I got a hair of wildness that grew throughout the day and was well on its way up my nether-region by the time I left work. Without much ado I rode home, grabbed my eternally stuffed backpack, dog, food and truck all of which were to accompany me to a trail near Chena Hot Springs. I caught wind of this trail weeks before simply in passing and quite honestly it sounded like a far-fetched rumor one hears in outdoor stores and among those accustomed to stretching truth and livening stories.
A little over an hour later the dog was well down a black spruce tunnel of trail and as I was wrestling 50 lbs onto my tired back I could hear her splashing through the bogs just out of sight through the trees. I picked my way around the mid-thigh deep muck and boggy stink to finally regain the trail under the dark and spindly trees that comprise much if not all of the forest of Alaskas interior. True there are white spruce and birch among other varieties of arboreal beings stretching toward the heavens in this expanse of land but far and away the most commonly seen is the skeletal shapes, at times implausible stature of the black spruce; some so twisted and misshapen they all but defy gravity when taking into consideration their root structure clinging tentatively to mere feet, even inches of soggy, spongy, mossy earth and tundra.
At this latitude it took sparsely an hour to make fall line and afforded me blissful views of vistas, which I crave in alpine settings. Long, open, endless views that are simultaneously soft and rugged, the shoulders of mountains covered in moss, flowers and petite mountain grasses so hardy yet so delicate, wedged against the stark faces of ice and wind cracked boulder, scree and tor rising and dropping at intervals that bring sweet vertigo when perched on such precipices.
I wound my way up the scantily beaten path destined for a site where it was said a plane had crashed not long after the Second World War. All apparently died in the crash and though bodies were recovered, the sheer remoteness of the place lent no means for which to take this hulking, wrecked fuselage and broken winged beast out of the bush. It was some ten miles distant up and down steep waterless trail and though the light shone quite brightly at ten in the evening, I made camp in the lee of a great granite tor that jutted absurdly into the night sky like a relic of Easter Island, long since weathered and facial features worn.
I took a short jaunt just after finishing dinner and bear-proofing camp. Bear proofing not taking long as I have long since taken habit of eating far away from my tent, sleeping bag or whatever was to be my outdoor arrangements for the night. I rarely take many risks in the way of bringing the wild ones to my doorstep in the outback. While eating, I can see my camp most times but usually only just and that night, after I had cached my food and cooking goods on the highest tor I could find, I stepped back to laugh a bit and took note of the time to see how long it would take for a stiff wind to roll it back to terra firma. To my surprise my stuff-sack survived the night despite a few tent-jostling gusts swirling around my sturdy windbreak from the valley below.
The jaunt took us to the crest of the next rise, which we would again travel on our journey the following day, a reconnaissance of sorts and a way to enjoy the scenery in that strange everafter light that prevails in the Alaskan summer. Without the heavy pack encumbering my footfalls, we made our way to the top in no time, myself finally being able to keep the dog in sight during this outing and luckily so, for as we reached the peak of this craggy knoll, I grabbed the pup by her scruff and sat at once for 200 meters distant, a black bear could be seen comically running back and forth across the steep landscape like some insane, improbably slow moving metronome, back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and so and so. From my vantage I stifled a laugh and gripped the dog hard as she narrowly lost out on seeing the bear before I nabbed her nape. The laugh was reserved for the realization of what kind of industry the bear had himself immersed. With one hand I fished my binoculars out of my pocket and once in focus, I again saw Ursa unorthodoxus continuing to sprint to and fro on a slope of 25+ degrees in the most cumbersome way imaginable. His reasons I found through my greatly magnified voyeuristic platform were two fold, a marmot in one hole and another taking refuge beneath a now tottering boulder some 10 meters away and at the same altitude as the first. The bear would alternately dig and bump away at the ground below the boulder until such time it would notice in it's periphery the other nosing its way out of the hole. Giving up on marmot number 1 for a time, it would take off after number 2 and with gravity still imparting its constant -9.8 m/s/s, the bear would take steps in a b-line to the hole only to find itself traveling in an arc, first descending then ascending to its hopeful prey, plunging its nares deep into the earth with ostrich-like comedy, digging away and when the wind was just so, an earnest snuffing could be heard as he played his quarry. The reader may picture this, marmot number 1 popping its furry face from under its protection, bear catches sight and hes off to the drunken races again, first down, then up slope only to repeat at even interval for what seemed like an eternity. The dog lost interest long before I and I long before the bear, who knows how long this greedy bear had been at it before I arrived, I surmise two must truly have been better than one in his book. The wind and my upslope vantage never betraying my presence, we slinked off toward camp and a well-deserved sleep in the failing light with crepuscular rays still visible behind mountaintop and bank of cloud.
