The first week of June, in a seemingly low-snow winter. I figured it'd be fine to backpack Kesugi Ridge this early, even though everyone seems to do it after June is over. I did a search for #KesugiRidge and found a group that had done it the week before, and they stated there was two feet of snow in areas.
What a week does! There was one small snowbank the entire way, and the rest had all melted off.
We dropped a car off at Byers Lake, as well as Alicen's car at Ermine Hill (she had just broken her collarbone mountain biking, and it seemed like a good bet to have the car there in case she needed to bail halfway through). We started from Little Coal Creek, and within 2 miles we were into the alpine. After having done the whole Little Coal Creek to Byers Lake traverse, I'm tempted in the future to simply cut out the Byers Lake half, and make for a shorter trip with longer excursions to surrounding peaks. The Byers Lake side of the trek doesn't have much of a view of the Alaska Range, is lower in elevation, and thus more mosquitoes, biting flies, and vegetation. I'd much prefer to stay high up, and then drop down to Ermine Hill.
The trail is extremely well-marked and easy to follow, even on a foggy day. This is an easy backpacking trip when it comes to technicality, but of course it's a long haul.
We began this hike on Friday morning, and were back to Byers Lake by Sunday morning. It's definitely possible to complete this entire backpacking trip from Friday night to Sunday night, but it'd be a lot of driving and not much room for relaxing!
Starting off the hike, about 3 miles in, with the Alaska Range in the background
The Ermine Hill rock outcrop
Heading up to Skinny Lake
Camping just above Byers Lake. It was an easy 4 mile trek back to the car early in the morning.
Workers fixing up the collapsed bridge at Byers Lake.
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