Saturday Nancy, the twins, and I set off to hike the Granite Tors as a overnight. The Granite Tors is a nice day hike (without additional encumbrances, like for example two three year olds), or a easy over night trip. It is a very beautiful hike which wanders though black spruce bogs, recovering burns, and high alpine meadows. There is a bit of elevation gain, but nothing too extreme, and the views are spectacular. The hike is about 15 miles long, with a starting elevation of approximately 750ft and a high point approaching 3000ft.
It was a beautiful hike, and the girls where very excited to be out hiking.
The dogs, Togiak, Polar, and Remus where also excited to be out and about.
Nancy and I carry the girls in Sherpani Rumbas. They work well, but are not really designed for two parents carrying twins – there is just not enough space to carry gear for overnighters.
The beginning and end of the trail winds though a low lying black spruce forest, which is board walked. The board walk made for fast pleasant hiking. We saw a lot of unripe blue berries – this will be a very good berry picking area this fall.
The twins are big fans of the board walk which is pleasant hiking for short legs.
Eventually the boardwalk ends and the trail starts heading up. The next couple of miles of trail slowly wind up the ridge until it reaches tree line near the first tor. This area is recovering from a fire that occurred several years ago and it is quite interesting to see the vegetation coming back.
There are a large number of burls leading us to an extraneous burl picture.
The twins where quite excited by the cairns which Molly starting calling “rock trees”.
Eventually we made it up to the top, referred to by some locals as the “Plain of Monuments” and we camped at the base a set of tors. It was a wonderful camp site with enough breeze to keep the mosquitoes away.
After a couple of stories we all hit the sack. The hike out was a little less fun, as it was raining pretty hard for the first hour. Molly and Lizzy where unfazed though, and enjoyed their ride out in the covered comfort of the kid carriers.
On the way out we ran into some friends on the board walk and enjoyed their company for the rest of the hike out. The trail on the way out was almost entirely down hill and very fast walking. Perhaps too fast – at one point I almost fell and was told by Lizzy to “go slow on the hard parts”. The way out heads down from the plain and passes a number of large tors before descending though a burn for a couple of miles, then hits board walk which lasts for most of the remaining couple of miles of trail.
On the way out we stopped by Mia’s and got dinner. This time the croad was a bit more adventuresome and ordered some of the Korean options from the menu, which turned out to be a good call, as they are quite good.
Tags: chena_rec_area, granite_tors, mellow, the_twins