Opened eyes and heart, and the clouds did part.
Snowy black peaks and the most verdant green hill, blue/purple lupine and strange green snow peas with white fur whose leaves trapped dewy diamonds. A glacier that echoed the rainbow, curving into the distance, all its cracks and contrasts lit up. A lake with tumbled icebergs, a lowland and its lazy river. Intricate brown cliffs and the solemn blue of Kachemak Bay, turned to gold by the setting sun. Halibut Cove lagoon with its green waters, black beaches and Disney perfect islands. And beyond the bay, beyond the Spit, past Homer and Cook Inlet, a ring of volcanoes rising from the orange and pink clouds.
And I realized the price of such beauty, is being so far from home.
Monday, August 20, 2012
End of a Season
Within minutes of being dropped off on the Spit I was invited to the Texan's birthday. Corwin wasn't there yet, just his tarp and driftwood teepee; but it wasn't really his birthday, just his last night in Homer. His birthday cake-- a six foot hole in the sand stacked with ten pallets-- was lit before he got off work, so by the time he showed up with a case of beer in each arm there were a dozen drunks arguing who was sober enough to drive the truck down to the docks for more wood. Tom Cod and Jackson, Kentucky and River, Danno and Joe Maze. The season is winding down, the gang is breaking up. Soon all that will remain is Joe's notebook of drunken quotations. It's a rough life working fish for beer money (Kentucky got himself arrested for "three hots and a cot") but my guess is, these Spit Rats will be back next year: "if it ain't broke, it's not broken."
The Hitchhike Diary
Anyone can hitchhike, but who picks them up? Our guess was old men and young women. Let's see!
1) Young girl taking care of her grandmother for the state; turned around to come get us when I shrugged defeated (which I don't remember) 2) Old guy who worked as the pit boss at Capitol Speeday; told us about guiding at Denali and hunting fox with shotguns attached to the wings of an airplane 3) Faye the firedancer-- picked us up a total of three times due to an accident on the highway that literally stopped all trafffic from Anchorage to Denali; we got to see her and Carly perform at the Brown Chicken Brown Cow show 4) Molly, who works at a nonprofit educating old folks about Denali; invited us to the Greensky show, and a week later we closed down the Spike 5) Caroline-- Molly's neighbor who always picks up hitchhikers and inspired Molly to make room for us; we camped on the beach in Talkeetna and feasted at the Roadhouse before her yoga retreat 6) An older native woman who drives her grandson to work on the weekends, when the spur bus doesn't run 7) James and his girlfriend; the first couple to pick us up. Gave me ice cream and called Faye about any upcoming bluegrass festivals-- small world! 8) Brian, who owned land in four states and was actively searching for the link between Anchorage's missing people (four women at last count-- I saw a woman on the city bus stopped by police because someone thought she was one) 9) DJ and Jolene who shared their Red Hook IPAs with me and let me ride a $2000 bicycle for the first time 10) Animal, guy with mustache, Dylan and the girl; this group shared their PBR on the way to Whittier and lived to fish 11) Lyndsy and Kelly, seasonal workers from Gird who had already worked, picked up a hitchhiker, delivered gas to a friend, found me and now were ready for a drink! 12) Guy who owned three sub shops (gave me a free day-old) who liked the west but not Colorado 13) Mike, who loved Colorado and restored the airplane hanging in the Anchorage airport; he both drives and flies without a license 14) Will Davis, who was part of the second group to ever complete the Traverse summit of Denali back in '79. A fellow English major who was sailing around the world until he met a Brazilian in Panama, and made me think maybe that degree isn't so useless after all.
