Trails, Devil's Club, Moose Heads and Booyah Burgers

It was getting close to Mothers Day in Canada, my oldest son was about 8 years old at the time, and he wanted to buy me a gift with some money he had earned from doing chores.  We walked into a card store and he saw this little picture frame.  I pretended to be looking at something else at the time, so my young son could do his shopping in peace.  But I watched my boy as he picked up the frame, looked at the back of the frame where the price was, and it must have been a good price because even 18 years later I can still picture the excitment on his face when he realized he had found something nice at a price he could afford.  I have this frame up here in Juneau  A picture of my boy when he was around that same age has been in the frame for a very long time......

And just this minute while I am typing this, I just saw a little chipmunk through the glass door standing on my outside porch.  My dog Jamie would have been hysterical if she had seen him (as in "she would want to rip him a new one" hysterical)  :-)

On my last day of a long-weekend I again woke up feeling lost, out of sorts, and wondering how I was going to spend my day.   Feeling guilty about neither biking nor hiking this weekend, I decided that I would force my unmotived-self onto my bike.   And an hour later I looked out the window and it was pouring rain.  Which effectively killed what little motivation I had mustered together.  

I have had hypothermia a handful of times during my years as an adventure racer, and have been borderline hypothermic more times than I care to remember.  

Some of those occasions have resulted from exploits on the water during races - either getting tossed into freezing rivers, paddling in cold white water that splashed back at me for hours on end, sitting in cold water in the bottom of a boat, in one horrible occasion an extended very cold river swim, and (on still one other horrible occasion) an overnight canoe on the water in freezing rain and white caps. 

But mostly it has resulted from freezing cold and extended bike rides in the mountains and in the rain.

But even during those times I knew that I had team-mates, race staff and support crews to help me get healthy again before we went back out there. 

When I looked at the cold and heavy rain this morning, it did not take me long to back out of a planned bike ride.  Whenever I go out I am keenly aware of the fact that if something goes wrong (health, injury, mechanical bike failure etc.) that I don't really have anyone right now that I can call on. 

Which is why I at least call my Mountain Boy before I go out onto trails, tell him which trail, and call him when I get back out.   At least someone knows where I am......

I decided instead to take a short walk on a trail near Montana Creek - a residential park of sorts, easily accessible to the residents of the Valley.  I left Out the Road in pouring rain.  By the time I got to Auke Bay it was not raining (and in fact there were no signs that it had been raining at all this morning). 

View from the Montana Creek parking lot.

In addition to the sign (above) providing information on the trails, there were also signs indicating that the numerous fields along the way are filled with wildflowers during the summer.  I have seen this a few times in my travels around Juneau, and I hope that I get a chance to see these fields when they are in bloom. 

Someone at work had told me that the trail was only 2.5 miles long.  The sign at the start of the trail confirmed that, but also that that distance was on the paved trail. 

I walked the paved trail for a short while, quickly gettng bored.  As I continued along this path I encountered quite a few people walking their dogs, and also realized that there were numerous dirt trails pulling off on either side of the paved path.  On the spur of the moment I took one of those trails - wanting to explore - wanting to get away from people.....

The first dirt trail eventually hooked back up with the paved trail.  I took another one.  It also eventually hooked back in with the paved trail.  Once I realized the pattern, I just wandered, not really paying attention to either the time or my location.  Just trying to stay away from people and stay off pavement. 

I succeeded in both of those goals.  While I was on dirt trails I never crossed paths with another person.

 

Although most of the trails that I explored today were mossy, pine-needle and tree root filled, there were a couple that were completely covered with Devil's Club:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil's_Club

I had my introduction to this beast of a plant a few days after I arrived in Juneau.  I was walking on a technical trail, and made a grab for a sturdy plant to help with a balance check, without really looking at it properly first.  Ouch.  It is a sturdy, thorny nasty plant that you definately do not want to come into close personal contact with if you can help it.

An then unexpectedly and wonderfully, the sun came out. Sunshine wasn't in the forecast, but I determined earlier in the week that NOAA never updates their Juneau forecast anyway.  I don't question sunshine.  I just relish in it when it happens.

I had left the house without eating breakfast this morning, and after walking on trails for two hours started to feel hungry.  I had brought snacks with me, but have been living on nothing but cereal for a few days now, and decided that I needed a burger. 

My favorite burger restaurant that I have found so far is the Booyah Grill across from Auke Bay Harbor.  I have never been able to finish their 1/2 pound burger, but felt like I was up to the challenge today.  Hungry or not, I was going to wait and try and finish one of those monster burgers when I left the trail.

 

After 3 1/2 hours wandering aimlessly on trails, one last beautiful view of the mountains, glacier and fields of Montana Creek before heading to the Booyah.

Although I gave it my very best shot, I still did not succeed in finishing my burger and fries.  One of these days I will take more pictures of the restaurant.  It's not much - one section is non-descript bar, one section is even-less-descript restaurant, they have animal heads on the wall, and a magnificant view of the harbor from the windows.  They also have lots of good food at a good price, and the place suits my speed.  Some of the animal heads (the moose was watching me while I ate my burger - a little unnerving).

Next weekend I need to do a big, back-country, isolated trail hike...........

My growing blue-shell collection