Category Archives: post bucket

Slipping into the little red kayak was like falling into the embrace of an old friend. Rick has his own outfitting business now, and he hooked me up with a boat to take out on they bay yesterday. Unbeknownst to him, the boat he set me up with was the exact make and model that I used as a guide. It felt to so good to slide into the familiar seat, peddles adjusted, skirt clamped down against potential chop. It was a whole new kind of homecoming, and I relaxed into it like an old worn-in recliner.

I launched off the end of Lowell Point, with Cain’s Head and a hike up to the old WWII fort as my destination for the day. It wasn’t the epic paddle I had planned, but I was still feeling wary of being out on the water alone after so many years. It turns out, of course, that I needn’t have worried. The old boat was steady under me, rocking over the slight swell and tracking south towards the end of the bay without the need for a rudder. I paddled two hours down the coast and landed on the beach below the fort. The ruins of the old dock still stood sentinel there, marking the beach and trailhead, gulls nested on the tops of the old pilings far out in the water. The paddle out was smooth and easy, and I skirted the shore watching for birds and sea otters in the water. On the beach, there were several other kayaks pulled up above high-tide line. I knew one group was with Rick’s outfit, a guided hike-and-paddle trip that had caught a water taxi out to the trailhead and was probably up at the fort already. I stashed my lunch in the bear box and headed up the trail myself, cursing my still-sore legs for their protest.

I ran into a couple of small groups on the two mile up-hill hike to the old fort, one of whom was an old friend from my guiding days – small world indeed – out for a hike and raspberry picking with his visiting family. I found out from him that a few other people from that summer were in town this week on various projects. One, now a film-maker for national geographic, is heading out to film orcas on Monday.

I passed all the groups headed down, and had the old fort to myself. I had forgotten a flashlight, but wasn’t too disappointed as I’ve explored the old cement bunkers before and frankly I find them a little creepy even with broad daylight outside. Instead I climbed up to the top where the view was best and laid down under the noon sun to enjoy the view. I knew better, of course, even the sun in Alaska can burn you and my cheeks are smarting from it today. But the day was too nice to sit in the shade. A breeze had picked up. I had a picturesque view of the other side of the bay from there; the old cove where I used to paddle guided trips day in and day out, the stretch of coastline where I have spent cumulative days exploring the little inlets and coves. Hiking back down towards the beach, I found myself feeling overwhelmingly content for the first time in a long time. A deep-seated feeling of peace and well-being, of joy, even, permeated to my core. It was unfamiliar, at least in the near-term. But I recalled it as a feeling I had a lot that summer years ago, the feeling that convinced me after just two weeks here that I wanted to make Alaska my home forever. A feeling of communion with the earth and the water, of closeness to the elements that make us all up. A sense of hope and excitement for the future, not a specific future with plans and schemes, but a future where there was peace and belonging. The startling realization that I had finally found a place that felt like home, at a time when I thought home was something I would never feel.

And I realized that this was the feeling, the sense, that I was hoping to feel in Fairbanks. And I did to some extent. But the academic hangover, the rushing around trying to see friends, the stress about the ominous truck noises, the anxiety about keeping up with my running schedule while on vacation, the cloud of homesickness that hovers over every interaction there, knowing it is all temporary now, all made Fairbanks and her aftermath feel a little less like a homecoming. It took a two hours paddle and hard hike to get my mind to catch up with my body and finally be here, be in this place that I love so much, without holding on too tightly, letting my feet sink into the stones, my paddle sink into the water. To remember that for me, finding home is finding the earth and my precarious and momentous place on her. This is what I had been missing, and this is exactly what I needed from this magical place at the end of the road.

