My first public use cabin experience was at Bald Lake January 23, 2010! We had an awesome evening and a great pot roast dinner. Eric and I get along really well and he is keeping me company. I really like the idea of the cabin rental. It's $50 bucks a night and you can always explore somewhere new. This trip was fine..no issues to report at all.
However, our next trip was not so successful. I believe it was Feb 7th and I played hooky from work. Eric and I drove to Seward to see Wendy after the polar bear plunge. We had a fun night at the American legion singing Karokee and stealing some ladys pink monkey. On the way home we decided to stop at Crescent Lake trail to do some hiking/fishing. We started up the trail around 11am. It was a steep climb in the snow. Luckily some trails were cut out by the snowmachiners. It took about an hour and half to get up the hill. I was pretty out of shape so it was a tough climb. It flattened out up top and we made our way over to the lake. It was about another 1/2 mile from the trailhead. Even though it was winter in Alaska it was surprisingly warm that day! It was around 30 degrees and we were very warm from the hike. We attempted some fishing and ate lunch. We noticed a few skiers head out to a cabin which was about another 9 miles from the lake and a few snowmachiners. We were pretty much the only ones up there. Well since it starts to get dark pretty early we decided to head back around 4pm. It was already starting to get dark. Eric said "let's take a short-cut" (famous last words, I know right!!). We got lost in some trees pretty quickly and were up to our thighs in snow. We abandoned that idea and started back the way we came. We were walking and chatting following what we assumed was the path we took in. This is the part where we realize that in the snow your tracks get covered fast and the trees all look the same. Once again we are in snow up to our thighs and looking around wondering how we got turned the wrong way. We check our cell phones for service...nothing. I start to panic. It's snowing harder and nothing is looking familiar. We still had a long hike to the truck and were almost out of daylight. I went into a full blown panic attack complete with heavy breathing, crying, and shaking. I am sure that I was helping the situation by acting like this, lol. At this point, I was sure we were spending the night out there. I also was due at work the next day and would be a no call no show. We also forgot to mention to ANYONE where we were. No one would even be worried or notice that we didn't make it back to Anchorage. My legs were starting to hurt from trudging through the snow and I was starting to get cold (not good when temps were going to go pretty low in the mountains that night). Meanwhile, Eric is cool as a cucumber (he didn't want to make it worse), but I heard him say "yeah, we are lost" a few times. I got a second wind and decided to go back to the lake and start over AGAIN. This time Eric spotted a place wear he had peed on the way up and it lead us straight to the trail. Thank GOD!! I have never been more relieved! When we found the trail Eric collapsed on the ground and admitted "He was pretty fucking scared" lol. So we didn't have to spend the night at -10 below, but we learned some valuable lessons!! Most importantly... Always leave a trail of pee in the snow to find your way home!! Phew.....
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