The first peak looked like this when we started (compare to the right-most peak in the picture in the previous post):  |
Here you can see the trail that we followed up the lower half of the mountains. It was similar to an animal trail. It was not very wide and was very steep and slippery, even though plants and mosses were on the trail. There is a slight flat area about halfway up the mountains (above the clouds in the picture), and then it gets steep again to get to each of the peaks.  |
Here is the view from about halfway up the steep first half of the mountains. We parked at the bend in the road, and hiked to where I took the picture. The city of Kodiak is behind the hills on the right hand side of the picture (and off farther to the right).  |
Here you can see how steep the hill was that we were climbing. The part shown in the picture is about a 45 degree incline, even though that was not the steepest part.  |
Here we all are at the flat spot about halfway up the mountains. We now had to decide which peak to go up, and how to get up the peak. You can see Woody Island out there in the distance (I don't know which of the two islands it is though).  |
Here is the valley between the middle and right-most peaks of the Three Sisters. You can see that the clouds rose quite a bit from when we started. It was quite windy again, as we were at an elevation of about 900 feet. We were planning on trying to conquer the middle peak which is the highest. The peak was above the clouds, so we could not see the best way to get up there.  |
Well, we kept hiking after we had thought we found the best way to get up to the peak (go up the valley to the ridge, then up a ridge to the peak. However, we hiked along the side of the middle peak, which was just as steep as when we were coming up the first hill. Then we decided to head down through the alders to a different route because the first choice was not the greatest. We got down a little ways to where we could start heading up the valley, but we noticed it was getting much foggier. Eventually, we couldn't see the waves crashing on the beach, as shown in this picture, and we couldn't even see the ridge with the trees on it.  |
Here is a pine tree, and the side of the right-most peak in the Three Sisters, to show you how foggy it was. We decided to head back down for safety reasons. We got back to the ridge we couldn't see because of the fog (shown in the last picture). Then we headed back down the really steep hill to the bottom.  |
Here we are heading back down the really steep hill (about 600-700 vertical feet). It was so steep, and so difficult to try to stand on, that many of the people in our party decided to just slide down the hill. They slid down the trail because the plants were already knocked over, as the grasses and cow's parsnip and other plants were often about 2 feet tall and very thick. The hiking pole I had was very helpful going up and coming back down, but it was still so steep that I fell down multiple times.  |
Here is the trail after we came back down. You can see how much wider it is, after 8 of us went up and down it.  |
Here is a comparison of the trail, before and after, at about the same scale. Nobody will get lost trying to follow the trail next time!  |
After reaching the bottom, we decided to build a bonfire at the beach. Horizontally, we hiked about 2 and a half miles (not including the extra distance due to inclines) and changed elevation about 900 feet. However, we didn't get to any of the three peaks due to the fog. Now, at almost 8 PM, it is sunny, with almost no clouds in the sky.
So, here are the new mileage totals:
Foot: ~33 miles
Bike: ~31 miles
Car: ~1500 miles (It is 95.6 miles roundtrip to the range. I haven't driven any of these miles!)
Boat: ~6 miles
Plane: ~3450 miles
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