Movie of the best trail bridge ever

Except for maybe a catapult, this is the coolest design ever for crossing streams. At the Canoe Cove Cabin in Bridgett State Park out of Juneau.

More Haines happiness

Here is the lovely house of Marnie and Greg. They are doing a great job of landscaping, and it is a joy to sit amongst flowers and gardens. Note the hard-working Marnie in the photo.

Also note the screw off Blain on their moped instead of helping. What a great little gitaround.

The weather isn't always like Colorado, they tell us. They get some snow in winter. This snow stake on Mt Rapinski tells all. Note the second photo of the top marker...

All that snowmelt does good things for the groundwater, and the mushrooms have been coming out en mass. This handsome birch bolete caught our eye.

Mt Rapinski was a major achievement for Blain. Broken leg kept the distance down on past hikes, but it held up great for this 3600 ft peak. I know our Colorado buddies will give us a hard time for the altitude, but keep in mind that we started from 5 ft. below sealevel.

And Mo was proud of him.

Haines is for hikers

Up the Lynn Canal to Haines to the Southeast Alaska State Fair. And to do some hiking with our friends Greg and Marnie. Last time we saw them was April 2009, when we started this crazy thing and drove to Haines to see them and go skiing.

The town looks a lot different without the snow, and the weather has been unbelievable. Shorts weather. Yesss! A real Chamber of Commerce day.

And Blain can hike. The leg is truly getting stronger, and we both enjoyed the climbs of Riley Peak and Mt Rapinski from town.

With 360 deg views of the most spectacular place we have ever seen, who could complain about sore knees.

This group of Canadian hikers kept the dog occupied for a while with the opening of packs and crinkling of granola bar wrappers.

We were happy to see so many western toads along the wet spots in the trail, and at one meadow counted eight little subadults. It looks to be a good toad year.

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We ran into a trail crew working in southern Lynn Canal in Bridget Point State Park. All of them, brand new to the state, and working for a group called Overland. Here's the groups site. But they were working with Trail Mix and the State Parks to repair some wet and sloggy tread. Instead of just hanging around this summer, these kids came up to Alaska to work. What a concept. And have some fun too, I'm sure.

Chance again checked packs for possible nibbles, but nothing there for them. It was fun looking through their eyes at how wide-eyed we were when we just arrived. We had to encourage them to try the blueberries. They were'nt sure if they could. Cute kids.