AK Fall: Best if Enjoyed in Moderation

Psst. I have a secret. I kind of like fall in Southcentral Ak.
It’s an acquired taste for sure. Perhaps not the sweetest of autumn vintages – can anything compete with Indian summer during peak foliage in New England?
Alaska fall is not something that can, or should be consumed in any great quantity, but it is sweet, even if not long to be savored.
Sometime during the endless daylight of the summer the solstice, I awake from sleep – already a scarce commodity – and lay awake in the burning light of 4 am, having just dreamt that the short summer had already ended, and darkness was returning. It’s part a horror, part a wish.
This summer was hot, dry, and awesome. I got a lot of time in the saddle. Too much? As the day’s waned, and nights grew, I had to admit, I was looking forward to a break, and a change in pace.

Res-Devils

I caught two great rides on the Kenai with Nathan A. First on the list was the Res-Devils Loop on the last weekend and the last Sunday of August. Both of us had just wrapped up from the Trifecta races, so the legs were tired, and some very light overnight showers Saturday put a dusting of snow on the ridgelines and provided plenty of inspiration.
Despite this, the trail was still dry, and while there wasn’t much foliage to speak of down low, colors in the passes were approaching peak.

 

Overlooking Kenai Lake.

Juneau Lake.

Love this section.

Swan Lake

Bone dry, blue skies, bright color.

Snow on the ridges.

Looking back to the Pass from Hope overlook.

Russian Loop

I expected to spend a bit more time on Russian this fall than I ended up realizing, so in retrospect, I’m really glad we snagged this ride over Labor Day. The weather wasn’t particularly stunning, and admittedly colors weren’t quite peaking yet, but with this trail fully brushed out, it was hard to complain.

Kenai Lake break.

Cloudy reflections.

Burning fireweed below Cooper Peak.

 

Running
The fact that I run is a well-kept secret. I actually run quite a bit for someone who identifies as a cyclist. That doesn’t mean I’m strong, or fast, but there are some great over-land runs to be had in AK, and this is my time of year to branch out. I hadn’t been on Summit Creek Trail since 2013, and hadn’t been over the Summit Creek/East Creek Pass since 2009. Adam was an awesome sport and joined me for a run to the col between East Creek and Resurrection Pass. From there, we turned southward and followed the ridgeline upward and eventually back around to a high col the leads to a hidden tarn just a bit below and east of the East Creek/Summit Creek Pass.

 

Looking down to East Creek/Summit Creek Pass.

Looking for goats. None sighted.

An after work run on McHugh Peak with Lee. Photo L.M.

Crow Pass Skiing

A typical wet fall storm parked over the region early in September delivering rain for 13 days straight. Somehwere toward the end of that deluge, temps dropped and snow started stacking up above Hatcher Pass and Crow Pass. I knew the window might open, and on Friday the 18^th, I slid my bedroom shades back, planning to go to work, only to be greeted by blue skies and an incredibly low snow line.
I was grateful I’d put my ski gear away ready to go, and quickly packed my bag and went down to the garage to scrape the off-season storage wax from my bases while scarfing down eggs and bacon.
There were a few inches of sopping-wet snow clinging to the leafy alders at the Crow Pass Trail Head, and I needed my storm shell to keep dry as the warm morning sun turned the trail into a cold, wet, collapsed alder obstacle course. I was stupid enough to beat anyone else up to the pass, and from the waterfalls upward, ended up breaking the skinner in about 2 feet or more heavy fresh, underlain by a solid but saturated base. Clouds moved in as I climbed, but moved in and out at rapid intervals, providing easy windows to ski through. A few others showed up later, and I ended up doing two runs. A third would have been nice, but I didn’t have confidence the clouds would keep up their intervals. I skied all the way back to the top of the falls without tagging a single rock: Easily the deepest skiing I’ve done in September or October.

 

Looks more like winter than mid-September.

The Summit Glacier has suffered in the heat. The cracks are big.

Burma Road Loop

I really enjoy road riding in the Valley during the shoulder seasons, but I’ve stuck to Palmer and Butte on these rides. I’d wanted to check out a loop in the Knik/Point Mackenzie/Big Lake area that included a long chunk of dirt on Burma Road. I’d Burma was a good road, and Phil was up for an adventure. As with most other Valley riding, it was really pleasant. We parked at the Wal-Mart, and traffic was pretty light, and generally very respectful. A lot of the main roads in the valley have parallel bike paths, but unlike Anchorage, where these paths cross hundreds of driveways and side streets where the right-of-way is ambiguous, in the Valley these intersections are far less frequent. That being said, theese paths also tend to be covered in loose rocks kicked up by ATVs and quads, so they can be a mixed blessing. Burma Road itself though was excellent: good flow, narrow, rolling, winding, and well packed. There were two very large puddles at the south end. Phil, on his cross bike, rode through both. I was on the road bike with its 25C slick tires, I made it through the first but portaged the second. Other than that, both bikes were equally adept at this ride, though it was pavement heavy, and I think slicks and taller gears were optimal.

