Night 29: Crampons Get You to The Other Fosse

Night 29/25

It seemed like we had spent the entire day crossing a glacier, but the moraine on the other side was other worldly, I felt like a hobbit finally venturing out beyond the shire. This landscape was so new and strange and I felt so small in relation.

The moraine we started the day out on was not surprising or remarkable or difficult, and not just because it was the beginning of the day when we were fresh and ready to go. And the moraine on the other side was not remarkable simply because we were tired. Really tired. At least I was. So fucking tired.

This was the first time I had ever put crampons on my feet. I had never walked on a glacier before. I had walked up to glaciers. I had walked across something some people refer to as a glacier, but is really a snow field that doesn't melt. I was freaking out on this ice. I freaked out like I haven't freaked out on terrain since I was a kid. Mostly it was the downhill. I did not like the downhill, and mostly that's what it used to be on solid dirt ground scree.

We had to get down from the moraine to camp on the fosse. And, from the way we had come, it didn't seem like that would be such an arduous task. However, I wasn't aware that the moraine on that side ends abruptly, in ice cliffs. The moraine wasn't even what I thought it would be. I think of moraine as a pile of rock. And when glaciers recede, the moraine that is left, is a pile of rocks. Potentially well indurated, but a pile of rocks none the less. An active glacier* has moraine made of ice with a thin veneer of rock on top. If you happen to push aside that thin layer, you are on the ice.

Ice is slippery. All the time. It doesn't have to be wet. Don't bring up dry ice, i'm talking about H two O at ambient pressure and temperature. Icy ice.

But, we did get down, found a place to put our tents, had some dinner and relaxed. And didn't get to bed until the sun went down. And that was late, the sun goes down late, even in August, even that far south.

*or just this one? my stellar performance in geomorphology (taught by a glaciologist no less) circa 199....6(?) did not prepare me for those cliffs, they were sharp and curved, like conchoidal fracture, not an engineered looking squared-off 90 degree corner like the next day's jokulhlaup.

Because Thoreau

I used that famous quote of his*. Famous generally, famous from The Dead Poet's Society (it's a movie), from that famous book I just could not get through.

I read other important authors, contributors to what I consider the canon of great American environmental works: Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold, so much Edward Abbey that I don't think I have touched anything of his since I was 15...But Thoreau, could not actually get through that. It happens. The House of the Seven Gables had the same fate for me, maybe I have a block to reading about things set in New England that aren't about whales? In any case, no, no getting through that Pond book.

But then, I'm not alone.


This article (pond scum indeed), I did get through. And I very much appreciate it. It says so well so much I have difficulty articulating. Not about Thoreau specifically, but about privilege and living and choices. I am lucky as fuck to get out as much as I do (whether that is 5 or 25 nights). I am luckier because I have the choice, I have so much to get away from.

Also, I think it gets better a bit into it, give it a chance.

*See post: The Longest Shortest Time

Night 28: Wrangelling

Night 28/25

A new part of Alaska!

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park...

this is the hardest trip for me to write about...

it was excruciating and exhilarating
scary and comforting
i got to roll on tundra like a bear
i had a fantastic group of people to spend time with
i cried
i did not fall off the ice cube
i did not fall into the ice cube
i learned what a moulin is
i saw my first jokulhlaup
i don't think i have ever cried this much on a hike when my tears weren't from injury or missing someone
i hiked on unbelievable terrain
i saw no wildlife
i was demoralized and motivated
i said no a lot, mostly to myself, sometimes to Kristen
i said it, but I wanted to SCREAM it.
i started a new kind of therapy before i left for this trip that is helping me deal with things i have experienced in my life and the emotional exposure had left me without the kind of emotional will i needed for this trip, or at least to do this trip the way it seemed like i was supposed to
i had so much fun
i drank water flowing on the surface of a glacier
i was free and confined
i cut my hand on ice
i don't know how to talk about this hike


i still don't

the first day we had a short flight and were dropped in the fosse. a short hike later we made camp on a comfy ledge above the Kennecott Glacier. We day hiked up until it didn't seem safe to do so anymore.

I still don't.

Night 27: Little Basin

Night 27/25

I got home from Alaska after not sleeping much for days and spent some time with my daughter. My daughter who was not doing well with my absence. I was very tired, she was very upset, but happy I was home.

My sister's birthday was over the weekend and my brother-in-law invited us all out for a camping trip to Little Basin for the weekend. I figured I could get Xochitl and I out for one night. One night of car camping. Throw a tent, a couple sleeping bags, some flashlights and a toothbrush in the car and head out. It wasn't quite that simple. To avoid bringing a kitchen we brought a bucket of fried chicken and a bottle of champagne (for the adults) and some snacks. But I kept it as simple as possible to make as little work as possible.

Little Basin is a campground very close to Big Basin State Park in the Santa Cruz mountains of California. I don't consider it part of the Bay Area, more part of the greater Santa Cruz area, but really it straddles the boundary. It's hot in the summer, instead of lots of warm clothes, you can pack pillows. There is a playground, grassy areas, swings, and a little store with ice cream sandwiches.

My sister was shocked when all her sisters and our kids rolled up at 4 in the afternoon that Saturday. The kids had a great time camping. It wasn't amazing fresh air, or scenery or anything I pine for when the snow is falling in the mountains, but the champagne was really good.

Night 26: Making the River

Night 26/25

The next day in calmer seas (bays) we made it to the river quickly. We saw permafrost falling off into the bay, the ice layers in the permafrost. I'm sure I have learned a name for those lenses at some point in my extensive geologic education, but seeing them is more fun in person than either naming them or thinking about them. Especially because I cannot remember a name for them.

And the bush planes arrive tomorrow to lift us of the tundra.

My last tundra of the summer? No, that is not the plan, but my last night in the Arctic.

Until next summer, if everything works out.

Night 25: Celebrate?

Night 25/25

Of course it wasn't just fog. It was also wind blowing so hard against us we hardly relocated camp. We got in the boats, paddled like hell then got out of the boats. One stop for snacking, warming, resting arms. We moved a mile or so? When we were paddling I wouldn't look at the shore, it was too demoralizing, the obvious evidence that we were in fact getting nowhere. I finally broke out the enormous parka that had been taking up so much of my dry bag space for so many days. It is heavy, it is thick, it was like wearing my own group shelter, one with a heater inside. It was wonderful. As wonderful as it had been on my first trip to the Arctic in 2009 when it snowed so many days. Like the big warm hug of a hot tub, immersive.

So, I had been missing my daughter and handling it well. But, what I was not handling well was the idea that the weather might keep us from making it to Turner River on time to be picked up. That it might be too windy or too something else and we might move too slowly or not at all and we would miss our pick up. It made me upset to discuss and think about. Because, I missed my family but also because things had moved so slowly on the trip. Everything so slowly in such a way that I felt like it was keeping me from something. And it was a puzzle I seemed unable to solve.

This was it, goal reached. The 25 night goal. I had realized before i left on this trip that I would hit my 25th night when I was out there. But with so much of the summer left, celebrating seemed odd. Also, celebrating with people who had no idea of what this might mean to me also seemed odd. As I am posting this we are in the last days of September and I still have not celebrated. I think when I officially declare this season over I will celebrate. Hopefully with Becs, if I am really lucky, with some other folks too, talking to you Courtney, and there will be champagne.