Powerline View

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This photo was taken from Powerline Pass, looking down the South Campbell Creek valley, toward Anchorage in the distance, right.

View from Powerline Pass

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Turnagain Arm and the tucked-away community of Indian (just off the Seward Highway south of Anchorage) can be seen in this photo I took from Powerline Pass during a July 13th hike from Indian to Anchorage’s Prospect Heights trailhead.

A view from Baldy’s summit

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Nina hunts for blueberries on the upper slopes of this conical 3,281-foot peak that looms over the community of Eagle River. This photo shows the view northwest of Baldy, toward the Knik River and Talkeetna Mountains.

What to wear and bring if you want to hike the Butte in the spring/summer months

One week ago, Lisa and I were running the 2013 Alaska Law Enforcement Torch Run in the midst of snow flurries; I wore running shoes with hex-head sheet metal screws drilled into the soles, to keep from slipping on the icy course.

Today, for the second time in fewer than 24 hours, Nina and I climbed Bodenburg Butte, which is located a few miles southeast of Palmer. We experienced beautiful weather, both times: sunny, warm, a bit breezy at the top yesterday and somewhat windy today — we could see wind whipping clouds of Knik Glacier silt into the air east of the Butte.

A number of people who are either unfamiliar with hiking or unfamiliar with the Butte have asked me what they need to wear or bring when scaling the nearly 900-foot-high glacier-scraped stone nubbin.

On days like yesterday, we wear sunscreen, sunglasses, shorts, tank top and running shoes. I tuck a Nalgene bottle of water and a lightweight windbreaker inside a small backpack with my wallet, camera-phone, keys, a couple of granola bars, bandana, bug spray and a small Ziploc bag with bandaids and Neosporin in it. That’s all we need on a sunny-and-warm Butte day.

Today, I wore similar clothes and brought a small pack with most of the same contents. We were meeting a group that included several small children, so I brought along more just-in-case granola bars and small bottles of Gatorade.

Leaves are just beginning to unfurl along the Butte trails. The vegetation will bloom and grow rapidly, however, so it is probably a good idea to wear clothing that covers your arms and legs if you hike the west Butte trail, located off north Bodenburg Loop and Mothershead Road. There are three reasons: mosquitoes, pushki and devil’s club.

Mosquitoes tend to favor the west Butte trail because it winds through a forested area before climbing a flight of stairs and series of switchbacks to the top; mosquitoes are nowhere near as plentiful or obnoxious on the south trail’s usually-wind-and-dust-swept paths to the top. Using a DEET-based repellent is most likely to keep the ravenous west-trail mosquitoes at bay, but it’s a better idea to apply that chemical to clothing rather than bare skin, which is why long pants and sleeves are a good idea.

Pushki, also known as cow parsnip, is a lovely and useful plant that can do ugly things to the skin of people who touch or brush against  it. If you encounter it on the trail, there are remedies that can help reduce the severity of the rash. Wearing pants and long-sleeved shirts — and being careful about which plants you or kids with you touch with your bare hands — can prevent you from having an encounter with pushki in the first place.

Finally, devil’s club is a plant between 3 and nearly 5 feet tall, with pretty garnet drupes, almost-hand-like leaves so large I’ve seen kids attempt to use them as makeshift rainhats (before discovering the bristling underside of the leaves) and a thick, spiny stem that looks as if it could be a medieval torture implement. Imagine stumbling or stepping into a patch of devil’s club while wearing shorts! If you experience an unpleasantly close encounter with the prickly devil’s club, wash the wound and apply an antibiotic cream.

Yesterday and today were beautiful days to journey up the Butte, but an Alaska summer can also include rainy, chilly and windy days. Weather can be hot while hiking on the lower reaches of the Butte, but frigid and windy on top just a few minutes later.

The Butte isn’t located far in the backcountry, but it never hurts to hike prepared.

• Look at the forecast for the area and wear or bring lightweight, noncotton layers — cotton will not keep you warm if sweat or rain make it wet. Lightweight layers are easy to stuff in a pack, to put on and take off as conditions require.

• Layers generally consist of long noncotton underwear pants or shirt (I like lightweight wool, because it keeps you warm even if you get drenched), noncotton shirt, lightweight fleece and a jacket and/or pants that are waterproof or windproof. Wear waterproof footwear when conditions call for it; when it’s drier outside, running shoes or a pair of well-fitting hiking boots are fine.

• If the temperatures will be warm, you might only need a noncotton shirt underneath the rainwear. If the weather will be cooler, bring along a warm hat, gloves and perhaps a lightweight fleece as well, with noncotton shirt and pants. Windy and cold, but no rain? A wind jacket and pants are compact and lightweight and can easily be stashed in a small pack along with gloves, hat, fleece layer or even a lightweight down jacket.

• If the weather is rainy for an extended period and conditions get muddy on either Butte trail, consider bringing along a pair of Kahtoola Microspikes, which are made for icy trails but work well in warmer weather on trails that are sloppy. We’ve used them in summer on the Butte, Lazy Mountain and Pioneer Peak.

