June 14 - North and East of Anchorage

After sleeping in, we decided to check out hiking opportunities north/east of town. But first, I gave Leon a hair trim because two months is too long between haircuts (for him anyway - I last had my hair trimmed in March and it is getting quite long for me). I resisted the urge to give him a mohawk, sticking to a quick trim on the back and over the ears.

We headed to the Eagle River Nature Center, about 30 minutes from our place, and did a three-mile hike loop hike (Albert Loop Trail). The trail was really well-maintained, wide and mostly flat.  We were in the Chugach State Park and most of the hike was through the woods. The weather was picture perfect - mostly sunny and slightly cool. 

The nature center had beds planted with native wildflowers - they were so pretty and most were labeled, allowing me to learn their names. This is "Snowdrop Anemone".

We had beautiful views throughout the hike.

The Chugach Mountain Range rose up all around us.

I was thrilled to capture this reflection of the mountains in the water.

Arctic lupine

Part of it was very scenic along the river which was glacier fed. Right about the time we reached the river, I had a blood sugar issue and had to take a break.

We took a 10–15-minute break on the shores of the swollen river. The milky green blue of the water shows that it is glacier fed. There were other waterways nearby that were crystal clear, indicating that they were fed by snow melt.

 After a rest we continued on and finished our hike. For lunch we headed into town to a sandwich and salad shop where Leon had an OK chicken sandwich and I had an amazing salad.  

We chose a waterfall hike for our second trip and headed farther north to Thunderbird Falls. This mile out and back rewarded us with a nice waterfall view. 

We also took the bonus walk to near the bottom of the falls, where Leon ripped a small hole in his pants sitting on a tree with a spur; I've already looked up on YouTube how to mend it - we'll see if my sewing skills are up to the task.

From there we earned ice cream and coffee so we each went separate ways for our treats - Leon to Cold Stone Creamery and me to a local coffeehouse named Jitters. He enjoyed his Oreo Overload and I enjoyed my white chocolate frappe - did I mention that it had finally gotten warm? Since tomorrow is a travel/transition day, we headed back to our place early to do laundry and pack. Leftovers did us right. Leon was early to bed again (still on the tail end of this really bad cold he had) and I stayed up to get neatly packed.