Seward trails have been getting plenty of foot traffic lately.
I have a friend who ran three of the major ones last week — in one day. She found herself at the summit of Alice, Bear and Marathon all before dark on a sunny, summer Seward day.
When the weather is good, there’s no reason not to try it all.
The next day, I asked her how she felt after completing the Triple Crown of elevation gain.
“My knees kind of hurt,” she said before heading out to the Harding Ice Field Trail on another sunny day.
When the weather is good, who wants to take a rest?
We both ran the Lost Lake Run on Aug. 25, a dreary day in comparison to the past week or so, but with only a bit of fog and a light misting of rain, it was a good day by Seward standards.
The through trail from Primrose up, over and down Lost Lake was full of people from near and far. At the start I caught up with friends from Soldotna, Homer and Anchorage.
Across the 15ish-mile trail, I was a part of and heard a lot of conversations. One woman who I was running alongside was a grandmother who had back surgery in February. When she passed me on an uphill I couldn’t help but cheer her on. (Despite the fact that I was being passed by a grandmother who underwent a recent back surgery!)
At the finish I found a sunny afternoon waiting for me, as well as some local friends who had come to show their support.
When the weather is good, there’s lots of reasons to cheer.
Along the Tonsina Creek Trail on a particularly toasty afternoon, I bumped into runners, hikers and dog-walkers around almost every corner. With a nod and a hello, we expressed our mutual happiness at the cloudless days.
By the time I made it over the creek, down past the second bridge and alongside the beach, I was working up a sweat and getting dangerously close to calling the September afternoon a summer day, so I cooled off with a quick jump in the ocean.
When the weather is good, might as well take a dip.
I also found myself swimming in Vagt Lake, between Seward and Moose Pass. The trail was quiet that day, but after talking to friends who had all spent one of their recent sunny afternoons hiking to the lake, three of us hopped in the car and trekked a bit out of town. After a short hike, we found ourselves at the top of a platform looking down at the lake, maybe a little too far down.
But when the weather is good, it’s a bit easier to jump for joy. So we did, although it may take a lot more sunshine to warm Vagt Lake up.
This past, sunny, Labor Day weekend, the Marathon Bowl stole some attention from its neighbor, the infamous race point on Mt. Marathon, with a live concert from Blackwater Railroad Company. Crowds hiked up along the Marathon Jeep Trail, through the bench and into the bowl for the concert, getting music lovers on the trail and hike enthusiasts to a show.
When the weather is good, might as well sing.
In between one of the many peak-induced sunsets and some chants of “one more song,” you could hear the snippets of conversations about the weather.
“What a perfect day for this!”
“Yeah, we’ve been having such wonderful weather this past week.”
“I haven’t seen a September like this in years.”
When the weather is good, talk of the weather will do.
Kat Sorensen is a writer living in Seward. She can be reached at katsorensen.nj@gmail.com