When hiking the west Butte trail, bring along $3 and a pen to fill out the fee envelope if you don’t have a day-use parking pass sticker from the Mat-Su Borough. On the south trail, we leave $3 in a marked receptacle, for parking on private land at the trailhead.

Lazy Mountain trail

Here’s a picture looking up the Lazy Mountain trail, taken from a spot not far below the picnic table. The first table is located roughly halfway up the mountain. Conditions now are snowy, but I didn’t need snowshoes (just wore Kahtoola spikes).

 

This is what you see from the Lazy Mountain trail, below the picnic table. The trail is steep and still snowy, but I saw at least a dozen hikers when I was there recently and didn’t posthole at all. Consider wearing Kahtoolas or other traction devices on your boots when you go.

This is Pioneer Peak, seen from the first picnic table on the Lazy Mountain trail.

Here you can see the trail proceeding up from the first picnic table (left) and Matanuska Peak, which is situated back in McRoberts Creek valley.

This is what the first picnic table on Lazy Mountain looked like during a recent hike.

Finding solace in hiking

Three weeks ago, my father found out there was no sign of cancer left after a surgeon removed a tangerine-sized tumor from his colon.

Everyone in our family felt relieved, and elated. That day, my sister wrote an ecstatic post on her Facebook page. Daddy and Mom went out for dinner. Daddy ate his beloved chicken-fried steak, and then enjoyed a brownie sundae for dessert. My parents drove home, puttered around, went to bed.

My husband, Roman, as part of his job, regularly takes calls in the middle of the night from police officers who need to consult him about after-hours cases. I heard the phone ring at 1:39 a.m., a few hours after Daddy had fallen asleep back home in Little Rock. I couldn’t understand Roman’s words, but wondered why he was talking so gently to a cop.

Surfacing from sleep, I realized he was talking to me, saying my Mom was on the line. Why would Mom be calling at this hour? She’s a morning person who lives three time zones east of Alaska, but this was very early, even for her.

Her voice sounded calm, soothing. Why would Mom be soothing me? Then I knew, but simply would not hear it. Joan Didion calls it magical thinking: If I quietly and rationally say “No, Mommy” enough times to my mother, it means it didn’t happen. My Mom has to be mistaken. The doctor had announced just the day before that Daddy beat cancer. So how could Daddy be dead and my sweet mother irrevocably torn from him for the first time in 50 years?

We flew to Little Rock and saw Daddy in his casket a couple of hours after arriving. His face looked so drawn and serious without his roguish smile and twinkling brown eyes. He wore a suit and tie, gold wedding ring, his slightly askew eyeglasses. Thousands of years ago, the families of pharaohs would fill their tombs with food, treasure and shabtis, to ease their passage into the afterlife. We did something like that for Daddy. In a little drawer of the casket, we cached Hershey kisses, shelled pecans, toothpicks, autumn leaves from his backyard, rocks from the Osage Nation in Oklahoma, a St. Francis holy card, letters we had written. The next day, we attended his funeral Mass at a lovely old cathedral and, on the blue-sky day after that, heard the efficient volleys of a 21-gun salute and watched my dress-uniformed nephew give my mother the flag that had lain on Daddy’s casket.

Most of our family boarded planes or drove away the following day, leaving Mom, Nina and me alone.

Mom and I talked about how we each felt submerged. We wandered out to lunch, to the mall, poked around in Daddy’s office, looked at the neat scratches of his handwriting on his desktop diary — he wrote down what he ate for his final meal.

I thought about the Dallas Cowboys football game for which my three brothers had rented a skybox, their way of giving Daddy a special 85th birthday; the cruise around South America my parents had booked for February; a gala we had been organizing for my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, June 15. Why couldn’t he get a reprieve, enough time to relish those eagerly anticipated occasions before passing away?

Daddy was a relentlessly optimistic man who sacrificed more than a year to doctor visits and undiagnosed pain, a loss of nearly 40 pounds that left him frail-limbed, then a lengthy incision and recovery from surgery.

He followed rules, became an Eagle Scout and police chief, served our country in Vietnam, earned a fistful of medals and a master’s degree. He visited all 50 states — he and Mom made a special drive from Arkansas to that last state, North Dakota — and lived in eight of them (as well as in South Korea) while I was growing up. He squired Mom throughout five continents. He liked everyone he met until they gave him a damned good reason not to, chuckled frequently and worked hard to care for his wife and five children and make us all happy.

This catastrophe of losing a parent strafes almost everybody. There is nothing special about my grief. Others have endured much worse: helplessly watching mothers and fathers endure months of suffering. Death strikes thousands of fathers every day, all over the world. Everyone will mourn, sometime.

