Date Archives → September 17, 2019

Epilogue: Going Home. Actually: A Love Story

Epilogue: Going Home. Actually: A Love Story

To read my Alaska journal from the beginning, click here.

Bonus poem: My Nice Dry Cabin.

Kneeling on the pavement in the San Francisco hotel’s parking lot, I peered under my car and was flooded with relief.

Two weeks prior, while driving to the hotel the night before of our early-morning flight, I had run over a large piece of hard plastic. It had magically materialized in my lane, and banged and clattered against the undercarriage as we passed over it. For the rest of the drive, I was on high-alert for disaster: the check engine light coming on, smoking billowing from behind, car parts flinging off.

Everything seemed to remain intact.

Arriving at the hotel, I had looked underneath and saw no leaks or drips, no mangled pieces of car dangling down. But two weeks is plenty of time for something that is holding on by only a thread to succumb to gravity and let go. Throughout our vacation in Alaska, my thoughts drifted to the car. Upon our return, would we find a mortally wounded vehicle, a dark pool of motor oil, transmission fluid, or some other vital liquid spreading out from beneath the car, like blood at a crime scene?

But no. The pavement underneath was clean and dry.

Whew! Dodged that bullet! Time to go home to our beloved dog Jasper.

We threw luggage in the trunk and grabbed water bottles for the front. I waited for Martin to unlock the car. He seemed to be having trouble with the key fob, and eventually just unlocked the door manually. “The key fob battery is dead,” he said.

Continue reading →

Savage River Trail

Savage River Trail

To read my Alaska journal from the beginning, click here.

Bonus poem: My Nice Dry Cabin.

We had an hour.

One hour for the Savage River Trail, an easy two-mile loop. It apparently meandered downstream along the Savage River, crossed a little bridge, and came back along the other side. We would then drive four hours back to Anchorage, return our rented Nissan Rogue, and properly pack our bags in the hotel room. I had literally thrown our clothes into packs this morning; Martin would be aghast, but not surprised, when he unzipped the bags later, revealing the rumpled disaster inside. We would then hopefully get some sleep (“nap” seemed more like a more appropriate word), and be up again at 2 AM to catch our shuttle to the airport, for our early morning flight home the next day.

We had a schedule to keep.

One hour is plenty of time for a nice, peaceful two-mile stroll. It’s perfectly do-able, perfectly complete-able, for normal people. Except we’re not normal, we’re us. The ones who stop and stare every two steps, who scan for animals, peer at plants, scrutinize the river (“If we were kayaking right now, would we want to go right or left at that rock?”), who photograph, record, breathe, listen, gawk, examine, linger, and are completely incapable of making any forward progress.

Ever. At all.

So we knew we’d be late. One hour isn’t nearly enough time for us to walk two miles. But we had to try.

Continue reading →

Hiking to the Top of the World: Savage Alpine Trail

Hiking to the Top of the World: Savage Alpine Trail

To read my Alaska journal from the beginning, click here.

Bonus poem: My Nice Dry Cabin.

We had arrived at the Mountain Vista Trailhead near the end of Denali National Park’s one paved road. Our plan was to hike the Savage Alpine Trail up and over the ridge, a total of four miles, ending at the Savage River parking lot on the other side. From there, we would catch the free shuttle bus back to this parking lot, and collect the truck.

As we started up the trail, some plants were in heady fall color, others were becoming bare. We would eventually enter unequivocally wintery conditions. But down here it was still fall, the air cool but not freezing, the shrubs and trees colorful and only starting to shed their leaves.

Starting up Savage Alpine Trail
Denali National Park, AK

We hiked up a gradual incline, climbing higher, with stunning snowy mountain ranges all around us. Plant life started petering out. We ate lunch – the last of our crackers, cheese, and that age-old turkey – overlooking magnificent views. We kept climbing, stopping frequently to get videos of us clomping along a wooden boardwalk, or photos of us hiking up the path. Or we’d stop simply to ooh and ahh at the scenery, and breathe the fresh air.

Continue reading →

The Magnificent Sled Dogs of Denali

The Magnificent Sled Dogs of Denali

To read my Alaska journal from the beginning, click here.

Bonus poem: My Nice Dry Cabin.

A sled dog presentation? I had to be there.

Denali National Park employs Alaskan huskies to patrol the Park in the winter. Unlike snow mobiles, airplanes, and other heavy equipment, dogs don’t break down, or freeze up, or need hard-to-find parts. Just feed ‘em well, treat ‘em right, and they’ll get you where you need to go.

Indeed, the dogs – with their keen sense of smell, sharp eyes, knowledge of the terrain, wisdom, and amazing intuition – actively help the rangers by avoiding treacherous ice buried beneath the snow, finding remote cabins in impossible white-out conditions, and alerting them to all manner of danger.

Machines can’t do any of that.

Holly, always ready to lead us to safety

It reminded me of a hike that Martin and I once took with our golden retriever Holly. In the mountains of Arizona, we had hiked a four-mile loop trail through an open forest. Returning a month or so later, we decided to hike in the opposite direction. Halfway along the trail, it began to snow, heavily enough that the trail became obscured, completely covered in snow. The forest was open enough that we couldn’t easily discern the path through the trees. There were blazes on the trees, but they were far enough apart that we couldn’t see from one to the next.

We found ourselves casting about, wandering through the snow, looking for the blazes – and always Holly was waaaay over there, waiting for us. We’d call her; she wouldn’t budge. We’d tromp over to grab her – and a blaze would be above her. She was squarely on the trail. That happened several times – we’d lose our way, wander around looking for blazes, become frustrated that Holly was so far from us, then discover she was on the trail – and finally we just followed the dog. She led us unerringly back to the trailhead, in the snow, down a trail she had been on only once before a month prior, in the opposite direction.

I love dogs.

Continue reading →

Trapped by Snow: Eielson Visitor Center

Trapped by Snow: Eielson Visitor Center

To read my Alaska journal from the beginning, click here.

Bonus poem: My Nice Dry Cabin.

We were bouncing down a dirt road in an old school bus, making the eight-hour round-trip journey from the Wilderness Access Center to the Eielson Visitor Center, 66 miles deep into Alaska’s Denali National Park. Only the first fifteen miles were paved; the rest of the trip was on a narrow gravel road.

Of Denali’s six million acres – six million! – there’s only one small dirt road snaking through it, minimizing human impact and intrusion on the land. Miles and miles of totally untouched wilderness stretched out on either side. The vast majority of people stay close to the park entrance, maybe traveling down those fifteen paved miles to the Savage River, the turnaround spot for private vehicles. Many people don’t even hike the few trails at the park entrance. A subset of people will, like us, go as far as Eielson. A much smaller subset will go all the way to Wonder Lake, 85 miles in, and either come back the same day (12-hours round-trip) or camp there.

And a few crazy folks will get off a bus somewhere along the way and hike up a nameless canyon, or down an unexplored creek, or over an indiscriminate ridge, and disappear for a while.

Tracy, our bus driver, was chatty and informative. She had the heater blasting, which was wonderful to the point of discomfort. It was a freezing cold, overcast day, so the heat felt good, but the heater was right at my feet. I was soon stripping off everything I could while remaining decent, and would later look back longingly at being so toasty warm.

Continue reading →