Footprints of the Mouse

Arlen Specter and Habeas Corpus

2007-09-20T22:58:00.000-07:00

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/12/04/061204fa_fact

Sibling Bonding in the High Olympics

2007-09-19T13:55:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Rita for completing her first backpacking trip. A loop from Obstruction Point, over Grand Pass and then back via the Cameron Creek drainage and Deer Ridge.

Olympia Sends Implements of Violent Death to Iraq. Protesters Object, Receive Mud in Faces.

2006-05-31T19:38:00.001-07:00

Five Weeks Already?

2006-04-05T12:15:00.000-07:00

Somehow it's finished. I'm spending my last hours in Peru before heading home. It hardly seems like so much time could have passed so quickly.

C left this morning early. Her flight departed at 0630 this morning, so she was up and about before 0400 getting ready. I got up for a minute to see her off and went back to bed. That's too early for me. But now I'm up and wandering around Lima by myself for the first time. I walked to el Mercado Central, to Chinatown, aka Barrio Altos and explored the commercial district there for a bit.

The market was not very exciting. I was hoping for something like the markets that we saw in other cities but much larger. This is the main city. What I found was much more concrete and modern than I had expected. It was large and square, with the decorative exterior steel grid-work that I think was very popular in the early sixties. There were two levels. Everything was very organized. It was almost like a big Peruvian mall building with bunch of vendor stalls crammed in it.

My theory is that it will probably fail becuase of this. It seems to be an early attempt at transitioning into the supermarket atmosphere. (There are numerous American style supermarkets here by the way.) But it doesn't quite work. Everything is too crowded and the hybrid architecture, somewhere between the closed buildings of modern stores and the airy feel of traditional open markets is not aesthetically appealing. I was happy to see that there was a daycare center though. It was clearly part of the design. At least the odd functionalism that must have guided the construction wasn't completely screwy.

Later I went back to the Plaza de San Martin, bought myself some water, and found a nice shady spot to sit. The feathery trees that line the pathways to the center of the plaza have been blooming, and the grassy areas have a light sprinkling of purple blossoms. There was a nice breeze and I was happy to sit and watch the people go by for a while.

I noticed a young guy sit down at the bench close to me. He seemed to be looking at me, and I saw that he got up and said something to another young guy across the path from him. Then he walked away. It seemed fishy to me. I've seen this before. Look for the third man, I thought. They must be up to something. Sure enough, a couple minutes later a very friendly guy came up to me and wanted to know all about my trip to Peru. This is not uncommon, but he was very insistent that I go with him to get a beer. It was my last day in Peru after all. I refused. Duh. I'm sure this was the ruse to get me out of the safe park area, with all its police.

After that little conversation an old guy sitting close to me pointed out the young guys and told me to watch them because they might try to rob me. I told him that I'd been watching them. Frankly I'm kind of proud of myself. I spotted the hustle. This small town boy is starting to get some street smarts.

Travel to Mancora

2006-03-31T11:54:00.000-08:00

We flew out of Cusco to Lima, and then from Lima to Tumbes near the Ecuadorian border after a four hour layover. At the Tumbes airport we opted against the 100 sole taxi fair to Mancora and caught a small bus going into the city of Tumbes. The bus waited for a couple airport employees, and because of this, we all suffered in dense clouds of mosquitos. My feet are still covered in bites.

In Tumbes we discovered that the taxi fare wasn't going to change, and I, determined not to be ripped off by the taxis took the invitation of the bus conductor to find us a cheaper ride. He took Cassandra's bag and walked us through town and to a weird little garage full of American sedans from the late seventies and early eighties.

This would be our ride. A thirty foot long black Lincoln with no regard for speed limits or reasonable passing. This particular mode of transport is called a ¨collectivo.¨ Like any ride in Peru, one feels in a collectivo that safety is perhaps not the highest priority. The main requirement for drivers seems to be strong desire to drive at least twice the speed limit at all times, and a long elbow for hanging out the window.

I was skeptical of the crowd of men standing around the entrance, hawking rides to Piura, a couple hours past Mancora. They seemed a sketchy lot. There was a young guy with a shaved head, and an older fellow who seemed to be the main salesman, and at least a few others of unkown origin or occupation. It was entirely unclear who the driver was, and when the bald guy took our bags and threw them in the trunk I must admit I was a little afraid I'd never see them again. But we were fresh from our robbery experience in La Paz and I wasn't going to let anything get by me.

When we left the lot and bounced onto the road we heard the trunk slamming shut. This made us nervous. Had our things been exposed this whole time? Who was that guy? and what was he doing with the trunk? We quickly came up with a pretense for stopping the car and taking a look. Cassandra needed her antihistemenes. I got out and looked in the trunk with the driver who apparently knew what was going on and took care to point out all of our luggage. Perhaps he didn't know the trunk closer either. Or maybe he was just reassuring us.

The drive was long, with an occasionally crying baby in the front, and C and I crowded in the back seat with two other people, a disinterested girl in small clothing, and a stoic man in a buttondown with a sidebag. They arrived separately, but before long were sleeping on each others shoulders.

The driver was not interested in the scenery. We passed every vehicle that we approached, and were stopped at every checkpoint. Once by the highway patrol who seemed very interested in the gringos riding in a collectivo and who wanted to search Cassandra's bag, and once by the military or something. Both stops were quick, but our driver was disconcertingly nervous both times. At the second one he rolled up all the windows and motioned for me to be quiet and said that he'd roll the windows back down when we were past.

We made to Mancora in the middle of the night, and wandered around for a while looking for a place to stay that was in our price range. It it a very touristy place. We've heard that the president, Alejandro Toledo, likes to spend a lot of time there. I guess when your approval rating is 20% you probably need a break. He wasn't there this time, and we found a place to stay called 'Arena Blanca' and went to sleep.

Cusco

2006-03-23T12:04:00.000-08:00

The trip into the heart of Bolivia was fast and strange. We spent less than twenty-four hours there, and then we were gone. My impressions are vague and almost dreamlike. Now we're back in Peru, in Cusco via one night in Puno.