1) Young girl taking care of her grandmother for the state; turned around to come get us when I shrugged defeated (which I don't remember) 2) Old guy who worked as the pit boss at Capitol Speeday; told us about guiding at Denali and hunting fox with shotguns attached to the wings of an airplane 3) Faye the firedancer-- picked us up a total of three times due to an accident on the highway that literally stopped all trafffic from Anchorage to Denali; we got to see her and Carly perform at the Brown Chicken Brown Cow show 4) Molly, who works at a nonprofit educating old folks about Denali; invited us to the Greensky show, and a week later we closed down the Spike 5) Caroline-- Molly's neighbor who always picks up hitchhikers and inspired Molly to make room for us; we camped on the beach in Talkeetna and feasted at the Roadhouse before her yoga retreat 6) An older native woman who drives her grandson to work on the weekends, when the spur bus doesn't run 7) James and his girlfriend; the first couple to pick us up. Gave me ice cream and called Faye about any upcoming bluegrass festivals-- small world! 8) Brian, who owned land in four states and was actively searching for the link between Anchorage's missing people (four women at last count-- I saw a woman on the city bus stopped by police because someone thought she was one) 9) DJ and Jolene who shared their Red Hook IPAs with me and let me ride a $2000 bicycle for the first time 10) Animal, guy with mustache, Dylan and the girl; this group shared their PBR on the way to Whittier and lived to fish 11) Lyndsy and Kelly, seasonal workers from Gird who had already worked, picked up a hitchhiker, delivered gas to a friend, found me and now were ready for a drink! 12) Guy who owned three sub shops (gave me a free day-old) who liked the west but not Colorado 13) Mike, who loved Colorado and restored the airplane hanging in the Anchorage airport; he both drives and flies without a license 14) Will Davis, who was part of the second group to ever complete the Traverse summit of Denali back in '79. A fellow English major who was sailing around the world until he met a Brazilian in Panama, and made me think maybe that degree isn't so useless after all.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Hot Lava/ Cold Water
Traversing a glaciated wilderness means fording glacial rivers. Not true rivers; rather streams that break apart with no rhyme or reason, crisscrossing over each other at random across a mile of water-smoothed rocks. But some hikers are hydrophobic, or at least fear the sting of water so recently frozen. With watershoes on, fording is safe but the sting stays with you. Times like these you wish you could just leap across... and, well, sometimes you can.
Jeff was the hot lava master back at work, jumping from mat to mat and never touching the tiled floor. Some things never change. Machete in hand, he would charge forward and leap swollen rivers with a single bound. Some of us were born with shorter legs however, and my feet may never forgive me.
Jeff was the hot lava master back at work, jumping from mat to mat and never touching the tiled floor. Some things never change. Machete in hand, he would charge forward and leap swollen rivers with a single bound. Some of us were born with shorter legs however, and my feet may never forgive me.
Unfocus the Eyes
Denali is unlike nearly every other National Park in that it is considered a "trail-less" park; that is, the majority of the park has no designated or maintained paths and visitors are informed not to walk in single file lines, so that unofficial "social trails" are not created. But the landscape is littered with passages, for those who know how to see them. These are game trails, created by bear knocking through the willow thickets; or caribou and sheep carving out narrow ledges on steep scree slopes. Sometimes they appear from nowhere and return just as quickly-- but often if you just stop searching so intently, if you learn to unfocus your eyes and "see" instead of looking, it is right there in front of you. These paths are gateways to wildlife and the only roads through true wilderness.
Colors of the Kenai
First and foremost green-- a lighter shade for the young ones, the cottonwoods and devil's club, the moss and marsh grasses and alders; all the plants that make life after the glaciers possible. Darker for the spruce, the old trees that only come later, choking out the chaotic undergrowth. Brown for the earth, above in the mountains where the snow has left, as well as underfoot; the mud churned up by the snowmelt that sticks to your shoes and tells you that people, and dogs, and moose and bear have all been here before you. White for the snow on the ground, the clouds that blanket the horizon, six thousand feet of ice burying mountains whole. These three colors dominate the Kenai Peninsula, but there are others. Blue Bell's of Scotland and Lupine, the fish lakes and glaciers; grey in the beautiful silty rivers, red and pink salmon when they return to the place of their birth, doggedly struggling upstream as many as 2,000 miles without food, just to breed and die.