I finished the hike and sat on the beach munching on an apple, crackers and cheese. I watched as the kayak tour launched and took my time finishing and launching myself, to give them a head start down the coast ahead of me. I felt the wind kick up, the regular afternoon wind that comes in from the ocean and kicks the bay into little white-caps like clockwork any time there is a rare sunny day on the coast. By the time I started paddling north towards town, there was a good chop and my boat was fishtailing and bucking with the following seas. I could see the little tour in the distance, and decided to make a game of catching them before they reached the beach so I could catch a ride back into town with them and avoid having to wait for an hour or two for my scheduled ride back in. I caught them about half an hour from landing and chatted the group up some as they struggled with the waves in their big steady double boats. On shore, I helped gather gear and trailer the boats to be hauled back into town. And all of the frustrations and irritations of guiding, the impracticality of making a life of such endeavors, faded away in my mind and all I wanted to do was quit school, move back and finish out the season on the water, under the midnight sun, doing what I love in a place I adore. Nevermind, in that moment, that sunny days are few and far between here, that clients are fickle, tips can be stingy for a long day’s work, that gear and books and equipment molds in the ever damp costal climate. Nevermind that there are no benefits, no retirement, no guarantee of work from year to year, or even season to season. Nevermind that the community is nomadic and sporatic, that finding close friends that stick is nigh well impossible. Nevermind the reality of this life. In that moment, shoulders burning from four hours of hard ocean paddling, yanking straps tight to hold boats to trailer, all I wanted in the world was that life back, that idealized life that let me be in a place I love doing what I love.

And, as a matter of course, I began questioning everything. Why am I in a graduate program that I’m so ambivalent about anyway, trying to secure a future working in a field that will keep me indoors and away from the woods? Why am I not following my dreams now, in this moment, building a kennel and running dogs and instead continue to do the adult thing, the practical thing, and build foundations that I’m not sure I want to stand on. Some people make a life of being outside, of being on and with the earth and the woods and the ocean, and teaching and leading others to that place. Why am I so convinced that path was not for me? Should it have been? Were the voices of practicality and convention too loud in my ears? Or did the damp and mold and nomadic people convince me, at some point, to go a different path, and I’m just having a damn hard time remembering that in all this sunshine.

My first day back in Fairbanks, I figured out that my body was not accustomed enough to hills, and that my newly-running-again legs would not tolerate the inclines without pain. I have been running again for over six weeks now, and was nearing the end of the couch-to-5K program I’d committed to. But with the hills, there was no three mile run happening that day. I walked the mileage instead, running only on the flat bits, and for the next two days went hiking instead.

Last night, in Seward, laying beside the bay an hour before the sun set behind the high peaks, I was suddenly taken with a desire to run; something utterly unaccustomed in these last days and weeks of forcing myself out of the house every morning to pound out the beginnings of mileage along the sidewalks of Saint Paul. I scrambled back to the truck, not wanting to lose the impulse, and dug out my running clothes. Changing in the dank, public-park bathroom, I cringed as my other clothes hit the floor, but then remembered they were already filthy. Emerging into cool dusky sunlight, I left my earphones in the truck, hid the keys behind the gas cap and hoped the truck would still be there when I got back.

I am a slow, shuffling runner on the best of days and running alongside the ocean did nothing for my usual gait. But the cool breeze off the water in the shade of the mountains was refreshing and I found that I wasn’t sweating nearly as much as I do on my dawn runs through the city. I passed wheeling seagulls by the fish packing plant, then there were eagles overhead and salmon jumping out of the bay just feet away from where I plodded my way along the winding road to Lowell Point. The flat oceanside road was perfect without a hint of elevation gain or loss, and for the first time in weeks I found I was running without the screaming pain in my legs that I’ve accepted as payment for trying to run through the mystery injury that’s kept me sidelined for several years.

It wasn’t a perfect run, but I clocked in longer than I’ve run in years and felt fantastic at the end of it. A true runner’s high, finally. Payoff. The only problem is that showers are hard to come by in this town, and I forgot to grab a towel before I left Toni’s in Fairbanks. At least nobody is sharing the back of my truck with me at night. Hopefully that lovely, fresh ocean breeze will keep the worst of it at bay.

I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until I saw the ocean. Between rushing around Fairbanks trying to get the truck fixed, leaving too late in the afternoon to make much meaningful mileage, worrying about meeting an old friend (unseen for twenty years) in Anchorage, and all the suppressed anxiety about Seward herself, I was a mess of nerves. When I pulled over to camp for the night somewhere south of Denali, I lay in the back of my truck, comfortable and warm enough (except for the mosquitoes) fretting and planning and spinning my wheels, utterly unable to sleep. My heart was racing. Would the truck make it the rest of the way, and back again? When was it due for an oil change? How on earth are we going to move the week after I get back? Should I be in a nursing program at all? What if I don’t finish, what then? How many bridges do I have left to burn? The thoughts darkened with the sky and I lay awake for hours.

