Deep Snow on the Mountain

Crystal snow reflected the rays of the sun.  The day was extremely clear with blue skies as I trudged along on snowshoes pushing my way through virgin snow.

My journey began a few days previous when I had arrived at Mt. Rainier for the winter season.  Driving in from Ashford and through the park gate, it was like I had entered a new world with the rain and sleet changing to snow, and the clear pavement becoming a sheet of white ivory ice beneath my tires.  Driving at slow speeds through coated firs and pines, around slick curves and steep drop-offs, it took me nearly 20 minutes to arrive at the sleepy village of Longmire, the hub of Mt. Rainier National Park.

Snow fell heavily and had already blanketed everything around the historical administrative building, the museum and various other buildings.  Pines would on occasion cascade and slough off piles of snow from their limbs to the ground, unable to carry the weight any longer.  They looked as if God had poured whipped cream over their boughs so that only shadows of pine green, almost black could be seen beneath the snow.  But a strange quiet rested upon the place as if the snow absorbed everything and blanketed the world from all sound.

I had been told it was a normal year for snow, which hadn't been seen in these parts for years.  Climate change has receded the "normal" amount of snow leaving many places more rainy, and glacial real estate at a declining minimum.  The very next day, we went from Longmire to Paradise, an elevation of over a mile up.  The skies were so blue, one had to squint just to look at it, and in contrast with the new fresh white, it was a perfect day to be on the mountain.

Cascade fox tracks in the virgin snow.

Donning snow shoes and sunglasses, I ventured out into old trail and virgin snow, through thick stands of subalpine fir and mountain hemlock, so thick with new snow you could hardly see the boughs.  Crystal snow reflected the rays of the sun, but seem to reflect even more my own sense of self.  A Cascade fox's tracks could be seen tracking from tree to tree, sometimes following my path (or maybe I was following his path), or breaking off in search for sustenance beneath the snow.  I felt in awe as the shuffle of my snow shoes through thick snow made me feel small and insignificant in the powerful shadow of the great mountain. 

Eventually, I would make my way to a lookout and see the mountain in her majestic stature, waiting...  Waiting to erupt in a long overdue volcanic explosion.  Waiting to change our world and what we know of it, as Mount St. Helens once did and push lava and ash across western Washington wiping out nearby towns and maybe erasing half of Tacoma.  Or maybe, just continuing it's restful sleep unable or unwilling to awake in our lifetime.

I wander back.  As J.R.R. Tokien once wrote:  "Not all who wander are lost".  I continue to listen to the shuffle of my snow shoes in the deep virgin snow.  My wandering was always with purpose, albeit not always with direction.  For in wandering, we often find ourselves in self discovery rather than journeying to a specific location.  But perhaps I am lost.  Perhaps it is only the mere reality of my perception of the world around that I am familiar with, but subconsciously, I have no idea where I am.  I wander onward as those thoughts of philosophy will have to wait, at least for the moment.

In the meantime, the sun fades into the mountains on our own journey around it, the cascade fox will likely burrow into the well of a tree and find it's sleep.  I for one have to leave this place, if not for a night or two.  For I will be back many times, on many back country journeys, and perhaps I too will find my way home.



Snow shoe trail bordered by Cascade fox tracks.

Anchored into Place (written 2010)

            The sun broke through the horizon and threw its first beams of light onto the city of Anchorage.  The midnight blue that had dominated the horizon now brightened into the break of yet another day, awakening the city.  The Chugach Mountains, now halfway covered with snow, turned from a deep glacier blue color into whites and browns with the oncoming sunlight.  The sun would rise up, but would not reach the heights directly above the city in the season of fall; and each day would lose 35 minutes of daylight descending the sun closer to the southern horizon in its path toward winter.

