Day 110: More Hiking in Haines

August 2, 2014

Forgot to look at the morning temperature today but it was a little warmer than yesterday based on the temp in Fred. It was a beautiful sunny morning and there was no need for heat. The day continued sunny and warm with just some scattered puffy clouds and a high of 65.

We got online early this morning to handle some financial business. We only use our Verizon air card for financial matters and we have found in many places in Alaska there just isn't enough bandwdith available. Early in the morning we can get nice rapid connections, but late afternoon and evening it slows to a crawl. We have been pulling a lot of late nights to get the blog posted because it speeds up again when everyone goes to sleep. We have free Wi-Fi here at the campground, but it too becomes horribly slow when everyone is at home and online.

So after taking care of some business and having breakfast we got ready to go hiking. We planned to hike the Mount Riley Trail to the summit at 1760 feet, the highest point on the Chilkat Peninsula. There are 3 different trail heads for this hike and we choose the Mud Bay route. It is the most direct route and is 5.6 miles round trip. The hike is rated moderate in the trail guide book. It begin as a flat trail through rain forest, similar to yesterday's hike.

It then becomes one switchback after another reminding us of Aleyska in Girdwood or Angel's Landing at Zion National Park.

Beautiful meadow near the summit

It really wouldn't be that difficult except for the constant need to step over and around big roots from humongous trees.

The forest is made up of huge spruce and hemlock trees as well as, bunchberries, ferns, huge devil's club and many other plants. We also found some huckleberries – almost ripe. Some looked ripe but really weren't very sweet yet.

Why it's called "devil's club"

Bunchberries are from the same family as dogwood. They have little flavor but lots of pectin, so they are mixed with other fruits to make jelly or jam.

 

There were also marshy, muddy areas to traverse as well as a couple of minor stream crossings. Scout loved those because he was able to stretch out in the water and cool off.

Sometimes Scout seems to prefer smelly, stagnant swamp water

 

At the summit there were sweeping views of Haines, Chilkat and Chilkoot Inlets and the Lynn Canal as well as being surrounded by beautiful glaciated mountains.

click to enlarge pictures

The book says to allow 2.5 hours one way and it took us 2:14 to make it to the top. We felt pretty good about that because we stopped for numerous pictures and to let Scout play in the water. We (all three) were tired by the time we got back to the truck, but really enjoyed the hike. We would recommend it even though it was a little hard for us flatlanders.

That's it for today. We are going to try to post this early and see if we have less problems with the internet. There is a possibility of seeing the Northern Lights tonight so we will have to let you know tomorrow what we do this evening. Hope you are having a wonderful weekend.