When I woke up the next morning, I was no better for the fitful sleep I’d had, although the cold mountain air had dispatched with the mosquitoes some time in the night. There was nothing left to do but continue driving south, but I was grumpy and moody and ready to turn around and go back to Fairbanks, where at least there was Toni’s cabin to hide in.

In 2010, I drove to Seward alone but for one dog, Augie, our giant rescued Ridgeback. When I arrived, I panicked and instead of visiting friends, kayaking and hiking, I pitched a tarp under the trees in the woods and hid out for several days, avoiding town, avoiding all the places I might run into a familiar face. All I could remember was the hand-over-fist rejection I’d experienced as a wanna-be guide her a decade ago. I hadn’t fit in then, and I was sure I would experience the same cold shoulder as I had as a wandering kid in 2004. Also, I was as depressed as I’d ever been to that point, and the feelings of general inadequacy and self-hatred were relentless. They still are. After three nights camping in the rain and feeling sorry for myself, I left, tail between my legs, slinking back to Fairbanks confused about the instinct to hide and worrying over it. I realized, as I got closer to Seward this time, that I was worried that impulse would rear its head again. That I would go make a fort in the woods not be able to enjoy the town for what it is, regardless of the baggage it holds for me.

Coming into town, I held my breath and drove straight to Rick’s kayak outfitting business, determined at least in the moment not to make that mistake of five years ago this time. Heart in my throat, I found him in the yard repairing a boat and approached. It’s been years since I’ve seen him, over a decade since I worked for him as a guide out on the bay. And he was as welcoming as if I was a long lost friend, offering to lend me a boat, take me out to wherever I wanted to go, offered me a bed or a place to park and camp, showed me his fantastic little outfitting business like a proud papa. He made me feel like a prodigal child come home after years away.

Something in me calmed with this welcome. The hurting, confused, lost outsider I was at twenty four, showing up in this town with a car full of camping gear and a dog, hoping to weasel my way into a kayak was mollified somewhat. The piece of me that feared outright rejection and indifference was squashed like a small bug. I am an adult now, I have made something (if not much) of the little thread of life I’m running with, and I don’t need the approval of a bunch of too-cool-for-school, hard-partying guides to be at peace with myself anymore. I may not be at peace with myself for other reasons, but those specters were finally chattering themselves into silence.

I went first to the docks and walked around looking at boats and communing with a huge sea otter crunching clams between vessles. The harbor water was turquoise and the snow-dusted mountains rose up everywhere I looked. Then down to the point at the end of town and I lay in the park grass watching the water and ships and the cliffs across the bay. And for the first time since coming up to Alaska this time, felt myself fully relax. Fairbanks is so loaded these days, with expectations and questions about the future. It should be home, is it really? Or should it be? And what if it isn’t? Where will I be left if I’ve built it into something it cannot be? Every place there, every corner and dirt road and structure holds a memory or a possibility or a disappointment. It feels good to come home there, or try to, but I have not been able to relax the way I need to, not with all the white noise. But here, on the ocean, I may finally be learning to let go of a weird, perfect, horrible summer on the bay and enjoy this place for what it is. A paradise of mountains plunging into ocean at the end of the road.

I adore my old truck. I got him for four thousand dollars off of craigslist in 2011, and he’s carried me all across this state, moved us several times, hauled my dog team through all kinds of weather, taken us down to Iowa and me back up to Fairbanks last fall. He had plenty of miles when we got him, but we’ve put on a hell of a lot since then.

When I knew we were going to drive him down to Iowa, I wanted to get a topper shell so we could sleep dry in the back of the truck on the way down without having to set up camp or deal with wet tents. I couldn’t find anything used that would fit the bill, and it made no sense to pay for a new topper that cost more than the truck had. Finally, discussing this issue with Jenny about two months before our move, she mentioned that she had an old topper she was using as a chicken coop that she’d gotten for free at the dump a few years before. We measured it; a perfect fit! I spent about a week cleaning it up and learning to work with plexiglass to cover the broken out windows and in the end we ended up with an old-school topper that fit the truck perfectly.

Last winter, the truck took me and Ersta safely across the country to Seattle and then back up to Alaska and then back and forth through the mountains to Jodi’s house three times a week until I had to return to Iowa in December. He’s been parked at Jenny’s since then, until I got back and started him (remarkably) up on the first try.

