Bird Ridge

This weekend Drew and I both had a few days off.  We had originally planned on doing Crow Creek Pass, but figuring out how to get a ride to Girdwood and leave your car Eagle River is kind of hard.  Not to mention we had other things going on this weekend.  So instead we decided to do a day hike with our friend Rich up Bird Ridge.  Neither Drew and I had had the chance to do this hike.  It is 5 miles out and back, or in this case, up and down.  The trail is pretty much straight up and straight down.  No level ground.  You travel along a ridge line that always overlooks the water so every time you stop you get a beautiful view like this:

We thought it would be really cold but once you got above the clouds it was really sunny and even a little hot. We didn't need all the layers we brought, but we were glad we brought some gaiters as the snow got pretty deep near the top.  Despite the fact that you couldn't see through the clouds, the view was still pretty good at the top.  Here's a lot of pretty pictures:

 The snow coming down was a lot easier than going up.  You could just kind of step down it and sink into soft powder.  It is definitely wetter than Utah powder though:

How pretty are these trees?

Other than that we got to see Fiddler on the Roof this week and spend some good time with our friends Rich and Kristy, who are fresh back from Hawaii and nice and tan.  Maybe Hawaii needs to be the next place we live. :)