Walking through this city one can't help but be struck by the history of this place. We are staying in the center of the city, not far from the Plaza de Armas. The street plan, and foundations of many of the buildings are pre-conquistador. Only a few blocks from our hostal is a street lined on both sides with Inca masonry, one piece of which is the famous 12-sided stone. Many of the stone faces are the size of a dinner table and at least three feet thick.

On top of the amazing Inca stones are the square and very linear mortared Spanish walls. One sees in these very stones the succession of civilizations, and something of the change of pardigms that occured.

When Pizzaro defeated the Quitan army at Cajamarca in 1532 he took the Inca emperor, Atahualpa captive. In an attempt to save his life, and perhaps the fate of his empire, Atahualpa offered the Spaniards the proverbial king's ransom, a large room full from floor to ceiling with gold and silver. Pizzaro and his men took the gold, but they killed Atahualpa anyway, and since then the riches of Peru have flowed to Europe, and more recently North America.

I can't help but wonder what would have happened had the Incas somehow been prepared for the Spaniards. What might have happened if they had continued their rapid and aggressive expansion? Certainly they would have met the Aztec and obtained the wheel, and maize. What would have happened then? It is difficult to imagine.

Perhaps their time is finally arriving. Ollanta Humala has taken the lead in the most recent presidential poll. Elections are in three weeks.

The Hustle

2006-03-23T12:00:00.000-08:00

I may have talked about how big and impressive Lima is, but I hadn't been to La Paz yet. I don't know how many people live here or the elevation, or really much about it at all. You'll have to excuse my lack of knowledge. And I'll try to forgive myself, because it's already gotten us into trouble.

When we arrived in the city yesterday afternoon, the conductor stopped us before we got off to give us a stern warning. "Don't trust anyone," he said. "Don't take any taxi that only says 'taxi,' don't follow strangers, take much caution," and again, "don't trust anyone, it's a very dangerous city."

We caught a very legitimate taxi, and took it to the center of the city, which is I guess where tourists usually go. We had a few ideas of hostals that we'd like to look at from the guide book, and we'd met a couple fellow travellers on the bus. One was a fellow from Juneau named Matt, and the other was a British woman named Karen. It wasn't far from the bus station, but it was a long time before we got to where we were going.

People seem to like walking in the streets here. Busy streets, full of busses and taxis and cars and motorcycles. They walk right out in front of cars. I thought this was something that I was used to in Peru, but it's a billion times worse here. Our bus alone came within inches of running over an old lady, a couple dogs, a middle aged man, and who knows how many more that I didn't see. It was stop and go all the way here.

The Hostal that we wanted to look at first was one called Hostal Lobos. But the driver didn't take us there exactly. He took us to a restaurant called El Lobos. We knew from the book that the hostal should be somewhere very close. There seemed to be a lot of places to stay on this street, and we were sort of standing around, dumbstruck, looking at the signs, slowly thinking about our choices. In retrospect we must have looked like the epitomy of stupid gringos. All of the places that we could see seemed to be closed, completely shuttered in the peculiar Latin American way, with shut doors and metal garage door pulled down.

It didn't take long for a man to approach us and ask what we were looking for. He was an older guy with spectacles, a little pudgy and seemed to know exactly where we were going. He quickly led us down the street a little way, and then took a left down a smaller street to a hostal that was not the one we were looking for. This whole time he was talking to Matt. I don't know exactly what he was saying. Matt said he'd take a quick look and see if it was a good hostal. For some reason I decided to follow him in, maybe because the old guy was ushering me in, I don't know. So it was a train, and we all followed right into the lobby and sat down trustingly.

You're probably thinking to yourself, "No! Don't do it Drew, the conductor told you not to follow strangers. (And so did your mom when you were in kindergarten.)" But he seemed so nice, and we'd taken the very helpful suggestions and guidance of strangers in other places. It didn't seem so odd.

The prices weren't bad, and the lady at the counter was very friendly, dressed in traditional Andean garb, with a baby wrapped in bright woven fabric slung across her chest. We decided that Cassandra, Matt, and Karen would go look at the rooms. I'd stay in the lobby to watch our luggage. So the three went upstairs with the man that worked there and I stayed.

C had left her two small travel bags on the table, one stuffed into the other, and I thought it might be better to have all of things consolidated, you know, for security. So I took her little bags and stuffed them in between the two big packs on the couch, then sat basically on top of them. I was wearing my pack, so it was on top of C's little bags.

What happened next is a little confusing, and what I'm about to write is more of a reconstruction than anything. At the time I didn't realize anything was happening.

As the others were heading upstairs and I was sitting down, another guy walked in wearing a black leather jacket and went to the counter apparently trying to get help. The lady at the counter was already occupied with the man who'd brought us here, so black jacket came and sat down next to me. He picked up the little sheet of paper that told the prices for the hostal and started asking something in very fast Spanish that I couldn't understand. I was listening very closely, trying to be polite as he jabbed at the paper and repeated the same thing over and over again. He had my attention completely, and the lady at the counter was still talking to the old guy.

What I didn't see was the guy sneaking in the door, reaching behind me and grabbing Cassandra's little bags. It seemed a little strange that the guys I was paying attention to took off at the same time rather abruptly, but I was overwhelmed already. As they left, I saw the third guy slinking out the door and turning the corner. I think that he might have been shooting for Matt's bag which was sitting on the floor, but I just happened to turn my head, which scared him out.

When the others came back down, C asked for her bag and I stood up to get it for her, but it was gone. I instantly realized that I'd been hustled. What a horrible feeling. I had no idea it was happening. I am a stupid gringo. I learned something though. Look for the third man, right? Position yourself so you can see what you're gaurding, and the door, ok? Damn. She lost her journal, and calendar/address book, some clothing, and a knife that she got from her parents. Thankfully her glasses, passport and money were all with her.

