Mt. Margaret

I awoke last Friday at noonish and immediately started making plans for my day off. It was to be a laborious day spent reading at the lake and laying around on the couch. I began prepping myself for the mentally and physically taxing day ahead of me when I got a text from my friend Emily. Apparently she had the day off too and was looking for a hiking buddy. I suggested "Triple Lake" near the park, a simple, mostly flat, stroll through the forest that leads past 3 lakes and a few beaver homes. Emily had bigger plans. Steeper plans. More difficult plans. She suggested Mt. Margaret, a 4,900+ foot mountain at the 15-mile/Savage River turn out in the park.

I agreed to go mostly because by the looks of the sky outside it would be raining on us before we could even start hiking. So I packed my bags (without snacks dammit) and walked the mile to the highway and caught the bus that Travis was driving with the customers returning from the morning Stampede. He dropped me off in the canyon and I met up with Emily across the highway at the office and we took off for the park in her wheels for the summer 'Chez.'

A few minutes into our drive into the park the clouds started to spit. Just a few drops here and there dotting the windshield, nothing serious. I was feeling pretty confident that neither of us would be doing any hiking that day. But as we neared the Savage it began to clear up a bit. We were surrounded by clouds and we could clearly see rain over the mountains opposite of Margaret, but a ray of sunshine cut through the clouds directly over Margaret. I still held out hope for a long hike cut short by the rain, but when we reached the ranger station at the head of the trail they told us the storm had basically stalled across the valley and we should be able to enjoy our hike.


The reality that there was a journey ahead of me sank in. I was excited, but my lethargic start to the day left me feeling a bit unprepared. None the less we began our ascent around 2:15.


Emily lead the way for the first half-hour or so before we switched and I took up the front.

photo by Emily Sullivan

I was inching up the hill with my head down when behind me Emily jumped and shouted "WOAH!" We'd been talking to the bears on our way up to keep them away, so of course I thought she'd seen one and momentarily freaked out. When I looked up however, I spotted the reason for her surprise. A young dall sheep was glaring down at us from a rocky point above us. Dude was creepin.

photo by Emily Sullivan

We passed without any problems snapping a few pictures along the way and continued our way up the mountain.

photo by Emily Sullivan

We reached the peak in only two hours. The top of Margaret is interesting because there are several peaks surrounding a big flat bowl the size of a few football fields. Its a strange sight to see such a big field on top of a mountain.

photo by Emily Sullivan

We snapped a few pictures before we looked around and spotted a few hundred feet away a peak that was obviously a few feet higher than the one we were standing on.

photo by Emily Sullivan

Since we'd come so far we figured we had to get to the REAL top and took the 15 or so minutes to walk to the other peak.

photos by Emily Sullivan

We started our descent down the way we came and watched as the weather that had been threatening our hike all day remained unmoved above the mountains across the valley from us. We also could clearly make out four dall sheep grazing directly on the trail about halfway down below us. We made quick work of the hike down stopping to take pictures of the sheep and work our way around them.

photos by Emily Sullivan

I forgot to mention that about halfway up the mountain Emily realized she'd left 'Chez's' lights on. Or at least she thought she had. We figured that if she had indeed done that,the battery would already be dead, so turning around would just be a waste since the car would be just as dead a few hours later anyway. But now on our way down it began to become more of a concern. We were both pretty hungry and just wanted to get down and go eat. When we got to the car our suspicions were confirmed. 'Chez' was dead. Poor 'Chez.' Luckily for us an elderly couple from upstate New York (who apparently drove to AK in 7 days. What the hell?!) were hanging out by the river and had jumper cables on them. We were saved! After a few minutes of awkward conversation with the couple - they both had strange speech impediments and seemed a bit spacey from the drive - we were on our way to pizza and beer at Prospectors. At the end of the day I'd say it was accidentally a very beautiful/productive day off.