Twenty Mile - Upper Carmen Creek

Twenty Mile Valley, Carmen Lake and Upper Carmen Valley

Trond Flagstad and Trond Jensen

April 13th, 2012

53 kms, 5 hours.

Twenty Mile Valley

GPS track of our route in to Upper Carmen Creek from the Seward Highway.  The strech from kms 5 to 8 was slow going along the west bank of the Twenty Mile River.  Otherwise, the skiing was a good mix of open areas and alder forrest.  Carmen Lake and the Upper Carmen Creek offered the best skiing.

Not all the way was easy going.  3-4 places along the Twenty Mile River we would have to take skis off and hike along the bank.

Twenty Mile river crossing on last remnant of winter ice.

Flats between Twenty Mile and Glacier  Rivers.  Blueberry Hill in the Background (see http://trondsalaskaadventures.blogspot.com/2011/08/blueberry-hill.html)

Looking West across Carmen Lake

Carmen Pass.  On the other side of the pass it drops steeply down to Billings Creek and Passage Canal East of Whittier.

Upper reaches of Upper Carmen valley.  Carmen Glacier?

Carmen Lake

Carmen Creek below Carmen Lake

Lots of wildlife in Twenty mile - moose, bald eagles and trumpeter swans.

Lower couple of miles in the lower Twenty Mile valley.

Panorama looking West down the Upper Carmen Valley.

Blueberry Hill

Blueberry Hill (4530 ft)
Chugach National Forrest
5 hrs 40 min roundtrip, August 16, 2011

Tuesday, August 16th, provided a single nice day sandwiched between a lot of rainy days.  I decided to knock off from work early and go for a climb.  Initially, I had planned to climb Crow Peak, but as it was still fogged in I diverted my attention to Blueberry Hill at the end of Turnagain Arm. 

I had tried Blueberry Hill once before this year (May 28th).  On that attempt I had to trn around some 3-400 yards shy of the summit due to bad snow conditions (corniced summit ridge).

The lower parts of this mountain provides ample bushwhacking (typical for this part of the Chugach) with lots of Devil's Club.  However, if you are lucky you'll find a path through the hemlocks that is not too bad.  Most likely you'll find some of both.  The map below shows what I believe is the best route for this "hill".

 You know you are on the Blueberry Hill ridge proper once you get to the communication repeater.  From here the ridge flattens (for a while) and provides some of the nicest ridge-tundra hiking anywhere in the Chugach.

The Blueberry Hill summit ridge looking back at the false summit.  Placer Valley is seen on the left side of the picture.

Looking West out the Turnagain Arm and Cook Inlet.  Penguin Ridge is in the center of the picture.

Another view along the summit ridge.  The summit ridge provided fun scrambling over and around a number of false summits and gendarmes.

Looking Northeast from the summit towards the 20-mile glacier terminal lake and Carmen Lake.

Summit ridge rocks.

Blueberry Hill in the late evening seen from the communication repeater.

Panorama from Northeast to Southeast.  20-mile lake and Carmen lake on the left.  Boggs and Begich peaks in the middle.  20-mile river, Portage river and Placer River on the right.  The Blueberry Hill false summit is on the far right.  Turnagain Pass can be seen on the very far right side of the picture (Blueberry Hill is a very impressive mountain seen from Turnagain Pass).