My new favorite trail in all of Alaska, Kesugi ridge
offers 30 miles of a stunning ridgeline traverse with near constant
views of Denali. There are several spots to jump on/off the trail to
make it shorter, and aside from 45 minutes or so of ascending initially,
it's relatively flat when going from north to south. We did the section
from Little Coal Creek-Ermine Hill, pictured below.
Link to trail map
You could easily make a weekend backpack trip out of it, but we wanted to try and run the whole thing. I did this trail back in June (2014) with my friend Matt. We got a bit of a late start and had some injury mishaps, including Matt's IT band locking up and me post-holing through snow into a rock and spraining my ankle! When we got to the road, our hitch-hiking quest to get back to the car was less than successful (largely due to Matt's pink hippie pants, I would say) which added on some extra distance to an already long day. But once we finally got a ride, nothing could beat the feeling of camping chairs and beer in the sun at the trailhead parking lot. What an incredible day out there!
There's a race here every September- I'm doing
it in 2015! Anyone want to join?
