Day 2 of 2021 Alaska Trip, Marmot Mountain

Second day of my 2021 Alaska trip. Yesterday’s excursion to Matanuska Peak took quite a toll on me that I spent most of the day resting. But since I still wanted something done for the day, I decided to take a short hike to Marmot Mountain near Hatcher Pass towards its end.

After yesterday’s strenuous hike summitting Matanuska Peak, I unwillingly came to the findings that this trip to Alaska bore too many similarities to my trip to Idaho last year. Both were in July when alpine snow had melted; I attempted a warmup hike on the first day for some bigger hikes later and I turned out to be ill-prepared for that warmup hike, as a result of which I took much of the second day off resting in bed. Last year I didn’t dress properly and didn’t follow the best route up Hyndman Peak, and ended up with a running nose at the end of the day; the previous day I mentally underestimated the difficulty of the final summit ridge, and got beaten up, not to mention the geologies of Hyndman Peak and Matanuska Peak had a lot in common, like their orientations.
Adding to that, I was staying in a lovely Airbnb room in Farm Loop, Alaska, with a host serving wonderful breakfast, just like last year in Hailey, Idaho.

So following this tradition and tired from the previous day, I took most of today off resting in bed. But towards the end, I picked a short hike nearby so that I wouldn’t completely waste the day. I knew from last year’s visit that the area near Hatcher Pass had lots of great hiking trails of various lengths and difficulties. After some searching on AllTrails, I picked on Marmot Mountain, with probably the best view in the region. Weather forecast indicated a very windy day with wind abating in the afternoon, which suited this short afternoon hike pretty well.

So after resting and recovering for most of the day, I reached the trailhead of Marmot Mountain (Google Maps called it "Fishhook Trailhead Parking Lot") at around 3:30pm. An honor system was in place to enforce a nominal parking fee which I remembered to be 5 dollars. The parking lot was pretty empty during my visit. Soon after that, I headed out onto the trails.

As for the trail, it's a 4.2km out-and-back with 594m elevation gain, the first half of which was steep and then it eased up into the second half. Here's GPS tracking:

Despite the trail being pretty steep, the soil was pretty stable from all the surrounding vegetations so there really weren’t any technical difficulties. In addition, it’s a pleasing sight to watch the nearby mountains covered in lush meadow that swung graciously in the wind, a much more welcoming sight than the many technical alpines that I visited.

 

About 1.1km from trailhead, I covered the first half of the trail to Marmot Mountain and reached the top of a small hill. The mountains opened into a valley to the south where Little Susitna River flowed through, where distant mountains across Knik Arm popped into view. The hilltop provided a front-row view to all this splendor. Wind was strong from the south so it did somewhat take away the experience, but it’s nonetheless a wonderful reward for the steep section that I just covered.

From this point on the trail followed a rolling ridgeline to Marmot Mountain. Elevation change eased up so it’s really a gentle stroll in incredible sceneries.

At 4:55pm and 1.83km from trailhead, I reached the end of the aforementioned ridge. The trail made a right turn here and continued on, seemingly to Rae-Wallace Peak and beyond.
If one made a left turn here followed by a few rock hoppings (class 1), one could get onto a few boulders on the western face of Marmot Mountain, directly opposite of Hatcher Pass with its winding mountain roads.

If one instead make a right turn and follow the trail, one would pass a field weather station and some rocks.

After that, the trail continued along a few mini summits into the wilderness. I decided to make one of them my destination for the day (despite later finding out that I stopped 60m short of the official "Marmot Mountain" mark on map).

Then I began to appreciate the sceneries from my self-appointed summit.

A few prominent mountains were visible from the top, beginning with the most majestic ones across Knik Arm.

Then there were these more generic mountain chains.

In line with my tradition, I commemorate summitting Marmot Mountain with a drone video:

29 seconds, 2x playback speed, 2160p60fps, 15Mbps/54MB for H265, 16.5Mbps/60MB for H264.

Wind was pretty strong today so I wasn’t in the best shape on top of the mountain. While I’d like to enjoy the sceneries more, I started to feel uncomfortable with my noses so I started my descent.

During descent I ran into a lady with her dog, the first hiker that I greeted for the day. It’s in the ridge part so they had the steepest section behind them, but somehow they turned back soon after greeting me without making it to the top. What a pity.

Occasionally I ran into a few bugs today. But with my long sleeves they didn’t seem to bother me. I probably had to thank the strong winds for that.

Finally, just before 7pm, I made it back to the trailhead parking lot.

There were a few turnouts along Fishhook-Willow Road, some with decent views of the valley to the south. Since there was still daylight left, I stopped at one of them and snatched a few photos.

But more importantly, those turnouts were great places for me to launch my drone for an aerial tour of Little Susitna River and the valley that it flowed through. And I did just that.

 

And here's a video:

And this concluded my day.

END