We had a great hike last weekend along the popular Perseverance Trail. The trailhead is very close to the downtown area and if you can make it passed the first uphill section the trail follows the Gold Creek up the valley at a moderate incline.
Ebner Falls - probably the second most popular falls photographed in Juneau, falling second to Nugget falls at the Mendenhall Glacier.
Here's a look at the pool at the base of Ebner Falls. If the cliff hadn't been so steep (may 100 feet down?) a quick dip in the cool water might have been inviting.
This is a view from the upper trail looking down the Gold Creek valley.
Gold Creek - one of Juneau's water supplies and an important asset to mining operations in this basin.
This is the falls from Icy Gulch
Towards the end of the trail a spring flood must have taken out the boardwalk/bridge over the stream that comes from icy gulch. But the water wasn't so high that we couldn't make it across. Luckily I relied on my skills honed as a balance beam gymnast in 7th grade. I guess Tim has had practice from always walking a thin line...jk
Here is more evidence of flood damage - we had a lot of warm weather early on in the summer so I'm sure that the accumulated snow had a fast melt.
Unbeknownst to my hiking partner, the real goal for this hike was to find and pick salmonberries. One of his co-workers had mentioned seeing a bunch of berries along the trail earlier in the week. I had our trusty berry-picking bags in my backpack and quickly whipped them out. We taste tested on the way up and as we progressed up the trail they got better and better and then as we climbed higher we noticed that they weren't quite ripe yet.
We hit the mother load and came out with more than 3 gallons of berries. And if we had had the proper gear and had felt like crashing around in the bushes with the bears we could have picked more.
Salmonberry Jam! YUM
No comments:
Post a Comment