Wings to the South

Looking out over Kennicott Glacier from Kennecot, real colors, not enhanced.

Greetings,  I'm waiting for Greg to take me to the airport for my trip with Hands On Global to work in the Vathy Refugee Camp on the island of Samos, Greece.  Obviously my mind is no longer in Alaska nor thinking about editing.

I had a lovely, lovely fall in McCarthy, mostly to myself, a highlight in itself.  The other highlight was our flight and After Action Review at May Creek.  We hiked to Chititua and discussed how we could make next year better.  It's a great team.  The people I work with are half the delight of the job.  The other half is the visitors.  The third half is the Kennicott/McCarthy valley!

Oops, Greg has arrived. 

Curious hiker

My brussel sprouts plant which never stalked up

Dave playing with the Kennecott Bridge Band

Kennicott Lake at the toe of the glacier.

At abandoned and dying Chititu gold camp

Team work

Fireweed Mountain

Kennecott mill after the tourists leave

Dall sheep at 

My car grows warts when I drive the Alcan in October.  They face forward at a 45 degree angle and can grow to as much as an inch and a half.

Alone and Together

Bremner and all that lovely openness!

This has not been a summer of introspection.  Summer is my time for doing.  Experience, not mindfulness.  

In early August I went hiking on the Nabesna Road with friend, Jim, from Whitehorse.  Slana this past month has been a crazy place.  People have found old human remains, a felon threatened their family and law enforcement so that they can experience “death by cop”, and finally a man died in his truck.  Jim and I had nothing to do with any of that.  We enjoyed our walks, especially the one to Caribou Creek cabin.  He hates getting his feet wet but “cowboyed up” when the choice was that or retreat.  It’s good to have a hiking buddy.

The next weekend was my solo treat for the year.  Locals can get “back hauls” (haul backs?) so that planes don’t have to fly one way empty.  These are half price.  I managed to finagle a three-day trip to Bremner, an abandoned gold mining camp in the Chugach Range.  Contrary to expectations, the weather was perfect and I had my best “alone” time of the season.  The area is all tundra.  The sheer openness of tundra delights me, all that space, all that sunshine, all that area where I can see bears from a distance and don’t have to worry about surprising one.  I was so happy to be there.  My mind was loosely open to my surroundings without any anxiety or intrusive thoughts.  It felt like one long meditation.   I hiked, read, picked blueberries, did watercolors and felt like time was in a wonderful holding pattern.  I enjoyed my own company to the fullest.  I’ve said that the reason I don’t winter up here is that I don’t enjoy my own company well enough to survive the solitude but that isn’t always true.  Of course, three days is not the test three months of dark would be.

Bush plane at Iceberg Lake

Landing and taking off on these backcountry airstrips is a stitch.  When the pilot flew over the airstrip at Iceberg Lake I thought he was kidding me when he pointed to a bumpy sandbar left by the glacier.  Not such a great sense of humor, just his reality!  Next was the Bremner airstrip which isn’t level so you can only land in one direction and hope the wind is not following.  In Montana it wouldn’t have qualified for the name “dirt road” much left “airstrip”.  When I was picked up on the return, the clouds were just rising from the valley.  The pilot landed, turned the plane, shut off the engine just long enough for me to get in, and, without talking other than to say, “Leaving, NOW”, took off, all in about five minutes.  We just made it above the clouds.  He really did not want to be stuck in Bremner where no wood means no warmth, communication is iffy and one could be stuck for days walking the mile and a half to and from the airstrip, just hoping for good weather .

How many ptarmigan can you count?  Surely these are rock ptarmigan.

The next weekend was another success.  I entered the Wrangell Mountains Center Tall Tales contest and had a thoroughly enjoyable time (8 minute limit) telling the story of Susie’s and my first backpack with the Girl Scouts in Otter Creek, West Virginia.  That’s where I met Lys Burden who inspired me to cave, winter backpack, canoe and travel thousands of miles on my bicycle.  It wasn’t really a tall tale but sometimes people don’t believe some of my adventures so it was easier to pass parts of it as a tall tale rather than convince people of the truth.  McCarthyites being as kind and encouraging as they are, I felt my story was appreciated and soaked up compliments all the next week.

Greg on Alaskan pipeline

Then I picked up my three kids in Anchorage.  We quickly fell into our established pattern of joshing and teasing each other.  They never fight with each other and, if they find themselves annoyed, it is usually with me for playing the Mom role.  See the photo of them in hard hats. That's how they align against me (pitiful emoji face).  We went to Kennecott where we hiked the Root Glacier trail, crossed the glacier and skittled across the interface between the glacier and a mud slope to trudge up to Donoho Basin camping area.  We were all proud of Meadow because it had been awhile since she had carried a pack and had never before worn crampons or traversed a glacier.  We were blessed with good weather (what a summer!!) though overnight it got below freezing.  Bill and Greg spent an extra night and Meadow came back with me because I had to work.  The kids came on my NPS walks, explored the mill and Kennecott and we played a Japanese card game called Sushi in the bar while a country band played.  When they left I was sad and really grateful that they have all grown into such fine adults.

Meadow, Bill and Greg at Kuskulana Bridge

On medial moraine of Root Glacier with Donoho and Stairway Icefall in background.

I put them to work in Kennecott.

Bill and Greg at McCarthy's favorite hangout:  the Potato.

Living Room Concert at Porphyry Place

August was the perfect balance of work, play, family, friends, solitude, and challenge. 

History is Tricky

History is Tricky:  Being an Interpretive Ranger in a Historical Park

There is an essay at the bottom about the difficulties of interpreting history. But first, interpret this yourself:

Hippies and Holys*

Looking out over Root Glacier and Donoho Peak with Mt. Blackburn in the background.  Find tent in foreground.