It was a rather horrible experience. C was very, very upset. We ended up staying in the hostal that the crooks had taken us to. The hostaliers were obviously involved only as unwitting pawns in the criminal scheme, used perfectly. We checked in and then the four of us walked around a bit, looking for the things that the theives must have discarded because they were of no value, but found nothing.

It was getting dark so C and I walked back to the hostal, and Matt and Karen went to get some dinner. They most graciously offered to bring some back for us. We are most indebted to their kindness. They were helpful and understanding at every juncture, doing their most to support and console. I hope that someday I have the opportunity to return the favor.

Now we're getting ready to leave. Heading back to Peru. We've decided that it's not our time to explore Bolivia. I think I'll come back on another trip and be more prepared.

Puno

2006-03-16T14:24:00.000-08:00

We've been in Puno for five days now. It is the main Peruvian city on Lake Titicaca. We didn't plan on being here this long, but Cassandra was sick and she visited a doctor here and needed some rest, or at least a break from travel. We've spent a lot of time wandering around, looking for restaurants, and various other little places where we can get the things that we need.

A couple days ago we visited a small menu place. It is a common type of restaurant in Peru. There is a soup, a choice of entre, and a drink, almost always a sweet purple colored liquid made from corn. The whole meal costs between 2 and 4 soles, or 65 cents to $1.30.

This place that we went gave me yet another reason to admire the resourcefulness of Peruanos. Unfortunately I was unlucky enough to be party to this habit directly. I accidentally ordered a plate of beef tripe and potatoes in a yellow sauce. It was served on rice. I'm afraid if it wasn't for the assaultingly spicy sauce supplied on the table I wouldn't have been able to get it down. The spicy stuff must have been put there for just that purpose. Even after picking out all of the jiggling hunks of rippled yellow stomach lining, the taste of my dish was roughly similar to the smell of a cattle barn. In the future I'll know better than to order the cryptically named Cau Cau.

Damn. From a distance it looked so good.

Camana

2006-03-08T18:39:00.001-08:00

We tried the beach but it was too cold. And there was a minor fiasco trying to get there.

We passed it, and made it almost all the way to Arequipa, but decided to try our luck with a random smaller bus going back the other direction. It didnt take long, and there was a very friendly english speaking guy at the restaurant where we were dropped off. Thank goodness we didnt get stranded there. It was a small place in the middle of nowhere. We had traversed probably one hundred kilometers of completey barren dunes between there and la Punta Camana. These were severly impressive, massive, mountainous wastes of sand. That it is habitable to humans defies my imagination. But we made it out of there.

It turns out that la Punta Camana, and Camana proper are two different places. It is noticable on a good map, but not in the Lonely Planet. La Punta was the beach. It was warm outside, but the water was cold. Too cold for C. So we went into the city proper and have been here for the last couple days. I like it a lot here.

The people are very very pleasant, and the town itself feels so much mellower than Lima, and unlike la Punta, it hasnt been destroyed by a tsunami, which is nice.

Fresh in Peru

2006-03-03T15:25:00.000-08:00

Yesterday as Cassandra and I walked throught he Central District of Lima we came to a bridge across el Rio Rimac. When we got to the other side we found a bunch of fruit vendors, and what appeared to be a much poorer area of the city. We walked for a couple of blocks, not really knowing where we were going before we were stopped by a policeman who told us it was dangerous for us to continue in that direction. He looked at the bag I was carrying and made a gesture to show that it was going to be snatched if we continued on. He escorted us back to the bridge.

I wish I could blend a little better here. But when you are a foot taller than everyone, blonde, and walking around witha girl that has tattoos all over her body, you cannot help but draw attention.

They're leaning left, I'm just leaning South.

2006-02-25T23:14:00.000-08:00

Everything has become very pragmatic in these last few weeks. I realized that if I didn't actually work on the things that I needed to finish before I leave for South America that they'll never get done. So I've been doing more work activities, and less writing, and a lot less reading.

I'm almost ready to go, but I don't know if I'll have a bed ready to sleep on when I get back. boo hoo

2006-02-04T02:58:00.000-08:00

I wouldn't normally dedicate an entire post to a single link, but this is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. This is death-defying action. This is the future. These are urban ninjas!

Leaning Left in the Southern Cone

2006-01-30T00:30:00.000-08:00

It's less than a month and a half now until I head off to Peru, and things are starting to change. At first there was no intensity of emotion about the trip itself. My heart jumped at the thought of seeing my girlfriend there (she's been there for a couple months already), but Peru itself seemed an odd choice of travel destinations. Hadn't I been contemplating a trip to Australia for much of the time that I was in Alaska? And hadn't I already been to Peru? The answer to both is of course yes, but they have proven themselves mostly irrelevant now that I have a ticket in hand so to speak. They were obvious questions in the face of my new decision, but they have faded as the new trip comes closer. And as I prepare more thoroughly than I ever have for any trip, the excitement grows enormously by the day.

My excitement largely stems from what my reading has begun to show me. A power shift is under way now in South America. With Hugo Chavez leading the way, most of the continent has begun to stand up to the United States and the northern hemispheric financial powers. Brazil and Argentina have both paid off their debts to the IMF, and Bolivia is in the beginning stages of massive social and fiscal reforms under the new president, Evo Morales. Chile just elected Michelle Bachelet, a woman, as their new socialist president, and Uruguay has also recently elected a socialist president, Tabaré Ramón Vázquez Rosas. And Peru is in the midst of a presidential campaign that could bring a politically ambiguous, but Chavez friendly, Ollanta Humala into power. Perhaps our southern neighbors are finally beginning to shrug off the yoke of colonialism that has held them for so long. We can only hope.

I am excited to be in Peru during the weeks leading up to the election. Hopefully people will have things to say about what's happening there, and how they perceive this political change that seems so dramatic from my perspective here in the states.

Do you really want to step to this?

2006-01-18T23:23:00.000-08:00

For some reason anonymous commenters have been taking issue with my blog lately. Actually, there have only been two, but it's a little disconcerting. There was of course the absinthe issue. I took that up in a post a couple slots down. Now there's someone who doesn't seem to understand the humor in the phrase "floppy a."

