July 16th
Hiking
I went hiking for solstice weekend, because what better way is there to celebrate the longest day of the year, than to be outside in the mountains. It had been raining for days, and actually I just heard that Fairbanks broke the record in precipitation for the month of June since 1945, and the most rainfall during a 24 hr period, even breaking a record from 1967 just a couple of days ago. We received about half of the annual precipitation in just around 2 weeks, 6.63 inches....that is a lot of water. And it still rains.
Surrounded by Mountain views
As we were driving south-ish, it started to clear up a bit. And you could finally see the mountains again. At the trailhead, we had the issue of actually finding the trailhead. We thought we kind of found the trail, but were soon bushwhacking up a steep hill. Little did we know, but on the way down the next day we saw that we basically missed the real trail by half a meter...but when we finally got up, the view was amazing of course, nothing to complain about.
As we continued up the sun hit the ridge just right, and all I could grab was my iphone to snap this lovely picture below:
Feeling like the luckiest person on earth
The rain could be seen in the distance as we put up our tents and ate a snack. The view from our food storage place was amazing. And I felt complete, surrounded by mountains and braided streams. As the evening progressed the clouds and mountains put on a show for us, a solstice show. It never started to pour down, just a little drizzling. I could say goodnight watching my braided stream and the mountains.
Clear blue skies
We didn't know what weather to expect the next day, in the mountains anything can happen. But we were surprised to find a mostly clear blue sky. As my friends decided to conquer a steep scree slope, I decided to go on my own little hike along the ridge we were on. I have done enough scree slope hiking to know that I don't appreciate it.
Ridgeline
The ridgeline was pretty, and I was smiling my whole way. The solstice weekend was one of the best weekends I have had so far, mostly because I tend to work every single weekend. Getting out in the mountains can do miracles for a tired brain. And who doesn't like mountains anyway? Happy Week!!
