This past weekend, my brother, Shawn, and I headed up north to the Mat-Su Valley to go hiking and check out the fall colors. South-central Alaska is being hammered right now by three weeks of (pretty much) non-stop rain. So much that the fish have spread their wings and started to swim up the water filled streets (no joke!). We had nothing better to do and Shawn had a couple extra days off, so we decided to go anyway. Amazingly, nearly every time we stepped outside the rain would stop and we even had a couple bouts of blue sky and sunlight. You are welcome, Alaska.

On our way up Thursday, we stopped to do a quick five-mile hike up to Russian Falls. For a second, I almost felt sorry for the fish trying to jump up the torrent of water. But then I remembered that they are vastly inferior creatures.

Friday we hiked nine miles out and back to Reed Lakes near Palmer. The day started out nice and blue skied, but the clouds of course rolled in and eventually started to sprinkle. What we didn’t know, was by the time we got to the upper lake, we would be standing more than knee-deep in snow. BONUS: Punching through the snow and discovering you were indeed walking over (and now in) a snow-covered creek.

Saturday, our dad joined us for a hike up to Eska Falls. It was an amazingly beautiful day. The sun poked through the clouds every so often, lighting up the orange and red shrubbery against the black mountain like good old-fashioned thanksgiving day witch burning. They did those, right?

We headed back home on Sunday, stopping in Girdwood to hike out to the hand tram 100 feet over a raging river below. I’ll tell ya what, if I ran out to that thing every day, and pulled myself and that insanely heavy cart over the river and back, I’d probably look like Popeye in… I’d say three days. I know what you’re thinking, three days is pretty quick, right? Well yes, but if you combine how freakin’ HARD it was to pull that thing across, with the physical godliness I’m at already, three days sounds about right. Right?

To see the full album from the weekend, click here.