Barefoot Alaska runs

This post may not be very interesting, but is at least a record that I did run while visiting my son and his family his summer... I declare that Wasilla is not barefoot jogging friendly, leastways not if you insist on starting from home as I do.  There are plenty of very interesting trails around, but none within striking distance from where I was based. It seems that Americans expect to have to drive to get to do anything: shopping, leisure or hiking / jogging.

Although there are adjacent service roads that are OK for running, some are unpaved and many are cul-de-sacs (they say "no outlet"). The best circuit I could muster on these roads is shown below.

Run-4

To go further afield you have to venture onto the very busy Bogard Road. There is no side-walk or cycle-track, but it is sort of OK to run on the hard shoulder, although the white line that demarks it has been worn away in places where vehicles consider it to be part of the thoroughfare so one has to be alert, and anyway the hard shoulder is very gritty so is hard on the feet.

On my third run I just about made it to the nearest trail complex in the wooded area behind the Mat-Su college, but beat a hasty retreat because of the large bug population there, including mozzies.

Run-3

Their house is near to Finger Lake which is divided from Cottonwood lake by a narrow strip of land. There must be at least a footpath connecting the north side to the south across this strip, I figured, and so explored the options on my second run. I even asked a house owner who thought about my question for a while, as if it was a very strange thing to ask, and then said "no".

Run-2

Thus in my first run, exploratory in nature, I was forced to run around both lakes, most of the time on busy roads.

Run-1 - over 10 miles

I could have include some pictures, but they wouldn't mean much to most of you. Oh - but I did run once whilst in Denali, and got some cool pictures of the rail-road bridge there.