeping Juneau views that I could not capture today.

I am very grateful to the hiking group for allowing me to join in their walk.  They were very welcoming and friendly, and I met some really nice people.

I am not certain that I would like to walk with the group often though.  My personal time, my over-riding need for alone-time, and my strong need and desire to be on trails without the interruption of conversation with others were  distractions for me today, as I travelled this trail with a group.

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness......John Muir