But even though it visited as he slept in his own bed, at home — so decisively his hands were still peacefully tucked up by his chin, like a child, when my mother turned and found him — this soundless, painless death struck down my Daddy. The dark-haired, 6-foot-3-inch, 220-pound man who playfully “whiskered” my cheek and voice-bugled “Reveille” on mornings I didn’t feel like waking up; the broad-grinned Kaw-Osage man who loudly played Indian war songs on a record-player in our darkened foyer, to entertain and terrify trick-or-treaters on Halloween; the greying but still formidable Daddy conspicuously writing down license plate numbers of cars taking his daughters away on dates; the nearly deaf Daddy who ferried his petite Siamese cat, Der-Der, around on his shoulder, “rested his eyes” in his 45-year-old recliner, cried at his daughters’ weddings and openly revered his wife, “Wosie”. I can’t remember ever hearing my father raise his voice in anger to her or to me.

His Roi-Tan boxes became my jewelry boxes after he smoked the cigars originally housed in them. The smell of fresh cigar smoke instantly recalls my father. So do sunsets. Daddy would beckon my mother — “Rosemary!” — whenever he saw a particularly gorgeous panorama of the sun descending through fervent rose and lilac streaks in the big Arkansas sky.

The feeling of being submerged lingered even after our plane touched down in Alaska. Work, whittling down our fully loaded laundry table and shuttling Nina to and from school and hockey kept it at bay, sometimes.

I hadn’t hiked since Daddy died. It seemed like the only thing that could lift the press of sadness. I texted some friends and we decided to hike Lazy Mountain on Sunday.

It was a clear, temperature-in-the-30s day when we set out from Lazy’s trailhead. We quickly sluiced off our sweaty fleece and shells as we climbed, shoe spikes biting into dirt and, in some spots, a veneer of snow. My lungs and leg muscles protested, silently. Lisa texted from the Butte as we reached the first picnic table — always hiking with me in spirit.

Shooting a few photos in the now-chilly air, we slurped water, donned layers from our packs and continued up the steep dirt track, to the top of the first false summit. We hiked the stony path to the second false summit, carefully moved across skids of ice near the second picnic table and trudged, weary, up the final rise to the narrow spine marking the last stretch to Lazy’s summit. Stomach-quailing drops fell, nearly clifflike, within a few inches of each foot as I walked — Matanuska Peak and McRoberts valley to the right, the Talkeetna mountains way off to the left. I opened an ammo can tucked behind an American flag anchored in rocks a short, careful skitter to the right, signed and passed to Audra the summit log inside and then we shot a few congratulatory photos.

My friends started walking down, picking up packs and poles they’d left on the ground just below the narrow ridge.

I stayed a little longer, clambering up the tumble of rocks at the summit. The air was so icy I could barely feel my ungloved hands, but the western sky blazed as the sun crept lower, hidden beyond strips of cloud.

Daddy is gone. My mother drives his Buick SUV to the cemetery every day because she still can’t bear to think of him being alone there, without her. Nina wrote a letter to him, which we tucked into the little casket drawer before he was buried, ending with this sentence (exactly as she wrote it): “Could you try to communicate with us even if its just a little noise.”

I thought back 11 years, when I called my parents to tell them I was pregnant with Nina. Daddy was sad, returning from his aunt’s funeral in Oklahoma, so I told him first.

The sun slowly plunged, emerging below the clouds, igniting Knik Arm and searing the heavens with vibrant saffron and coral and purple.

I snapped some pictures and started down, my metal shoe spikes clicking and sliding against the rocks. I remember Daddy’s exultant voice on that long-ago day — what he said then and what I imagine he would have exclaimed while soaking in this spectacular sunset.

“Wonderful!”

Keeping kids safe during a hike

We were nearing the 4,800-foot top of snow-streaked April Bowl on the Fourth of July when Lisa noticed a dot moving slowly across the lush green valley far below and outside the steep-walled mountain basin where we stood.

It wasn’t a bear—the dot’s gait looked human—but that’s about all we could discern from that distance. We stood in the frigid wind, watching and wondering why a hiker would be approaching the steepest, tallest part of the trail ridge from that direction, when the wind paused and we heard what sounded like crying and a scream: “Daddy!”

Why was a child wandering alone in a deserted, secluded area of Hatcher Pass, especially in cold, windy weather? Perhaps the parent who had been caring for the child fell or—scary possibility—maybe a bear or wolf attacked the adult. That was one of our first thoughts.

Lisa and I immediately rushed down the rocky and then tundra-caped slope, waving, calling and keeping the still-moving dot in sight.

The dot was, indeed, a child. He was a 7-year-old boy—we’ll call him Jon—who had come to Hatcher Pass in a white van with his dad and a big group of people.

Jon’s dad and the others with him planned to hike up April Bowl. Despite snow along the route that was obvious from the trailhead parking lot, Jon wasn’t wearing a hat or coat—just sweatpants, sneakers, T-shirt, a thin cotton sweatshirt and thin gloves. The adults with him wore similar clothing.