            I arrived in Anchorage in late September, and with the sun only appearing mostly to the south, it felt like I had settled upon the top of the world.  With exception to the hearty few that clung to the barren branches, the deciduous trees had already lost most of their leaves, and the season’s shade cover was now left scattered and dead on the earth floor.  In later years, I would find myself earlier in the season with tripod and camera, heading up to the nature center in Eagle River and taking colorful hues of red, yellow and orange, mixed in with the greens of spruce, and other coniferous trees; scenery that would parallel New England.  Fall, being among my favorite seasons, I was happy to arrive in this new destination I would later call my home.  Anchorage had become, like many who’d arrived before me, a chance for a new life.  I stood intrigued with the dust of snow on the mountains around me, and a mystique began to grow in wonder as I thought about the wilderness beyond the metropolis of concrete canyons around me.  I hadn’t come to be a part of Anchorage, but of Alaska, and the lands that surrounded the largest city in the state.  As I settled into my new home, I began to wonder about living in such a large city and how it co-existed with the natural environment.  Has humankind driven out the wildlife, or has nature found a way to work within and coexist with man?  How far would I have to venture forth to see the wilderness that I had been longing for; that wilderness that filled my dreams and romanticized my imagination.  I had to start somewhere to seek and sort it all out.  So long as I lived in the city, it would be my foundation, anchoring me to the opportunity to explore within and beyond the city limits.  For me, the adventure was only beginning.

            Despite the population of over 260,000 people, Anchorage is teaming with wildlife.  Black and brown (grizzley) bear, moose, dall sheep, wolves, coyotes, lynx, beavers, bald eagles, Canadian geese, as well as other migratory and resident birds can be seen from time to time within and around the city.  The most common sightings of wildlife for me were moose.  It wasn’t uncommon to see a gangly moose sauntering down Northern Lights boulevard, or standing idly in someone’s front yard.  The first season I lived in Anchorage, a moose cow wandered into my yard one weekend before the snows started falling, and took a nap there for a few hours.  I didn’t take it personally.  I figured this had been her home long before I got there and in some strange sense I saw a touch of wilderness in my own back yard.  She would come back into my life at seemingly strange and significant moments of my life as the seasons went by.  In a way, she became a long and trusted friend that I would remember the rest of my life.

The Chugach Mountains dominate the city, and I learned quickly it gives the inhabitants there methods of measurements in several ways.  Because the mountain range covers the entire eastern side of the city, it provides a compass for which to find your way through town.  As a barometer, it also provides the announcement that winter is on its way.  The peaks will begin showing a snow line that during the fall, will continue to descend down the mountain.  When it reaches the valley levels, Anchorage will see its first taste of snow for the winter.  The locals call this “termination dust”, terminating summer and announcing that winter has indeed arrived.

Deep within the winter months of November, December and January, the sun peaks out over the southern horizon, remaining low in the southern sky as if nothing more than to give the residents of Anchorage a reminder that the light of the sun does exist during the darkest months.  It rises for only a short 4 hours on the winter solstice, December 21st, coming up at around 10 a.m. and setting before 2 p.m.  The lack of sunlight seems to add to the winter cold that shrouded the area. 

            As winter set in, I found myself habitually watching.  Despite the fact I lived in a regular neighborhood on the east side of town with not much to look at besides the neighbors across the street, I found myself looking out the window in constant vigil as if something would happen:  a snowfall, a wandering bear, the return of my moose, or some other adventure I wanted to be a part of.  I didn’t want to miss a thing.  On top of my evening vigils, I found habit enjoying coffee on a Saturday morning looking out at the falling snow, contemplating life, and looking at the change in mystery around me in wonder for much the same reasons.  I also wanted to find meaning in it all.  I wanted this world to change me, cover me just as the snows did all around my little cave called home and immerse me in the wilderness of the unknown.  But I wasn’t in the wild.  I was in the city where humankind has replaced the natural habitats of the native creatures with skyscrapers, houses, bike trails, airfields and hundreds of miles of road.  These things were the comforts and survivability of humankind, but in a way I saw them as flaws, those things that have scarred the land and laid waste to what was.  As I watched the snow come, it brought nature back close to me.  It falls where it will and covers all of the man-made flaws in the world around us.  It blankets us in change, and enables us to hibernate in some way from the contrasts of vivid reality. 

            Late one evening, I stopped to look out the front window at the night sky.  It was glowing from the city lights and enhanced by their reflection upon the snow.  It had been a clear night, cloudless, and stars could be seen through the city haze.  There were also two green trails not unlike aircraft smoke trails that glimmered dully across the sky.  I hadn’t seen the Northern Lights before, and I suspected we had just been introduced.  I wanted to see more.  I jumped into my truck and headed a few miles north of town to Arctic Valley drive, a road primarily controlled by the U.S. Army.  It was far enough away from the city lights to give me a better view of the sky.  As I got out of the truck and looked up, the two green trails had mutated into shimmering streams of crystal white that primarily formed what looked like a huge cone, a floating teepee of sorts.  It was like I was looking up into the center of the cone and could even see stars within the narrow funnel at the top.  I looked down for a moment long enough to notice the world around me was glowing brighter.  I looked up quickly to see the cone had changed to what looked like shards of ice and glass showering down upon me as if it would crush me in certain impact.  The awe-inspiring act lasted only but a moment before retreating back into long streams of light, ever changing, reflecting upon my very existence.

            The winter of 2001/2002 was the longest in memory, when thinking of actual cold and snow.  Although the initial dustings of snow occurred in September, the first real storm to substantially remain hit the Anchorage bowl on October 11^th.  We didn’t see the bare earth again until May the following spring.  It was also the winter that shut the city down for 2 days.  Sunday March 17^th.  Even after two years in Alaska, I still found myself on my evening ritual of looking out the front window.  I turned off the lights in the house and glanced out at the street below.  Everything seemed quiet.  Deep snow blanketed the yards of the neighborhood while piles stacked up from the constant need for plowing.  The houses seemed dark, a ghost town, as if I were the only one there. 

            Then I saw movement across the street in the dark between the houses.  Looking closer, I discovered it was my friend the moose cow.  I hadn’t seen her in over a year and wanted to go out and see if she had some stories to tell.  I went out on my deck for a closer look, and not only received a better visual, but an audio impact as well.  The sounds of hooves beating the snow-packed ground along with her snorting could be heard as she seemed to be aggravated by something.  She was facing a young sapling that stood in the yard near the street as if the tree were a threat.  She moved to the other side of the tree by the road, but never gave up her stare of the threatening oak.  As if startled by something new, she ran a full circle around the tree and disappeared back into the darkness between the houses.  She didn’t even say good bye.

            After a moment of silence, I returned to the warmth of my living room resuming my evening duties.  Moments later, I glanced out the window to see the initial flakes gleaming within the streetlight.  Within minutes, they fell thick and heavy.  It took no time for the plowed and tired-scarred road to be covered in a thick white-gray blanket.  It continued to snow deep into the night.  I got up once in the middle of the night to discover it was still snowing.  By the time I woke in the morning, over 2 feet of snow had fallen.  Everything seemed different.  The world had indeed changed.  Roads were gone.  Houses were hobbit holes.  Cars were mole hills.  The 4 foot chain-link fence in my side yard no longer existed, completely buried in the glacier that seemed to have fallen overnight.  Schools were closed.  Grocery stores and businesses were closed.  The military bases were completely shut down.  The only businesses that remained open and employed for the next two days were fire, police and medical services.  And snow plows.  They wouldn’t reach my meager street for over a week. 

I sat in wonder at the event of the past 12 hours, the moose, and the snowfall.  My moose must have felt the oncoming storm and was gearing up for the impact.  It all seemed connected somehow to the natural order of things.  Moose come equipped with waterproof fur shielding the cold along with long gangly legs giving them the tools to tramp through thick snows with heights taller than most animals to forage into the higher branches in search for winter sustenance.  Mankind, on the other hand, has had to use brain and technology to find shelter and transportation, and warm clothing to survive winters in the arctic while destroying the very territory that remained with the moose for thousands of years before the onslaught of human entrapment.  She had warned me of the upcoming snowfall.  I also began to wonder why she had infringed upon my neighborhood.  Or was it I that was infringing on her world?  If we continue to spread out, build more roads, buildings, mine sites, oil rigs and automobiles, what will become with the last remaining wilderness that is Alaska?  Will the moose, lynx, bear, muskox, caribou, and the arctic ground squirrel become extinct in this part of their world?  Was the city pushing out the wild places, or had they adapted in some profound way to coexisting in the world we live in? 

