Murphy Dome

It's tough hiking nowadays. Most of our trails are either still covered with soft, slushy snow, into which you sink up to your thighs; or, if fully thawed, covered in deep puddles and mud, into which you sink up to your ankles. I thought Murphy Dome might be dry enough. I was mostly right... the highest elevations still had post-holey snow on the trail, but we could bushwhack through the tundra very easily. I wore Muck Boots, and the ladies leapt and bounded all over the tundra in a dance as old as happiness.

Unpassable snow at the top:


Starbuckeroo was soooo happy to see snow:






A tiny tree, the last below treeline:








Starbuck looking wolfie:




As we descended the North side, we again encountered punchy, post-holey snow:


I tottered around it until we hit standing water:


Then said, "no, thanks" and turned around. The ladies ran to lead the way back to the little hill of tors:


We have clear line of sight to the met tower, wind turbine, and long range radar station where we had left the car. We just set a course for it, and off we go:




"Bushwhacking" above treeline is hardly so. And bushwhacking in the Alaskan Interior involves no snakes, scorpions, ticks, or poison oak! You can pretty much go wherever you please:


The ladies take in the scenery while I stop for a tea break:


Tiny Starbuck!


Tiny Cricket!




Frozen, thawed, and fermented blueberries and cranberries were still around from last fall. I enjoyed a few. The dogs looked like they had walked through a murder scene: