1
My first evening in Alaska had me walking through the streets of Anchorage terrified in anticipation. I had spent the whole day getting there, but it didn’t hit me how truly far I was from Dobbs Ferry, New York until I found myself walking back to the cheap hostel I was staying at around ten at night, the sun glaring down right in my face. It would stay out for the rest of the night, during which I slept with my hat pulled over my eyes, and for the twenty-eight days and nights I would spend in the state.
The cab driver who took me from the airport to the hostel was a gray-bearded guy with long hair, dark, circular sunglasses and a cowboy hat. For the first couple minutes, he talked about the movie Night Rider and how groovy it was, even though he refused to ride ever since he had a crash some decades back. “Sick!” he said when I told him I was in town for a backpacking trip through the Talkeetna Mountains. “I drove some chick once who was going on one of those. Couple weeks later, the paper said the poor girlie had a run-in with bears that didn’t go too well. Oh well. Craaaaazy, right man?” I nodded without a word as we drove down a curvy highway towards town, sharp snowy peaks arched in front of us, the sea far off behind.
Downtown Anchorage is now a blur in my mind, the barely memorable opening note to a long, eventful symphony. I ate dinner alone at a nice pizza restaurant and then walked down the sunny main streets to pass time before going to bed and then waking up to catch the bus to the National Outdoor Leadership School’s headquarters in Palmer.
2
I slid out of my sleeping bag with ease as soon as my watch alarm went off on my sixth day in the Alaskan wild. I unzipped the tent with haste, strapped on my bear spray to my chest and went out to the sunny wind. The campsite was on a warm hillside, staring right at the mountains we had passed over and through to get there the previous day.
The hike there had been like a montage of glorious moments. We started by climbing up the side of a steep hill on a cloudy morning and ended up on the top of a small pass, surrounded by mountains. As we hiked down to the campsite, I found myself in awe of the jagged peaks that pierced the sky in ways that skyscrapers never will. Now, I remember vivid flashes of that day: the wind blowing at my unbreakable grin, the sun striking out through the clouds, and me exclaiming, “This is… incredibly awesome,” to no responses. And then we set up camp and spent the sunny evening making good meals (I made quesadillas for my tent mates Connor and Danny) and joking around. And then after reading on the side of the hill, the mountains in front of me, the cool air all around, I went to sleep peacefully.
So when I woke up to that alarm and stepped outside, I could hardly contain myself. The day before was a classic backpacking day straight off of the NOLS website, full of smiling faces and beautiful geography around them. It was easy; I just strapped on my backpack and walked. On the surface it was the perfect day in the backcountry. But it was too ideal.
I don’t remember too much of that morning, but Connor and I definitely took down the tent and worked together on making breakfast. I packed up quickly and got assigned to a group with Danny as the student leader and with Aaron, Dana and Cameron. Ashley was the instructor of the group. We probably left last out of the three hiking groups because when we arrived at camp hours later, soaked and starving, everyone was already set up and making us hot drinks.
The first hour or so was average. We walked up a hill and along a ridge as it got cloudier and cloudier. On a snack break, it started to rain. At first it was a mild inconvenience; we had experienced quick drizzle a few days ago. I didn’t even bother to put on my rain pants at first. But the rain gained more and more force, slapping my pack, my raincoat and my boots, and once the thunder started it was clear that the storm was only just starting. Silence descended upon everyone as we walked through the dark clouds, except for the occasional direction from Ashley.
The hike that day was solid, five or six miles down into a gully and up on to the side of a long green ridge, with peaks above us and a creek crossing that wouldn’t normally have been a big deal. Who knows what that day would’ve been like without the storm, perhaps another euphoric high point. But the rain poured and poured and the tundra around us turned into a muddy frenzy. Lightning struck in varying cycles, from every couple seconds to longer intervals.
I sulked my way up front with Aaron and we mumbled about how we were going to get onto the side of the ridge we needed to be on. We got to it by going into a long dip and back out on the other side, taking careful steps down and up a muddy hill. This took probably forty-five minutes and it wiped us out. From there, on the side of the mountains, we lagged on with gravity pushing down on everyone’s shoulders, heads pointed down, minds back home, while mountain goats scrambled for shelter along cliffs across from us. A delicious misery wafted around everyone, tempting me to slow down and groan through the rain. My hands shivered and shook in my pockets.