            The thick snow had added to the mystique that had become my Alaska.  It had become part of the adventure.  I spent these moments in wonder, thinking about the changing world, and how snow covers up the flaws of man and returns to nature: the natural order of things.  Northern Lights open up a dark winter replacing the sun with mazes of shimmering light.  Reflections of snow off the city also plays a part in creating light in a dark winter.  As I drove my man made four wheel drive suburban through the unplowed streets of my neighborhood and stopping to help out a stranded Nissan, my moose friend gave me yet one more appearance to cap the event of the past 12 hours.  As I stood there next to the open door of the Nissan, she bolted back out between the same two houses and ran two circles around our vehicles in the street.  She was almost close enough to reach out and touch in her race around us.  She then disappeared up the road.   It was the last time I saw the snow fall like that in the city.  It was also the last time I would ever see that moose.

            When I think back on those cold dark winter months, I often wondered why I was so attracted to living in such a place when many want to retreat to the golf courses of Arizona and California.  Perhaps it’s the transition from seasons that creates a parallel to life as we follow the transition of the sun and the tilt of the planet.  Perhaps winter was that time to slow down, see the world from a different perspective, gaining perspective and appreciating the warmth of new life in springtime.  Perhaps it’s just a change from knowing life in the days of summer when fishing, hiking and camping are a constant, and the season gave me time to slow down, relax and reflect.  As I write these words, I’m more in awe that the winter world I experienced up there brought nature to my very doorstep, lit my skies with the Aurora Borealis, and gave a comfortable place for a moose to nap.  Whether it be change or adventure, I will always remember that time as special, and it will always keep me grounded within myself,  and anchored into this place.

Through the Veil

 I was in search of other things.  A moment of quiet.  A moment alone.  A sense of solitude.  I could hear my breathing pounding ever harder within my chest as I traversed up the trail in quickened pace.  I often did that when looking for a piece of solitude on a visitor busy access trail.  As expected, families from all over were on this popular trail to Meremere Falls, and their voices carried through the trees all around me as if I was really in the outer reaches of Rivendell and would be greeted by the elves at any moment.

But I was in search of other things.  A moment of quiet.  A moment alone.  A sense of solitude.  I did that often after being pummeled with information technology, telephones and computers and a life filled with the troubles of the world.  My goal was not to walk in harmony with the happy faces around me, but to get away from it all, as we rangers often need to. 

I turned off the main path to the water fall, and traversed a less popular Barnes Creek trail.  There was no close destination at the end of this trail, for this path took people for rarely no other reason than to spend a few days in the howling wilderness, with tent, bear cans and a sense of adventure.  For me, I was one of the rare who came here just for a moment out of my busy day.

From the moment I entered this new realm, my world changed.  Out of cell range, no chance of that contraption pleading for me to answer a notification.  The voices of the previous trail faded away.  Before me was a plush forest trail running along side the creek.  During a previous storm, two clumps of trees fell over the path.  So large were these trees, I had to clamor over and under and through the tangle.  Once I was past all of that, a quiet descended upon me.  Only the sound of the creek could be heard.  I had literally entered a veil into another world.

I walked on for some time, stepping around muddy puddles and marveling at the thick canopy of Douglas, Western Hemlock and Western Red Cedar.  The creek, still swollen from the rains, pushed it's way aggressively down hill in search for the ocean.  I kept going, wanting to see the mountain, the lake or any other possible secret this trail had to show me.  The sounds of a woodpecker could be hear tapping off in the woods a ways.  Fallen logs nursing new growth and blanketed in moss surrounded me.  I stopped walking and let my breathing come to a quiet.  The creek, the woodpecker, and a gentleness of breeze were all that I could hear.  For every forest has a feel to it--a uniqueness unlike any other.  Usually it's missed.  But I've found if I stop and listen, smell and taste all that my senses can endure, I can put a name to that forest.

With senses renewed, I headed back down.  Breaking through the veil and into the world of people once again, but ready to take on the world anew.  Somewhere down the trail stood my ranger station, my computer, the contacts of my cellphone and ultimately my walk home.  For my purpose fulfilled:  I had found my moment of quiet, my moment alone and a sense of solitude.  But there will be other places.  Mountains much higher.  Trails much deeper.  Other veils for which to find my own piece of wilderness.