The weather became more chilly and windy as the trail ascended. Jon grew cold, so he huddled in the shelter of a low crescent-shaped wall made of rocks, part of the way up the Bowl, while his dad and others in the group hiked on to April Bowl’s highest point, Hatch Peak.

Somehow the group split into two groups, and each group thought the other group was taking care of Jon.

No one was taking care of Jon, however. He had felt so cold he decided to leave his rocky windbreak and make his way down to the van. He did not go back down the trail, and didn’t realize when he descended the steep slope outside April Bowl that he was heading in the opposite direction from his dad’s van, into wilderness.

Lisa and I earlier had passed Jon’s dad and his group, as well as the other group, while trudging up the first segment of the ridge trail.

Jon seemed unhurt when we reached him. He wasn’t hungry or thirsty, but did say he was very cold.

We quickly put a warm hat on his head and had him don a windproof, insulated coat one of us had been wearing— it covered most of his legs and the sleeves dangled almost to the ground, but at least Jon was protected from the freezing wind.

We guided him back up the steep side of the Bowl ridge and asked him for his dad’s phone number. Jon didn’t know what it was.

We could see the parking area northwest of us, so far away the people there appeared as dot-like as Jon had looked earlier. Several dots were milling around next to a wee white van. We could see, all the way down the cirque as far as the waterfall area, that no one was scurrying up the trail.

We guided Jon down, helping him negotiate the loose rocks and sloping snowfield in our path. The three of us were off the ridge and in the “bowl” of April Bowl when we saw a man with a trio of friends bee-lining for the trail we had just left.

Relief flooded the man’s face when he saw his little boy, safe.

Lisa and I each have young children and we frequently take them hiking.

Our encounter with Jon reminded us how critical it is to properly supervise children on a hiking outing. It also reminded us how important it is to teach children what they need to know if they get lost and what items they need to wear and have with them to be prepared for the unexpected.

Some tips:

• Don’t assume someone else is taking care of your child. If a large group is hiking, check to be sure each child in the group is assigned to a specific and reliable adult who will be responsible for keeping track of that child. Tell each child which adult they should be staying close to.

• Count heads at the beginning and end of a hike and check frequently during a hike to be sure each child is accounted for. Consider getting walkie-talkies so different groups or people can communicate during an outing, when cell phones might not be usable.

• Have an adult act as “sweep” during the outing, hiking at the very back of the group to be sure no children lagging behind get separated.

• Teach a child his parents’ names and phone numbers. He should also know his address. If a child is very young, attach that information to the inside of his jacket before going hiking.

• Have the child wear noncotton layers of clothing. If it’s cold, he should have long underwear, warm hat and gloves, pants and shirt, a fleece, a windproof jacket and pants and, if it’s very frigid outside, a down or otherwise insulated coat. Cotton won’t keep a child warm if it gets wet or sweaty.

• Have the child carry a small backpack or fanny pack. My daughter, now 10, wore a Camelbak-style fanny pack when she was younger and graduated to a school-sized pack with waist belt and sternum strap last year. In it she carries a long-underwear shirt or fleece, rainproof shell, extra socks sealed in a Ziploc bag, snacks in a Ziploc or Tupperware-type container, Nalgene bottle of water, warm hat and gloves, adhesive bandages in a Ziploc, headlamp, small plastic garbage bag, bug dope towelettes and a whistle.

• A child is usually taught to stay put as soon as he realizes he is lost, to wait for someone to find him. Jon didn’t do this; he was fortunate someone just happened to look down and in his direction at the right moment while he was wandering, lost.

• Kids need the adults who are caring for them to hike prepared. Adults should dress properly and bring water, food, first-aid supplies and extra clothing that anticipates Alaska’s shifting conditions—expect warm weather to quickly turn cold, rainy, sleety, even snowy.

• And the most important tip: Teach children basic survival skills: examples include why it’s not a good idea to drink water from a stream, how to put together a makeshift shelter, using a whistle to summon help, what to do if they see a bear or other animal.

Spending a time-pressed Lazy afternoon with kids

Looking up the Lazy Mountain trail, not far above the trailhead.

My daughter and I were spending yet another afternoon at the rink when I thought, “Gosh, it would be so nice to be climbing Lazy right now.” We decided we’d go the next morning, along with my hiking companion Lisa Rodgers’ daughter, Bristol, who was sleeping over.

We had delays, though. Despite my efforts to plow away gust-blown snow before bedtime, the wind spent the entire night whipping up a tall, solidly compacted, beautiful, but very unwanted sculpture across our driveway. So, I plowed for a while without making much headway and then called in a pro who had better machinery and expertise.

Then we had to go to a parent-teacher conference. An hour after that, we finally made it to the Lazy Mountain trailhead. It was after 2:30 p.m. and we had to eat, change clothes, grab Nina’s hockey bag from home and get to hockey practice back at the rink by 5:15 – no way we’d make it to the top of Lazy on that day, but perhaps we could get to the halfway-point picnic table and back down in time.