June 2019

Dear Friends,

I am writing this blog again under duress (blame Bruce) and because I feel guilty for going to the Writers Circle with nothing to share.  You all know how hard it is for me to sit still for any amount of time so I’m asking for encouraging gold stars from each of you.  My goal is to write four entries this year with lots of pictures for those of my friends who also have short attention spans.

Jim and I had an uneventful trip north this year.  Stops were in Nelson to bid goodbye to Patsy and Vivian’s country home, 150 Mile House at my favorite Airbnb, Fort St. John, Toad River and finally home to Jim’s place in Whitehorse.  I dropped down to Skagway to see old friends at yoga, share dinner at the Starfire, hike to Lower, get my hair cut and warm up Deb’s cabin.  The familiar routine of the 2400 mile drive and check in with friends is a comfortable place for me.  It allows me time and space for the semi-annual transition from Montana to Alaska and back.  Jim and I also have our personal routines: he drives and hides the camping gear in the most inaccessible places in the car so that we have to succumb to the call of a cabin or hotel.  I mostly ride shotgun but then eventually get bored and want more attention from him.  By the time we crossed into the Yukon, he was done with me and my bids for conversation.  We parted at Takhini Hot Springs. 

After Whitehorse came the drive along poor, shrinking Kluane Lake and an overnight at Beaver Creek on the Alaska/Canadian border.  A second leisurely day and I was checking into Boxtown and another season working for the National Park Service at WRST, aka Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve.  As we say, WRST is the Best.  Being comfortable with half the NPS family already and familiar with the training routine made me look around and wonder about what I could place inside the hole inside me where my anxiety usually resides.  Anxiety is such a good friend that I sometimes feel incomplete without her. 

Training was similar to last season:  Copper Center, the Nabesna Road, the talks on Murrelets, backcountry safety, explosives,  fisheries, ANILCA, and the Root Glacier at Kennecott were all old friends.  The only two additions were a week in which Dianne, Christine and I covered at the Copper Center Headquarters and presented at the Princess Lodge. I had a surprise visit to Anchorage to have the Mohs surgeon slice a squamous cell cancer off my lip.  Both the surgery and working at the NPS Visitor Center were familiar activities.

My room mate who loves to chew under the cabin at all hours.

Now I’m settled for another season in my small, private, electricity-free, dry cabin at the base of the Kennicott Glacier.   Our setup here provides me all the solitude I want in my cabin yet with the option to visit our communal house where I can go for company, a kitchen, flush toilets, a washer and dryer and a BATHTUB.   Here we have a well, solar power, and propane heat.  I can tell you, my friends, about the amazing amenities here at Westside but to people in McCarthy I would sound like a braggart.  McCarthy has no community water, electricity, sewer or garbage.  Most make do with a wood stove, water from Clear Creek and an outhouse.  Some drive the three hours to Kenny Lake to use the laundry mat.  A result of these depravations is that standards of personal hygiene are lower than anywhere else I’ve been outside of a developing country.  In this place the duct tape repairs on my coat exemplify McCarthy fashion.

Work is the same as last season.  Teacher and ham that I am, I’m always hoping for more people to go on my walks and listen to my talks.  I love the old company town of Kennecott which I get to open and close and wander on work days.  The rehabilitated buildings, the buildings in “arrested decay” and the “managed ruins” all speak to a different era.  We manage the historic landmark with a light touch, planning for quiet and a slow pace.    Visitors and glacier guides walk rather than drive through the quiet town with its mostly abandoned buildings.  Today this place is quite unlike what you would have found in 1919 when the loud, noisy, machine-driven mill at the center of town sorted the valuable copper from limestone with gravity crushers, jigs and slime tables that ran round the clock.  The steam train whose tracks ran straight down the main street was not managed for quiet and a slow pace either.

View across Kennicott Glacier from Kennecott where I work.

My favorite days at work are ones in which I have lively, engaged visitors on my walk or talks.  My walk is on the people working in the company town of Kennecott, "Sixteen Tons and What Do You Get?" My talks are on Kenny G., aka, the Kennicott Glacier, and mosquitos.  We play a casual form of Jeopardy with the mosquito answers.  Sometimes my visitors don’t want to return the play money I give them for correct questions!!

Caribou Public Use Cabin

This is my second year in this valley.  As always at a new place and/or in a new job, my first year is spent watching and hiding.  Last year in McCarthy was like that.  I didn’t develop any friendships with any depth, just cheery, “Hi, howsit going?” relationships.  All the bearded men and young guides looked the same to me.   This year I am trying differentiate between people and engage with the community more.  Since I drink little and collapse in bed by eleven, this is a challenge in a small Alaska drinking town.  Actually, I haven’t been in any non-drinking Alaskan towns!  So far I’ve gone to Search and Rescue trainings, a bird walk, yoga and a new writers’ circle.  You, as my friends, know me as an unfiltered, bouncy Chortle who wears her heart on her sleeve.  Here I struggle to join in a conversation or express the genuine woman inside me.   Occasionally I have the thought that I come here every summer and change locations often so that I never have to come out of hiding.  I find myself yo-yoing to find the balance between solid, honest relationships and distant casual ones.  Six months of shallowness here in the remoteness where introverts come to hide and then time in Helena where I’m hungry to be known.  It helps that in Montana I’ve known all my closest friends for decades. 

So what do I really want??  I’ll continue exploring, blogging, and reaching out to meet new people.  Or maybe I’ll decide to just enjoy life on my own.  Even I don’t know which way I’ll go.  I’ll watch and see.

*This is how John in the writers' group describes McCarthy.

Mount Drum at 11:00 pm.