Williwaw Lakes

I know it may be Independence Day most places, but in AK the forth of July seems to be Mount Marathon day. It seems that all of the people (in my small world) spent the fourth down in Seward either racing or watching Mount Marathon. The race is a very tough and technical out and back. 6-time winner Brad Precosky's PR is 45:07, 34:52 up and 10:15 down (very, very, very fast). Mountain running is a serious sport around here... but it's good to see the skiers representing well with Trond Flagstad (UAA coach) getting second today and Brent Knight (APU racer) placing third. I haven't heard the women's results from today other than that the expected winner, Cedar Bourgeois won. It's such a big deal that you can't even just register to race, you have to buy a bid in a lottery and then they select at random who gets to race UNLESS you raced the year before. If you raced the year before then you get to keep your spot if you want to. So, needless to say, I didn't even have the option of racing.

Instead I hiked up to Williwaw Lakes through the rain and the fog and the wind to enjoy the scenery.



I paused in the very, very deep bowl where this small lake was for a snack and was so pleased to be there on the tundra with the glacial-flour-green-blue lake that I was perfectly satisfied with life and thought that there was no where else in the world that I would rather be. Then the rain picked up and the wind picked up and I decided that my car at the trailhead wasn't such a bad place either.





This was my first time out in real tundra. At least I think I was in the tundra, not having been in tundra before I could only make my best educated assumptions. Tundra or not, it was pretty country. Good rock and miniature plants and marmots. (The marmots sharing the adjective 'miniature' with the plants in that sentence.)



And then you drop down and the plants get bigger rapidly. It's like a normal mountain vertically compressed so you feel like you're really high after gaining only a couple thousand feet in elevation. It's very rapidly rewarding. It makes me think that I've accomplished more than I did because I'm used to it taking a lot of work to get above treeline down in the Cascades.



The wildflowers were gorgeous, from the miniatures up high to the lush greenery in the valley-- Columbine, Indian Paintbrush, Ground Dogwoods, Wild Roses, Heather, Arnica, Buttercup, Twin Flowers, lots others that I didn't know.