Walrus Lakes

The most rewarding hike i did this summer was one that starts right above my house at Glen Alps. In keeping with my mopping up old business theme of the summer i decided to finally do the Glen Alps to Near Point via Williwaw Lakes trail. I figured it would shock me into shape because it's 16 miles long with 4,000 feet of climbing past a dozen lakes and across 5 mountain valleys. It can be even longer if done as a loop, but i wanted a one way ticket that descended 5,000 feet into an Anchorage neighborhood, so had Maree drop me off at Glen Alps. Being abandoned was a good way to motivate myself not to turn around, because i wasn't sure i was in shape enough to complete the hike.

This hike is so rewarding because it is not only challenging but it offers a huge variety of great scenery. You are never going more than two miles before you find yourself somewhere completely different. There were never any dilemmas or stories to tell in this excursion until near the end, so for this blog i'm letting the pictures dictate the narration.

The hike begins at Glen Alps and crosses the creek in Powerline Valley. You will be pleased to know that this is the worst scenery you will see all day.

The route i took starting in the lower left and ending in the upper left. In the beginning i chose to take the more interesting route straight up the side of "False Peak" to a place locally called "The Ballfield". It's over a thousand feet in a mile, but it is the most strenuous portion you'll have to do all day. Alternatively you could take the flatter but boring and idiotic route around the base of the mountain, which adds at least another mile of walking. For camping that would probably be preferable.

Up at the The Ballfield, a high valley resembling a plateau that leads toward the summit of O'Malley.

Rising another 700 feet in the next mile brings you to Deep Lake. Deep Lake is in a weird deep pit with water in the bottom. It was completely frozen and ugly so i did not take a picture. By the time we got to the top of The Ballfield it was  getting gloomy.

The mysterious, inky blue waters of Black Lake. Black lake sits down in a hole directly below the summit of O'Malley Peak. Mt. Williwaw sticks up toward the clouds in the distance.

From the overlook you take a steep scree decent to the shore of the lake below. The first 100 feet or so seem a bit dangerous for your ankles but after that the scree becomes perfect for running or hopping down the slope. It only takes a few minutes to get all the way down.

At Black Lake looking up the scree trail on the right.

Williwaw Lakes. From Black Lake you can descend down to the official trail through one of the prettiest parts of the hike. You take the trail past a couple of the Williwaw Lakes before it degrades into thick shrubs and mud. I saw a lot of people here on this day. Across the lakes were a large group of campers. A group that big looked like a guide service.

At 5.5 miles is this weird place where the stream gets really wide and shallow. The map says it's a lake. Maybe when the water is higher?

After a long absence the trail appears again. The back of Williwaw valley is very pretty, and i really wanted to continue in this direction but  from here i had to cross the steam and head up a terraced valley to the left. Continuing in this direction will take you back towards the route for climbing Mt. Williwaw.

After the easy stream crossing (it can be done almost anywhere) there is no longer a continuous single trail, but it doesn't matter. Out of the low wet muddy areas the tundra in the upper valley is ideal.

There are two lower Walrus Lakes. The looming "peak" in these pictures is just one of the lower ramparts of Mt. Williwaw. There is some discrepancy on the maps about what these lakes are called. National Geographic certainly lowers its standards for its Topo line of maps and calls these "Williwan Lakes" (not even spelling the name correctly). From what i understand Williwaw Lakes are farther down valley, as pictured previously, and consist of about six tarns.

From Lower Walrus Lakes the hard stuff is over. Have a good time, take a leisurely climb by following the water up to the next terrace.

Upper Walrus Lake is beneath an impressive headwall that leads to the summit of Williwaw. It's called Walrus Lake because when Captain Cook sent his men up into the mountains to collect bird eggs they discovered the bizarre skeleton of a Walrus in the snow. It was shattered to pieces as if it had fallen from a great height. To be honest though, i have no idea why it's called that. There aren't any Walrus around for hundreds of miles. Still, it's a cool name, for an alpine lake.

We walked around Upper Walrus Lake as high as we could see, looking for a way over the next ridge. On the way up we looked down to see there is a trail after all, and the terrain we had passed through revealed an interesting structure from above.

We made it to the terrain that Kona was apparently bred to blend into.

We came through a notch in the tundra covered cliffs and were exactly where we wanted to be. The highest lake here is as about 3,660 ft.

I don't know if these lakes have names. I don't think they'd be considered Walrus Lakes because they are in another drainage over a pass.

Since we were at our last high point, and there was somehow no wind at all, we took a nice long break and relaxed a bit.