Anonymous Commenter II claims that there is no such phrase. I beg to differ. If AC II cares to look three sentence back, I think he/she/it will find a phrase of interest, surrounded by quotation marks. The notorious "floppy a" in effect. I know for a fact that there are now at least three documented cases of use. Sure they're all on this blog, and all the undocumented ones are in my head, but lets not nit-pick the details here. My question in the previous post was not asserting that "floppy a" is a phrase that people actually use. It was merely associating the phrase with a floppy disk drive, commonly referred to as the "a:\ drive" as AC II so knowledgably points out. It was an attempt at humor (that's sort of like a "joke" AC). It's also possible that the double entendre I was alluding to isn't quite as obvious as I'd hoped, but I'm not going to make it explicit here.

I think I've made my point. Anyone else want to step up? Look back, there's plenty to comment on, and I'll respond in kind b*****s.

Beards and more beards.

2006-01-18T01:27:00.000-08:00

Absinthe II

2006-01-18T00:54:00.000-08:00

If you look, loyal reader, at the archives to the right, or below to the post called "Absinthe," you'll discover that I've included a descrpiption of how we consumed the drink. It had to do with flames and a big spoon and a sugar cube. There are pictures.

I'd never consumed the stuff, and had little knowledge of it, but an anonymous commenter took issue with the method that we employed, apparently concerned that we were trying to get high from the hallucinogenic properties of the constituent herb, wormwood. I had indeed heard the rumor that the stuff had more than just the normal alcoholic effects, but hallucinations were not the intended result. I can't speak for the others, but I did it out of a sense of irreverance. The stuff is illegal after all, and if a trip had been what we were after, I wouldn't have been very satisfied.

Our commenter says that the burning of the sugar cube is an invention of the Czechs, and that all Czech absinthe is fake anyway. Thank you commenter. Now I'm really confused. The absinthe I was drinking was from a distillery in Germany, and the guys that brought it claimed with great certainty that the real stuff is from the Czech and other Eastern European countries.

Check for yourself with the Wormwood Society website.

2006-01-18T00:42:00.000-08:00

Who doesn't chuckle to themself at the phrase "floppy a?" Really.

How do you pee?

2006-01-15T19:33:00.000-08:00

Check out Moondog's pee poll post. Please read and leave comments. We're very curious.

bayareablues.blogspot.com

Absinthe

2006-01-15T01:56:00.000-08:00

I was barely over a wicked case of strep throat, and not as well rested as I should have been, yet nevertheless participated in a night of absinthe drinking on New Years Eve. It arrived with my friends Max and Moritz, brothers visiting from Germany and Switzerland, respectively.

In the pictures below you can get a feel for the interesting method of preparation. There is a special perforated spoon with a wrinkle between handle and head that keeps it balanced on the edge of a glass. The spoon goes on top of your glass, and a sugar cube on top of that. Absinthe is poured over the cube, and then the alcohol-soaked sugar is ignited. It's not entirely clear to me why this is necessary, but I was told it has something to do with carmelizing the sugar. The melted sugar is then dumped into the liquid in the cup and stirred in with some water. Bottoms up. Tastes like licorice.

Glacier River Panorama

2006-01-11T11:00:00.000-08:00

This is the big bend in the river that I wrote about in the Artic Trek entries. I just stitched all these photos together for the first time. I think that the picture is rather huge, but I like it.

Maps

2006-01-11T10:01:00.000-08:00

The top one is fourth grade test scores and the bottom one is free lunch in New York City.

Be Cool, Eat at School

2006-01-11T09:34:00.000-08:00

Thinking about my middle school brought me to a website called "great schools" which will show you statistics about pretty much any public school you want. It has an option to compare schools as well. Interestingly, the only real criteria for comparison are test scores, and percentage of the student body receiving free and reduced lunch. If you look at the comparison of schools in this area, there is a loose correlation between high test scores and low free lunch numbers and vice versa. Notably, the top scoring school has by far the smallest number of poor kids eating free lunch, and down in Rochester over half the kids are eating reduced and free, and wait a minute, they've got the lowest test scores. Hmmm.

Boxer Briefs

2006-01-11T09:00:00.000-08:00

Last night I dreamt about running around in my underwear. It wasn't a self-conscious dream at all, as one might expect. In fact, my most vivid memory involves using a pocket knife to cut my boxer-briefs down to size. I guess I wanted to have that traditional brief look. So I cut the legs up high. It was a little ragged, but I'm sure it was pretty hot. Then for some reason I was at Jefferson Middle School, as a student I think, but in my current body (sans pants and boxer legs). Escape was obviously the only option, but I had to find a path away from the school where there was always something between me and the office windows to obstruct the principals view. I got away no problem, but the dream gets fuzzier from there. A swingset, a pretty girl with a wad of toilet paper stuck to her shoe walking down some stairs. I don't know.

And Now: South

2006-01-06T14:16:00.000-08:00

Four years later I'm planning another trip to South America. This time I'll be heading down to meet my girlfriend Cassandra. She's there studying abroad as a grand finale to her Evergreen education. We don't have a set plan, and our travel priorities are rather different, but one crazy itinerary involves heading south into the Chilean Atacama and then East and North through the Bolivian altiplano, across lake Titicaca, up to Cuzco and the cordillera, then finally down to the coast for time on the beach. We'll see.

Not a poet

2006-01-04T13:14:00.000-08:00

Don't worry. I don't fancy myself a poet. I just liked the way those words sounded when I wrote them, and I thought the rythm might be accentuated by breaking up the lines. The intended meaning is probably totally unclear. But whatever. I'm sure what I was talking about is impossibly opaque and ridiculous anyway.

Our Stories

2006-01-04T12:30:00.000-08:00

In dens
over moss shrouded heaps,
and corners without light
where smoke still wafts
from unlit doors
in back alleys,
the voices of quiet conspiritors
murmur in the night.

