Just when we thought it was almost time to be back up in the big mountains, Mother Nature decided it was time for snow and wind. The ridges and peaks that had been close to being melted off were now blanketed in multiple feet of fresh snow, so we decided to do something new; something that we thought would be a walk in the park. It surely was not!

Earlier in the week, we had been hiking the ridge below POW, and while looking across the Valley at Bear Mountain, we did what we do best… planned an uncommon hike. The north ridge of the mountain looked totally doable, with almost no snow, and I was sure we could meet up with the trailhead at the top of the Thunderbird neighborhood. We decided that, on the next nice day, we would hike from Peters Creek, up Bear Mountain and down the north ridge to Thunderbird.

The weather finally cooperated and gave us a beautifully sunny and wind free day. This time, Jason didn’t forget his shoes, and we were both almost on time to meet at the Thunderbird Falls parking lot at 930am. Leaving Jason’s car, we headed towards the Peters Creek Trailhead.

Bear Point is a well-known mountain, a hulking mass right next to the main (and only) highway between Anchorage and the Valley. The roadside, west face is steep and foreboding, numerous chutes cut into the massive wall, but the main ascent route is via the southwest face, a moderately steep, but not extremely challenging trail.

It didn’t take us long to climb the 1.5 miles and 1,800′ to the top, although we were very happy to have made it before the ice melted, when the trail would become a muddy mess.

The top of the mountain is nothing like what the daily commuter sees from below, spreading out flat and broad, a field of patchy snow and tundra. In the fall, this entire area is covered in blueberries and blueberry pickers, but for now, we were alone, ceilinged by wispy clouds and a full circle sun dog.

We walked along the top of the west face towards the true summit, half a mile and less than 100′ higher, while admiring the height of the vertical drop to our left. The summit of Snutnadzeni Point (AKA Bear) is anticlimactic, a small pile of rocks denoting the highest point, but the views make up for the bore of summit. Mirror and Edmonds Lakes are far below, and Chugiak just an ant colony in the distance.

The ridgeline we would be following down towards Thunderbird looked promising from the summit, snow blanketing the west face, but the wide ridge looking relatively snow free. We set off into the unknown, recording some new tracks on our gps apps.

Initially, we had no issue with snow and enjoyed an easy tundra walk, but the conditions quickly changed as we descended to the north. The footpath disappeared and was replaced with waist deep, breakable crust snow. We floundered along, not willing to turn back and call this a failure. We could see the snow would peter out in less than half a mile, so we continued on.

The deep snow turned to alders, the trail now completely gone, and it was obvious that no one had walked here in a very long time. Jason did find signs of humans, though, when he came across an emergency blanket and a hand warmer frozen to the ground amongst the alders. We wondered what had happened here and packed up the trash to haul out.

When the alders opened into grassy fields, we were relieved… until we took our first steps. The grass had grown and matted over many years, completely covering hidden leg breakers… downed trees. We gingerly picked our way through the grass minefield and only once did I fall into a hole and nearly cry from what would surely be a fine bruise on my shin.

We desperately needed a lunch break and some time to regroup. Bushwhacking is both physically and emotionally draining and we were ready to sit down for a few minutes. We had an amazing view of Mt Eklutna and, my favorite, Peak 1222, while we ate our sandwiches, and soon we felt revived and ready to go.

Onward we descended, alder bashing and crossing “danger grass.” Three eagles came to visit us, circling overhead, and we wondered if they were the same ones we had seen just a few days prior near POW. We began to notice that many trees, some multiple feet in circumference, had been blown down over the winter, in some areas nearly 40% of the trees were no longer standing. The new danger became widow makers, AKA dead heads. We gingerly chose our route over and around them to ensure we would not be killed by a silly mistake.

Just when we thought we had reached the end of the alder bashing and leg breaking grass, we came upon the last thing we wanted to see… Devil’s Club. Fields of it. We pushed on through, collecting thorns in our body, but grateful that we weren’t doing this in the middle of the summer. The dead, thorny branches are much easier to deal with than the fully blooming plant!

We were aiming directly for Thunderbird Creek, just bashing our way through anything in front of us, and somehow, I looked down at just the right time to see a bird’s nest sitting on the ground. Remnants of eggshells inside, I wondered if the babies were healthy and grown or if the wind or a predator had cut their existence short.

Suddenly, we came to a path, the one I had hoped would be there, and we took a right turn up towards Thunderbird Valley to do some recon for crossing on a future hike we had planned. Only a few hundred feet up the trail, we came to a narrow ridge leading to a point overlooking Thunderbird Creek. A sign marking “Trail’s End” made an obvious statement, as the point dropped off precipitously, more than 50′ down to the water.

Backtracking along the trail, very grateful for an established footpath with no sharp or thorny sticks in the way, it only took a few minutes to travel the .3 miles to the trailhead on Raven Court in the Thunderbird neighborhood, and not much longer to reach the parking lot, another mile down the road. We looked back up the west face of Bear and laughed at how ignorant we were to think that would have been easy, and how happy we were to have filled in another ridgeline on the map.

Jason drove me back up to the Peters Creek Trailhead to pick up my truck and then we celebrated with dinner at Bella Vista, seated with a perfect view of the mountain we had just traversed.