Alone on the Williwaw
Tonight will mark my third night in the Chugach, camped on the Williwaw Lakes trail at the base of Little O'Malley. The views from here are stunning but ever changing. The grey waters of Cook Inlet turn silver as the sun gently lowers itself out of the sky; the Alaska range further on seems one dominant black heap one moment, and a string of intricate snowclad peaks the next. Even Anchorage itself, tucked below me, seems to shrink and swell at the clouds behest.
It is generally pleasant here-- warmer during the day than I would think, though colder at night. The rain, when it comes, is light and short lived. But the wind-- I never expected the wind. I've since learned that a Williwaw is a sudden windstorm, and fierce enough to threaten my tent with collapse no matter how many adjustments I make. Very little mosquitoes are the silver lining I suppose, but tomorrow I will pack up for Green Lake, and hope for greener pastures. Mt Williwaw dazzled me, Black Lake with its impossible deep turquoise color won me over at first sight, and Little O' Malley's postcard perfect peak will keep me smiling-- just hopefully at a more sheltered campsite.
It is generally pleasant here-- warmer during the day than I would think, though colder at night. The rain, when it comes, is light and short lived. But the wind-- I never expected the wind. I've since learned that a Williwaw is a sudden windstorm, and fierce enough to threaten my tent with collapse no matter how many adjustments I make. Very little mosquitoes are the silver lining I suppose, but tomorrow I will pack up for Green Lake, and hope for greener pastures. Mt Williwaw dazzled me, Black Lake with its impossible deep turquoise color won me over at first sight, and Little O' Malley's postcard perfect peak will keep me smiling-- just hopefully at a more sheltered campsite.
By Hook or by Crook
They say even the best laid plans oft go awry; curious that my shoddy ones ever get off the ground then.
I bought a bicycle off craigslist for less than I'd hoped (good because I forgot to bring a lock-- that cost more than a quarter what the bike did) and spent hours carefully packing my bag (forgetting that to fill up my Platypus I needed to nearly empty my pack) and looking up routes to get to Flattop (which I neglected to write down). No matter. What is clear in retrospect is that riding this Kmart brand mountain bike with a 40 pound pack is not like riding my Panasonic back home. Quite the opposite.
Downhill is fine, except for the jerky breaks (that pack adds considerable momentum, usually trying to rack me on the handlebars) and level ground is tiring but doable. But the road named Toilsome Hill-- that is another story altogether. That song "...nobody/ said it'd be/ easy..." played though my head a hundred times, and still it was all I could do to walk the bike from one sidestreet up to the next and then yet again. Pickup after pickup passed by, with empty beds, staring at the weird kid struggling. And then... just as two locals came pushing their own bikes up to where I was thinking about locking up the bike for good and just walking up the damn hill, a self-described Mexican pulled over and we all three piled in the back. Not the glorious way to the top, but I have to remind myself the bike is a means and not the end. These mountains at the end of the road though, glorious enough for the both.
I bought a bicycle off craigslist for less than I'd hoped (good because I forgot to bring a lock-- that cost more than a quarter what the bike did) and spent hours carefully packing my bag (forgetting that to fill up my Platypus I needed to nearly empty my pack) and looking up routes to get to Flattop (which I neglected to write down). No matter. What is clear in retrospect is that riding this Kmart brand mountain bike with a 40 pound pack is not like riding my Panasonic back home. Quite the opposite.
Downhill is fine, except for the jerky breaks (that pack adds considerable momentum, usually trying to rack me on the handlebars) and level ground is tiring but doable. But the road named Toilsome Hill-- that is another story altogether. That song "...nobody/ said it'd be/ easy..." played though my head a hundred times, and still it was all I could do to walk the bike from one sidestreet up to the next and then yet again. Pickup after pickup passed by, with empty beds, staring at the weird kid struggling. And then... just as two locals came pushing their own bikes up to where I was thinking about locking up the bike for good and just walking up the damn hill, a self-described Mexican pulled over and we all three piled in the back. Not the glorious way to the top, but I have to remind myself the bike is a means and not the end. These mountains at the end of the road though, glorious enough for the both.
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