Alaska: Beluga Point

8-17-92

Again, not much time left over today but I hiked from the Rainbow trailhead on the Old Johnson Trail back towards McHugh Creek today. I hiked the McHugh Creek side of this stretch of trail a week or so ago and had a run-in with a Dall Sheep ewe and her lamb. It seems my streak continues. It rained this morning and I ended up following the tracks of a Dall ewe and lamb up the trail. Don’t know if they were the same ones but they must have been right in front of me, the tracks were that fresh, still crumbling along the edges, but I couldn't hear or see them.

When I got up above Beluga Point where it’s slightly less steep, I got ambitious and bushwhacked down the mountain.  I ended up in an area with very heavy moose sign, but didn't run across (or get run over by!) any of them in the flesh.  Luckily, I found a way to get all the way down to the road near the point, so I didn't have to climb back up the way I had come.  That would have been a job! Instead it was an easy walk along the shoulder back to the car.