Thought Terrarium

My third full day of hiking was a l ong one. I woke up on my gravel bar after a night of rain to find a beautiful morning. It took a long time to get out of camp. All alone, I went at a slow pace, eating and collecting my gear contemplatively. After all, the sun wasn't going to set. As I was getting ready to go, lo oking reluctantly at my big pack and getting ready to swing it up onto my back I noticed a little piece of paper sticking out of the padding. It was a note from my friend Steph. She had written it and tucked it into my pack nearly seven weeks before when we went camping in th e Olympic Mountains back home. I can't remember exactly what it said, and I've since lost it, but I know it told me to scream in a beautiful p lace. It was such an unexpected connection to my world, to home, I might have scr eamed just for the happiness of having received it, but as I looked around I saw beautiful clouds drifting over the mountain tops in the awesome blue stillness of co...

I think I left off on my second day of hiking. I'd just spent the night at Glacier Pass on the rocks above the moose filled marsh. In the morning I spent a long time getting out of bed and packing my stuff. I was too lazy to cook myself a hot breakfast , and took off a little slower than the day before. I was low on water, so that was my first priority. My maps indicated a small lake just a half mile down the slope from my camp, and I set my sights on it. It also looked like a good way to cut some time off of my route, shooting through a gap between hills and then down into the Glaci er Valley proper. I still hadn't had a good view of the valley, and I was eager to se e the long view. At first the travel was no problem through thin spruce forest, but I quickly found my way into thick tussocks. I should have stayed on the wide winter path that I had followed across the pass! The last 1/4 mile to the lake was grueling. I was thirsty and the lake was so close, but the tussocks ma...

My vacation from the Spirit of Columbia and Cruise West started as usual with a bus ride out of Whittier along Turnagain Arm and into Anchorage. I spent a couple days there in preparation for my long anticipated hiking trip into Gates of the Arctic National Park . Most of the gear that I needed I'd brought up from home and kept stowed aboard the vessel during my last rotation. But I needed a first aid kit, food, and maps, so I still spent a whole day bussing my way around the city finding everything. From Anchorage I made my way via Alaskan Railroad to Fairbanks where I spent the night in a funky hostel. There were a lot of older guys there. Oil company workers from up in Prudhoe Bay. I talked a little with a guy named Jerry with spindly forearms and coke-bottle glasses and wispy blondish-white hair. He helped me find my way around Fairbanks when I was looking for a digital camera, and basically talked the entire time I was within 10 feet of him. After one night in Fairbanks I ca...