Bare lightbulbs
cracked walls,
concrete floor
and dinge tinted shadows
and teeth,
shown in sly smiles
and resting,
lost on the cold damp floor.

And outside
where whispers rifle
branch tips,
sending the hanging drops
to forest floor,
to compost,
to bed--
the solid ground regenerates.

Then daylight,
and our stories
swirl through sunbeams
after the rain,
and scurry
into undiscovered recesses
waiting to lilt
through dark and damp again.

In Anchorage

2005-12-28T22:55:00.000-08:00

JD and I met up in Anchorage at the end of my Arctic adventure. He was just finished with a month of gill-netting in Bristol Bay. (Note his manly beard.)

Out of the Arctic

2005-12-28T22:03:00.000-08:00

Finally, that arctic story is finished. Now I can write about other things. In the meantime I'll show some pictures from Prince William Sound. That's where I was all summer on a small cruise ship called the "Spirit of Columbia."

Arctic Trek VI

2005-12-08T11:59:00.000-08:00

It was another long stay in my tent after that long day of walking. It was how I'd planned it more or less, giving me plenty of time to recover, and plenty of time to think and write. If it hadn't been raining again, I'd have explored some of the surrounding mountains to get a better look at the valley, but as it was I wanted to be dry and warm.

I'm not sure exactly how long I was in the tent, but when I finally got out the sun was peeking through the clouds a little. It wasn't really any warmer, and it was clearly going to rain again, but there was enough sunshine for me to lay out all of my things to dry. I dressed in my shorts for the first time (with my long underwear on, and wetted down with deet) and went about making myself a small meal. Actually, I was too lazy to cook so I made do with the last of my dried fruits and nuts. The mosquitos buzzed in an unhappy swarm above my toxic head, and I contemplated the day to come.

I wasn't sure exactly how I was going to get back to Coldfoot, let alone all the way to Fairbanks, but I knew that I'd have plently of time if I got in to Wiseman early enough to meet Jack. He'd asked me to stop in at his place on my way out, maybe we'd have dinner. He'd be able to help me make arrangements for whatever mode of travel was available.

When my things had evaporated a good portion of the water they'd been gathering I set to packing once again, and the methodical preparation for another day on the trail. By this time my packing skill had become expert, and where at the beginning of the trip I fretted about fitting all of my gear in my limited pack space, now I wondered how it could have been so difficult.

From my camp at the top of Glacier Pass, I knew that I'd be able to take the winter trail all the way back to the Nolan Creek Mine Road. In other words, the way was going to be much easier than the previous few days. It was a pleasant thought, what with my bandaged and painful feet, and the clearing skies made it all that much better. It was frustrating that the weather would clear on my last day, but I was happy to accept the good weather, and use it to make good distance.

It took me a while to find the trail. Once again I made the poor decision to cut diagonally across a tussock field in order to reach my destination, and found what in retrospect is so obvious, that it would have been much better to head straight, that is perpendicular to the trail I was trying to reach. The small saved distance was not worth the effort. But I made it with only a little cussing, and had much improved travel from here on out. I hiked the muddy trail through meadow and spruce stand, past the first small lake I'd seen on my first night out, thus skirting the tussock field that had so bogged me down, and on to the road that would bring me back to Wiseman.

For most of the day I had been thinking that the road was my goal. Once there, the way would be so easy that it wouldn't even be worth thinking about, and I'd be back at the highway in no time. That proved to be an inaccurate estimate. What had seemed like a short jaunt on the way in, with fresh feet and unbounded enthusiasm, was actually a rather long haul, especially with my feet as sore as they were. My rate of travel was slow, and as I came around each bend expecting but not finding those visual cues from the beginning of the road, it became harder to enjoy act of walking. My excitement at the beginning of the trip had totally blinded me to the distance that I was covering, and now I was paying the price for that mental trick.

I did however make it down to the Wiseman road, and hiked the remaining miles down to the town. It was even less of a "town" than I had imagined. I don't have much experience with villages, but I'm pretty sure this is one. There's really no center, only one road, and people have driveways leading off of it. There were dogs trotting around everywhere who seemed not entirely pleased about my presence in their territory. My friendly gestures were more often than not greeted with a low snarl and bristled shoulder. Thankfully, the dogs that seemed interested in eating my face were all tied up, but sled dogs as they were, I wasn't sure about the stakes holding them in.

Somewhere toward the middle of the road I came across a big, split-plank barn-like building with an open door labeled "Trading Post" or something like that. I went in expecting to ask someone where I might find Jack's place, but found no one. There were artifacts all over the place from the mining days: the implements of a bygone industry in a remote wilderness outpost, rusted and decayed in this unoccupied room. There were some items for sale, labeled with the amount of money to be deposited in the can sitting underneath. A lot of candy, some powdered milk, diesel fuel treatment, de-icing liquid, propane canisters. On the glass counter was a big container of "double bubble" (free) which I partook of, and a can of aerosol deet which I did not. I took a seat in the big stuffed chair and kicked my feet up on the ottoman, waiting in a way for someone to ask me what I was doing.

No one came. I could hear some heavy equipment operating not too far away, and the road continued on, so I got up and followed it along to it's end. And there was Jack's house, the end of my journey on foot as it would turn out. I knocked and a young girl opened the door. There was a tour group in the living room listening to Jack talk about the local ecology and his way of life. The people were amazed. So was I. How could you be anything else coming from the ease that most of us are accustomed to. He hunts and grows almost all of his own food, and spends the winter trapping. And when he's not doing that, he's participating in the oversight of the lands that he uses for his subsistence, through various panels and committees. How he has time I don't know. I guess he must study during the long winter night.

After the tour left, Jack offered to let me stay in one of his cabins and lent me a book to read. He also helped me get a ride back to Fairbanks on a van that goes a few times a week back and forth to Prudhoe Bay. It was more hospitality than I could have hoped for.

The next day, I got on the van for the long ride south. My trek was over, but my mind was on fire, burning with the new knowledge of true wilderness, and deep solitude.