The biggest reason i wanted to do this hike was to see this awesome rock glacier. I have seen a lot of rock glaciers (several already appeared in this blog if you know where to look) and they are not typically eye catching but this is the first one i have seen that had its own terminal melt pool! It's exceptionally constructed. It looks man made with heavy equipment, and the lake is a lot nicer than i thought it would be. At this point in the day it seemed to me like we'd come a really long way, but the rock glacier is exactly the halfway point, at 8 miles in.

From the low rise next to the rock glacier lake you encounter your first view of Long Lake. This is by far the largest and also the final lake you pass on the hike. Once again i was impressed with the view. The only pictures i had seen were down by the shore on rainy days. All the mountains and half the valley here are part of the military base Fort Richardson. Walking through the valley requires a military pass/registration which takes about 1 minute online and you can print it at home.

While i was mesmerized by the lakes Kona detected a bunch of sheep that were hiding in the rocks right behind us. She chased one of them all the way to the top of this mountain (Elliot Peak!). I only bring my wide angle with me these days but you can see one of the sheep on the right side of the ridge. You can see Kona a third of the way down the tundra on the left. She'd be camouflaged if she didn't have white legs.

Another sheep flees for it's life.

We easily walked down to the lake. It seemed like the hard stuff was over and Kona was very thirsty after that optional peak ascent.

Long Lake is just about a mile long. Near the western end is a low lying island full of bird nests. They are mostly sea birds and they began harassing us well before our arrival and for a whole half mile after we passed the lake. Kona seemed to enjoy it. Along the mountain ridges above us i saw a handful of Dall Sheep looking down from the cliffs.

After Long Lake the characteristics of the valley change completely and everything opens up.

Another mile and i thought i might be in Mongolia. I wanted a horse! I was really enjoying this. We were walking out of the clouds but a steady wind kept down the heat. The surface alternated between arctic tundra and grassy steppe.

Another mile and it got rocky and lumpy. Maybe an ancient overgrown moraine or rock slide. We could see the ocean now and in the distance our final destination, Near Point. It looked more like Far Point.

This was the longest hike i'd ever taken Kona on and she was doing great.

When we first saw Near Point, we were about equal in elevation. The valley, of course, slowly descended. Eventually we were low enough for brushy plants and deep grass. With that stuff usually comes more mud and water. A little farther down we could see trees and even bigger brush. I had been reunited with the trail but it was so deeply rutted and overgrown it was easier to walk alongside it. A properly designed trail (something that is an almost fictional concept in Alaska) will avoid pointless losses of elevation and excessive steep climbs. We had gotten to the point where i thought we had lost too much elevation but the trail continued to go down into thicker and thicker vegetation. I decided to fill up on water and abandon the trail here.

 We had met another group of campers who told us they had come from Near Point and said there was indeed a trail. They described the trail as pretty crappy in the valley forcing them into a lot of bushwacking and stream crossings.

To avoid all that and any more elevation loss i decided to start traversing up the side of the mountain pointed straight towards what i guessed was the correct notch in the high ridge (according to those campers). Above, you can see our goal on the left just touching the clouds while the stream has already dropped far below. The whole way up i could see no sign of the trail going up the slope.

We climbed high enough to see the High One. Like an apparition you can see the highest point on the continent behind the ridge on the right, just below the clouds.

It was far tougher than i expected, and super hard on my ankles, but we made it over the ridge and into a high valley directly above Anchorage. A weird sheen of smoke had moved into town but we were above it.

Due to a miscommunication during my talk with the backpackers i had aimed for the wrong notch. We came in at the low saddle along the ridge towards the right. The ridge climb wore me out so i wasn't happy about having to climb over three more knobs or rock. We did finally come back to the trail and i could see that it does indeed exist and go down into the valley. As i thought, it goes down much too steeply and much too early.

Kona approaches our final destination. Near Point looked enchanted. One more descent and one more climb to get to the 14 mile mark. It was nice to be back on a trail. When i we got to Near Point i turned my phone on for the first time. It was an entire hour earlier than i had estimated! I regretted not spending more time at the alpine lakes. From the Point i had to decide how to get down to the neighborhood, which looked enticingly close. The trail system down there is very poorly labeled and there is a maze of unofficial trails. Taking the right trail would shave off two or three miles of walking. Taking the wrong trail would not.

The off-trail climb to the notch had killed my knees. The dog was also going very slow on the final downhill. So on our last two miles down to Stuckagain Heights we walked gingerly into the familiar vegetation of Far North Bicentennial Park. In the distance we could see where we began the day at Flattop Mt. and Glen Alps in the late sunlight.