But he’s starting to show his age. There are strange noises under the hood when he clocks in above fifty miles and hour, and something feels like it’s about to tear apart whenever we make a sharp turn in either direction. I want to trust him, after all the miles he’s taken me. But as much as I am prone to anthropomorphise the machines I love, he is only a machine and will leave me stranded in the middle of nowhere without a second thought. Or a first one. I was planning on driving down to Seward today, but I’m taking him into a truck repair shop to have him looked at first instead. In the mean time, I’m packed back up for the trip and he’s been outfitted with an air mattress and heavy duty sleeping bag, ready for the next adventure. I just hope he’s up for it. And I hope I am, too.

The Angel Rocks trail should be a metaphor for something, but I am sick of metaphors even though I write them into nearly everything I post. The hike up starts along a deceptively wide, flat trail, devoid of roots and rocks. Half a mile in, and it becomes a narrow snaking path through the trees, more rock and root than dirt. After a short jaunt up an increasingly steep boardwalk traversing marsh, the first of the tors becomes visible on the ridge far above. Impossibly far above. But you begin the climb anyway, because the tors (and the view they provide) is why you have come.

After a brutal steep climb over roots and rocks with no view through the trees of what is ahead, you come to that first tor and the view is spectacular. You are above much of the forest now, and the valleys stretch away in several directions. You breathe a sigh of relief, but then look up and find another, bigger, grander tor is looming ahead and higher. You catch your breath and start making the climb. And the pattern continues. Each tor reached juts into a more breathtaking view that before, and after each is reached, another, higher, steeper tor presents itself further upslope, tantalizing. The trail becomes a tilting scramble, more breaks must be taken. The day is hot for the northcountry, and muggy ahead of promised rain that night. There is not much breeze. You wonder at sweating so much in a place so close to the Arctic Circle. You lean on trees to catch your breath, embracing paper birch and wondering at the map patterns left on their leaves by passing bugs. You collapse onto small rock outcroppings, giving your burning legs a break, guzzling more water, cursing the next tor that has made itself visible, obscuring the sky, beckoning you upward.

As you scramble and huff to reach each new outcropping of granite, each new and higher view, the scattered people around you drop off the hunt and head back down. It’s not a long hike, but the steep trail and discouraging appearance of more of it after every turn proves discouraging to many, even the intrepid couple decked out head-to-toe in brand-new REI gear complete with clanging bear bells that you are sure would attract a curious grizzly rather than alert it to move on.

At the top, you find yourself alone in the silence. There is still no wind, and the sweat is heavy on your t-shirt. A bee passing over the rock seems deafening. You scramble up the last of the tors, at the top of the world, finally, and the landscape is laid out before you a green canvas, the blue sky mostly obscured by low continuous clouds, grey rivers snaking away and out of sight. A single cabin stands out far below, a speck of blue in the endless green forest. Your legs are shaking from the climb, and you aren’t exactly sure they are steady enough to make it back down the rock to the trail. But you are at the top, scraped knees and dirty hands and sweaty back, and slowly your heart rate slows and your breath comes evenly and your legs stop screaming at you for what you have put them through.

I didn’t stay at the top for long. I was hoping for more of a breeze, but one never kicked up. I lay for a while in the hazy sunlight, but found myself more worried about the scramble down the rocks than able to embrace the view from their peak. There were more bees than I was comfortable communing with. My backpack didn’t make an excellent pillow. Before too long, I found myself attempting to backtrack down the steep rock to where the trail began its endless switchbacks down the back side of the hill through ever thickening forest. In my scramble, my bearspray fell out of the pouch on the side of my back. I watched in horror as it bounced down rock after rock, twenty feet, fifty feet, a hundred, and in slow motion I saw the safety latch break. Suddenly a breeze kicked up, just as the handle engaged with a rock, I got a facefull of cayenne pepper, disseminated over a hundred feet of elevation loss and generously delivered straight to my face by the sudden gust of wind.

I dove back to the top of the tor to catch my breath and let the coughing fit subside, then shakily worked my way down through the mass of granite to where the bearspray lay, innocent next to its safety catch, banged up and dented but still intact, in a little hollow of grass beneath the highest of the coveted tors. My eyes were burning and my lungs were raw. The view was gone down in the trees, and I still had a two mile hike down the steep grade and along the river back to the trailhead.

Maybe this is why there is no metaphor for climbing higher and higher, only to find more worthy goals around each subsequent corner. Because at the top there are too many bees, not enough breeze and a faceful of pepper spray meant for an eight hundred pound grizzly. Buyer beware.