Hiking the Lost Lake Trail

Friday 19th July
Well how unfortunate that I (unusually) needed to go to the bathroom three times during the night and had to scurry back and forth the short distance to the toilet block, looking over my shoulder nervously in case a bear was chasing me. However I did survive the night and we woke to a glorious morning in Seward. We decided to go on a hike and picked up a leaflet for the "Lost Lake Trail" not far north of the town, and this turned out to be a good decision. It was nice to stretch our legs after our long drive yesterday, and the walk was absolutely beautiful. Firstly we ascended through temperate rainforest for about three miles with views of the mountain tops and their snowfields across the valley. Then we emerged onto an alpine meadow - oh my goodness it was lovely! There was an abundance of wild flowers including delphinium, forget-me-not, arnica, monks-hood and pink lupine. There were lots of wild birds swooping about as well. I suggested (nay, insisted!) that James and David go on ahead of me because I was totally over-heating as usual. So they went on at a faster pace until they could see Lost Lake, and then met me on their way back; there was little danger of getting lost because there was only one other trail branching off. In total I reckon I walked about nine miles and James and Davie walked about twelve miles; it was a proper hike! There were not very many mosquitos but there were lots of pesky flies, however I sprayed myself with bug spray and they mostly left me alone. James and Davie met some people who said that this brilliant weather is very unusual for Seward because usually the weather here is either horizontal or vertical rain! There weren't very many people on the trail but the few we met were very friendly. There were some mountain bikers, one guy came past me and said "This is brutal!" and I noticed that there was blood running down one of his legs, he must have fallen! On the way back down the trail we met a lady with a huge dog, it looked like a wolf but was some kind of Husky cross, which lunged snarling at James as he moved past it. She then said "He doesn't like sudden movements, he gets scared." which we were not very impressed with because James hadn't moved suddenly and anyway it was her responsibility to control her dog!
After some refreshing and much needed showers back at the cabins we moseyed down into the town for dinner. This time we went to Chinook's which I thought was even better than Ray's, and we had a lovely table overlooking the harbour. I had pecan crusted cod with mashed yam and green curried coconut sauce; it was delicious. James had curried salmon with chutney and David had the fisherman's stew which was a massive bowlful (lots of jokes from James about what will the fisherman eat now that David has his stew!)
Back at the cabin, we decided to watch a film and we borrowed one of Tim's DVDs - Into the Wild. When we were at Denali National Park we had heard about a young man, Chris McCandless, who went into the park seeking a wilderness experience in 1992, and had unfortunately ultimately died of starvation through lack of knowledge of survival skills. Coincidentally, Ewan had happened to blog the day before about the book that Jon Krakauer wrote based on his diaries and interviewing the people that he had met on his travels, so the film seemed like the perfect choice for Alaskan viewing! It was a sad but interesting film and we could recognise the mountains and tundra of Denali, although a lot of the film was flashbacks to the experiences and journey that brought him there. I would like to read the book as well.