I’ve found that backpacking, or really any other endeavor in nature, isn’t what it’s advertised to be. It’s not about, or at least not all about, the euphoric highs, the incredible views and the overall experience of trying to feel a connection with the world. These things are great, but they leave quick visions of bliss and maybe give you that profile picture for Facebook you wanted to grab. But once I dig past the pre-set narratives I’ve placed in my head for others and try to relive my experiences out there, it’s the shitty moments that are stamped into my memory. And this was a shitty moment.
The silent spell along the wet hills lasted for what felt like forever. Aaron, Cameron and I walked in front, having naturally drifted there when the storm started. Danny walked in the back with his face almost completely covered, the map hidden somewhere under his coat. My boots squished on the grass, covered in mud. Rain battered down on my hood and the lid of my Leadville, Colorado cap, making a drum beat sound in my ears. The air I trudged through smelled like wet, dirty grass and my raincoat smelled like peanut butter from my lunch that I spilled. My knees felt weak and shook a little when we went downhill. The place on my hip where my pack’s strap pressed down burned a little. And, of course, the rain was ending and there was no hope for dryness anywhere. But as I continued to get wet, I eventually tried to launch myself out of my discomfort, and started by humming songs.
At the end of the day in a private meeting, Ashley said she was impressed by my optimism and said it helped push the group towards camp. It was the best compliment I’ve ever received, but I didn’t see that afternoon the same way. I started singing loudly with Aaron, as a form of bear calls. We both shared an affinity for The Strokes and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Eventually we started arguing about whether Five Guys or In-N-Out had the better burgers and that got Cameron and Dana talking. Cameron, who hailed from Oklahoma, kept running around and swearing at the mud jokingly and everyone was laughing. Even Danny, who was in the midst of his first terrible day in nature, brightened up a little. We crossed the flooding creek efficiently and made our way to camp with a final spurt of energy.
The rain died down throughout the night. Danny felt sick and went to bed shortly after we got to camp, so Connor and I made a huge bowl of Ramen and mashed potatoes while loudly rapping some Action Bronson songs. The hamburger debate spread throughout the group as everyone devoured as much food as they could. On the first night, one of the instructors, Mike B., exclaimed to all of us, “In the backcountry, your body is a dump truck,” and that rang true as we got our calorie loads. The most surprising part of it all--no one went to bed after that. Everyone hung around talking and enjoying the post-storm fog. We played hacky sack until we could barely stand.
It was almost ten at night when I got to my tent and at that point it was the latest we had stayed up in Alaska. I took my bear spray off outside and then crawled in. I peeled my soggy socks off to put on my dry, nighttime pair, wrapping myself in Patagonia fleece and drifted off into a rock-hard sleep. The next morning I woke up to my alarm with heavy eyelids and sore legs. I crawled out into the wet mountain air and groggily strapped on my bear spray again and got ready for the day.
3
Each day of the next two weeks went by slowly, but the weeks altogether flew by. There was sun, more good meals and incredible views. Aaron, Cameron and I were tent mates for the second week of the trip and we made great food, talked about life at home and sang a lot of songs (on the day of the storm, Cameron and I discovered we liked the song “Faithfully” by Journey and we’d sing it every other day we hiked together).
With all that, there were also bad moments too. I carried the whole kitchen and the rain cover for the tent in my pack because Andrew, who on the first day had said the only reason he came to Alaska was to test his physical limits and “get in even better shape,” had a smaller, more expensive pack than everyone else and the pots and pans wouldn’t fit. And then there was the time Cameron mixed up the brownie mix with the hot cocoa mix and Aaron and I came to the kitchen tarp to find him holding a potful of a chocolate mush that looked like silly putty and somehow smelled like rotten milk. Some days I’d start the hiking day in the back of the group with my hands in my pockets, not talking to anyone.
