37 Mile Lake 1

June 2 2008
At 9 am in the morning I was supposed to meet Mary Whitley on the highway where the bush road to the lake starts. We both know you can get there from Blue Kennels, which is on a stretch of old Alaska highway. We both know there's a shortcut. We didn't know there was two. Luckily Mary comes looking for me and 9.30 am we drive our vehicles onto the bush road. Willing to drive as far as our cars can safely handle it. The road is good and we come trough nice open spaces, which seem very dry, only some sparse grass grows, probably more if we would look closely. The road has side roads, we check the maps, to where we're going. We make it easily all the way to where it gets to wet, just before Thirty-seven Mile Creek. That's where we park and unload our bicycles, we both ride a similar 'Giant'. The creek has a little bridge (Thank you! somebody). We still get wet though, because the next puddle was deeper then we anticipated. (see photo, made by Mary). The road is on the right side of the creek, I wouldn't call it a bank. Yes, there was a bank, we climb up it and and are back in the grassy dry lands. Interspersed with Aspen forest. We see a (shore)bird. Mary is happy that I too drop my bike to the ground and grab for the binoculars. I think she knows which bird it was, but I have forgotten . Soon we are back in the forest. To our left we often see the creek valley. which stretches all the way to the Stony Creek Range. Which Jane and I hiked last year parallel to this trail. I enjoy to see it from this angle. I see a steep outcrop, which seems we should have walked by it. But I don't know it. Always another reason to go back. On a trip like this, I always find plenty more I like to investigate. And indeed as we are biking along, we come to a trail that goes east. As Mary locates it on the map, it seems to go directly to a 'grillige' ("Christian,please give me back my Dutch dictionary!!!) peak.