I had some surprise days free before my Brooks Range guided trips start in July so I got the brakes done on my car (and the lugnuts on one of the wheels replaced- the shop that had changed out my winter tires a few months ago neglected to re-tighten the lug nuts on one of the wheels and the wheel was borderline falling off ha ha) and I drove six hours south to Anchorage (a harrowing drive in winter, a glorious one when the roads are snow-free) first for a dental checkup for NikNik (two new loose teeth of the handful she has left but the dentist says it’s fine, she should get another cleaning in a few months anyway and we can yank them then) and then I wanted to go to the mountains- south central AK is finally having a sunny summer! The first one in several years.
I met Kacey and Ace where they’d bailed off the Chugach Crowberry Traverse (the streams are really high right now, hot sun is making the snow melt fast apparently) and we camped together, sharing salmon salad and Costco blueberries, before they started their drive back to McCarthy. I experimented with sleeping in my car (a 2008 subaru forester) but the back wasn’t quite flat with the seats down, my head was angled up and I felt like I was experiencing some sort of sleep deprivation torture, sliding down towards my feet in the hot, stuffy car (I couldn’t open the windows on account of the mosquitoes). But what is sleep anyway? I thought as I tossed and turned, unable to get comfortable on my neo-air. The sun is blazing all day and night. I don’t remember being tired, I don’t remember being sad. The plants are waist-high already, even the flowers are manic. Hasn’t it always been this way? Won’t it always be?
I drove to a village on the edge of the sea where some people I didn’t know (who seemed lovely) were getting married over the course of three days and some friends were there and we all camped next to a river. The next day I drove to the end of a mining road in a cleft in the mountains and hiked with my dogs up to a bowl with a small lake whose edges were still scrimmed in ice- my first time backpacking with the dogs! Incredibly.
After pitching the tent we climbed up onto the ridge and watched the light get long, NikNik puttering slow behind and Quito racing ahead, chasing ground squirrels (he’s something of a ground squirrel himself).
Later while laying in my sleeping bag unable to sleep due to the glory of warm endless nighttime sunshine, the dogs in their sleeping bag (my old flat zpacks quilt from the PCT) I heard the ground squirrels sound their alarms and I looked outside and a white coyote? Or wolf? Was making its way up a snowfield towards the distant peaks.
The next morning was hot again (seventy degrees in Alaska feels warmer than seventy degrees in the lower 48, somehow) and I sat naked in the shade of my shelter drinking tea while the dogs lazed on the sun-warmed tundra and then we packed up and side-hilled over to another ridgeline and followed it until we could see the next valley over, a whole world unexplored. We plodded down steep tundra back to the mining road where the car was parked and on the way found a pond and I jumped in and the sweat and heat left me and I was new again. In Anchorage I had dinner and caught up with friends I felt like I hadn’t seen in a thousand years and then another spontaneous trip opportunity presented itself- Hope wanted to do some peak-bagging in the Chugach and I don’t peak bag but I do like to hike and then SJ and her friend Tina joined too, and we followed Bird Ridge all the way back and dropped down a steep snowfield (Hope and SJ skiing on their trail runners and me plodding along behind, occasionally falling on my ass) to an enchanted valley with aquamarine lakes where I finally had one single perfect night of sleep, thanks to the cold wind blowing off the snowfields and a benadryl.
The next day Hope continued on to her peaks and we hiked out, roasting like rotisserie chickens in the sun, our quads and knees screaming in the long descent off Bird Ridge. (What we did was basically an out-and-back on the last eight miles of the Chugach Crowberry Traverse, if you wanna do it too.)
My Brooks Range guided trips start next week and I’m so excited. We’re gonna have a great time plodding through the bogs and along the crispy tundra ridges of the mountains north of treeline. There is nothing like an Alaskan summer when the weather is good. Nothing! Also there are still spots in my beginner guided backpacking trips in Arizona in February, if that’s something you’re interested in.
And the kickstarter for BETS finishes tomorrow! If you want a signed copy of that and haven’t pre-ordered it yet.
That’s all for now,
Carrot
With all that natural beauty, I would seldom be depressed or sad. Nature at its best! Thanks for sharing.
Terry Simpson
Its unbelievably breathtakingly beautiful there. Just like how I imagine heaven.......