Nina and Bristol donned their coats, hats and mittens and I helped them with their Kahtoola spikes and Yaktrax ice grippers. They each carried poles and wore a pack with water and snacks inside.

We started up the trail, passing the right-side turnoff for the more switch-backed but longer Lazy Moose trail — where we saw a calf moose and its peeved mother every time we hiked there last summer.

Within minutes, in the first stand of birch trees, we stopped because Nina felt hot and wanted to put her coat in her pack.

Nina and Bristol pose on the lower part of Lazy Mountain trail.

There were tracks on the snowy path and the footing was terrific on the less-steep areas — much better than hiking Lazy in the summer, I thought. On inclines, we each had to lean forward a bit, putting weight on the balls of our feet and using our poles to push ourselves up the more slippery areas.

We walked past skeletal trees and continued up. There were steeper areas, but we found that someone had helpfully walked up the left side of some inclines and the right side of others, leaving helpful “stairstep” tracks for us to use.

The trail was very easy for me, with only a few spots where the snow was sloggy enough to make snowshoes handy. Fortunately, those spots were tiny, because we didn’t bring along snowshoes! The girls managed well also but needed more time. We needed to use the gloves and hats we brought, even though the wind was only slight and intermittent in the more open snowfields on the way up the trail. What a pleasant surprise, after all that wind we’ve had out at our house!

We could see Palmer and the Matanuska River shortly after we started climbing. As we got higher, a view of Pioneer Peak opened up to our left, to the south. On the right, north, we could see the panorama of the Talkeetna Range and to the east we could see Lazy’s false summits, with people-dots moving up the trail far above us.

A false summit of Lazy Mountain, seen from the lower part of the trail.

We made it up that last steep section before the picnic table but did not have time to actually go to the table, since we had reached our latest turnaround time for returning to the trailhead.

The girls trudge uphill on the Lazy Mountain trail.

The girls hike up a steeper area of the lower trail on Lazy.

Looking up the Lazy Mountain trail, again.

The girls sat on the trail and carefully butt-glissaded as much as they could, squealing and laughing and using their poles as brakes. On less-steep parts of the trail we were able to run down.

We were back to the truck by 4:30, and eating Carrs sushi at quarter to 5.

If you plan to try Lazy in winter, it would probably be more enjoyable for you and for them if you left little children with a sitter. The two girls with me, both 10 years old, have hiked quite often — Nina has climbed to the top of Lazy more than once, using the old and new trails, and Bristol has climbed to the top of Lazy via the Lazy Moose trail— yet both struggled a bit on the steeper segments of the trail.

Other tips:

• Wear spikes or ice grippers on your boots. If you opt for ice grippers, tie them together across the top or buy the kind that have a Velcro strap that holds them on.

• Use poles if you have them. They’ll help get you up the steeper parts on the way up and your knees will love them on the way down.

• Dress in light, non-cotton layers you can don and remove as necessary. We sweated on the steep parts but were able to quickly throw on a warm layer when we hit the breezy snowfields. You should take along a warm hat, gloves, scarf and a mask or balaclava as well. Conditions above the picnic table can often get quite cold and windy, even in the summer months.

Pioneer Peak appears as the view opens up to the south, on the Lazy Mountain trail.

• Bring plenty of water and food — things like sandwiches, Clif bars, trail mix, peanut M&Ms, fruit — especially if you plan to go all the way to the top of Lazy.

• Strap snowshoes to your pack, because negotiating drifts and wafts of snow on the false summits past the picnic table will likely be more fun if you have them.

• Bring along a charged cell phone and first-aid supplies, just in case.

• Stay far away from moose and other wildlife you might see.

How to get to the trailhead:

From Palmer, take Arctic Avenue east; it will turn into the Old Glenn Highway after you cross the Matanuska River bridge. About a mile or so down the road, turn left on Clark-Wolverine Road (there will be a sign on the right before you have to turn). Follow the road to a “T” intersection, turn right. Take the road, now known as Huntley Road, almost to the end. That’s where you turn right into the Lazy Mountain trailhead parking area. There is an arch marking the start of the trail. If you want an easier hike, take the trail until you see the sign for Lazy Moose trail, which gradually switchbacks up the mountain to the halfway-point picnic table.

The Talkeetna Mountains are located northwest of Lazy Mountain.

Finding a partner to hike happy with

It’s easy to remember the day, even the moment, when I knew Lisa Rodgers and I would “click” as hiking partners.

Lisa had just started hiking, last spring, and we and another friend, Lori Roberts, had decided to take all of our kids up the new Lazy Moose trail on Lazy Mountain. Lisa and I didn’t know each other very well yet. Our daughters had been in the same second and third grade classes and were starting to develop a closer friendship, so Lisa and I were beginning to talk more to each other.

