Flattop Mountain Hike

Anchorage, Alaska

By Munish Gupta

November 22^nd, 2015

July 25th 2015

We (me & my wife ‘H’) landed in Anchorage just past midnight on the 25th of July 2015. There is this different kind of warm feeling when you come back to a place where you have been before even if for a very brief period of time. Inside your head the little voice goes - ‘Oh hey there! We have met before! How have you been?!’. On the other hand when you visit a place for the first time - mostly you are just trying to get to absorb and know it.

The first very visible difference was that how everything seemed so green as compared to how it was during the last trip in winter - white! Picked up the rental vehicle and made our way to the place where we were staying for the night. Once outside - Anchorage seemed just like a regular developed American city. It was late at night and we could not see very far though.

july 26th 2015

Grabbed breakfast, picked up supplies and made our way to the trailhead for Flattop Mountain. The drive took us out of the urban area. We got there just before noon. We did find a parking spot easily - probably because we were that late.

Soon we were on our way!

The starting part of the trail was quite alright. After covering a short distance, we emerged out of area with dense trees. That was the first glimpse of the landscape. We stopped for a bit to savor it. Right about then we met a couple from Anchorage and starting talking about Alaska.

Them: “You know what they say about Anchorage?”
Us: “hmm, no?”
Them: “Anchorage is not Alaska. But you can see it from here.”

Could not have put it better!

We were really enjoying the vistas along the way. We could see (what seemed to be) Anchorage city.

For the last part, the trail turned rocky. There was no marked path and everyone was following their own route. It was quite steep. We started off pretty well. But at one point - it felt like my shoes had lost all the traction (this was not the first time it happened though). I could not climb over the stones, specially since there was practically nothing to hold on to. I had lost faith in my hiking shoes. And it was a terrible feeling. I felt scared at that point. I just stopped while contemplating my options. I even thought of climbing down. In whichever direction I tried to step, it seemed impossible to move forward. H was ahead of me and had made her way through the rocks. She was trying to encourage me to climb up since we were really steps away from the top. But I just stood there with (I think) my legs shaking.

I gave myself some time to clear up my mind. I can’t recall what small talk I had with myself inside my head. I got myself together and pushed forward. And strange enough it was not really difficult this time. In retrospect. I think it was the fear and the lost faith in my shoes. I did make a mental note to buy myself a new pair of hiking shoes.

Once on the top, the views were spectacular. Initially it seemed very cloudy. There was a marker to denote the end of the trail but it was covered in clouds. We walked around. The views from the other side were even more amazing. And strange enough - there were not many people there.

We took some time to soak it in. There was a small path leading to the edge.

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As we were exploring the area, the clouds were moving in fast. Weather forecast had predicted rains for the day. We had been lucky that there had not been any rain on the way up.

Took some more time to explore the mountain top in all directions.

We saw & heard some people making there way down from a different direction. Apparently there was another trail to hike down without having to climb down those same stones. We decided to take that on the way down. As we made our way, we did not really see anyone else on this path. Not sure if this was the official trail, but there was not-so-well-marked path leading us down. Few spots were little slippery but overall much less dangerous than the stones.

We made our way down quite comfortably. Once we reached the parking lot at the trailhead, saw markers for another short trail. Decided to do it anyways. It did not take long.

Soon we were back in the vehicle and on our way to grab lunch. It was about half an hour drive to the thai restaurant we had decided to go to. As soon as we got a table, it started to rain. For a short while it was quite intense. We had been quite fortunate! To make it even better - the food turned out to be quite good!

In Retrospect

As we explored different places in Alaska, it almost felt like we wasted a day in hiking the Flattop mountain. There is so much wilderness just outside Anchorage. We realized that we could have made much better use of our limited time at the different places we visited later in the trip.