AZT -1: Gone Alaska, Welcome Wilderness

One day remains before I step out on the trail and test my mettle. It's still not quite reality, despite this airplane bound for Phoenix I'm now strapped within. All the requisite conditions have been fulfilled. Time to wander? Check. Gear and something to tote it in? Check. Nutrition and hydration provided for? Check. Navigation aids? Check. Desire and ability to wander? Check and time will tell.

The past week has done nothing to dispel the illusion that one's dance in the desert remains merely a distant possibility. Departing Kodiak early on the 28th, I was soon welcomed to the Alaskan mainland by the smiling face of a good friend, Sonia.

As a Forest Service wildlife technician, she has been collecting data on bats by installing ultrasonic monitors in the woods. As a volunteer, I toted those devices in to the Russian River Valley, where we installed them during a 14+ mile day. The next morning, we called out across the backcountry cabin to the other, agreed more sleep was necessary, and promptly passed back out until the sun began nearing its daily apex. With little else to do on this day, we used it wisely, sitting by the river and plucking tunes on banjo and ukulele (a link to a little video we made on this most productive of days).

Rousing for action in the cool of the afternoon, we hiked out to three of the monitors to measure out 24' circles and take stock of vegetation and the measure of trees within. Nearly to site number three, we hopped off the trail to look down into a ravine the river had riven through the valley where our eyes were met with the delight of a sow grizzly and her two cubs (a brief, shaky video of the trio)! Mama swam about, seemingly for fun, though we had seen a few errant salmon slowly dying their way up the river earlier in the day. Cubs sat on the bank, rolling about until mama made her way over to beckon them, swimming up the river, with the cubs scurrying along the bank trying to keep pace.

Marveling at our fortune, we finished the third site in the first dimming of evening, before scurrying our own selves back the way we'd come, talking loudly all the way to our cabin home.

The days following were a blur of preparation interspersed with delightful surprises, tucked within the comfortable haven of this coastal rainforest as it experienced a rare sunny and warm spell for this time of year. A fun hike through river gulches and down ropes called Chutes and Ladders; a trip across a raging river aboard a human-powered cable car. The 7 person wedding reception for some friends of Sonia's boyfriend, where he and three others spilled beautiful music into the night sky, wafting out from a tiny in-holding amidst the National Forest, perched on an endless ravine where a river now runs as the only liquid remnant of the great glacier that hewed this land into its present form.

I cobbled together two food drops to nourish my body's progress into Flagstaff, with a mostly liquid breakfast (oats and powdered: carnation breakfast, milk, instant coffee, coconut) which I've tried a form of once, so this may be stricken from the diet come the options of the big city; a lunch of 3-4 individually packaged energy sticks (those savory Kind bars that actually qualify as food, spiced with some snickers to reward the weary traveler's tastebuds); and a mix of mostly ready to eat dinners (excessively heavy yet wonderfully free and delicious pre-cooked Indian meals [thanks parents!]) paired with couscous or potato flakes, or one of four lightweight and expensive [thanks REI?] dehydrated meals. Some tang drink mix once a day rounds out the menu.

On my last night in Girdwood, Sonia and I went up to Aleyska Resort's mountain top restaurant for some good views and lackluster dessert. Neither disrupted our expectations - mountains too huge to comprehend slid into the Turnagain Arm as the setting sun glinted off glaciers still holding tight to the clefts their icy arms carved into being. The beignuts, mini pillow donuts intended to be eaten with a tablespoonful of ice cream and a chocolate liquid tasting like a Hershey's you discover in your pocket after going through the wash.

On the drive to Anchorage airport, Sonia's keen eye spied the white shining arc of beluga whales (apparently more of a porpoise in truth) bending through the tidal inlet of Turnagain Arm. We stopped to take in a steady view of their misty forms and argue about the exact number of these grande blanco pesca we'd seen.

Now I lay my head to sleep, amongst all these other humans streaking across the face of the earth, headed down to Seattle. I pray the airline my backpack to keep, safe from harm and unmangled. If I should fail to wake when the 4:00 am flight to PHX boards, may a fellow passenger wake me before it's too late, with a soft directed word.

. . .

Well I woke and boarded. Made it to Phoenix. It was a temperate 90 degrees, but forecast to crank on up to 100 in the afternoon. Just to be sure I wasn't being fed tall tales, took these legs on a walkabout of the balmy city. The tales were true. Quite sure my shirt melted into my pores as I can't find it anymore amidst this soup of fabric clinging to my back. Found a masseuse and pampered said back. Rode public transportation until it wouldn't go fast enough, then used this fancy new phone I'm ashamed to have in my possession, to sign up for Uber and ride for free. Was asked by no less than 4 persons for small change, which I gave all to the first person and had nothing to give to the latter 3. Cobbled together some parts at home depot and autozone to setup my water filter gravity feed.

Then, as I witnessed more with less than I have - an aged, shirtless man bent double struggling to make it across the street; a young couple with small child huddled in the shade behind the bus stop waiting for public transport; a man with a story of his wife's medical bills, whether true or not was inconsequential. Felt a dreary cloud of pointlessness to my journey, and a heavy burden of privilege that I can afford to stop scraping for my daily bread long enough to simply wander for days on end. Recognizing that all is in motion, I tabled the turmoil for further contemplation in the peace of the desert. I'm most looking forward to being quiet and present in the wilderness, listening to what it might teach me as I recognize who I am and what my place is in this wide, wild world. I've set an intention to meditate at least once and hopefully twice a day. I hope the man who finds Mexico is wiser and more able to be of service to others than the one who sets out from Utah tomorrow morning.

Now there are young folks here in the hostel cooking up a feast and beckoning for banjo, so I'll go join them and be thankful, content and simply pleased as punch to be alive. Without further ado, look for more recounting of shenanigans and observations here, as I take a long walk each day, for the next 40 some odd days in the Arizona desert. Bon voyage!