We hiked up the switchbacks, zigging and zagging and stopping a couple of times to let the kids drink some water. We reached the picnic table and continued up the false summits. I looked down the slope at Lisa, who was trudging upward next to her oldest daughter. Neither looked happy, which is normal on a first-time Lazy hike – slogging up those false summits is tedious, and it seems to take forever to move past them.

Finally, we approached the true summit. The wind was blowing hard, so Lisa, Lori and I deposited all the kids in a safe, sheltered area nearby and picked our way across a narrow rocky area to the top. Lori offered to take our picture, so Lisa and I clambered up onto the rocks and posed exultantly, thumbs-up.

We looked at each other and I just had this feeling about Lisa – that she and I felt the same thrill of accomplishing that hike, the same awe about seeing our stunning surroundings from a rocky perch, the same playfulness and kid-like adventurous joy about hiking on a mountain. There was also a deeper intuition that she would be reliable, smart, and solidly prepared if I ever needed her help in the mountains or in life, and that intuition has proved to be correct.

In late summer, I was lucky to find an additional hiking companion with an adventurous spirit, determination, and a kindred taste for Radiohead and Butte winter sunrises and sunsets – Audra Matolka. Audra and I first hiked together in September, climbing Matanuska Peak with Audra’s hiking partner, Rourka Spatz. Then, when cold, windy weather first seeped into the Valley, Audra hiked with Lisa and me up the Butte and then continued going there with me when Lisa hit a busy patch at work.

Audra Matolka takes a quick break just before we emerge from the Butte's switchbacks on a below-freezing day.

The intrepid Rourka Spatz celebrates after scaling Matanuska Peak in September with her hiking partner, Audra Matolka, and me.

It’s not hard to find willing, fun men and women to hike with. I’ve been fortunate enough to venture out at different times with  experienced hikers –  Jeanette, Connie, Rachel G., Rosalie, Lori, Eowyn, Susie and Julie are just a few  names that immediately spring to mind. Those women accompanied me on beautiful trails in Southcentral Alaska and provided the best of hiking role models for me and my daughter.

There are also terrific local hiking groups that schedule regular outings. The Happy Hikers and Valley Wanderers are two of the women’s hiking groups with even more personable, experienced women who like to hike. Valley Mountain Bikers & Hikers is a  fantastic (dues-based) organization for people who love to be outdoors. And of course there are Meetup groups throughout Southcentral Alaska that can be located online.

If you’re looking someone to hike with, it’s critical to be sure the two of you (or you and the group) have compatible goals and somewhat compatible skill levels. It’s also good to have some kind of acquaintance with a hiking companion before you first set out for an excursion, especially if it will be an all-day or longer foray.

One of my friends learned this the hard way.

In mountains near Palmer, she encountered a couple of women who were hiking and they struck up a conversation. My friend and one of those women decided to meet the following morning for a rather difficult mountain hike. The other woman turned out to be extremely athletic and viewed hiking as something to be done as competitively and fast as possible.

She cast an appraising eye at my friend’s clothes and backpack before dashing off up the trail with her two teenage children. My friend scurried to keep up. The woman didn’t stop to take pictures or marvel at the view. She and the teens sped up the mountain and then started back, passing my friend on the way down.  That woman didn’t wait. Saying that one of her teen children felt chilly (even though it was a warm day for that time of year), she kept going and left my friend to hike alone.

Here is what my friend – and I, by extension – learned from that demoralizing experience:

It is CRITICAL to know something about a prospective hiking partner before setting out on a hike.

Has the person hiked before? Do you have similar skill levels? What do both of you expect of a hike? You might want to be out in nature, drinking in the views and taking frequent breaks for sketching, shooting pictures, picking berries, while her only goal is to burn as many calories in as short a time as possible. Or, you might be an experienced hiker who can easily manage rocky or unstable terrain while your prospective partner is more accustomed to ambling on level, flat ground. I’ve enjoyed the challenge of hiking with more-experienced hikers, but have also seen how mismatched skill levels can lead to frustration. It can even be dangerous if you end up shepherding an inexperienced or out-of-shape hiker off a mountain, especially if they’ve ended up injured due to their inexperience or inadequate gear.

Do you know your prospective hiking partner enough to be able to trust him or her to stay reasonably nearby while you are hiking?  Rourka was generally out in front of Audra and me when we climbed Matanuska Peak, but was kind enough to let us know she would be hiking at a faster pace (though close enough to still be “with” us).  The hike was difficult, time-consuming and sometimes discouraging, but it seemed that the three of us had similar skill levels and worked well together getting to the top and back. Again, Rourka impressed me with how kind she was, loyally assisting and staying close by Audra when Audra’s feet were experiencing pain on the way down.

Does your prospective hiking partner know what to wear and what to bring, to be properly prepared on a hike?  My friend said the woman she had the misfortune to hike with bragged about how she prefers to “hike light” in the mountains – without the nuisance of water bottles/Camelbaks, food or extra clothes – and appeared to look down on my friend’s  hiking clothes and pack. My friend’s gear was more than adequate for that hike, however.

