Linda, Esther, and I headed out at 9:00 a.m. to do the Three Lakes Loop hike, a fairly popular hike off the forest roads on Mitkof Island. Steve was having issues with his camera, and he stayed behind to see if he could get those worked out.
On the way, we saw a few deer, and a porcupine.
Then we came upon a Spruce Grouse. I took a couple of pictures, …
and it wasn’t running or flying when suddenly Linda spotted a bunch of grouse chicks. She got pretty excited “There’s babies!” she squealed. They were on her side of the road, so I gave her the camera to snap some shots.
Eventually, we came to the Sand Lake Trail, and then the Hill Lake Trail, and then the Crane Lake Trail.
You can hike to any of the three lakes or combine trails in various combinations.
The Three Lakes Trail itself is 3.3 miles walking by all the lakes, and then there is another half-mile or so along the road to get back to wherever you park making it about a 4-mile hike.
By starting at Crane Lake, we’d have a downhill road walk at the end to get back to the Jeep. We headed out.
The trail goes through muskeg, through forest, and along the edges of the lakes. What we hadn’t expected was that the trail is on a boardwalk. Ninety-nine percent of the whole trail is on boards through the terrain, and most of the boards have netting on them to improve footing.
We came to Crane Lake and there was a nice deck with a picnic table and a public use boat with life jackets.
Each of the three lakes have the same set-up along the trail.
It was really peaceful and the boards made it a pretty easy hike although there were some sections of steps.
There were moose prints all along the trail, but we never saw any moose or bear. In fact, the only wildlife we saw were Canada Geese.
At one point, we came to the Ideal Cove Trail which leads three quarters of a mile to the ocean – Frederick Sound.
We chose not to add that mile and a half to the hike. We walked past Hill Lake ....
and on up toward Sand Lake.
There is a shelter and picnic table on that small lake between Hill & Sand, and since it started raining we made a pitstop.
From there, we walked in the rain a bit passing the picnic table and boat at Sand Lake, ....
and shortly thereafter we finished our hike.
Well, we finished the trail part of our hike. We still had the road walk back to the Jeep.
That was fun – not overly difficult but a good workout, and we went through some pretty, diverse terrain.
Afterwards, the ladies decided not to do any afternoon beach combing, so we returned to the campground. At the RV Park, we paid our $15 to dump our tanks which we'll do in the morning. Since we’ll be leaving before they open, we wanted to get that out of the way.
In the evening, the plan was to go out for dinner. I went into town to the library to get some photos uploaded, and then Linda texted me to meet them at 5:00.
Dining choices in Petersburg are not great, but we ended up at the Beachcomber Lodge, appropriately.
It had only opened for the season about a week ago, but it was by far the best choice in Petersburg and we enjoyed the waterfront dining in addition to the food.
After dinner, I went back to the library as I thought it remained open until 8:00 on weekdays. However, on Friday night, they close at 6:00.
But rather than taking the shortest, fastest way back to the RV park, I chose to take the long way home around the north end of the island.
I made a brief stop at the lovely little Outlook Park, ….
before continuing on the forest roads. There were mountain and ocean views, and a few deer. I kept my eye out for bears (lots of scat on the road) and moose. Near the end of my drive in a marshy area, a moose scampered away from the road.
She stopped for a moment, and then ran again after I got out of the Jeep.
I got an in-motion shot, ….
and then she stopped at the edge of the woods and looked over her shoulder at me for a few seconds before disappearing.
Cool. My first moose on this journey.
From there, I was about five miles from the campground, and it was a little after 8:00.
It wasn’t long after I got back that we called it a night.
Tomorrow, we have a 13-hour ferry ride to our next destination – Sitka, once the Russian capital of Alaska. We’ve heard nothing but great things about Sitka which is good since we’ll be there a week. Looking forward to it.
Awesome moose in motion shot!
Posted by: Tracy Perkins | Friday, June 07, 2019 at 07:54 PM