I’m slowly hiking the trail up to Curry Ridge in the Alaska Range with my friend Carl Portman. Behind us is a palpable presence.
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During the summers of 1949-50, my dad, Kenneth D. Baker and Forrest Davis hiked to the north fork of Spruce Creek to work the claim.
I have seen some striking changes to our Alaska landscape. You need not achieve “geezer” status in age to notice the glacier rapid retreat.
The motto of Alaska outdoor survival and rescue instructor Brian Horner is “Learn to Return,” and I fully embrace that philosophy.
My friend Mark Fraker and I had begun our hike from Cathedral Lakes Lodge in the Cascade mountains, about 235 miles east of Vancouver, B.C.
I know of a bear biologist who spent some 40 years tromping around Kodiak Island, often without a gun; who never had problems with bears.
With no wind, Eklutna Lake was glass, mirroring the snow-capped mountains and the emerging green on their lower flanks.
It was a sunny, blistering hot day at Seward July 4 where about 1000 runners participated in the 91st Mt. Marathon Race.
There are the minor pet peeves, such as ketchup that won’t pour from the bottle despite aggressive tapping and shaking that suddenly releases a wet avalanche upon the plate. There is incessant internet spam on our computers. And how about telephone robo-calls? But with perseverance, we can learn to deal with these kinds of annoyances.
Memorial Day came and went a month ago. It was celebrated with picnics, barbeques, and furniture store sales. But for some, Memorial Day is all about honoring and remembering the servicemen and women who have given their all for the freedoms we all so very cherish.
The snow on the lower slopes of the mountain had been packed hard by previous hikers and made the hiking easy, but the southeast wind was bone-chilling. I started the climb about 12:30 p.m. on April 30th, thinking this would be a nice Spring jaunt and another chance to test out my left knee that was replaced last year.Harp Mountain had other plans. By the time I reached the first big hump, at about 2,500 feet, the wind was gusting to about 40 miles per hour (mph).
In early May avalanches had become a danger in the mountains, so in an attempt to salvage the last of winter, I drove about 200 miles north while gaining two degrees of latitude. Recent snowfalls in the Alaska Range had blanketed the mountains and lowlands near the Denali Highway in pure white satin. On May 7th skies were mostly clear and there was hardly a breath of wind. But at mid-day, the temperature was in the high 40s. Was this winter?
Encumbered by my 48-inch long snowshoes that I’ve bragged about so often in this space, movement was painfully slow amidst the tangle of willows and hemlock trees. It felt like I was trying to steer two battleships through a jungle. Not content on Saturday, April 14th to ski 6-1/2 miles to the Kenai Peninsula’s Crescent Lake Saddle Cabin, I told my friends it would be fun to hike up through the low pass south of the cabin to reach a divide that surely would offer a great view of Kenai Lake.
This past winter the trash fairy returned to Anchorage and Eagle River. And as always, she gleefully deposited tons of refuse along our streets and byways. From May 1 to May 8, thousands of citizens will mount an assault on this miserable, mephitic, malodorous mess, asking themselves the same question over and over: Where does it all come from?Here’s a number for you: 4 million. That’s the amount of trash, in pounds, that was collected during one of Anchorage and Eagle River spring cleanups.
