McCarthy, Alaska: 2nd Go Round: 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.