South of Solitude

The cloud cover seemed low in the arctic.  It gave me the impression of being on top of the world, so high that even the sky reached the earth.  I stood on a hill surrounded by dwarfed pines and lichen in Denali National Park.  The mountain itself was shrouded in clouds.  I would not see it that day.  What I would see is a rolling wilderness that went on for 100 miles in any direction--that feeling of solitude so profound you can eat it for breakfast.  Down in the valley before me, a bull moose stood torso deep in a lake dipping his head under the water in search for sustenance. 

My mind was, as it is for many who venture out of their vehicles in the Alaskan wilderness, was the Alaskan grizzly.  Majestic.  Powerful.  Even romanticized.  You couldn't help walking in this country without thinking about the bear.  For here is their home.  They live everyday in the solitude I write about.  Here in Denali, their livelihood is relatively unchallenged. 

But elsewhere in Alaska, and almost the entire lower 48, they are challenged to the point of being endangered.  Considering that at one time, this majestic beast once roamed nearly all of America, and even dwelt in Mexico.  Today, they live in pockets of Washington, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.  South of solitude.  Their only true stronghold is in Canada and Alaska. 

And I have hiked in both Alaska and south of solitude.  There's something different about walking in the wilds of Alaska and then returning to, say, the Cascades, the Sierra Nevadas, or even much of the Rockies.  For many, south of solitude is wild, deep and impenetrable.  For me, every time I walk in what once was grizzly country, but hasn't had a grizzly for over 100 years, something is missing.  It almost feels like there is no solitude there.  It feels like I can turn around at any moment and see another person, a town, or a highway just past the trailhead.  It's a terrible feeling to undergo for someone who'd spent a lot of time in the mountains prior to moving to Alaska. 

Where there is wilderness left in Alaska, it's dwindling, just as it is everywhere in our human controlled world.  At one time, humans lived in harmony with all the animals.  Today, it's about development, revenue, and recreation.  But the more we develop, the more money we make from that development, the less solitude any of us will feel in the back country.  One day we may return to the wild places to find the grizzly completely gone.  There's a sadness to that thought.  For there too, even in Alaska, will be south of solitude.

Rain on the Peninsula

It's been raining quite constantly since my return to the Washington peninsula of Olympic.  Almost at a constant rhythm, it only quiets for a few minutes, a few hours, or maybe a day.  Then the pelting continues.

I spent my summer on the Olympic peninsula as a ranger and guide.  I look at these experiences as something more to add to my files--those things I can refer back to on occasion.  I lived by a lake.  A cold clear lake carved by a glacier.  I then drove to town, caught the route south and up to the ridge where I led guided hikes or talks.  I learned to talk about Douglas and subalpine fir, western and mountain hemlock and of  western red cedar.  I learned to add intangibles, universals and emotional human connections to that which is nature.  I connected salmon with glaciers and climate change. 

There was a lot of sun up there during the summer.  And the crowds were enormous for a place that is supposed to be a refuge from life.  Crowds, like the rain, seemed to pelt in constant rhythm that only subsided for a moment, an hour or a day.  But some days were quiet.  Usually I'd search for those quiet places for which I could retreat, take in a sight and be alone for, if nothing else a moment.  One time I stood at the edge of an overlook among tall subalpine firs.  I was at an elevation of around a mile up, but only a mile away from the visitor center for which I spent most of my time.  I felt reflective that day--searching for a spiritual sense of self.  The crowds had overwhelmed me.  As an introvert, I needed quiet.  Then something caught my eye.  A shadow above me.  I looked up to see the blood red wings of a red tail hawk.  It swooped over me as if to wonder what I was and why I was there.  Or it was to send me a message that this is a place untrammeled and I am suspect to being welcomed in his part. 

But now the summer season has moved on to fall.  A quiet descends upon my lake.  I no longer climb to the ridge for work and haven't seen it for over a month.  The sounds of the crowds have been replaced by rain.  Tears of joy.  Tears of life.  Tears of pain.  They are constant.  And long after I've gone, they will continue coming down for a few minutes, a few hours, or a few days.