Hiking Flattop Mountain

This past weekend while I was enjoying my convention, Bob has been walking for miles at a time getting in-shape for some big hikes. On Friday, after he picked me up we went to the Moose's Tooth Specialty Pizza Restaurant. They brew their own beer though now under the name of Broken Tooth Brewery. Very good samples! We settled on an IPA for Bob and their Pipeline Stout for me. The pizza and the beers were superb! On Saturday, Bob walked 3 1/2 miles on the Chester Creek Greenbelt. A very nice walk besides a stream among the trees. Tunnels under roadways added to the feeling of being off the beaten path. Bob picked me up and we went to Sourdough Mining Company for dinner. We split a seafood sampler for dinner. The decor was rustic with stuffed grizzlys, mounted caribou and mining artifacts. The food was nothing special. They had a storyteller/musician for a show after dinner. He had been in Glen Campbell's backup band for 13 years. He did a pretty good job, encouraging sing-a-long songs and talking about the gold mining days. It helped that he also gave out "prizes" of boxed chocolates! Sunday Bob did some serious hiking. He started with over 3 miles at the Campbell Creek greenbelt, then headed over to the Kincaid Park. This is a forested park with over 65 Kilometers of trails. The park has some lit trails (for evening winter use/ no need for lights in the summer!) for hiking, biking, X-Country skiing, and some for motorized use. It was quite a jewel of a park for Anchorage. For about 20 years from 1950 to 1971 the park was a Missile Defense Base. Sunday night we made a nice spaghetti with meat sauce dinner Very good and you can't beat the price! Monday was our Big Day! Back to the Glen Alps trailhead. Bob had his sights set on climbing Flattop Mountain. I was game to give it a try. Driving there Bob felt pretty good. Temps were in the mid 50's. It was cloudy but didn't look like it would rain much. By the time we got to the parking lot it was 43 degrees and very windy. Instead of Back-packing our extra clothes we put them on. One good thing about this trail is that it starts out fairly easily and gets more and more difficult. By the top it really is a scramble up the rock outcroppings. We both made it! Very tiring but a satisfying result. The Views were worth it at the top.It turns out that the trip down was as slow and difficult as the trip up. We took our time and made it back to our truck around 3:30pm. Both of us were pretty spent. We went back to the campground for showers and a change. Now it was time to head downtown for a dinner out to treat ourselves. We stopped first at the Glacier Brew House, but they had a 90 minute wait. We walked 2 blocks and came to Snow Goose Restaurant and their Sleeping Lady Brewery. Food was good, seafood chowder and fish and chips especially, but the beer was nothing special. Today, (June 17th)was our last full day in Anchorage with water and electric hookup for a while. We started with a nice blueberry pancake breakfast and got caught up on our laundry and chores. Our leg and back muscles need a warm up so we drove up to kincaid park. It was a beautiful day with lots of sun and blue sky. We walked 1 to 1/2 miles here and enjoyed many scenic overlooks for rest stops. Next we went off to search out 2 more brewers we hadn't yet checked out. First we stopped at King Street Brewery where we shared a 7 glass sampler. All of the beers were good to excellent. They had no food except popcorn. The owner gave us a tour. They are a small but growing brewery that seems to know what they are doing. It was such a beautiful day and we were close, so we drove back up to the Glen Alps trailhead and checked out the views with clearer skies. Then we made our last stop at the Midnight Sun Brewing Co. I tried the 4 glass Belgian Delights sampler, but was not delighted. Bob had the 4 glass IPA sampler and found two (Pleasure Town, and Sockeye Red) that were pretty good but not as good as the King Street brews.