Kenai Lake

Did I mention there was a fun bluegrass band in town and that Hope is really cute? I camped at the bar campground which is right on the water, Turnagain Arm. In the AM I took my time getting a breakfast burrito, reading more of East of Eden, and addressing some postcards. Some young local hikers I met gave me a ride to the Post office and I picked up my raft and some food. Luckily I'd actually sent myself a decent amount of food, so I didn't have to hitch to a grocery store. Instead I hitched to whichever of Cooper Landing or Primrose, and thus whichever end of Kenai Lake I could get a ride to. Primrose was the winner. I wanted to paddle some of Kenai Lake first since it's flat water, and I figured I could get a day or two in to test out my new drysuit, which I just picked up at REI in Anchorage the other day. Unfortunately the wind was against me all day, but other than that everything worked out great. I probably didn't start paddling until 2:00, but that's OK. It took me a bit to figure out what clothes to wear under the drysuit (pants and rain pants, keeping tights totally dry for sleeping, plus regular warm layers on top: long johns, fleece, and button up shirt. I sent my windbreaker home--really wanted to cut some ounces now that I have the drysuit). Thanks to the guy at REI I know to 'burp' the suit, which totally works. I got a little nauseous at first, as am I prone to on rocky flat water, but things calmed down, and though I was moving slower than I'd like, I hit the second of only two obvious good camp spots around 8:00. Set up camp and gave my drysuit a swim test, and it passed. Marvelous! Nothing got wet that isn't supposed to. (My hands are outside the suit.)

Tomorrow should be a lot more lake paddling. Part of the lake may be restricted, but I'm not sure. If so, there's a road I can pull out on, I think. The one campsite on the other side of the lake I think has a large group retreat going on, but I should be past there and hopefully close to Cooper Landing anyway. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adze Picket Co. (I Love the PCT)

Image
Me at the Border I spent the weekend at the ADZPCTKO with Nitro , Tatu Joe, Ducky (the Wise) , Tomato, BearCan't , Mattress, Love Barge, Nano, Sly, Disco , WeatherCarrot, Too Obtuse, Nacho, Tall Paul, Mags , and Wildflower (AKA Icognito Cheeto Bandito). I got a ride down with Firefly. I'm tempted to just end my post there, as it would seem like complete gibberish to many of you. But I won't. The ADZPCTKO is the Annual Day Zero Pacific Crest Trail Kickoff, held the last weekend in April (also known as NFL Draft weekend, where, miracle of miracles, the Redskins, despite Dan Snyder's best attempts to screw it up, actually managed to avoid throwing away multiple draft picks on Chad Johnson and instead traded for more picks. Hallelujah!) at Lake Morena campground, 20 miles north by trail from the Mexican border near Campo, CA. Conventional wisdom says that the weather window on the PCT is such that there's not much point to starting earlier thanks to snow in the S...
Read more

Hardrock 34:42

Image
It's Tuesday, I'm back in Berkeley, and I just ran my first Hardrock last Friday/Saturday in 34:42. I wanted to record thoughts immediately after the experience, because it was hard , and now that it's been a few days, I'm already forgetting the pain. [I don't want kids, so you'll have to insert your own reference to childbearing here if you so desire.] Start The race started at 6AM. I slept reasonably well the night before in my truck just behind the school gym where the race starts--Silverton is very low key, so it's easy to dirtbag inside the city limits. I did, however, have a bit of GI non-normality, but it didn't seem like a big deal. I started in shorts, T-shirt, and a windshirt. As expected, the windshirt soon became too warm, likely because of the clouds that were obviously going to bring rain sooner rather than later. First Climb I started maybe 30-40 deep in the field, going faster than I'd ever climbed in training, but not feel...
Read more

Should I run UTMB?

That's it, the title is the post. No, of course that's not the post, but I am wondering. My schedule has filled in a bit for the year. I'm now signed up for: Orcas 100 (Feb), Paiute Meadows 50K (May), Scout Mountain 100 (June), TRT 100 (July), and hope to run the fun runs Lupine Loopfest (Feb), Desolate Peaks (August), and Euchre Bar Massacre (October). But the big news is that I got selected in the UTMB lottery. I have until the 29th of January to confirm my registration. For the non-runners: UTMB is a 106-mile loop around Mont Blanc through France, Switzerland, and Italy, starting and ending in Chamonix. By all accounts it is spectacularly beautiful and very difficult, with about 33,000 feet of climbing. For most of my running life I haven't really cared about European races or followed European runners, but I got swept up in the spectacle of it last year. It was the race's 20th year, an American man finally won (Jim), and also finished second (Zack), and Courtney...
Read more