These feet got me back down the mountainCopyright 2007 Lydia Hinshaw
DENALI NATIONAL PARK, AK -- Most of Saturday morning, I was alone on a mountain.
Prince Charming had to work, which was OK because I can get away with more stuff when he's not around to tell me what's dangerous.
I set out on a hike outside the park, up a part of Mount Healy, which dominates the skyline in this immediate area.
Since I didn't see any other hikers until I was halfway down the mountain again, and since the local marmots weren't particularly cooperative about posing, I used my old trick of shooting pictures of my own feet to give some perspective to a landscape.
My car was parked down along the Parks Highway, which can be seen in the right central portion of the photo. The road runs through the community of Healy, some of which is visible, and then on to Fairbanks, about 105 miles away and not visible even on a clear day.
The arctic ground squirrel at least was willing to help me show how blue the sky was on this lovely day.
I was on the mountain for five hours, climbing to a viewpoint above the highway and then onward to a ridge where I could look down into the next valley.
There was another ridge farther to the south I wanted to explore, and I did for a while, until I found myself in an area where the footing was too unstable for my taste.
When I was reduced to grabbing finger- and toe-holds in ever-moving scree, I gave up. To get back to where I could walk again, I did a careful, controlled butt-slide of perhaps 20 yards. There's a reason why hiking pants are made of tough material!
Coming down is always the painful part. It took about two hours to get back to the car. Before I got even halfway there, my quads were quivering and my knees were screaming at me to go uphill again, please!
This was my first strenuous hike since last summer. I'm going to be sore tomorrow, but I earned it.
Prince Charming had to work, which was OK because I can get away with more stuff when he's not around to tell me what's dangerous.
I set out on a hike outside the park, up a part of Mount Healy, which dominates the skyline in this immediate area.
Since I didn't see any other hikers until I was halfway down the mountain again, and since the local marmots weren't particularly cooperative about posing, I used my old trick of shooting pictures of my own feet to give some perspective to a landscape.
My car was parked down along the Parks Highway, which can be seen in the right central portion of the photo. The road runs through the community of Healy, some of which is visible, and then on to Fairbanks, about 105 miles away and not visible even on a clear day.
The arctic ground squirrel at least was willing to help me show how blue the sky was on this lovely day.
I was on the mountain for five hours, climbing to a viewpoint above the highway and then onward to a ridge where I could look down into the next valley.
There was another ridge farther to the south I wanted to explore, and I did for a while, until I found myself in an area where the footing was too unstable for my taste.
When I was reduced to grabbing finger- and toe-holds in ever-moving scree, I gave up. To get back to where I could walk again, I did a careful, controlled butt-slide of perhaps 20 yards. There's a reason why hiking pants are made of tough material!
Coming down is always the painful part. It took about two hours to get back to the car. Before I got even halfway there, my quads were quivering and my knees were screaming at me to go uphill again, please!
This was my first strenuous hike since last summer. I'm going to be sore tomorrow, but I earned it.
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