Nome Creek adventure

ok, i'm beginning to see a pattern.

if any of you remember our adventures from last Memorial Day when we convinced our friends Kristin and Jeremy to bike the Denali Hwy with us (see Type II Fun from last May), you might recall that we don't have the best luck with Memorial Day trips.

this year, Cob suggested hiking the Quartz Creek trail to the base of Mount Prindle and then chucking down the Noe Creek drainage -- off trail, of course. first, let me say that it was a great trip - full of relaxing time with Cob and the bad dog and views like this:

we started up the Quartz Creek trail, through alpine tundra and then a spruce forest saddle (have to admit that my bearanoia got to me a little, esp as i imagine that the fuzzy-wuzzies (as Cob likes to call them) are hungrier this time of year....it made for some interesting and VERY LOUD conversations through the woods, peppered with "Hey Bear!" and "Yo Bear!"

anyway, after about 9 miles, we left the trail and pitched our tent just as the weather moved in. after waiting about a half-hour, we were able to squeak a quick dinner in during the rain-reprieve, and then it was back in the tent until the weather broke again at 9:30 am the next morning. however, what we woke to was this:

that's SNOW and ICE on our tent (uh-huh...just like last MemDay on the Denali Hwy...)
but at least there was coffee...

we packed up, skirted the base of Mount Prindle through a small pass bordered by an imposing dome that Cob last year summited and named Mount Nuch and then headed down the Nome Creek drainage, all the while admiring the awesome raging force that is Nome Creek this time of year (the rest of the summer it's a trickle), bushwhacking through overhead willows (and yelling a lot more "hey Bear!"s), and being grateful for the hard rocky turf whenever we could get a break from the tussocky tundra, which makes for some hard walking.

it was a good trip.

and many thanks to the hubby for these pictures...i'm in the middle of a pretty heavy-duty field season, traveling through the end of June, and so posts will be pretty thin on the ground until i have time to catch my breath.