Sugar Loaf Hike and possibly the best day of the summer!

Well, today was a beautiful one! After getting up at 7am, I took a shuttle up to one of the other properties that Aramark runs up here. In its parking lot is a trail head to the top of Sugar Loaf, which is a little mountain in the Nenana River canyon. This one is on the east side of the Nenana River.

This hike also provided an opportunity to break in the new hiking boots. The trail itself was really steep in some sections (twice right at the beginning and right at the end, see the loose, steep photo to the left), but was overall pretty nice. The bug presence was only noticeable when in the trees and above the tree line there was a nice breeze that kept the bugs down and me cool. I didn't see the wildlife that I did on Mt. Healy, but it was a fun hike.

There were a couple of rock formations that I had seen from below that I checked out and may provide some rock climbing opportunities. It was a bit crumbly, but from some sides a person could scramble up and setting a top rope may be in order. We'll see, I need to find a climber up here with more gear than myself that doesn't mind hiking a bit :)

I spent a good amount of time exploring other ridges too. It was fun to meander and check stuff out, not sticking to a set path. One ridge had these interesting rock formations that looked like fence posts. One 'fence post' had an old weathered set of Buddhist prayer flags set on them. I also found a lot of evidence of Dall sheep, but didn't run into any today, which was probably due to my later start time (~9:40am) than on Healy earlier in the week. Lots of ground squirrels on this side, from about one quarter of the way up to the very top, ground squirrels had burrowed all over around this trail.

The summit provided a killer view of the surrounding mountains. I think that I could see Denali (the big one), but scattered clouds made getting a photo of it difficult. I did get some cool panoramic images up there. I'm still learning how to use that feature of my camera, but the one of Mt. Healy turned out pretty cool!

Climbing down I stuck to the ridge the whole time, which offered a lot of cool scrambling opportunities. The rocks and soil up here are really cool! A bunch of the rock up here had this iridescent quality to them that made them glow. I'm not sure how well the photos capture it. I'm still learning some of the finer points of outdoor photography and my camera. It has been difficult to photograph distant mountains through hazy scattered clouds. Whether this difficulty is a product of the camera's limited zoom capabilities or my lack of skill at tailoring for a given set of conditions, or (more likely) a combination of the two, I'm not sure.

I'm working on scouting and doing my first day hike in the National Park. I am hoping to do a 6-10 hour day hike in the Polychrome Mountain area of the park. If anybody is familiar with this area (cough, cough Uncle Gordon) and has any suggestions I would love to hear them. Right now I am working out of this guide that I got used on Amazon.

http://www.denaliguidebook.com/

So far the book has been pretty great. I will be using this and a Trails Illustrated map of the park to work out all the backcountry hiking I do. It sounds like wildlife is abundant in the park. It should be fun and with any luck I will have more exciting photos, real trials of life type stuff, to share with you all.

Until then, L'chaim!