Post from McCarthy, AK (pop. 40 (Winter), 200 (Summer)

Arrived last night after 8 hour drive from Anchorage. Dusted off the boots for a "warm up" hike today from Kennicott (a mining ghost town slowly being restored by the park service) to almost the top of Bonanza ridge to the old mine ruins there. 3,000 foot climb in 4.5 miles. Was a little unnerved by the Park Service bulletin posted on the trail head saying "Beware of problemmatic Bear in the area". It had been posted two hours before. It seems some campers had one of their tents ripped apart by a black bear while they were somewhere else, and this bear was exhibiting other signs of having lost its natural fear of humans.

I ran into the campers, two college students and a girl from Quebec they picked up somewhere along the road, near the top of the mountain. They and a remarably pretty girl decending the peak alone were the only people I ran into the whole day. She was acting like it was a walk in the park - which I suppose it was in a literal sense. Anyway, the kids were nice, and didn't seem too fazed that one of their tents was shredded and unusable. They seemed more interested in finding hot food and beers when they got to the bottom - that and the cheapest room around. I got a head start down the mountain at about 2:30 - the wind was picking up, and it was in the upper 40s by this time.

The park rangers had advised me, since I would be alone, to sing loudly to myself while I walked through the trail that went through dense brush. So I tried that, and the feeling of awkwardness soon wore off. Problem was, it took too much focus to think of lyrics, so I went back to the boy scout standby, "99 bottles of beer on the wall. The final count was something like 3,000 bottles of beer on the wall by the end of the day". Toward the end, the college students and their Quebecqois girl friend had caught up with me. Except they didn't tell me for a while that they were about 50 yeard behind me giggling as I sang. When they finally let their presence be known, they were right behind me. This was in a particularly spooky part of the trail with lots of overgrowth and twists and turns. So the split second I heard a noise, I was I spun around with the bear spray, finger on the trigger and safety off pointed in their direction. We all had a good laugh.

I'm all showered up now, and about to grab dinner. The big trip is tomorrow. I'll do my best to post as soon as I'm back either Friday night or Saturday. Right now, I'm on a porch of a 100- year old mining office (or bordello, I'm not sure), and the mosquitos are starting to swarm.