I'm close to my summer goal of 1600 kilometers (a bit over 1000 miles.) Last year I was able to start in March already. This year even in April the trails still had ice and snow. And then we took two weeks off to visit family and friends Outside.
But I'm at 1564km. The finish line is in sight. Anchorage bike trails are a big part of why I'm able to do this. Not only are they car free and go on for miles and miles within the city, but they are beautiful. So here are a few pictures from the last week.
This stop at Goose Lake offers a different view every time. It's also a spot where people feed ducks, so they often come over if someone stops here.
It had rained during the day, so this was an early evening ride.
This is the lake at the Waldron Park soccer fields, filled with geese. I can hear them arguing - "it's time to head south" but the procrastinators are ready to take off yet. This is on the Campbell Creek South trail, not far from the eastern entrance on 47th Avenue off of Lake Otis.
Another late afternoon at Goose Lake, a different view altogether. But the same spot as the first picture.
Thursday I had an 8:30 dental appointment which is on the way to the Campbell Creek South trail. This time I picked it up off of Tudor and through the neighborhood near Tudor Elementary. It was about 9:30, overcast and a bit mysterious. I'm generally on this trail in the afternoon. But the mood is always much nicer in the morning. I was trying to catch that mood and the creek that the trail follows.
It was only after I took the picture that I noticed I wasn't alone. To the left (of the picture) a young bull moose was resting. Another perk of these trails.
Since the trail goes along the creek, we cross bridges here and there. This one is near where the trail goes under a railroad bridge as we get close to Taku Lake.
Finally, here's a picture of the trail itself, just after going under C Street and over another bridge over the creek. This stretch of trail goes about eight miles without ever intersecting a street (except through tunnels under bridges). But there are houses and businesses around the trail everywhere. Much of the trail has enough buffer you don't see them. In other spots you do.
Writing on politics these days can get one down. But riding on Anchorage bike trails can restore one's sense of well being. Here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks.
Campbell Creek reflecting the afternoon sun.
A grebe in Westchester Lagoon
A moose off in the distance. We're about 1/4 mile from a major road in Anchorage. But on the bike trail, at times like this I feel like I'm in the middle of the wilderness
New goslings huddle (in the lower right} at the Alaska Native Medical Center (ANMC) campus
The path through the University of Alaska Anchorage
Headed home near Valley of the Moon park about 10 pm.
For most people dandelions are weeds, but close up, they are amazing.
On the Campbell Creek trail just west of the Seward Highway. This is the kind of traffic blockage I don't mind.
This spot at Goose Lake is always changing and most always spectacular.
I know you hear enough about algae in the reflecting pool, cage fights, ai, Iran, (and not enough about) Epstein files.
So let's just enjoy some summer pictures. While we aren't cloudless, we've had a lot of sun and the green covers most of Anchorage and the flowers are making their appearances i their proper order.
The kind of traffic hold up I love. This one or two week old calf was sticking close to mom on the bike trail between UAA and Goose Lake.
And soon enough they were off the trail and I could continue my ride.
This was close to 10pm Monday night. My book club met downtown, so I came home via Westchester Lagoon on the Chester Creek path. This is at Valley of the Moon.
Just past Seward Highway, there were rugby players enjoying the late sun.
And the small lake as the bike trail approaches Lake Otis.
The symbiosis of nature - bees were swarming around the first peonies at the Alaska Botanical Garden.
The crowd of asters demanded I take a picture.
And the lilacs have just burst open in our front yard.
Some of the tools at the botanical garden.
Enjoy the summer. Let the trees and flowers and large and small creatures bring you calm in the days of high anxiety.
An acquaintance told me about Anchorage Greens. It's sort of near the Campbell Creek south bike trail, so on my way back, after the moose, and after the Taku Lake, I took the exit to Taku Elementary and on to Old Seward.
Getting across Old Seward on the bike took a while. It's between Old and New Seward. This unique food store is on 1207 E. 73rd (but it doesn't go through to Old Seward, so you have to take 72nd.)
(The sun made a few brief appearances yesterday. You can see the bit of blue sky. Windy too.)
The moose are out this week. Tuesday, walking toward Goose Lake we ran into a cow and calf. Two bikers and a runner had already alerted us, as they were looking for alternate routes. We got close enough to see them through the trees and walked back.
Thursday, biking to up Campbell Airstrip Road, I passed a young bull with a nice growing rack. It was the part of the trail that separates from the road. Where I'd been warned by a driver a couple of years ago that they'd seen a bear on the trail. So when I get to this part, I ring my bell a bunch to no one is surprised I'm there. And down below the trail was the moose. On the way back, I looked for him down below and there was nothing there. Then there he was right next to the trail. Turned back and took the road down. Where I was able to get this picture. You can see he's almost on the bike trail.
Then I stopped in the Botanical Garden. They have a great plant sale. Well, they sell plants all summer. There's a good selection of interesting plants - local and not - that do well in Anchorage. The plant sale is right at the front so I think you can buy plants without paying admission. But the whole garden is worth some exploration. And things change in there every week as different flowers start to show.
Here's some Shieldleaf Rogersia at the Garden. These are very large leaves - the sign says China, Korea.
They grow in the shade and my yard has lots of shade so I bought one about three years ago. Bugs have been eating at it each year before it gets real big. But this year it's looking better.