A little over an hour later the dog was well down a black spruce tunnel of trail and as I was wrestling 50 lbs onto my tired back I could hear her splashing through the bogs just out of sight through the trees. I picked my way around the mid-thigh deep muck and boggy stink to finally regain the trail under the dark and spindly trees that comprise much if not all of the forest of Alaskas interior. True there are white spruce and birch among other varieties of arboreal beings stretching toward the heavens in this expanse of land but far and away the most commonly seen is the skeletal shapes, at times implausible stature of the black spruce; some so twisted and misshapen they all but defy gravity when taking into consideration their root structure clinging tentatively to mere feet, even inches of soggy, spongy, mossy earth and tundra.
At this latitude it took sparsely an hour to make fall line and afforded me blissful views of vistas, which I crave in alpine settings. Long, open, endless views that are simultaneously soft and rugged, the shoulders of mountains covered in moss, flowers and petite mountain grasses so hardy yet so delicate, wedged against the stark faces of ice and wind cracked boulder, scree and tor rising and dropping at intervals that bring sweet vertigo when perched on such precipices.
I wound my way up the scantily beaten path destined for a site where it was said a plane had crashed not long after the Second World War. All apparently died in the crash and though bodies were recovered, the sheer remoteness of the place lent no means for which to take this hulking, wrecked fuselage and broken winged beast out of the bush. It was some ten miles distant up and down steep waterless trail and though the light shone quite brightly at ten in the evening, I made camp in the lee of a great granite tor that jutted absurdly into the night sky like a relic of Easter Island, long since weathered and facial features worn.
I took a short jaunt just after finishing dinner and bear-proofing camp. Bear proofing not taking long as I have long since taken habit of eating far away from my tent, sleeping bag or whatever was to be my outdoor arrangements for the night. I rarely take many risks in the way of bringing the wild ones to my doorstep in the outback. While eating, I can see my camp most times but usually only just and that night, after I had cached my food and cooking goods on the highest tor I could find, I stepped back to laugh a bit and took note of the time to see how long it would take for a stiff wind to roll it back to terra firma. To my surprise my stuff-sack survived the night despite a few tent-jostling gusts swirling around my sturdy windbreak from the valley below.
The jaunt took us to the crest of the next rise, which we would again travel on our journey the following day, a reconnaissance of sorts and a way to enjoy the scenery in that strange everafter light that prevails in the Alaskan summer. Without the heavy pack encumbering my footfalls, we made our way to the top in no time, myself finally being able to keep the dog in sight during this outing and luckily so, for as we reached the peak of this craggy knoll, I grabbed the pup by her scruff and sat at once for 200 meters distant, a black bear could be seen comically running back and forth across the steep landscape like some insane, improbably slow moving metronome, back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and so and so. From my vantage I stifled a laugh and gripped the dog hard as she narrowly lost out on seeing the bear before I nabbed her nape. The laugh was reserved for the realization of what kind of industry the bear had himself immersed. With one hand I fished my binoculars out of my pocket and once in focus, I again saw Ursa unorthodoxus continuing to sprint to and fro on a slope of 25+ degrees in the most cumbersome way imaginable. His reasons I found through my greatly magnified voyeuristic platform were two fold, a marmot in one hole and another taking refuge beneath a now tottering boulder some 10 meters away and at the same altitude as the first. The bear would alternately dig and bump away at the ground below the boulder until such time it would notice in it's periphery the other nosing its way out of the hole. Giving up on marmot number 1 for a time, it would take off after number 2 and with gravity still imparting its constant -9.8 m/s/s, the bear would take steps in a b-line to the hole only to find itself traveling in an arc, first descending then ascending to its hopeful prey, plunging its nares deep into the earth with ostrich-like comedy, digging away and when the wind was just so, an earnest snuffing could be heard as he played his quarry. The reader may picture this, marmot number 1 popping its furry face from under its protection, bear catches sight and hes off to the drunken races again, first down, then up slope only to repeat at even interval for what seemed like an eternity. The dog lost interest long before I and I long before the bear, who knows how long this greedy bear had been at it before I arrived, I surmise two must truly have been better than one in his book. The wind and my upslope vantage never betraying my presence, we slinked off toward camp and a well-deserved sleep in the failing light with crepuscular rays still visible behind mountaintop and bank of cloud.