The latest, most gimmicky clothing and gear isn’t essential for hiking, though it *can* be lighter, higher quality, more ingeniously designed. It’s easy to find inexpensive *noncotton* clothing at the local thrift and consignment stores; wear or bring layers so you can don or doff clothes as temperatures and weather conditions shift. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating – here are other things you and a prospective hiking buddy should be aware of, regarding necessary gear:

• Wear boots or shoes that are familiar and appropriate for the hiking conditions.

• You should wear a backpack or fanny pack, to keep your hands free for safety reasons. It’s good if your backpack has a hip belt and chest strap, to better support the weight you’re carrying and keep it from shifting around at inopportune times.

• Be sure you have an ample supply of water (or something to purify water), food, extra warm clothes (with a waterproof layer as well as a warm hat and gloves), headlamp, charged cell or satellite phone, first aid and route-finding supplies and items you can use to improvise a shelter and keep warm, in case you get lost, injured or simply find yourself outdoors longer than you planned. It’s nicer to hike without a load to carry but Alaska’s conditions can be dangerous and even deadly if you venture out unprepared.

Can you count on your prospective hiking partner to be a solid, contributing partner during your outing? Does he or she know the right things to do if you get sick or injured, or if the two of you encounter a bear or other wildlife? Will that person stay with you until you are safely back at the trailhead?

Again, try to get to know or at least observe or learn about the behavior you might expect of a person before hiking with him or her. The woman my friend hiked with *seemed* responsible. While we don’t socialize with the same people, I’ve frequently seen her out and about in Palmer. She was experienced enough in hiking to see that my friend was less experienced and (though in good shape) not quite as athletic, yet she *chose*  to unexpectedly leave my friend alone in the mountains in the early evening, with no other people in sight, most likely a bear or two out of sight and hours left to hike before reaching her car. Someone who would do that is not trustworthy – as a hiking partner or otherwise.

Fortunately, my friend had a cell phone and was able to recount her plight to a couple of other friends who hadn’t been hiking that day but cared enough to grab fresh snacks and cold water and rush up that trail at dusk to meet her.

Who do you hike with, and why? What tips do you have for choosing a hiking partner? And, what experiences – good and bad – have you had out on the trails with the long- and short-term hiking partners you’ve chosen?

What we’d like to see under our tree

Since the last time Lisa and I blogged, we and our friends have been busily zipping up and down the Butte…on below-zero days, snowstormy days and on seriously windy days. So far, since Oct. 30, I’ve clocked 21 round trips on the Butte. Lisa made it up there several times before her job swept her off to California and other not-as-exotic locales (a Realtors get-together and work, here in the 907). Our friend Audra has been cranking out the Butte climbs as well, 17 as of the end of November, at last count.

Audra Matolka, an adept multitasker, hiked in cold and wind and sloggy snow at the Butte while brainstorming holiday hiking gift ideas.

So, my friends and I have had many opportunities during those hikes in changing weather and snow conditions to talk about clothes and gear that would have been nice to have on each of those excursions, or that we each would like to give and receive during the upcoming holiday.

One thing tops the list for each of us: Kahtoola Microspikes, the item that for me has transformed winter from the exclusive province of skiing, snowshoeing and fat- or studded-tire biking into a season where it’s still possible to safely hike the Butte and be back in Palmer to retrieve kids from school on time.

We love Microspikes!  I have a pair, bought another pair for my daughter and just might get some for my outdoorsy husband. Lisa wants Microspikes; Audra tried my daughter’s and now wants a pair, too.  My friend Rachel loves running in her Microspikes and wore them on our recent sloppy Sunday trip up the Butte. Another friend, Eowyn, wore my daughter’s pair that same day and easily made it up and back. Three other women who regularly hike the Butte in winter swear by their Microspikes.

Microspikes make winter hiking safer and more fun. They're $60 at REI.

Microspikes cost $60 and can be found upstairs in REI’s shoe department. They’re a little spendy, but as mentioned in a previous blog entry, they are sturdy, stay where they’re supposed to, grip on ice, mud and other questionable terrain and are much cheaper than a hospital bill for a slip-and-fall incident. They would be a terrific gift for anyone you know who runs, walks or hikes in icy conditions or in other places where it’s possible to lose footing, places where crampons would be overkill.

We also like Yaktrax Pro, which are Yaktrax with a strap that fastens over the top of the foot, keeping the rubber-and-metal coil device from popping off your boots as they sometimes do. These cost about $30. You can find them at REI and I saw them in one of the aisles at Fred Meyer in Palmer today.

Lisa and Audra have both put backpacks on their holiday wish lists. Lisa wants a daypack for treks in mountains around our Valley, as well as a larger-scale pack she can use on a serious hike, like the formidable 26-mile Crow Pass trail hike between Eagle River and Girdwood. Audra just wants a daypack. REI has some nice packs in the store’s 30-percent-off sale right now, and some even have features like rain covers or space for a water bladder.

