Record outings

Records are made to be broken. Sure, anyone following sports has heard the phrase uttered when some sports star has eclipsed another star's stats. New records are interesting, but they always seem so distant. So unrelated. What are the chances of any of us breaking the home run record, rushing for the most yards or even getting in Guinness?

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But wait. Even if most of us don't set records, being part of one can be a perky picker-upper that makes an otherwise routine day memorable. At least that's the way I felt upon learning that Juneau recently set two distinctly different weather records just two days apart.

On Sept. 27 we lived under the most rain for that date and, ironically, on Sept. 29 we basked in the highest temperature ever for that date.

As luck would have it, those two records, just two days apart coincided with my two outings in two different Juneau venues.

In themselves, the adventures were usual - one an overnight kayak trip and the other a day hike. What made them unusual were the contrasting, and record setting, weather conditions.

The kayak trip felt like a late-season swim because most of it took place when the skies were dumping 2.07 inches of rain, far surpassing the 1.29 inches that had fallen on Sept. 27, 1968. The hike, on the other hand, felt like a spring romp with clear skies and 62 degrees, three degrees higher than the old Sept. 29, 1989, record.

Anyone planning outdoor trips while September lumbers across the calendar must anticipate cool and probably damp conditions. So when the Sept. 26 forecast called for light winds and rain, Gail Findley and I thought that seemed about as good as we could hope for.

"I'd like to get out," Gail said.

We agreed on an overnight kayaking and camping trip. Under a mid-afternoon light rain, we started paddling down Gastineau Channel from Sandy Beach.

Our goal was an isolated beach on the south end of Douglas Island. We picked one that also had a large rock wall topped by trees that, we hoped, would provide some protection from the rain. It did.

We were comfortable and dry in rain pants and parka. Gail built a fire next to the rock that reflected heat, and the trees above the rock provided some protection from the rain.

Low gray clouds obscured Admiralty Island, which is only three miles away across Stephens Passage. The sound of three whales feeding nearby reminded us that we weren't alone. As darkness closed in, we had the contented feeling that comes from being out in bad weather but being safe on shore, warm, and dry.

The steady light rain during the evening changed to steady hard rain during the night.

"I woke up sometime after midnight and couldn't get back to sleep because of the loud noise of the heavy rain on the tent's rainfly," Gail said the next morning.

She took an extra hour of sleep while I got up and tried to get a fire going in what I would learn later was a record rain. I was less successful than Gail had been the night before. My modest fire produced more color than heat. The trees that had provided protection in the lighter rain during the evening, now seemed more like mini faucets with bad leaks.

We talked about hanging out on the beach, but decided we'd be drier in the kayaks with their spray skirts. By the time we started paddling back, the hard rain had soaked through our parkas enough that we were damp, at best. Several times during the return to Sandy Beach we talked about what we'd do if we had to camp another night in the hard rain.

As it turned out, spending another couple of days out would have been a piece of cake. Sunday was sunny and Monday, Sept. 29, was the record-setting high-temperature day. Clearly, a day too good to pass up, so I decided to hike up Mount McGinnis.

West Glacier Trail is almost 312 miles long and rises 1,300 feet by the time it reaches a rocky overlook above the Mendenhall Glacier. From there a "primitive" trail leads an additional two miles and nearly 3,000 feet higher to McGinnis' 4,228-foot grassy summit.

Starting on the trail in sun's golden light and next to foggy Mendenhall Lake made for a moody morning. There was a sweetness in the morning's still air. It felt like the first days of spring rather than the first days of fall.

As the temperature rose my extra shirt came off. On this trip my hat provided protection from the sun, not the rain, and my T-shirt became wet from sweat, not from a downpour. I walked the trail with giddy pleasure at being out in such glorious, and unexpected, weather.

The hike in the sun was a wonderful physical activity and, enjoyably, a mental one as well. I've noticed during periods of continuous exercise how easily new ideas seem to appear without any conscious effort. During the West Glacier Trail hike it was like each footfall dislodged an idea that had been clinging to a sticky part of my brain.

With a surprising amount of physical and mental energy, I easily reached the overlook. The mountains across the glacier had an autumn look. Gone was the green of summer. Instead a yellow-rust color covered the mountain's flanks.

The Mount McGinnis trail starts through thick alders and over large boulders and then merges into several distinct phases: wet, woods and wall. Once through the alder, the trail shares a route with a creek making for wet walking. Then it opens and briefly levels out through a thickly wooded section before reaching the final steep section. The wall, which is like climbing a rough ladder made of roots and rocks, finally ends where the open alpine begins.

I'd been leap-frogging with two other hikers during the day. Shawna Rider grew up in Juneau and has just returned after graduating from college in Oregon to look for work.

"I've been wanting a good hike," she said of her reasons for spending a Monday on McGinnis.

Kyle Manger has lived in Juneau for 15 years, but he had quit his job and was leaving. Hiking up McGinnis was how Manger chose to spend his last day in town.

The two passed me in the alpine and scampered on to the summit. Eventually I made the final, slow huff and puff to join them. As a joke, when I arrived, I asked, "What is the meaning of life?"

In all seriousness, Manger looked at the 360-degree epic view from the summit and said, "This is it!"

He was right. And it didn't matter whether or not we set any records.