Vicissitudes

This last weekend I drove over 900 miles. This covered almost all of the highways in Alaska, including the Glenn Highway, the Parks Highway, the Richardson Highway and the Seward Highway. Circumstances bringing me to Fairbanks were not ideal, but it was an occasion of family togetherness, fellowship and reflection. I saw family friends I hadn't seen in many, many years. This felt really good, and I really enjoyed spending time with my own family up North. This was the first time I remember all of us being together up there since I was a kid.

This time of the year, the sun is up 24 hours a day in that part of Alaska. The sky gets a little pink and orange, but doesn't seem to truly set before it starts getting light again. It's pretty neat to be driving at 1:30am in broad daylight. I saw five moose (plus one calf) over the course of the weekend, and about twenty rabbits alongside one section of the road. One of the moose was running at full clip alongside the road just behind a row of trees.

By chance, I ran into an old friend of mine, Jacob, at a gas station along the highway. He was driving up from Valdez to Wasilla with his girlfriend to do some mountain biking, and to visit his brother. Both of us happening to be on the road traveling, we spent some time remembering (and laughing) about a time we were driving in his Geo along the Richardson Highway, hydroplaned, and did over a 360 spinning off the road near Paxson Lodge, blowing a tire and missing a collision with a large sign by mere feet that could have dramatically changed our lives for the worse. Jeez, we were lucky back then in so many ways.

My friend Doug and I kayaked down Portage Creek again on Sunday. The water volume was higher than the previous week which made it a little more fun. Kite-boarders and wind surfers were out on Turnagain arm riding the waves.

The Subaru held up well -- a notable accomplishment after $3,000 in recent surgical repairs - struts, brakes, (devilish) electrical work, engine hoisted out, blah, blah blah. Odometer is now at 135k and I expect it will still be carrying kayaks, bikes, cargo boxes, people and gear around Alaska and Canada for at least another 70k miles.

A New Boat's Maiden Voyage!

This summer has been busy! Last week I got my new creek boat in - a LiquidLogic Remix 79! For its maiden voyage, I took it down Portage Creek, about an hour South of Anchorage.

The trip consisted of a drive along Turnagain Arm, a paddle down five miles of river, and a bike ride of about six miles.

Wildlife was abundant. As I paddled down the creek, I saw a moose with a calf that was very, very young along shore. I also got to watch a beaver work its magic on a tree for about fifteen minutes. Ducks acted as guides down the stream. Aside from a bit of rain, I couldn't have asked for anything better - taking my time, smelling the fresh green forest, hanging out with the woodland aminals.

I had parked up at the lake, and launched there at the mouth of the creek. I kayaked south to a point where I had chained my bike to tree around my expected take-out point. When I had arrived at the take-out, I chained the boat to the tree and biked back up the road (about six miles) to the car.

In the photo to the left, you can see that I had started to pile some sticks over the boat to try and break up its profile when I took this picture. The color just screams that it doesn't belong in the forest, and I have to confess a little bit of paranoia about theft being so close to the highway. Anyway, the photo links to the few photos I took along the trip.

Practice at the Lake

On Sunday, Dale and I went down to a local lake (Taku) to practice skills. He took the Pygmy he built last fall and I brought my shiny Remix 79.

The Pygmy is just a beautiful boat and Dale has an incredible sense of balance in it already. We went over wet exits, self rescue with a paddle float, practiced a standard T-rescue, a scoop re-entry, a "yank" rescue, and a lie-back re-entry rescue. We worked on some forward paddling techniques, sweep stroke, low bracing and sculling. I can't wait to see that boat out on the ocean.

So many of the techniques I learned from Tom, I had to hear a thousand times before what he said and what I did physically "clicked". I'm sure Dale will have a fun future meditating on the subtle forms of good paddling technique. Heck, it's a constant opportunity for improvement for me. I remember Tom saying once that before you can roll, you need to be comfortable being upside down underwater. Heh.

Talk about times I'm glad I wear a drysuit - check out this video of the long leech on the bottom of the boat:



Wikipedia says "[they] will nurture their young, providing food, transport, and protection, which is unusual behavior in an invertebrate."