A pretty Deuter ACT Trail 28 SL women's pack, $129

A thoughtful touch: Tuck a few goodies inside the pack — things that might include a few of the following: windproof matches or lighter, Coghlan’s fire-starter paste, pen (for jotting your name in summit registers), lip balm with sunscreen (good to use even in winter), bandaids and moleskin inside a small  Ziploc bag, headlamp, new pair of hiking socks stowed inside a Ziploc, bandana, water bottle, Clif bars or similar packaged trail snack and perhaps a couple of kitchen-size garbage bags (useful to cover a pack in rainy weather, sit on if the ground is wet or you can use them to stow wet or muddy clothes or boots after a hike).

We’ve listed below an assortment of other hiking-related things to give or get or think about. Some we own or have tried; several of the items would be nice stocking-stuffers — we like “wrapping” the little things inside colorful bandanas ($3.50 at places like REI and Sportsman’s Warehouse) that are also useful to have along while hiking.

• Water purifier, and water-purification tablets as a backup

• Hiking pants and jackets of various brands and types – not cotton! Fleece or windproof/waterproof but breathable jackets are great. Pants that convert into shorts or capris with the swish of cleverly designed zippers are also useful. Snow or ski pants are my pick for winter hiking.

• Gift cards to places like REI or Alaska Mountaineering and Hiking or Palmer’s own Backcountry Bike and Ski. My friend Carla prefers gift cards for online places like Title 9, Athleta or Safari, since she likes their outdoor/hiking pullovers.

• Leki shock-absorbing adjustable hiking poles: These have helped brake descents and relieve the wear and tear my knees usually experience while hiking down steep trails, provide stability during stream crossings (especially for kids) and are great to lean on when trudging uphill.

Leki Khumbu Aergon SpeedLock trekking poles, $69.93 (Dec. 8 REI sale price), usually $99.95

• Patagonia merino-wool long underwear (with quarter-zip shirt) or lightweight wool bras and underpants

• Pen and journal that can be used even if conditions are wet

• Metal or BPA-free plastic water bottles

Liberty Bottleworks Lisa Rivas Essence aluminum water bottle, $16

• Outdoor Research Aurora bivy sack: one and a half pounds of peace of mind to have along on hikes that last longer than planned, about $200.

• MSR Lightning Ascent snowshoes

• Lightweight portable shovel (I’ve borrowed one of these from my husband to shovel snow and ice off the stairs at the Butte, and want my own!)

• Headlamps and batteries

• Waterproofed topographic maps

• Compass and instruction book

• Alaska hiking guidebooks : “55 Ways to the Wilderness in Southcentral Alaska” by Helen Nienhueser and John Wolfe Jr., “Hiking Alaska” by Dean Littlepage, “A Walk About Guide to Alaska” by Shawn Lyons, either for Palmer and Hatcher Pass or for the Chugach Mountains. Another book we like: “Field Guide to Alaskan Wildflowers” by Verna Pratt.

• GPS

• Pepper spray with holster

• SmartWool hiking socks

• Small but well-equipped first-aid kit

• Jetboil cooking systems: You can even get a Jetboil system that’s built around a coffee press! The systems cost about $100 at REI, Sportsman’s Warehouse and other outdoor-oriented stores and websites.

Jetboil Flash Java Kit, $100

• CamelBak reservoir drinking system

• Gloves or mittens that are waterproof or water-resistant, or glove liners

• Balaclava

• Keen, Sorel or The North Face winter boots

• Leatherman multitool

• Lightweight cooking supplies and utensils

• Small binoculars

• Lightweight sleeping bag and pad: down is warmer but synthetic is the way to go if conditions might be wet on a more-than-a-day hike.

• Gaiters: Keep snow or rocks out of your boots.

• Neos overboots, which I wear over running shoes, hiking boots or even Ugg boots when it’s really, really cold, or when a trail has sloppy, wet conditions. Tony at Backcountry Bike and Ski first told me about these when I couldn’t find anything to keep my  feet warm while riding my bike in winter. They’ve been well worth the $80+ I spent on them at Alaska Mountaineering and Hiking. There are a range of styles for Neos, with prices between $60-$130, approximately.

• Whistles on lanyards, for kids to have along on hikes

• Chemical hand and toe warmer packets

• Finally, our list of possibilities ends with something most hikers would find convenient: an annual day-use parks pass sticker to display on the windshield, covering parking at Mat-Su Borough ($30, with a second pass costing $20, http://www.matsugov.us/communitydevelopment/parks) or Alaska State Parks ($40, with a second pass costing $20, http://dnr.alaska.gov/parks/asp/fees.htm).

Got any ideas? We’d love to hear what hiking gear you want or are giving this holiday season, and why you want it!

Hope you have a hiking-happy holiday!

Audra stands on top of the Butte, with the western sky in the background.