Mountain biking at Kincaid Park.

Fall is beautiful in Anchorage. Because the season is so short, it's important to take advantage of as many nice days as possible. Matt had the weekend off, so we headed to Kincaid Park, which lies on the western side of Anchorage, for some mountain bike riding...both Saturday and Sunday. :-) The temperature was about 50 degrees, which was perfect for riding. 

Kincaid Park, along with Hillside Park, which is on the southeast side of Anchorage, has more than 20 miles of single track trails, which have all been developed over the past three years. The Alaska Dispatch News, Alaska's leading newspaper, wrote an article about the singletrack trails that are becoming quite popular among mountain bikers in Anchorage. 

We rode a trail called Bowling Alley and a loop called Toilet Bowl on Saturday and then rode Middle Earth, Mighty Bike and Tower Power on Sunday. Middle Earth is a new 7 mile trail at Kincaid Park that had spectacular views of the Cook Inlet. These routes were obviously named with some intense thought... 

According to the Alaska Dispatch, the International Mountain Biking Association offers a five-level trail rating system ranging from easy (maximum grade of 10 percent and no natural obstacles) to the extremely difficult double black diamond (20 percent grade with unavoidable obstacles and no more than 6 inches wide in places). IMBA officials were in Anchorage in early June to inspect the Kincaid trails. Singletrack Advocates considers all of the Kincaid trails -- except for new one-way sections -- to be intermediate, and the IMBA agreed, classifying the one-way trails as black diamond or expert level.

Most of the trials are one way, which conveniently prevents collisions with other bikers...

We ended up riding about six miles of the singletrack trails on Saturday and rode for about three hours on Sunday...time flies when you're having fun!! 

Just as our ride ended on Saturday, we came across some familiar company...Moose!!!

After our ride on Sunday, we headed to Tastee Feez (my first visit ever) for a snack. For the record, this is the northern most Tastee Freez in the world. 

We had a great time getting outside together and enjoying the weather.

I hope you had a great weekend!

September Saturdays.

September in Anchorage means fall is here. After a long week of facilitating and presenting at the ANTHC Tobacco Tatment Specialist Training, it felt good to get outside and do some of my favorite things, which included...

Visiting the South Anchorage Farmers Market...

Walking with Rio...

...and making fresh almond butter!

It's been a great day...and the Hawkeyes won!

Cheers!!

Hatcher Pass Epic.

The 2nd Annual Hatcher Pass Epic bike ride took place on August 9 and was hosted by Backcountry Bike and Ski out of Palmer, Alaska. Palmer is roughly 45 miles north of Anchorage. The Hatcher Pass Epic is a 90 mile bike race ride that begins in Palmer, climbs through Hatcher Pass, strolls by Willow and then ends back in Palmer. Matt and I signed up for the ride about a week prior to the event. Although I take a spinning class about twice a month, I hadn't put that many miles on my road bike this summer. Fortunately, Matt informed me that the ride was intended to be split up between team members, so upon agreeing to the ride and unbeknownst to Matt, I convinced myself that I could do 10 miles of the ride and Matt could do 80 miles (sarcastic grin). On the morning of the ride, we packed up the truck with our bikes, snacks, fluids and...

...Rio! Since one of us would be driving the truck while the other rode bike, Rio provided some much appreciated entertainment for the driver. 

Matt started the ride out of Palmer and rode for about 15 miles...

Then, I took over for the next 12 miles, which included the steepest climb of the ride through Hatcher Pass. 

Hatcher Pass runs through the southwest part of the Talkeetna Mountains.

The Hatcher Pass Management Area is not a State Park. Rather, it is a mix of state, borough and private lands with the state being the principal land owner. Therefore, almost all of the land in the Hatcher Pass area is public. Most private land encompasses the widely distributed land holdings that are mainly mineral estates. 

The area is popular for day trip recreation, including cross country skiing, sledding, snow machining, mountain and road biking, hiking, camping, hunting, kayaking, berry picking, rock climbing and recreational gold mining.  

Matt finished the last couple miles of the road bike portion of the ride before getting on his mountain bike to complete the 15 mile dirt road portion of Hatcher Pass Road, better known as Fishhook Road.  

The first few miles of the Fishhook road required a strenuous 800 foot climb to the top of Hatcher Pass, which has an elevation of 3,886 feet. However, the greatest thing about climbing mountain passes is the downhill.

Matt enjoyed a gradual coast down the last 13 miles of Fishhook Road.

While each of us rode the ride, Rio enjoyed many drinks of water in her camping bowl...

...and a few naps on her sleeping pad...

When Fishhook Road ended, I hopped back on the road bike for another 15 miles, getting us past Willow and to the outskirts of Wasilla. Matt completed the last 15 miles of the ride from Wasilla back to Palmer, where riders who had completed (or not completed) were waiting with food and drinks in hand. 

While most rides hand out tshirts or water bottles to finishers, The Epic handed out stem caps, which are the perfect swag for a bike ride. 

Matt, Rio and I had a great time riding our bike through Hatcher Pass. Until next year...