Mt Roberts Trail

Before moving, before all the travels, Tim and I had a fantastic hike up the Mt Roberts Trail without the benefit of the summer-time tram to get us to the top.

We started out on Basin Road and slowly climbed through the woods.


The trail was a little muddy but not as bad as it could have been. We went on this hike before we had any big rain deluges so common in September and October.


Just after where the trail meets up with the Star Hill neighborhood trailhead there is a nice little lookout with a bench and a covered sitting area. This looks out over the "flats" and the federal building.


And the view from the tramway area looking up and down the gastineau channel can be breathtaking!




On the way back we thought we'd sit a spell!

change in season

Shooting star from early summer…


Snow creeping down Mt Roberts last week…


Rising moon down the Gastineau Channel by Sandy Beach…


I can tell that winter is coming because the mallards are spending more time in front of the house. At the height of summer they disappear and then this time of year they start to gather again and hang out day and night.

Crow Hill - Gastiineau Meadows Trail

This trail follows part of the Treadwell Ditch that runs from Eagle Crest to Treadwell. Most of the ditch is covered with rotting wood slats but some of that has rotten away leaving a trough of water. If it was cleaned up it might make for quite a "tube-ride" but it doesn't really get warm enough for that here.


We walked this trail soon after helping Trail Mix out on a trail out at Pearl Harbor so we were enture to the process. There is a bridge that they built using local trees.


The planking was a little uneven but it was rough-up so it shouldn't been too slick after it wears down and gets water logged.


Looks like they were skinning this tree to use as a bridge over a deep and wet gully. It was a very large tree. Notice anything in this picture that is missing?


There is no bark on the ground. We looked all over and could find where they had pull the strips bark from the tree. We didn't see any evidence of a campfire if they burned them. I can't image that they would haul them out and it didn't look like they had raked the ground up. Its a mystery!

Once you get up high you run into alpine meandows and lots of little ponds. Doesn't this look like a great spot to see a Moose? I always look but never see one.


And at the end (at least for us) Upper Lawson Creek:

I always miss the excitment!

from Tim this a.m:

I saw a pod of harbor porpoise come up the channel by the house. About ten minutes later a large pod of killer whales came up stalking them. The orca fanned out in a hunting party kind of deal. For about an hour there were various hunting and hiding activities. The porpoises ended up right by the house, in shallow water, stopped and not making any noise hoping the whales would go by.

It was pretty much like National Geographic except I didn't see a kill. Much later the whales were grouped up and doing the gang swimming activity around the basin off of downtown. People were stopped on the bridge watching them. I don't know if they ate the porpoises or not. I didn't see the porpoise pod again after they slunk down out of the shallows by the house and quietly swam away. They didn't surface.

I spent about an hour on the deck watching. The battery on the camera was dead.

Walter Hickel was wrong... You CAN just let nature run wild.

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