Little O'Malley and Anchorage sites

Exactly a week after hiking Flattop, we were back at the Glen Alps trailhead to hike something else, Little O'Malley Peak. We had a rough start after staying up way too late with friends at Potter Marsh while tent camping the night before. The early morning meet up time was rough and there were tears before we even got out of the truck. (We are a leave-the-house-after-10am kind of family, but we really like to hike with our 6am riser friends.) We finally talked a very tired and cranky Asher into hiking. I figured we wouldn't be going very far, so I didn't even bring my camera. I did take my cell and managed a few pictures before my battery died.

Here is where Journey decided she was done, so DB, 

Asher and I waived goodbye before continuing up the mountain. 

We did in fact make it all the way to the top and I really, REALLY regretted not bringing my camera. The view on the back side of the mountain was incredible! Back at the truck I took this photo of the peak we had just climbed. It's the one on the left. Our path took us up along the left side of the snow field and then up the ridge to the peak. Asher had fun running thru the snow on the back side.

I was really impressed with Asher hiking the entire way up. He even was the first person to reach the peak. And then it happened, he ran out of energy and just like that he was done. He decided he'd just stay here instead of hike down. Uhm, yah, so that was a torturous hike back with me encouraging, threatening and begging him to continue. I even caved and carried him for the brief bit that my back would allow.

After lunch we walked around Anchorage's Earthquake park to learn how the big earthquake of 1964 impacted the city. The 9.2 earthquake, the second most powerful in all of the world's history, lasted four and a half minutes and resulted in 139 people dead, severe damage in Alaska and tsunamis that caused even more damage as far as California, Hawaii and Japan! The resulting massive landslide dropped trees 40ft in some places and moved them sideways from 100 to 500ft and some still survived. 

The next day we made a quick stop to check out Jewel Lake 

and found these gorgeous black and blue damselflies.

Then we hiked at Little Campbell Lake where I spotted my first Red-Necked Grebe.

Back at Potter Creek we participated in the bird walk with Audubon Alaska before camping again.

We saw the baby eagles in their nest and followed their progress thru the summer. 

This was one of the parents who we watched bring a large salmon to the eaglets. 

The tree swallows love to sit on the railing and let you get quite close.

Around 11pm, I was heading back to our tent where my family was already asleep when I came upon a moose! I was only 5ft from stepping off the boardwalk and I looked to my left and there she was maybe 5ft away! Yikes! I looked at her, she looked at me, and I knew I was in trouble. I backtracked as fast as possible while at the same time she ran around the railing and stood at the edge of the boardwalk. Our friends, hosts Mike and Linda, were behind me and saw what happened. They blocked off the area so that no one would get hurt. In the morning, they said they'd also had a run in with her later and she had two calves with her, which explains her behavior. 

The following day we walked around downtown Anchorage. The area there is really cute with shops and interesting sculptures and green spaces. My favorite was Sevigny Studio, a gallery featuring everything from paintings, to sculptures to jewelry, all hand crafted by more than 100 local artists.

That night we attended Audubon Alaska's weekly bird walk at Westchester Lagoon, which was a super fun event. We saw lots of babies- mostly gulls and terns. We watched a chickadee feed her babies and then saw a baby red-necked grebe with it's striped zebra head sitting on it's mama's back. We were still watching when the daddy swam over and fed it while it was still on mama's back. So amazing!