Flat Top

Living in Anchorage we are surrounded by mountains and places to hike. The quintessential-Anchorage hike has to be Flat Top, in the Chugach Mountains that border the town to the east. Emily, Banjo and I had gone to the area a bunch of times before (we walked along Power Line Trail with Carrie and Jared in the snow, tried to cross-country ski once, and went sledding back in October), but we had never done the actual climb to the top of Flat Top. Apparently on the Summer Solstice people are constantly hiking to the top all day long, sometimes with some "adult beverage" in-tow, for a super-gigantic all-night party. Anyways, since it's getting really nice and warm out, we decided that it was time to conquer the mountain.

So we set off with Banjo and our lunch. Even though it's really warm now (mid-50's to 60's) and there isn't any snow around town, I was surprised how much snow was left on Flat Top. It made for some treacherous footwork at times (I bit it once coming down the mountain). Also, when there is so much snow on the trail, it makes it a little difficult to walk on the side of the mountain b/c you might slip right on down it. There were a few parts that were a little sketchy where you felt like one wrong step could send you slipping down a hundred feet, but we made it OK. After a while we arrived at a little bench where we had our lunch. It also happened to be a spot right before the last big hike to the top. Since this part was very steep and still covered in snow we decided not to hike it (I had also read not to attempt this part of the climb, at this time of year, without an ice ax). So we relaxed, took in the view, and ate up.

On the way down Banjo started running up and down the mountain during the sketchy portions of the hike. Emily and I were worried for a little bit when his leave was stuck on a tree, b/c we thought we would have to scale down a little bit to free him. But smarty-pants Banjo freed himself and ran right back up to us. I was a little surprised to see how many dogs that day were hiking, too.