7/8/14
Seward, Alaska
Fear and pain, two of our bodies’ most primal warning systems. Of course, we have come to the point where we
can exist as purely rational creatures, and a well-integrated person can
completely dismiss all irrational fear and take pills for pain. That feeling in your foot? Maybe it’s telling you that, if you hike on
it again tomorrow, you will seriously damage your foot. Or maybe it’s just a bruised bone that should
be medicated away. That sinking feeling
after you hike an hour down to a glacier in the rain, knowing that you will
have to hike an hour uphill after you get to the bottom? Maybe it’s your body’s way of telling you to
plan your hikes better. Or maybe it’s
just an irrational feeling that will pass as soon as you get back to the
trailhead. Fear of thunder, lightning,
darkness, and god are all fears of the unknown.
They made sense when we did not know what caused thunder and lightning,
what lurked in the dark, or what caused that epic flood. It does not make sense today. If you do not know something. Find it out.
Irrational fear has no place in modern society. Rational fear, on the other hand, is a very
good warning system. If you don’t like
being afraid, don’t do things that cause you to experience an unsafe level of
danger. If you are afraid of going to
jail, don’t commit a crime. If you are
afraid of death, don’t do things that could kill you. If you are afraid of getting stuck in the
middle of nowhere, don’t try to pass a wide track on a narrow road. Those fears are rational. If you are afraid of public speaking or
bridges, recognize the irrationality of it, and deal with it. If you are afraid of yakking after going on a
boat or small plane, don’t go on a boat are small plane. That is your body’s rational response.
In Lord of the Rings, Eowyn bravely states, “I
fear neither death nor pain.” She is
smart there. She does not fear death
because she knows there are worse things than death. She fears a cage, the metaphor she uses for
living life merely as someone’s wife, someone’s daughter. She fears to die without achieving valor. Those are rational fears. She wants something, so she dresses up as a
man to do so, riding into battle against the evilest creature in Middle
Earth. In the end, she kills the creature,
achieving her valor, and suffering an injury in the process that causes
excruciating pain. The pain in my foot
does not compare, nor does the valor of hiking a glacier compare to that of killing
the Witch King. Though I did not utter
the words, that was my motto today. “I
fear neither death nor pain.”
I woke up
with a pain on the top of my left foot this morning, but I did not think much
of it. We had been doing a lot of
hiking, and various parts of my body have hart throughout the week. After my shower, we left our stuff at the
lobby and asked about the weather. We
were told it would rain in the afternoon, but that it would be dry in the
morning, so I stuck with my shorts/t-shirt/sandals ensemble. Sokol put on long socks, sneakers, and UnderArmour. We headed to a place called “The Potato” for
breakfast, though neither of us ordered potatoes. I got my usual eggs, bacon, and sausage,
along with two espressos. The food was
good, and the price was reasonable enough.
No, it wasn’t. The same meal at
Lunch Box would have been cheaper. We
headed back to the hotel. Oh, that was when
we dropped off our bags. The weather was
dry and warm enough, so I was feeling good about my outfit. I only brought my pocket supplies and my WHS
folder. The first shuttle to Kennecott
was at 9:05 AM, which would get us to the VC right as they opened at 9:30
AM. I got my last stamp of the WHS, and
I went to look for a good official WHS souvenir. The best option I found was a hiking
medallion. We still had not found a gift
for Katie, nor had I gotten anything for my parents. I knew it would be our last chance in the
WHS, but the options were limited, and anything decent was overpriced. I did get a shirt for myself, which came with
a large bag to protect my falling apart WHS bag from any potential rain.
Kennecott was an old mining town and now just
had a few residents. We were the only
ones on the street, and I commented that it looked like this was just after the
apocalypse. Sokol agreed and said that
old mining towns always creep him out. I
tried to get him to explain his irrational fear, but I failed. It was a little bit to the trailhead and then
another 1.5 miles from there to the glacier.
