My folks from Southeast Alaska and my aunt from the Bay Area
arrived in Anchorage as planned. It was a delight to see each other, and to
travel together again in Alaska after so many years. Our son’s girlfriend, the
lovely E.J. from Shanghai (who is in Anchorage studying Accounting and
Hospitality), recommended that we visit Eklutna Lake, about an hour north of
Anchorage on the Glenn Highway (Mile 26, for those using The Milepost 2012—the
invaluable guide to travelling anywhere in Alaska).
Eklutna Lake is in the Chugach State Park and in the midst of the Chugach Mountains. The Eklutna Glacier carved out the valley, and glacial and fresh water runoff created the lake. The glacier flour (small particles of silt) gives the lake a milky appearance. The lake is used by a power plant, and provides drinking water for Anchorage. It is also used for recreation; we saw a whole group of kayakers return to the landing site during our hike. We walked along the lake shore on a paved path through a spruce and birch forest.
I was surprised but interested to find many “plant diseases” on the trees surrounding the lakes. We found leaf galls, colonies of insects feeding on leaves, and evidence of leaf miners. This may be a common part of the forest life cycle where the growing season is short. Perhaps all creatures need to complete their life cycles before winter, but I don’t recall observing such a concentration of plant damage in one place on any of our other hikes. Something to research.
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| Eklutna Lake with Chugach mountains in the distance. |
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| Bare roots, and silty emerald green lake water. |
Eklutna Lake is in the Chugach State Park and in the midst of the Chugach Mountains. The Eklutna Glacier carved out the valley, and glacial and fresh water runoff created the lake. The glacier flour (small particles of silt) gives the lake a milky appearance. The lake is used by a power plant, and provides drinking water for Anchorage. It is also used for recreation; we saw a whole group of kayakers return to the landing site during our hike. We walked along the lake shore on a paved path through a spruce and birch forest.
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| The winding path follows the shoreline through a dense forest of spruce and birch. |
I was surprised but interested to find many “plant diseases” on the trees surrounding the lakes. We found leaf galls, colonies of insects feeding on leaves, and evidence of leaf miners. This may be a common part of the forest life cycle where the growing season is short. Perhaps all creatures need to complete their life cycles before winter, but I don’t recall observing such a concentration of plant damage in one place on any of our other hikes. Something to research.
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