Continued from the previous page.

EXPLORING THE RIDGE

It took a lot of work to get up to the west end Healy Ridge through the low plants and rocks in the tundra but it was fun. Here is a series of photos in chronological order that shows some of the terrain and views:

 

 

 

Savage Canyon to the left and the river valley and low mountains in the distance

Summit of Mt. Margaret beyond the ridge I was hiking

Peeking over the edge of the ridge

 

 

 

There are a lot of "false plateaus" along this ridge, which keeps on going and going . . .

Looking back along the ridge

Note the cairn

Looking down into Savage Canyon and the valley to the north

I walked about 1˝ miles in the tundra beyond the maintained trail and on the long upper ridge. I had the place to myself after talking to the German couple near the rocky spine on the lower ridge.

PHOTOS FROM THE DESCENT

I made two modifications on the descent to shorten the distance.

I completed a tundra loop by hiking a tangent down from the west end of the ridge, aiming for the faint path I'd used on the ascent:

 

Looking back at the ridge from the partially constructed path where I saw the curious ground squirrel

I can't remember or find the name of this plant, which is bursting with fluffy seeds.
I think it's a plant that bears eat.  (I saw some bear scat on the mountainside.)

Here are some views of the trail through the lower rocky spine as I descended:

 

 

At this point (where I'm standing in the foreground in the next photo) I decided to drop down to the river on the right, through what looked like pretty low vegetation in a gulch. My goal was to avoid some of the rock steps on the Alpine Trail:

 

Looking back up toward the ridge as I descended through the gulch

It also cut out some of the switchbacks on the trail. Unfortunately I ran into a dense stand of willows half a mile from the trailhead and had to return to the Alpine Trail before I got back to Savage Rock.

Sometimes mountain slopes look easy to navigate from a distance, but up close it can be very difficult to walk through the vegetation. This isn't the first time I've made this mistake and it probably won't be the last.

 
View to the Savage River bridge from the Alpine Trail above Savage Rock

CARIBOU!

Before crossing the bridge to the truck I walked over to some folks who had long camera lenses to see what they and all the buses had stopped to look at. It was the same large caribou bull that was in the river bed when I first started my hike.

I got better pictures of him after my hike because he was at the edge of the willows and not hidden in them:

 

I got even better pictures of another handsome male caribou on the “gravel bar” section of the Savage Canyon Trail AKA the River Loop Trail, which was Hike #2. That's covered in the next entry.

I took these photos of the west end of Healy Ridge and the Savage River Canyon as I walked across the bridge to our truck:

Ridges where I just hiked

Savage River Canyon

Next entry:  I'm headed for that canyon in my second hike of the day

Happy trails,

Sue
"Runtrails & Company" - Sue Norwood, Jim O'Neil, and Cody the ultra Lab

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© 2012 Sue Norwood and Jim O'Neil