Knik Arm.

Burma Road.

For real?

 

Cyclocross

I’ve been helping out with the Arctic Cross cyclocross race series the past few falls. I don’t have a burning desire to race cross for a number of reasons excuses, starting with the fact that I’m a wuss; but I do like watching cross racing since you can often see a good chunk of the course from a single point, and more importantly, I like hanging out with my friends. We added an event this year so we now have three adult races, plus a short kids race, and cross has gone from being a half-day event with maybe 50 people to basically a full-day activity with 125-200 entrants!
One day, for giggles, I stuck my Garmin in my pocket and let it run while I, umm, ran around, setting up the course, timing, and taking the course back down: I logged about 6 miles over 6-7 hours. It was neat to see. Fortunately, a lot of people pitch in, otherwise that number would be a lot higher!
Photos from the season: LINK

 

CX T-REX.

Do nothing

As winter turns into spring, the days get longer, and so with it, the activity list. Some of the biggest ski missions of the year come by a defacto in March-May thanks to better weather, deeper snow, and the need to chase that cold and deep snow into the higher elevations. At the same time, road riding, and soon enough, mountain biking ramp up and there’s a pressing need to start putting in more time on the saddle. Suffice to say, the spring shoulder season isn’t really a shoulder season at all. I’m OK with that, but I’m a firm believer in doing a big-block recovery, and I’m not talking about a recovery ride or mellow day, I’m talking about a real block. Some folks fret about how boring fall is here and how there’s nothing to do. I say: embrace it, take a rest.

Get out

The leaves have dropped, the sun is noticeably lower, but the snow line seems stagnant. Get out of town, get out of state, get out of country…more on that later:

6:30am in LAX Ted Bradley...

Tom's Visit

It took my former riding buddy and college teammate Tom 7 years to make it up to AK for a bike ride.

WANNA RIDE BIKES!?

OK, in fairness, Tom has been living and working in some of the country’s most scenic and spectacular National Parks though out those years.

Still, Tom and I went 6 whole years between our last ride on the east coast at Kingdom Trails a day or two before I left for the north, and our eventual re-union in SoCal last fall.

A few months later, Tom gave me a pretty awesome tour of Yellowstone National Park when I was visiting the area last January, and when I finally got him to commit to a visit to AK, I knew I had to pull out the stops for his visit.

Initially, I had thought a road trip to Whitehorse, followed by a short trip to the Kenai for some fishing, was in order. The road trip would provide a great view of the giant state, and I’ve yet to hear someone say something disparaging about the Yukon riding.

We did have some time limitations though, and despite this being an epic summer rarely wetted by rains, Tom of course picked the one week rain seemed sure to fall.

Multiple sources said the Whitehorse trails rode well in the rain, and I don’t doubt that, but driving 24 hours roundtrip to ride and camp in the rain just didn’t add up, especially considering how dry the trails where here.

I decided we would roll the dice and stay local, ride in the rain if we had to (we did), but at least have access to hot showers, an indoor hangout, and local knowledge of the weather patterns and trails (hey, we also did).

Aside from all this, I can’t help but feel boastful of the ScAk trails, and wanted Tom to see them, not some system a full day’s drive off.

Without question, that was the right call.

The first two days of Tom’s trip were gray and wet. We rode Hillside in the rain, and splashed through puddles in Kincaid during a couple hour lull in the precip the following day. The nice thing, is that as noted, the trails were so dry this year, they never got muddy, and dried instantly.

By day three, what had been a gloomy forecast began to change: the sun was coming out, and conditions were looking to be spectacular.

I wanted to take Tom up to the Valley and ride Keppler-Bradley and GPRA, but the storm system was lingering in the north, while gorgeous blue skies broke over Anchorage.

For the first time in days, Tom saw the Front Range, along with the snow-capped Tordrillos across the Inlet.

As it turned out, Anchorage was not secretly located near Fargo, as Tom had been beginning to suspect.

We rode Kincaid again, joined by Joe. As I expected, Tom loved the trails there, and didn't mind hitting them twice.

 

 

The next day Tom and I loaded up the Suby and headed south to base camp at Braun’s cabin and ride the Kenai.

The Chugach National Forest had just finished brushing out the Russian Lakes Trail the previous week, bringing this normally spring and fall only trail into the fold waaaaay early. I explained to Tom beforehand that this was a real bonus to have this ride on the table in mid-August, but I’m pretty sure he would have figured that out on his own as I freaked out about a dozen times on-trail.

