A short weekend

Just thought I'd give a quick update about a recent hike that we went on. A couple of weeks ago we finally got a weekend to ourselves and we decided that if the weather was going to be sunny we'd head on down to Seward and hike up Harding Ice field. So on Sunday after church, meetings, and dinner we decided to load up the 4runner and drive on down to Seward (it's a couple hours). Rather than make it a big deal we decided that we'd just sleep in the back to avoid pitching a tent.
By the time we arrived it was starting to get dark, but we found a little pull-out near exit glacier with the most spectacular view. As we got ready for bed we fired up the camp stove to make some delicious hot chocolate, which truly hit the spot.
After a restful nights sleep we arose to a beautifully clear and sunny day, we made a little breakfast, packed our day packs and drove the few miles to the trail head.
The hike is basically up a mountain that hikes the moraine of exit glacier up to the ice field and you gain about 4,000 feet in 4 miles, so it's a leg burner on the way up and a knee and ankle buster coming down.
About midway up we spotted a sow and two cubs eating berries just off the trial, we watched them for a few moments then continued on our way. We kept a nice steady pace all the way up and even through the precipice and had energy to hike down to the ice field to say we've touched it (in Kari's case stood on it). The view was spectacular and pulchritudinous. Oh what a place to live!

Moving towards winter

Well I haven't posted in a while so I figured I take a moment to update you all on a few of the things we've been doing over the past month. Kari made it back from her trip to Idaho for her Grandmas funeral, which she said was a really nice event given the circumstances. The day after Kari got home Mom came up to Alaska to visit us and then up to Prudhoe bay to visit Larry. We had a great time visiting (staying up late). We also went to the downtown Saturday market, looked around then picked some fresh unique blueberries up in the mountains.

We also had some good friends move out of Alaska so we went on a last hike with them up to one of our favorite places in Hatcher Pass called Reed Lakes. We got lucky with the weather (it wasn't raining) and we had a great hike up into some very rugged looking mountains. On the way up we found some really big blueberries that were high bush unlike the ones we picked with mom (low bush) and these ones were so much bigger. We will miss Neil, Emily, Abe and Banjo the dog and we wish them the best in Washington.

Lastly, we are once again training for a race the end of October called the Zombie fun run. Kari will be running the 1/2 marathon, and I'll be running the 50k. This run requires you to run with a partner for the first 1/2 so I was kind or coerced into this one. So anyhow we've been running, running, and running some more. It's amazing at how you can get your body to push it's limits when you have a goal, expectations, and someone else relying on you to perform.