Arctic Trek V

2005-11-03T15:52:00.000-08:00

Laying in my tent, sleeping at times, writing for hours, quietly listening to the drops, I waited for the rain to stop falling. Though it's not a bad place to hang out-- the color of the tent filters the light into a pleasant golden glow-- after 24 hours I was ready to get out. My drinking water was gone, I was ravenously hungry, and my bladder was far, far too full.

At a lull in the weather I began preparing myself for a peek out of my den. I unzipped the front flap and got socks and long underwear. I put on my rain pants, boots and gaiters, a long-sleeved shirt and my hat, even my wet wool gloves. It was time to test out my blistered feet and get a bite to eat. Then I'd be ready to head up to the pass with a light load, or head back down the valley with everything. Of course it was difficult to get out of a warm, comfortable sleeping bag and into the cold wetness, but I looked forward to the continued challenge of this lonely existence. There was much to be excited about.

The positive potentials I foresaw dissipated rather quickly when I stood up. The stabbing pain that had started so suddenly the day before on the ball of my right foot had gotten worse despite all my best efforts to heal it. Both my feet were heavily bandaged beneath my socks, and though the skin had plenty of time to dry in the warmth of my sleeping bag, my doctoring wasn't enough. As I walked to my food storage area, I realized that I was going to have to push through the pain and hope for the best.

As if the harm to my feet wasn't enough, more trouble was right around the corner. As I approached my bear-proof food cannister I got a better view of Chimney creek in the valley bottom. The three-inch-deep stream I'd been walking in the day before had become a raging torrent, brown and churning, knee-high and filling the whole creek bed, its side channels, and washing over the gravel bars. If Chimney Creek had risen this much so high in the drainage, there was no way I'd be able to ford the river further downstream. I was going to have to cross once and make my way down one side for better or for worse.

I packed everything and walked down to the creek-turned-river to look for the best ford. A wide, straight section of the stream is best. At bends and bows the water speeds up as it piles into the banks, carving out swift, deep channels that are dangerous to cross, especially when you're alone. Likewise, where the channel is narrow the water is deeper and moves faster. So I found a spot where I could see the water rifling over the rocks and crossed there. The brown water was strong, kicking my feet downstream as soon as I pulled weight off them. I made it across without incident, but I'd been pushed downstream quite a distance.

After a short distance on the move I decided that it would have to be a long distance day. It was going to continue raining and I wanted to get away from the river and closer to Glacier pass and my route back to Wiseman. It would be a long haul, but I'd have plenty of opportunity to rest later. I continued down the valley to the beginning of the Glacier River, fording Roy Creek, which was also very swollen and fast, and further down past the swampy field and to the big bend in the river where I stopped to take off my shoes and check on my feet. It was cool and very wet, but the breeze was enough to keep the mosquitoes away. That made me happy.

I walked and walked, walked and walked, through tundra and spruce and mountains and shrubs, antlers and bones; the hushed roaring of chocolate brown water leaping high against the river bank. More alone than ever, I had this recurring feeling of being literally beside myself. My body was there trudging along, step by step, automatically, with my mind sort of floating just to the right and behind. It was almost like the cusp of sleep: that faint dizziness and sense of warping space, but my body was strong and awake, hiking without pause. How could I be more aware, more alive? I could hear and see everything. Yet walking became a question manifested in physical form, "Is this happening?"

My eyes began to take in more than just the contour of the land, the strange spindly forest, the tundra. In this loneliness I came face to face with myself. With no conscious attempt at introspection, my perception of personal identity rose out of its normal transparency and became a substantial vision in my mind. In loops of song and plodding footstep rhythm it was as though I became a duality, watching myself move through the world, making decisions, searching for mental occupation, experiencing waves of emotion.

Without the distractions of other people I began to see how changing physical circumstances cause me to assume different faces, using different parts of myself to deal with experience. I saw these internal countenances as built from the cumulative experience of living. Usually I'm using them without awareness of them, solidifying them unconsciously into reflexive entities that act independently according to the situation. My life appeared to me as an iterated algorithm, flowering into what seems like a human entity with a will, but is really only a very complex reaction machine. In my wilderness mind, I was beginning to see these algorithms as independent personalities living in my consciousness.

This awareness of differentiation within my mind was profound , so much that I spent pages exploring it in my journal. (12 July, 2005)

"There's this part that makes decisions about pragmatic matters. It's a part of me that for whatever reason I picture as a small man with a mustache. Then there's the part that lives in Olympia and thinks about family and friends. That part is so familiar as to be transparent. I picture it as a view of my backyard in the early summer or the alley facing Otto's behind the State Theater. Then there's the part that is pure determination, the part that overcomes whining and internal strife and pushes me forward. It is kind of akin to the mustache part but I picture it more as me, my physical body and face like I'd see in a photograph. Then of course there's the whiner, the part that must be overcome to get anywhere. That part I picture as myself as a little kid."

With these thoughts swirling in my head I continued on with a goal of reaching the spot that I'd camped on the first night of my trip. It was a long way and fatigue was beginning to set in. On my way across the last field of tussocks I was so tired that I fell over. My backpack got wedged in a trough and I couldn't right myself. I kicked and wiggled like a beetle on its back, but I wasn't going to let the tussocks get the better of me. Eventually I turned myself over and continued on. I don't know why I didn't just take off the backpack.

After 18 hours on the trail and 20 miles I made it to that odd little aluminum tag that I'd camped next to several nights before. It had rained for the better part of the day and I was soaked from head to toe. When I took off my gloves I wrung nearly a cup of water out of them, and poured out what had been collecting inside my waterproof mitten shells. On top of that discomfort, I'd begun to have a problem keeping my stool in appropriately solid condition and consiquently had dosed several immodiums and my stomach was in a bit of a gaseous uproar. Above all though I was completely exhausted. It was all I could do to set up my camp and climb into bed.