We rode the Russian Loop, and as hoped, the well-drained trail was mud- and veg-free. When we passed where the trails runs along the river bank around mile 8, we could see hundreds of bright red sockeye swimming in the current below.

 

Heading over the outlet of Kenai Lake. Photo T.A.

Stopped for a snack on a beach on Kenai Lake.

Photo T.A.

Hanging out on the shore of Upper Russian Lake

Photo: T.A.

Upper Russian Lake Cabin

Blooming Fireweed in the avalanche meadows on the way out

  

The next day we headed toward Seward to do the Lost Lake Loop. Again, we had perfect blue bird skies and a gentle south wind to keep it cool.

As we finished up the 7-mile Primrose section of the Iditarod Trail, I asked Tom if he wanted to take the straightforward and easy route down the highway to re-connect with Lost Lake Trail, or go ride the Bear Lake section of Iditarod – explaining that the latter was hilly, loamy, not always flowy, and that a 2,000 foot climb still lay ahead.

Tom gave me a confused look.

I tried again: “Easy or hard?”

“Hard,” Tom said.

I was stoked. I know a lot of people pass up on this section, but that’s really their loss.

We stopped once on our way to Bear Lake to gobble up the abundant and fat blueberries that lined the trail, before making the surfy descent into Seward. The shore-side segment of the trail is super technical, and I knew Tom was probably going to want to session some of the features.

He agreed that this stretch is probably the closest thing in Alaska we have to the type of riding he and I did in college, at least, as far as the density of technical features.

As we neared the south end of the lake, we passed over the small inlet stream, and hung around a while to watch up and close as salmon battled each other for mates.

A little while later we were riding high into the alpine of the Lost Lake plateau.

Big shocker, but this did not disappoint. I think my favorite moment was when we reached the top of the plateau just before the lake comes into view. Tom took a ton of photos to the south toward Resurrection Bay.

I let him make a couple comments about how spectacular the view was, and how it couldn’t possibly get better, then we rolled 100 yards across the flat plateau until the lake and the bay were both in full view. I had to ask if he was sure about they view.

Post-ride fried halibut to-go, enjoyed down by the water was in order after descending Primrose.

 

Tom and I have very different pre- and post-ride routines. For example, pre-ride, Tom likes to wheelie, bunny hop, and skid around the parking lot, while I like to chill, stretch, and prep. Post-ride, Tom likes to fall off his bike and hope the gods deliver him a giant pizza, while I like to wheelie, bunny hop, and skid around the parking lot...OK, well, maybe I did some of the latter just to get back at him. I was really glad to take this shot before setting off on LLL though.

Lots of blueberries

Lots.

Tom took a few attempts, but finally rode the bridge...no salmon were harmed.

Photo: T.A.

Favorite shot of the trip. Photo: T.A.

 

Friday dawned with high gray clouds, but the forecast only hinted at a slight chance of rain.

I had really hoped to do a Devils-Cooper shuttle, but could not arrange a shuttle, and doing the loop wasn’t too high on the list after five days of consecutive riding. The backup plan was to ride up Devils and through Res to the Hope overlook, maybe descend to East Creek if we had the legs, and then turn around.

The weather had other plans. Hypothermia rain started to fall right as we got to Devils Pass, and knowing the Hope overlook view would be pretty unspectacular, we decided to go hang out in the shelter of the Devils Pass Cabin for a while.

As it was, the rain really wasn’t falling too hard, and it didn’t take us long to descend out of the wind.

After 3 days of AK blue bird, Tom said he appreciated seeing a slight dose of reality in terms of what the weather could dish out.

The trail was great even wet though, Devils is already well drained to begin with, and given the dryness this year, didn’t even form any puddles.

 

No pics from a rainy day but Tom made this cool slow-mo video.

 

We headed to fish camp that evening to spend Saturday working the UR fishing event. The tournament went smoother than it ever has, and I appreciated Tom’s willingness to chip in and drive a shuttle. Tom got real familiar with my old commute to work (I mean, he’s fairly qualified at driving vans after all), all in return for a little fresh halibut and salmon. Good deal huh?

That evening, just before I was about to call it a night, walking through the dark between one of the out buildings and the lodge, I looked up to see the northern lights blazing across the sky. I ran in and got Tom up, and we hung out on the dock for an hour while they put on a hell of a show.

 

Double rainbows over camp. Photo: T.A.

No good shots of the northern lights, but Tom snapped this cool one of the boats waiting for their clients Saturday morning. Photo: T.A.

 

What a way to end a great trip.