Friday I had a couple of stops to make downtown. First I dropped in at the Alaska Innocence Project. They help prisoners who claim they were wrongly convicted and have evidence to back their cases. They helped get the Fairbanks Four freed several years ago.
Prisoners don't get a lot of sympathy from the public, and innocent people behind bars is one of the biggest injustices in our society. Since
Since it was a beautiful day we met in their conference room on the roof.
That's Francisco on the left and Jory on the right. Here's a short video - under 2 minutes - that I recommend. It talks about why people are wrongly convicted and how many there are.
On the way to their office I found the new protected downtown bike lane. I'd read about it in the Anchorage Daily News, but forgot about it until I came across it. What an improvement. No dodging pedestrians on the sidewalk or cars in the street. I could relax and just ride. But there's not much of it - less than 1/2 mile I'd guess. And then to get to the office I had to go back to the streets. It even has its own street light with red and green bikes.
Next stop was at Tim's to pick up some postcards to mail to voters. This is probably the least painful way for introverts to be actively working to save Democracy. [If you think I'm being alarmist, let's talk. The mainstream media are treating the election as if Trump were a normal candidate. He's not. Mainstream media only look reasonable in comparison with Fox. With the Far Right capture of the Supreme Court, a Trump presidency would be the end of democracy in the US.] In this case the Environmental Voters Project combined with the Citizens Climate Lobby. Tim's in a log cabin downtown, but this one has been modernized a bit. It even has a touchpad to unlock the door.
I have some work to do.
Today was a spectacular day. I picked up a book that was on hold at the library for me. I think I requested it six or more months ago - The Sympathizer by Viet Thang Nguyen. It won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the first 15 pages pulled me right in. I'm still working on Many Things Under a Rock - a book about octopuses. From the library to the post office to get post card stamps and to mail a letter to my grandson who is away at camp. The post office was closed, but I could mail the letter. Finally I could bike on. As I said, it was a beautiful day - our warmest of the year I'm sure.
I doubt the official temperature, which is measured at the airport, was 77˚F (26˚C), but it was a nice, nice day.
I went up Arctic to the Campbell Creek bike trail near Dimond and then back down the trail past Taku Lake and eventually home. I've gone, as of today, 475 kilometers, this summer. (That means since the trails were clear enough of snow to ride.)
We had salmon on the deck this evening - with loud rumbles of thunder in the background. That's not something we get often in Anchorage - sometimes none in a year or three.
So keeping it fairly light today. Happy Fathers' Day to all of you lucky enough to have this awesome responsibility.
First off, I should say that for the fat tire and studded tire bikers, Anchorage is a year round biking town. For folks like me, biking doesn't really start until most of the snow is off the bike paths. The paths along the main roads have been clear since April 1 at least. Here's Dowling on one of my early April rides.
But as of the past weekend, the trails I've tried - and from reports of others - the bike trails along the greenbelts are now snow and ice free. This was the trail from Goose Lake along Northern Lights and then over the the Alaska Native Medical Center last Friday. The shiny stuff on the trail is melt water from the snow on the edge of the trail.
Goose Lake, last Friday was still covered with ice as have been other small lakes I've been by.
I still can't imagine the folks that designed these bike paths on the roads that bulge into the street at the corners. The biker has to move left into traffic. What were they thinking? OK, you can have space marked off from the cars, but only most of the way. Then we push you into the roadway. I'm guessing this wasn't a biker. Or even worse, an engineer who hates being forced to add bike lines, so he (a she wouldn't have done this) does the trail part way and then gets revenge at the corners. (Any engineers reading this - I'm just being playful, like the person who designed this.)
On Bainbridge Island, where they have a similar design, they have curb cuts so bikes go on the sidewalk instead of the street.
But this is a fairly recent improvement for the bike lanes on Bainbridge Island.
Saturday I explored the Campbell Creek trail going south. It was mostly clear, but there were still a few stretches with ice/snow. So coming back I decided to explore along Old Seward Highway. I didn't realize how grimy some of the streets between Old and New Seward are. This was 66th I believe. There was a fire in the old barrel in the middle.
And not all the paths along main streets are great. This is one of the worst. 36th Avenue west of the Old Seward Highway on the south side of the street. The big gravel lot north of New Sagaya feeds rocks and gravel onto the sidewalk. There are big holes in the sidewalk. This is just east of the little mall that has ACS and the Pita Pit. The sidewalk has disappeared under rock and broken asphalt.
And here's a picture in Spenard. I can't quite believe this was the first moose I've seen since we got back into Anchorage early March. It paid no attention to me. I was biking back from the Providence branch in the old REI space. No one had bothered to tell me that my doctor had recently moved from their to Building S over on the main Providence campus. But, I got to see the moose.
"'Caribou calves can outrun bears in 10 days,' he said. 'It takes moose calves about five weeks until they can outrun a bear. They’re vulnerable for a lot longer.'” (from University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute.)
The quote above is originally from 1998, but more current articles confirm the odds for calf moose are not good.
I got this quick glimpse of a moose and two calves on a trail leading off from the bike trail this morning. Then I started thinking that this mom has recently given birth to two large babies all alone somewhere in the woods! With no help from Dad, Mom, Sis, or anyone else. It's pretty amazing.
And nature is pretty stark too.
It's the last day of May and I've got 224 km ridden. That's a bit on the low side, but given the long winter, including the April snow, I think I can get on pace for another 1000 km this summer on the Anchorage bike trails.
