foggy days at granite tors, fairbanks, may (which in most parts of the world is considered a summer month)

school is out! summer has begun!
that is, if fog and snow can be considered summer. apparently, in alaska it can. we left fairbanks for the supposedly beautiful and climbable granite tors but were met with rain and snow and fog. we praised our gloves, nanna and i damned our boots who turned out not to be waterproof, and we all kept a close eye out for the cabin which was promised to us and in the end more or less the only thing that kept us going.

unable to see more than a few feet ahead, nanna and i stayed close together. ross storming ahead, full of optimism and energy in search of the trail lost in the snow, and pete and erika falling behind, pete trotting through the snow, cursing and growling. nanna and i honestly thought we heard a bear at one point - turned out it was poor pete, tired and angry stuck in snow to his waist.

you can imagine our joy and relief when we finally reached the cabin. the thought of spending a night out in the snow in our tents wearing our wet clothes was almost to much to bear. although the cabin was almost too small to host us all, the floor covered in snow from the open door, and the wood stove almost impossible to start with only wet and snowy firewood, we were as happy as can be.

drying socks and gloves, getting the wood stove going, cooking the well deserved dinner (forgetting every rule about not cooking in your sleeping quarters due to bears. however, after frying meat on the stove, we agreed that pete should sleep with his gun loaded).

pete was in a poor state once we finally reached the cabin. we force fed him and warmed him up, and after some rest and warm cocoa he was his old good self again, making fun of nanna for being scared of bears and giving ross shit for taking us up a snowy mountain. good old pete.

pete was not the only one who was out. kodiak, who had been carrying his own food in a dog backpack was completely wiped out and was practically sitting up sleeping.

the next day everybody's mood was better, although the foggy weather was still the same. the others decided to head back down, whereas ross and i decided to go check out the tors, whom ross believed to be somewhere out in the distance.

so we headed out again. this time without backpacks, which made hiking in the snow a lot easier.

suddenly, without warning, some fog lifted and the tors were visible not far away from where we were. the closer we got, the more the fog vanished, and not before long we could see the whole range of tors, sticking up from the ground like spikes.

we walked up some of them, but we had left our climbing gear at the cabin, so even though our little climbing muscles ached, we had to be satisfied with enjoying them from the ground.

there was still snow and frost on the rocks however, so it would have been a cold experience had we attempted to climb.

while we were running around the tors, seeking out possible climbing routes, and finding little cracks and funny shapes and colors, the weather was changing around us and the sun peeped down between the heavy clouds.

after a while we left the tors and headed after the other guys. the way down was amazing and it was almost impossible to believe that this was the same landscape as the day before.

as we walked out we decided that this trip with good reason could be characterized as a type-two-fun kind of trip. the kind of trip that might not be particularly fun while it's going on, but very fun to talk about later on.