Ducks, Dogs, and Bear-Dogs

Our preceptor gives us each a day off during the week, so that we can explore and enjoy Alaska. Majority of people have Friday or Monday off and get 3-day weekends. Becca and I have Thursdays off which I was honestly pretty bummed about at first. But then we realized our weeks consist of: 3 days of work, a day off, then only 1 day of work before the weekend - not too bad to have the week broken up a bit.

For our first Thursday off Becca and I planned to sleep in and then go for a hike! I learned this morning that sleeping in is harder for me to do than I thought while in Alaska. So after waking up at 6am, I forced myself back to sleep for a couple more hours. After enjoying a leisurely morning of getting ready, we jumped in the Escape and did just that. We headed up North past Palmer to Matanuska Valley in order to hike Reed Lakes Trail. Unfortunately, the road to that specific trail was closed for another couple weeks. Therefore, we ended up at the next trail over called Golden Mint Trail. We started hiking around 1:00 with no real idea where this trail would take us as it wasn't in our initial plan. The first couple of miles were rather easy and the scenery was beautiful. We enjoyed the lunch Becca made us next to a great part of the river where the rapids pushed the crystal clear water right by us. We both agreed that we wanted to swim in it, but after testing the water temperature realized it was a cold idea. So we continued on the trail passing a few people as we went. After reaching the 5th mile it started to get pretty muddy and at the 6th mile the trail was pretty overgrown. I was really happy to have my Columbia pants on in the overgrown parts, but I was not as fortunate to have my running shoes on when we reached the mud. I really need to buy some hiking shoes/boots while I'm up here. After completing our 7th mile it was time to turn back in order to make it to the car and then drive in to town for dinner. Our roundtrip hike of 14 miles took us 5 hours which was pretty decent. 

While on the trail, we didn't see many animals except a couple of ducks floating down river, dogs hiking with their owners, and best of all, a Bear-Dog. This "dog" was HUGE! I'm not sure what kind it was, but he was massive. I wish I would have taken a picture of him, but instead I only got his print. This picture doesn't do this print any justice. I should have put a size reference next to it. Just imagine my hand, and it'd be almost equal in size - not joking. 

Bear-Dog

The overall day trip was great, though I'm pretty exhausted despite the extra sleep. Hopefully our Friday at work will go by quickly... I even cleaned the mud off my tennis shoes in the sink tonight, and stuffed them with newspaper to hopefully dry them out before the weekend. Next adventure: 19 hours until we depart for Denali.