Delta Peak Hike

This weekend has been pretty intense for me!! I went contra dancing down in Fairbanks again which was a blast! I have a few favorite people to dance with up here now, but they just don't compare to the Maine people!! I keep getting comments on how great my spinning is...it is fun to watch people's smiles grow as we spin! There is much less twirling too and the dances are a bit more simple. Ohw well, it is still a blast and I will keep going!! After contra I hung out with Leah, Marilyn and Ben for a bit and ended up at the Pub (bar on campus) for a bit. I didn't get to bed until 1:30 even though I had the hike the next morning!

The hike was quite fun, but more insane than anything I have ever done!! I really didn't know if I was going to make it the whole way, but I guess I didn't have a choice! We started along Gunnysack Creek about 3 hours away from campus. Once we were up the creek a ways, we headed straight up a rockfall covered in a few inches of snow. There wasn't much ice so we never used the crampons lent to us. We kept going up and up this steep part until we got above the creek a ways and then it flattened a little bit. Then our guide pointed ahead to where we were headed and that wasn't event the top! It was super steep again but the snow was windswept and packed down with bits of tundra and rock sticking up through. I struggled with this part and it seemed in some places for every step forward, I took 2 back! On this section, someone doslodged a rock from above and didn't call out that it was falling. By the time someone did yell, "rock!" i tried to scramble out of the way, but it ended up hitting me in the arm. It was a good sized rock and now I have a huge brusie on my arm! At least it hit my arm and not somewhere else! We kept going up and up and the wind kept getting stronger and stronger. I was having a hard time placing my feet because every time I would lift up a leg and there was a gust, I would go flying sideways. Finally our guide decided that was enough and we turned around. We didn't make it to the summit, but I was really okay with that!! We started back down which I thought would be much more scary and slippery, but it was actually much more fun! If the part was steep enough, we would just sit and slide down! The only problem was that there were rocks scattered around and underneath so we had to be careful. I certianly fell on my bum a few times but it was usually a pretty soft landing! We had a few snowball fights and bushwacked a different way back down along the ridge through alders. We came out at a ski area and just walked down along the trails. Here are a few more pictures:

On the way down with a neighboring moutnain

The steep part where the rock hit me! This was taken on the way down though.

The mountain! We went up on the left and did the larger peak on the left.

Today I am super sore and am getting caught up on homework. I am avoiding extra walking as much as possible!!!