Moments in Dirt and Ink

Great Basin National Park ( map link ) Since I didn't have time for it after I climbed Wheeler Peak , I had to come back to make my way around the Alpine Lakes Loop and see the rock glacier. What's a rock glacier? Well, I would find out. It would be later than expected. I wanted to go there first for the better light, but the trail was closed for an indeterminant amount of time in the morning due to unforeseeable circumstances. I decided to reverse my plans and made it take extra long by trying out a map editor (Vespucci) on the handheld. Since I had no signal and hadn't tried it at all before, the best I could do was take notes for things that weren't on my OpenAndroMap. I started with the ADA accessible Island Forest Trail, which has a number of interpretive signs and benches and needed some route corrections. I got the first two all marked although the last part was complicating things. The Island Forest Trail, an ADA trail of rubbery mesh mats and a few boa...

Kenai Peninsula, Alaska Locate the trailhead. Today's plans held only dropping off the car at the Homer, which closes up around 5, and getting onto the ferry around 8. The rental said we could actually drop it off after hours when the airport was still accessible if not actually populated. That was far away, but not so far that it would take the whole time after breakfast. We went back to Exit Glacier where the trail actually keeps going up beyond the glacial face until it is high and overlooking the Harding Icefield that is the source of ice for the various glaciers we saw the day before. Here we are at Exit Glacier again, but this time climbing above it and soon above its source, the ice field that occupies the center of the peninsula. Today is a bit clearer and brighter than yesterday.