Our goal for the day was to hike down to the glacier, take pictures on
the glacier, walk back, head to car, and drive to Seward. When we got to the trailhead, we lit up our
cigars, me opting for a big LFD that I hoped would last the whole 3 miles,
Sokol having another Villiger. That was
when the rain started. Reader, recall
that I was wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and sandals. Granted, my sandals have better traction than
my sneakers, but it was a rough hike on steep terrain. Sokol, wearing proper hiking shoes and in
better shape than I, walked at a much faster pace, and I had to keep asking him
to slow down. It felt like we were
rushing. We had nothing else planned for
the day, so I wanted this to be a leisurely walk, not a race. Eventually, we got to the glacier, stepped on
it, took our pictures, and headed back, taking our official Us once we got out
of view of the other hiking parties.
The
thing about National Parks is that they are so vast that you don’t really get
to experience them. The beauty of
Wrangell is the mountains and the glaciers, but only a tiny portion of the park
is easily accessible. To go up one of
those mountains, even to get to the base of them, is not something you can do
in a day. The allure of most those
National Parks are the views, not the thing itself. How many people actually go all the way down
to the base of the Grand Canyon? How
many people see what is on the other side of a Glacier? How many people go deep into the heart of the
Redwoods? They observe from afar, take
pictures from a distance, and enjoy the scenic vistas. That was exactly what we did with The WHS. I call it The WHS, since that is much easier
than typing out Kluane/Wrangell-St. Elias/Glacier Bay/Tatshenshini-Alsek each
time, and I have simply been calling it “The WHS” for the past week. In my previous entry, I mentioned how
Wrangell would be at the top of my list.
I, of course, meant by that The WHS as a whole. It’s one site, and it needs to be considered
as such.
When we got back to Kennecott,
the pain in my foot had started to give me trouble walking. We just missed the shuttle back to town, so
we checked out some gift shops. I found
another shirt for myself, but I could not find something good for my
parents. In the end, I went back to the
VC and got a glass circle with the logo of the Alaska NPS concessionaire as my
official WHS souvenir, something on which I can lay the unit-specific souvenirs. I answered some business emails, getting 73
of them by the end of the day, in contrast to the 30 or so a day I had been getting
the past few weeks. I guess people have
come back from vacation. We went back to
The Potato for lunch, and I got the chili, Sokol a burger. It was good, and it warmed me up. I think the last time I had chili was at
MathCamp, a decade ago. Wanting to
continue our #NoGPS, I looked up directions from Chitina to Seward. It would be 371 miles, 7.5 hours, and 2
turns. That was in addition to the 58
miles on the McCarthy Road, which should have taken us 2.5 hours. That was a total of 10 hours of driving, and
I figured that we would need 30 minutes for stops.
We hit the road at 2:17 PM, so we were
looking at a 1 AM arrival time, according to those times. In contrast to the long and scenic drive we
took into the park, stopping whenever we felt, this would be the opposite. We lit up a pair of Thunders, which I knew
would take at least 2 hours, and I hoped to get to Chitina before the cigars
were done. I drove constantly at 40 mph,
which was probably not the best thing for the car on the gravel road. Then, we got stuck behind a truck, and that
was when I did something stupid, something unforgivably stupid. Rather than waiting for the road to widen up
a bit, I tried to pass him then and there.
The left wheels of our car went off the road. We were stuck. We couldn’t move. I was afraid.
That was a rational fear. To
panic and start screaming would have been irrational. To be afraid was rational. I tried flooring it. I tried backing up and going forward
again. Nothing worked. Sokol told me to jiggle the wheels left and
right as I drove forward. I was afraid that
that would cause us to go all the way off the road, maybe to flip over. I had two competing emotions: fear and
trust. I trusted Sokol, so I gave into
the more rational emotion. It
worked. We were back on the road. The complement to fear is the elation you
feel when the source of the fear is removed.
It is the feeling of when your water bottle sinks into the dirt instead
of rolling away. It is the feeling of
when your plane leaves the ground in bad weather, rather than getting
cancelled. It is the feeling of when you
get back to the trailhead after a long hike.
