This was a hike on the Crow Pass trail. The trail traverses a route between Girdwood and Eagle River, Alaska. It is beautiful from start to finish. Matt and I hiked this trail over a two day period. The trail is about 26 miles. We each had forty pounds in our backpacks. The photos in the album were nearly all taken on the first day because it poured rain on the second day and we didn't take pictures because of the rain and we were exhausted.
Date(s): July 20 & 21, 2012. Album by James Fulks. 1 - 28 of 28 Total. 7687 Visits.
1 The day before our hiking adventure we rented this airplane and flew over several glaciers and we also flew over our route from Girdwood to Eagle River. Even from the air, it was easy to see it would be a beautiful hike. Matthew and Erica flew with us.
2 Matthew took this photo as we were starting our hike outside of Girdwood. Lisa dropped us off at this point and picked us up at Eagle River the next day.
3 Most of the trail the first day was very clearly laid out, like this, so it would be difficult to get lost.
4 The first thing you do is start climbing to Crow Pass which is 3,500' above seal level. This view is looking back at the parking lot where Lisa left us and we are probably about 200' above the parking lot.
5 Much of the beginning of the trail was covered in this type rock. It is called scree. It is not easy to walk on this. As we were flying over the mountains, the day before, all this scree looked like dirt on the side of the mountains.
6 There were quite a few hikers who just hiked to the top of Crow Pass which is about three miles from the parking lot. They then go back down the mountain. This photo was taken by a man from Poland.
7 The scenery was just amazing. Pictures simply do not do justice to the natural beauty. It is hard to get a perspective but we hiked from here through the valley towards that big blue mountain. That is probably about six or eight miles. We then turned to the left to continue our hike.
8 Once we got below the tree line the fields were alive with beautiful little flowers.
9 We crossed over quite a few of these snow and ice fields. Most were fairly easy to cross but some were treacherous and one slip would send you on an extremely fast slide to the bottom, just to be stopped abruptly by huge boulders. Some of these were about a thousand feet long. You can see more on the mountain in the upper right hand corner of this photo.
10 Matt is standing above a waterfall which falls about a hundred feet and the churning of the water was incredible when it fell below.
11 You can't see it but there is a moose calf sitting in the grass by its mom. We saw several moose on this hike.
12 Mama and baby moose.
13 We hiked through about eight or ten miles of this type vegetation on our first day out. Again, you can see the trail plainly. There were a lot bear droppings in the middle of the trail as well as moose droppings. Fortunately, the temperatures were in the fifties and sixties.
14 This picture was taken on the second day out. It poured rain all night before and all day on our second day out. This tree would make a good shelter for one person.
15 We had to cross a lot of small streams like this. It was pretty easy. You just had to find a couple of big rocks to step on to get to the other side. I slipped off a rock on this stream and ended up with a boot full of water.
16 Top of Crow Pass
17 Top of Crow Pass
18 That big chunk of ice at the middle/top is Raven Glacier. These huge chunks of ice are continually moving and flowing and grinding up the landscape in the process. They melt in the summer and freeze in the winter and over centuries some of the Alaskan glaciers are nearly a mile thick.
19 Slippery slope. Raven Glacier is in the background.
20
21 Waterfalls are everywhere. There is really never any silence in the wilderness because of all the rushing water. You are never too far from a waterfall or a stream or a raging river.
22 This bear was probably a mile away. Matt took this picture. We saw several bears. As we were hiking, we came upon two other hikers and they asked if we had seen the mama bear and baby bear that were a couple hundred feet off the trail. We had not. The worst thing you can do is startle a mother bear with her cub. We wore little bear bells which would alert a bear of our presence. The running joke is that it isn't good to see bear crap with little bells in it.
23 Just a small stream in the valley.
24 This bridge is the only way to get across the river at the waterfall.
25 More of the trail.
26 On our second day out, we didn't take many pictures because it was pouring rain. The trail was very narrow, muddy, and rocky. Not like this. The vegetation was much thicker.
27 There were many river crossings. The water is glacier melt so the temperature of the water is just above freezing and painful to walk in. We had to cross one river which was above our knees and at least a hundred yards long. It was easily the worst part of the hike. It was like putting your feet into an ice chest full of water.
