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Ketchikan, Alaska


We had a pretty decent amount of time in the town of Ketchikan, Alaska, so we spent some time in the touristy area of town and in a local museum, as well as our customary "find a mountain and climb it" routine.  Ketchikan is beautiful, and apparently it is almost always raining there, but we got lucky with a crystal clear warmish day!




The tourist area is built around and over the salmon creek, and is appropriately called Creek Street.  It used to be the red light district.



Salmonberry bushes line a lot of the paths.  They taste like very mild raspberries, and we saw a lot of local people out picking them as we headed up to hike.  But that came later!


Click the picture for a larger, more readable version





Near Creek Street is a small park and the Totem Heritage Center.  There's a larger collection outside of town, but that would have cut into our hiking time.  We enjoyed the smaller center, and I especially enjoyed seeing the beadwork, baskets, and carvings.


Then it was off to Deer Mountain.  It was quite a steep hike up out of town to even get to the trail head.  It's hard to imagine navigating some of these roads in the winter.  There were some signs stating that chains were required for certain roads.





Our third day in a row of hiking straight up was a bit slower than the previous two.  I wonder why?  We couldn't be getting older, could we?  Anyway, we met a young couple on the trail who were locals, and they told us about the spot on the trail (a little further on, of course!) where there had been a major rock and landslide back in March.  The trees were just scoured right off the mountainside.  It was pretty amazing.


As we stood there in the only gap on the entire trail, finally able to see out, we heard and saw a couple of bald eagles screaming by.  I was excited, but our young friends were like, "oh yeah.  wow.  another eagle.  yawn."  It all depends upon what you're used to, huh?  I know it looks like a jet with a contrail in my shot above, but it's really an eagle.  Honestly!

Copyright 2013 Cyndi Lavin. All rights reserved. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact.

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