It is the feeling of when you get your car back on the road. The truck then moved over as soon as the road
narrowed, and we passed him there, not really losing any time due to the
incident.
In the end, it took us 1:40 to
get from the parking lot to Chitina. It
had taken more than double that on the way in.
Also on the way in, at the beginning, there was a construction crew, and
we had seen a driver give one of the workers what looked like half a bag of
gummy worms. Sokol and I made plenty of
jokes about how we should buy gummy worms to give to the construction
workers. We saw the same worker on the
way out, and I told Sokol that he should have asked him how the gummy worms
were. It was another 30 or so miles to
Kenny Lake, where we took our Us and debated whether or not to count them as
official Us. In the end, we decided to
do so, which means that Sokol gets credit for another official U
yesterday. At the end of that road, we
made our first turn, the next one onto the Glenallen Highway 30 miles later,
funnily enough, at Glenallen. The thing about
the Alaska Highway is that they are all named after cities at the terminus of
the highway. It makes things a lot
simpler. From Glenallen, would be
driving 270 miles along that road, which would turn into the Seward Highway and
bring us to Seward 37 miles later, no turns until we got into Seward, or so we
thought. We gassed up and got some food,
since I did not want to stop between Glenallen and Seward, trying to make the
drive as quickly as possible. I got a
really good burger, which I ate with my bare hands, discarding the bun, not
caring how rude it was. When I had
gotten out of the car to gas up, I was really struggling to walk. The pain was much worse, and it had started
to swell. There was also a mosquito bite
mark right on top of the swollen area, so I just assumed that the mosquito had
bit a muscle or something. Sokol was
starting to get concerned, but I kept quiet, know that complaining would not
solve anything.
We got back in the car,
and I lit up an Aging Room, which took us to nearing Anchorage. I do not need to mention again how beautiful
the views of the drive were. It is,
quite simply, unmatched. We were soon in
Anchorage, and we drove by the National Park Service office, a huge building
with the NPS logo on it. Sokol was
possibly even more excited than I, and we agreed, “That’s official!” A mile or so later, we appeared to be
lost. What did we do wrong? It was supposed to be a straight shot from
Glenallen to Seward, passing through Anchorage.
We could have pulled out the GPS or checked our phones, but we opted for
the old-fashioned way. We asked people
for directions. They obliged. Soon enough, we saw a sign that said “New
Seward Hwy,” which seemed a little odd, especially since the sun was behind us,
and we were supposed to be going west and then south. However, soon enough, we saw the sign that
said AK-1 S, which meant we were on the right road. We slapped five, and I lit up an Avo, while
Sokol had a Villiger. Less than 2 hours
later we were at our hotel.
I should
note that is just past midnight now, and it is still light out. That is one of the major charms of The North
in the winter. We actually saw the moon
for the first time as we drove. Once we
got into town, I heard my phone start playing “Sk8er Boi,” which was weird,
since the soundtrack for today was the album “Avril Lavigne” by Avril Lavigne,
and “Sk8er Boi” is on “Let Go.” I then
realized that it was my phone ringing.
My phone hadn’t rung all trip. It
was the hotel, and I told them we had just got into town and asked for
directions. It was simple enough. When we pulled in, and I put the car in park
for the first time in 5 hours, I felt that familiar sense of relief. That was soon eclipsed by a feeling of
fear. Even before I tried to put any
weight on my foot, I knew that I would not be able to walk. I was right.
I barely was able to limp to the hotel from the car, grabbing an
umbrella for support once we got inside. The guy at the front desk had a real attitude,
and I was in no mood for in, wincing in pain with each step. I had asked him about breakfast? The restaurant opens at 5:30 AM? Do they have a hot food? He gave a sarcastic reply. I had put the room key in my pocket. What room were we in? It’s written on our key packet, 328. At that point, I decided to eff with him. That’s on the third floor? Yes, in 28th room. I managed to get up to the room, and we took
our first official Us on the Kenai Peninsula.
Sokol went to get some ice for me, and I proceeded to write this entry,
which I will now close so that I can publish it, upload my photos, and pass
out.
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