Well folks, having my brother up here in Alaska has been a breath of fresh air. We are having a blast. Yesterday after I ran 15 miles for my upcoming marathon and my brother got evicted from his bedroom by the screwball ex-missionaries whom we share a house with (long story), we threw our gear in the back of my truck and headed south to Girdwood. We parked at the Crow Pass trailhead and hiked 4 miles to some old mine sites. After scouting out some potential mines to explore we started climbing. First we climbed up Barnes Mountain, with a vertical gain of about 800 feet. The first mine we found was a good one. My brother wisely pointed out that gold is often found in quartz. While the first mine only went back about 200 feet, the vein of quartz and gold apparently also went upward. We were able to climb up old ladders and hundred year old posts wedged into the shaft. These posts held beams which miners probably sat on while they dug for gold. The above photo is of Scott as we were leaving that mine to climb to the summit of Barnes. The second mine we found was also a good one, with several passages off the main path. The third and final mine we found was the one I mentioned several weeks ago. It was large, dark, and full of icy glacial water. My brother wasn't too keen on entering this one. So wearing nothing but my water shoes, a bathing suit, a winter hat, and a headlamp, I started wading into the icy water. Have you ever been in water so cold it actually hurts? Ya, I only made it about 5 feet and about thigh deep in the water before I turned back. Click on my flickr link on the right hand side of the blog to see photos.
Anyway, after about 4 hours we were pretty tired so we hiked back to the truck and set up camp. Over a tasty dinner of cheddar bratz, corn, and beefaroni, washed down with Long Board Ale, we relaxed and enjoyed a day well spent. You'll probably hear me say this a lot over the next 2 months but I freakin' love my brother. He is fun and smart and sarcastic. Plus I don't know anyone else crazy enough to go on these type of adventures!!
"Adventure is worthwhile in itself." -Amelia Earhart
2 comments:
Obviously it was Scott's day to be logical... here's my question- what does it matter if one of you is being logical if you're not convincing the other one not to do something stupid??
Dear Anonymous,
I said Scott wasn't too keen on this part of the adventure. I didn't say it was dangerous or stupid. Just cold! We Bairds are not reckless. We're just really confident in our ability to climb, jump, swim, hang, crawl, run, ride over/under/around/through things like cliffs, caves, mountains, rocks, snow, glaciers, abandoned mines, etc. See, there's a difference.
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