Arctic Trek IV

2005-11-03T15:27:00.000-08:00

Journal Entry: 10 July, 2005

I've been holed up in my tent for the last 14 or 15 hours.... [W]hen I woke up today I discovered that the rain that had just started when I set up my tent had been pouring continuously all night.

Little puddles are starting to form in the corners of the tent and drips becoming more common around the edges. I can only hole up for so long, but it seems senseless to go out and get soaked just so I can see a socked in pass.... I've got my barometer out beside me and I check it rather incessantly. It's hanging at a ridiculously low 990 (which must have something to do with the altitude) but I think it has to start rising soon.... Perhaps I can find an alternate route so that I don't have to go back the way I came.

[Later.] After lengthy consideration of the maps I don't think that there is any way for me to go but the way I came. At least on the second time through I'll have a better idea of how to avoid the tussocks.

Arctic Trek III

2005-08-25T11:59:00.000-07:00

My third full day of hiking was a long 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, looking 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 the 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 place. It was such an unexpected connection to my world, to home, I might have screamed 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 cool morning sky. And as I yelled my morning pleasure into the emptiness around me, there was an even more startling invocation of arctic splendor. In the distance a wolf began to howl, and then another, and another. It was an eerie sound. I can see why it caused such fear in times past. Each howl is so rich in overtones that it seems to be harmonizing with itself.

I was so tired of tussock hiking that I decided to take Jack's advice and head straight up the river, cutting the oxbows and fording it when I came to it, mainly sticking to the easy walking of gravel bars. I had to give up on the idea of dry feet. I did however have the foresight to use my new gaiters that I'd bought in Anchorage, and as I moved ahead I discovered that I could make a nearly knee-high crossing without getting very wet at all. I also discovered--to a somewhat less enthusiastic response-- that my left boot had developed a sizable leak where the tongue meets the toe. After a long series of fords this left me with one foot damp and the other swimming.

A little wetness was not enough to set me afoul though. I continued with vigor, happy for many reasons, but especially that I was not hiking through tussocks anymore. Waist high brush and swampy meadows and all the numerous river fords were like eating pie in comparison. It was much more difficult than trail hiking still, but I was fine with that.

Navigation was simple here. Just follow the river up the valley until the big Y, then take a left up to the pass. Of course I took the time to consult my maps periodically, and a couple times I made rough fixes with bearings to distinctive peaks. But as I continued, I concentrated less on the practice of route-finding, and more on the sensation of my surroundings. It would have been difficult to accidentally wander out of the valley, so why worry about that? What became more important was finding the bear and moose trails that would make travel easier. The best were the wolf trails. They always seemed to follow the best walking terrain, but they were also the hardest to follow. I'd walk one for a while and then it would be gone without a trace.

About five miles from my camp I came to a big bend in the river. It took me a long time to get there because I had to cross a huge meadow that was mostly inundated with 6 inches of water. Out of impatience I made the poor decision to beeline it across to see what lay around the corner. It was slow going, and I worried for a couple steps about the sucking mud, but my boots were laced tight, and my feet were already soaked. Not much to lose. I looked around cautiously for the moose I was almost certain I would find but didn't see it. It took a long time, and I got even wetter than I'd been before, but I made it across.

The valley bottom at the bend was very flat, and I stopped for a snack near a large overhanging rock that jutted out at the bottom of a long spine of a west-running ridge. It was the turning point, the axis of the valley. In the distance I could see a new set of mountains including Chimney Mountain, which was near my destination. These peaks were more jagged, and steeper than the ones I'd been hiking through. Directly above me was a high mountain with rugged rocky top. I wanted so much for it to be covered with Dahl's Sheep that each little patch of snow became a phantom animal. They seemed to move as I looked away. Ragged bits of hide and bones, weathered and bleached after being carried down the valley in floodwaters hung from the shrubs around me.

With my destination in sight I decided to for it in one go without an in-between camp. It was an ambitious goal. I'd already gone a good distance. But how could I stop with the high country ahead of me like that, and no night to stop me? The sky had gone from a bright cloudy patchwork, to a thick impenetrable gray, and though my hope for good weather held strong, my realistic appraisal forecast rain. I had no interest in being in the high country in nasty weather, and that meant if I was going to see anything I'd better hoof it now.

As the vastness began to reveal its further reaches, my solitude became more prevalent in my mind. I had known all along that I was alone, but it wasn't until I'd been out a couple days that I started to feel it. I realized as I moved on up the valley into closer looming hills, that this was new. I had never been so separated from people. Until this trip, I had never spent a full day, a full twenty four hours completely alone without another human face or sound.

I started to talk out loud to myself, to sing. I'd point out my frustrations, yell at the mosquitoes, and as I walked I'd listen to the sound of my feet step step stepping through the brush. I began to think about home and all the people that are important to me, that have helped form who I am. I wasn't pining for them, just sort of acknowledging their place in my mind, in my heart. I saw my picture of them, my picture of home becoming a reflection of myself, a window into my own mind.

The valley closed in as I passed the confluence of the Chimney Fork and Roy Creek. I was no longer fording the river. It lapped at my boot-sides as I walked right through the middle of it. Occasionally I would find the boot prints of a pair of relatively recent human predecessors. We were definitely on the same path now. There was no other easy way up the valley from here on out. I wondered if I would pass them or see them on their way back. My excitement was growing. The pass was close now and I was approaching the base of Chimney Mountain, a tall spire surround by a broad talus flank. I was also getting very tired. I'd been hiking for almost 12 hours and my legs were not so vigorous anymore. My eyes began inadvertently searching out campsites.

Just before another crossing of the creek I felt a sharp stinging burn on the ball of my foot. I knew immediately that one of my thick, calloused sections had completely separated from the lower strata of flesh. Each step brought a stabbing pain. I'd hiked too much on the tussocks and then wetted down the abused feet. They could take it no longer. My skin gave up before my determination to get to the pass. I knew that I needed to take off my shoes and bandage my feet before I could continue, but it was starting to rain. My goal shriveled. Necessity took over and I looked up the hillside for a promising patch of lichen. It didn't take long to find a decent spot, a little lumpy, but soft enough to make up for it, and I set up camp. Little did I know I'd be there for twentyfour hours.

