eagle lake trail back to the trail

woke to a beautiful day. of course, it was cloudy at times, but i think the clouds just made it more beautiful. these pictures are all loaded backwards...as usual for me. i can't seem to comprehend this whole loading thing. it's the same as backing up a car with a trailer. i just could never go in reverse. the pictures are loading much quicker. i had originally thought i'd watch just part of my netflix movie. honestly, i feared it would be too scary and i'd shut it down. in the end i quite enjoyed it so i just kept loading. of course, that means it is once again almost 2 am. the movie, by the way, was "the exorcism of emily rose". i love movies that delve into religion. this one is based on a true story. a girl presumed to be possessed and the priest who attempted an exorcism on her. she died several days later and he was put on trial for her death. he was convicted. the family supported him and believed as well that emily was possessed. she had a vision before she died whereby she claimed to have been given the choice to go to heaven and be free of the demons or to carry on in misery for the benefit of christiandom. she had the marks of the stigmata, which would make her a saint eventually.
the above picture was a parting photo from todays walk. found out that my friend maureens scheduled walk fell through. so i asked if she wanted to walk with me. we walked out to eagle lake. probably a good 12 miles round trip. before that i had walked rio and blossom a few miles so that i could settle rio in and leave her here. i knew 12 miles would be too much for her. the picture above shows another off shoot trail from the one we did today. it's called the hanging valley trail. looks cool. supposed to be a small lake in the back of that one.

this is one final shot looking back towards where the edge of the valley and the lake are. occasionally we had sunshine and breezes. it was a lovely day. not one drop of rain fell on us.

even managed a swim on top of it all. ended up only doing 20 laps. i was tired and few joints were sore..namely my usual right hip and left knee. oh well...i was also late getting there. we didn't leave anchorage for the trailhead until after 1pm. i was home by 8pm, but still had to feed the dogs and get a bite to eat. the jacuzzi felt wonderful afterwards.

blossom seems to be doing well so we took off on this walk. she was tormented by these ground squirrels. she can hear them and see them, but those things disappear rapidly if she got anywhere near them. below she looks baffled again. poor blossom.

there is a smaller lake/pond right before you really enter the moraine...a fancy word for alot of rocks. the moraine is what is left behind when a glacier retreats. this whole valley was carved out my glaciers. kinda funny to see the first part of the trail and realize that it was once just covered with the same boulder fields. now you can see remnant boulders, but the earth has covered it over and plants have filled it in.

the glacial silt leaves the water this beautiful colour of blue. it always amazes me. we were wondering today how long it takes for the silt to be absorbed into the earth and for this colour to leave the lakes/ponds. i called the above pond mini me as it's attached to the big eagle lake by a small creek.

blossom rests after bouldering. i've had other dogs that wouldn't or couldn't really walk on the boulders. i always fear for thier pads. blossom actually did quite well and maureen and i finally figured out that if we followed her she would lead us through the boulders on the best path available. listen to the still small voice...even if it belongs to a dog.
some young men cruised past us in the boulder field en route to a fishing hole. obviously a place they frequent as they just booked it. we didn't get all the way out to the symphony lakes, that would be better as an overnight. though, i really don't think i'd want to do all that bouldering with a bigger backpack. there were boulders for as far as we could see and each time we reached the top of the boulder field, there was more.

this is the creek leading to mini me lake.

this is part of hte boulder field with eagle lake to the left. other than the bouldering the trail is pretty easy. the bouldering isn't all that bad either. the rocks are not easy to walk on but at least they are stable. not every dog is suited for it though so i'd be very careful about what dog you bring out there.

maureen crosses a small bridge to the boulder field. boulders and symphony lake are towards the right, eagle lake to left.

eagle lake is fairly large. you can walk to the back of it...again a good backpack trek.
it's also a beautiful lake...again with the colours of the glacier silt. that silt will totally gum up your filter if you want to filter water. just be careful what kind of water filter you take up there if you do backpack.

blossom looks out over eagle lake and rests on the rocks. the boulders are all sorts of cool colours as there is lichen and moss all over them. very cool.

this picture is from the boulder field looking back to where we have hiked through the day. we booked it back once we did turn around...and once we were out of the rocks.

is that colour spectacular or what?? this is still eagle lake...to the right it heads down to mini me lake.

you can see the valley that continues on with eagle lake.

a few group pictures of us at eagle lake. me, blossom and maureen in case you are confused.

in the interest of sleep i will skip the poetry tonight. do forgive. i work the next 4 nights so...maybe i'll have some new material.

we got occasional blasts of sunlight. excellent. a special treat after a week of rain.

sorry it was just really pretty back there. i took lots of pictures to try and capture the blue of the water. it's so clear as well. awe inspiring as they say.

since these are backwards this is probably blossom looking ahead or trying to convince us to follow her path. we were following the "piles of rocks" known by hikers as cairns. they mark trails...over the boulders they were just a rough estimate of a possible trail. you could really go where ever you want.

imagine that i'm hungry. probably burned a few calories today. only ate the last bits of leftovers tonight.

more rock pictures...hope you like rocks.

for a change this is a picture of some of the stuff growing on the rocks. some sort of lichen or moss i'm guessing. haven't ever found a lichens and moss of alaska book. hmmm....

picture of mini me lake. again...me obsessed with the blue water.

scenery heading towards the boulders.

looking back at mini me...took pictures coming and going so it probably all looks similar...my apolgies if you are bored.

closer picture of the boulders with all the licen/moss creating artwork.

more scenery...

lake mini me...kinda sounds like that lake minisomething from what about bob..could be i'm getting delirious. i really should wrap this up. i was obviously enthralled by the movie and not paying attention to the number of photos i was loading here. oh well. still pretty. :-)

loads of wildflowers out there. they change as the time passes. right now lots of wild geraniums out there. pretty little flowers. we also saw wild roses, paintbrushes, dwarf fireweed...

the skies opened up while we were over the rocks and had closed up by the time we were back near cars.

blossom looks at me lovingly....or it could be that treat i was bribing her with.

we also saw this one wild iris, crazy. seems a little late, but there it is.

closer picture of the wild geraniums.

took several pictures of this cute little song bird. has a sweet call. i'm not a birder so i won't try to identify it, though i know it's quite common.

this is "the rock". it's showed up in the blog before. it's about 4 miles in from the start of the trail. eagle lake is another nearly 2 miles from here.

looking up the valley to what lies ahead.

this is where there is a little bridge to cross over. this bridge is about 2 miles in from the parking lot. often people jsut walk in this far, eat lunch and head back. it's a pleasant enough day hike.

just another pond out there on the trail.

blossom took full advantage of every pond or bog she could. of course, when we returned to the bigger creek she didn't want to enter. generally that is a good place to rinse of said dog. it's running pretty high and fast this week due to the week of rain. i suspect she got a bit nervous when she went in on the way in and that is the reason for her reluctance.

just liked this picture of blossom....wish i was as photogenic as my dog.

did see quite a few mushrooms starting to pop out. they really show up in the fall in mass. the berries will also come later.

blossom and i on the bridge

okay...i'm done with my lovely blog for the evening. should get to sleep before 3 am...apparently, according to the movie i watched that is the demon witching hour. something about the godhead?? can't recall. good night. more poetry later.