By Martin Bril
I met Tim through one of my wife’s long time friends. At the time, I had no idea that we would end up climbing mountains together. I was planning to catch a few silver salmons during the Fall run down in Seward, AK and as I knew he was an accomplished angler, invited him to join me for the day. We had a good time and we got along from the start. After talking outdoors for a while, I brought up the idea of him joining me up in the mountains and he seemed very enthusiastic about it. A couple weeks later, we were making plans and, while scoping out a map, tossed a few ideas around for a day climb until Lark Mountain was decided upon. The day of our trip started with a fairly cold morning. The thermometer showed only a few degrees above zero on the Fahrenheit scale. Hand warmers were kept handy and extra wool socks packed up. As planned we came across an old mine trail that made our first mile approach fairly uneventful, giving us some time to catch up and get to know each other a little better. From there it was up to us to take on the path of least resistance amid heavy sections of alder brushes alternating with open subalpine forest.