Arctic Trek II

2005-08-17T11:25:00.000-07:00

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 Glacier Valley proper. I still hadn't had a good view of the valley, and I was eager to see 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 made every step a struggle.

When I finally got there and sat down to filter some water I realized that I hadn't put on any mosquito repellent. A horde descended but I was quick and went for my insecticide before they could eat me alive. It was a frantic action hurried by the pressing fear of itch, the buzzing and swarming mass producing a mild hysteria that could only be cured by the cessation of the threat. I struggled to pull the repellent out of my pack, but got it and dowsed myself before I lost too much blood. With the mosquitoes circling at a safe distance and my body covered with corrosive chemicals, I started pumping water. When I'd got a couple quarts I stopped and drank it all. I was so thirsty.

This second day of hiking provided the best weather of my trip. The clouds parted enough to let a good amount of sunshine filter down, and as I moved along out of the morning tussocks I saw the broad valley open up before me. The peaks were not enormously high, the valley not so steep. The topography was broad and open. It was like a lot of places that I've been except that there were no people. As I hiked along moose and bear trails, and disturbed the nesting sea-birds that had no doubt flown from some great distance to be in this solitude, I began to feel the loneliness of the place. In this twenty-five mile long valley I was probably the only human. And probably the first to travel this way for quite a while. If this valley were anywhere else in the world it would be developed and inhabited.

The east side of the valley was my intended route. Jack had told me about a flat bench running along that side for quite some distance that would provide better hiking ground. As long as I stayed in the trees I'd avoid most of the tussocks, he'd said. And always look for the white lichen on the ground. That indicates harder substrate. I tried to follow his advice but somehow I kept finding meadows full of the damn tussocks.

I struggled with the little bastards periodically as I moved along. I hadn't figured out how to spot the easier terrain, so I would come out of forested and easy areas into great stultifying tussock fields. In an effort to avoid the difficult hiking I dropped down off the bench and onto the valley floor. I'm not sure if that was the right move or not, but I was able to find animal trails that helped my passage a lot. Down in the valley bottom I found a group of small, shallow lakes that seemed to be a haven for birds. There were a lot of very noisy sandpiper-like fellows that would follow me around, yelling at me and telling me to go away, and occasionally I'd see a an owl circling above the meadows, hunting in broad daylight. The arctic is strange indeed.

I only made five miles or so before I was pretty exhausted. At the river's edge I found some bear and wolf tracks in the mud and made camp on a gravel bar not far from them. To the west was Swede Creek, and up the valley I was beginning to see the higher mountains that were my goal. My feet were sore from all the tussock hiking of the last two days, but I was excited and ready for a new day.

Arctic Trek I

2005-08-10T11:59:00.000-07:00

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 caught a small plane to Coldfoot, fifty miles north of the arctic circle.

By some great stroke of luck I happened to share the flight with a guy named Jack Reakoff. He is a second generation arctic inhabitant, hunter, trapper, subsistence living extraodinaire. He lives in a village just north of Coldfoot called Wiseman, population 15. It is in fact the village treated in Bob Marshall's first book "Arctic Village." Jack helped me enormously in choosing a route, and gave me invaluable hints about traveling across the arctic terrain. At the end of my trip he even let me stay in one of his cabins, and treated me to cranberry juice of his manufacture, the best I've ever had.

My route was simple and open-ended. There are no roads, no campgrounds, no trails anywhere in the park, so I had a lot of possibilities. After some consideration I decided to walk up the old Nolan Creek Mine road to the border of the park, and then head over Glacier Pass into the Glacier River Valley. My planned route would then take me north to Chimney Pass at the headwaters of the river where I might get a glimpse of the gates of the arctic themselves: Boreal Mountain and Fridgid Crags on either side of the Koyukuk to the NW. From there I'd have the option of making a high route loop or heading back down the valley.

My flight left Fairbanks in the evening, and we didn't arrive in Coldfoot until after 9pm. By the time I was dropped off at the Nolan road it was well past 10, but the boreal summer sun was still well above the horizon on it's slow circumnavigation, and would only drop behind the mountians, not below the true horizon. I had all night to hike.

I strode fast up the road. I knew that this road, with its flat, groomed surface would be the only place I'd be able to make good time. Where the road turned up into the Nolan creek drainage I decided to make my cut across a large flat meadow and up toward the pass.

The meadow however was made of the stuff of nightmares, the worst trekking terrain on the face of the planet, the dreaded tussock tundra. I had read of it, and even received warning from Jack, but I thought my youth and strength would make an easy go of it.

I was so wrong. The tussocks are mounds of grass that have built up over decades as the roots grow year after year on top of the last years growth. Plant matter decomposes extremely slowly in the harsh arctic climate. In many places the mounds are knee high and surrounded by a base of mud. Stepping over and around them is extremely laborious because of the sucking mud and uneven spacing. But to walk on top is equally difficult because they are highly unstable, rolling over in unpredictable directions when you step on them. Travel through this type of meadow then becomes an alternating balancing act and wet slog, either of which saps energy and morale. From here on out, I've decided that the worst possible insult I could give is "Son of a tussock!"

After several hours of learning about tussocks I made it to Glacier Pass which was blocked to my great annoyance by three moose and a browsing bear. I would have kept hiking if it weren't for the large menacing bull moose staring me down, but it's probably good that I didn't because it was five in the morning by that time and I'd been awake for nearly 24 hours.

I set up camp on a rocky knoll above the tussocks and in my lack of motion discovered another arctic treat, the flying horde of mosquitoes. The moment I stopped walking my body was covered with their little sucking bodies. That was as good an incentive as any to take a rest. I was in bed before six, and slept soundly well into the afternoon. The next day I descended the far side of the pass and made my way into the Glacier Valley.

Sorry I can't finish the story now. I'll see if I can do it later.