Mountain climbing and forest frolicking

It is Saturday night and me and Maggie just returned from the Solstice Festival in Moose Pass! Moose Pass is a tiny little town about 20 miles outside of Seward. And when I say tiny, i mean microscopic. Seward is tiny. We were afraid we had driven right through the town it is so small. But their one known event is their annual Solstice Festival, where they have live bands, music, arts and crafts and beer to celebrate the almost 24 hours of daylight! It was nice to get out of Seward for a change of pace and sceneary. But we didn't realize until we got there that nobody took credit cards and we had no cash. So basically we were just wandering around and listening to the music, but it was still very nice.
The past couple of days at work have been long. I am ready for my weekend, which starts tomorrow at 5pm after work. Last week I jump started my weekend by climbing Mt. Marathon with Katie. It is the mountain that is right outside my window! It was a hot sunny day and perfect for a hike. Periodically up the mountain we would scream "Hey BEAR" to warn any bears nearby. We got a little more creative, singing songs to the bears and making up loud stories as well. The sceneary was breathtaking, as always here in alaska. For a little bit we lost the trail and were basically bushwhacking, trying to avoid Devils club and other nasty plants. The really hard part of the trek was right near the summit where the landscape took a sharp turn toward vertical. I was huffing and puffing and was not sure if I was going to make it up. We passed a patch of snow and I made Katie stop so I could roll in it, I was so hot. That was another bizzare thing about the hike, it was like 75 degrees and sunny and we were wearing shorts, but for a portion of the hike we were hiking through snow patches. It was the strangest feeling.
Reaching the top was the best, we could see for miles even out of the bay into open ocean. And Seward and the marina looked like tiny dots from above.

The view out of the bay into open ocean

Made it to the top!

sittin at the top

Tiny Seward!

We look awkwardly tall

We ate our dinner at the top of the mountain and just sat there, soaking in the view. Mountain tops are my favorite place to be. So we came up this trail on the jeep trail, the switch back, slightly less steep trail. The runners trail is how they run up for the Mt. Marathon race each year on fourth of July. This one is literally straight down. I don't know how they do it. At the top me and Katie both agreed that we definitely did not want to take that route down and we would do the slower winding one. So we were chatting and walking down a trail on the mountain, basically looking at our feet to make sure we didn't trip. A few minutes later we looked up, and there we were. going down the runners trail. Somehow we missed the other trail and we were too far along to walk back up, so we decided to go for it. This was a quite treacherous way. The first stretch down was basically us skiing down on our feet trying to avoid huge avalanches and losing our balance. When we finally reached the trees we thought things would get easier. Not so. The path dipped down at an even more impressive angle and we were forced to take a million tiny baby steps to ensure that we didn't fall. (This was not 100% efficient, as I spent a lot of time falling). At one point we sort of gave up as did our legs and we scooted down on our butts for an impossibly long amount of time. We had a great time laughing at the situation and working our way slowly down the mountain. My legs gave out several times and when we finally reached the bottom they were complete Jelly.
The very next morning me and Maggie when Hiking to Tonsina point! Luckily it wasn't as vertical of a challenge but we did have to bike three miles to get to the trail. A lot of the trail was along the beach which was really beautiful. We had our lunch on the beach and then had to head back to town because Maggie had to go to work. Later, I was unexpectedly called back into work to go on an Eider pick up (a shore bird). I don't really know why they needed me because all I did was ride along, assist slightly with tubing the bird and then came back. Me and Hannah (the bird employee I went with) had an awesome time and at one point we were laughing so hard that she was having the orange she was eating come out of her nose. It was a very fun trip afterall. I guess we'll talk about work. I am not sure if I have said it yet, but its worth mentioning that I have learned to tube feed seals now! It is very exciting and not as hard as it looks.
Ok it is actually getting dark out which must mean its very late because this is the longest day of the year. I am going to get some sleep so I can be in at work at 7am! Goodnight world!