So the days kept passing; it kept raining and we kept hiking. There were days where laughter burst through the mountains and there were days when the only noises around were those of our bear calls. Once we got to the fourth week, we had experienced enough days, good and bad, to be prepared for independent travel. Aaron was chosen to be group leader and I was in his group, with Katie, Dana, Will and Andrew. We chose a route with two long days and one last mountain pass to mark our descent back into the real world.
4
Our last full hiking day started with the closest I got to seeing a sunrise in Alaska. The sun was a hot orange, with pinkish hues in a sky that still had a few stars left. The air was cold and I stepped on frosty tundra on the walk to the kitchen. Moose poop was scattered around the camp and our kitchen sat next to a very muddy pond, making this the smelliest camp of the trip. I can’t remember any conversation from breakfast, or one from the previous twelve hours or so.
It was probably close to six AM when we ate our last breakfast in the backcountry--soupy oatmeal. The previous day we went over our last pass, a large U shaped like a horseshoe with the sides pulled apart. It was a standard hike up; we zigzagged up uniformly and slowly, trying to step in sync with each other. We mostly succeeded, making good time and without anyone slipping on the rocks. The top of the pass had an average view, far from the best thing I saw in Alaska but it was till gorgeous. To our back were the Talkeetnas, where we had journeyed to from the beginning and curved back around. In front of us was a hill down to a long green valley, at the bottom of which was a marked trail that led to a road. We sat on the mountain pass for almost an hour, where everyone’s minds seemed to float out of Alaska and make the journey home, waiting for their bodies to catch up. Dinner that night was rushed and we went to sleep at 7:30.
I was the student leader for that last day and my job was simple: get us to the trail and walk the two miles to the camp, where the rest of the group would be waiting and we’d spend one last night there before being bused back to Palmer. The navigation was easy and I didn’t need to refer to the map that much--it was all right in front of me. The first twenty minutes or so was rough going, as we made our way through tall, thorny bushes and fallen branches. We bushwhacked our way down slowly. Soon I saw a long ridge that extended right down to the trail, with a small gully on the side. I took us up on the ridge, continuing to push through whatever nature threw in front of me.
It became a very warm day quickly, without any clouds. It was one of the few days out there without any rain. In front of us, past the trail, were wide hills that were substantial, but it was clear that all the peaks were now behind us. I hummed to myself as we stayed on top of the ridge, which got steeper and messier, filled with higher bushes that went up to my belly button.
Behind me, Will’s glare burnt my neck more than the sun. “How about we go down there,” he asked, pointing at the flat way down in the gully. I said I was fine up on the ridge, but if the group wanted to we could go down. There seemed to be a collective groan and then we kept walking. Thorns scratched my legs and my knees buckled on the hill. But my pack was at its lightest and I kept bopping down the hill, whistling to myself, trying to take in what I could before it was all gone. No one else was whistling and I was walking a solid couple paces in front of everyone else. We got to the trail at close to noon. From there we could see the tents of the other group about a mile off, at our last camp.
As we walked towards the blue and gray triangles, soaking in the sun on a green shoulder, I took a look at where we had come from. I could see the pass from the previous day, but I couldn’t see any more of the Talkeetnas. We kept walking, now much faster, as if to prevent lingering. We got to camp relatively quickly and had a last night together filled with end-of-trip paperwork and some last-minute memories. Many people on ATVs passed our camp on the trail below throughout that night.
The next morning we walked down the trail to the road at dawn. We got picked up at 8:20, were fed a good breakfast of donuts and orange juice and then taken back to Palmer. We showered, bought some NOLS stickers and checked our snap chats. Our goodbyes at the airport took place in a McDonald’s, short waves and little hugs between sipping on milkshakes and eating cheeseburgers, the grease dripping down everyone’s hands. The flight home was a red-eye over the mountains and down back east. A lady sat next to me who smelled of whiskey and carried around a little dog that would end up sleeping restlessly on me. I didn’t sleep a wink until getting back to Dobbs Ferry at around 4 PM the next day. Now I’m a senior in high school and summer is coming back around again. I think back to that last mountain pass and wonder when my mind is going to catch up.