Running

I've been runnin' all my life
I'm still runnin'
I'm still runnin'
I could walk and never turn
Never falter when I fly
and if you give me skies of grey
I'll bring you rain
To wash us clean again

- Po' Girl

Upcanyon somewhere in Idaho in a borrowed Subaru. Friend downvalley celebrating the joining of two ski bums' lives, up here in Stanley far from their snowy winter home in Utah. The Sawtooth jags the horizon, and I have driven in the opposite direction. Idaho's green mountain canyons wind up into open crumbling fields of talus and bright puffy white cloud sky. The landscape's shoulders are at once rounded and severe. The canyons of early fall - yes, the bite of morning frost is here - are private. They fold back and back in surprise and seclusion. The landscape answers my need for the ultimate privacy of solitude. For what, you ask? Reflection, careful consideration of my next best move? Fuck no. I need time to take off as much clothing as possible, sit in tubs of hot natural sulfur water, stretch long-unused leg muscles up valleys with no plan and minimal gear at inadvisable hours of the late afternoon smelling subalpine fir, talking and singing to myself, pika, deer and the bright blue sky. In short, I'm coming back into my found and chosen home. Mountains.

Pain in my shoulder, numb fingers and a re-sprained right ankle remind me (at my structural-integration practicioner uncle's severe admonitions) to slow down, heal, to regroup after an intense summer. Serendipity and a series of small, shrewd decisions unseen to most but myself (you got so lucky!) combined into a brilliantly executed summer of travel in Alaska. To tell the whole story would take a novel, and I tend in my current state of perpetual motion to be a soundbyte/book on tape kind of storyteller. So I offer the following excerpts:

East Fork Kahiltna Glacier, Alaska Range, July 7

Backstory: A contact with Blaine Horner made at the VertiCulture Randonee Race at Alpental this winter led to a stint as a volunteer ranger on Denali. After a few days of preparation, Fairview-inspired debauchery, hip-hop dancing and perpetual twilight we flew in courtesy of Talkeetna Air Taxi. We spent a little under 2 weeks at Denali Base Camp watching warm temps and a fine dusting of volcano ash from the Redoubt eruption melt the range down to rock and dirt. Many stories of rescues, pranks, and mountain mishaps were told by ranger, guide and climber alike.

Basecamp in the shadow of Hunter and Foraker. The scale is difficult to comprehend. Clouds move in and out, over and through. A few parties trickle in on haggard, stinky ropeteams. They are soon whisked away by TAT planes. Lisa and Mark Westman deconstructed their basecamp a few days ago. The runway is getting too soft to use here. Skis poke up out of the snow; we practice and practice crevasse and high-angle rescue techniques, swap books, nap in our own yellow basecamp sauna tents, covet The Sex Lives of Cannibals and Dancing at the Rascal Fair. Blaine and I set up a slackline with the big I-beams from Mark and Lisa's tent. We walk it with tele boots, try to ski tour, get overheated and spooked by the groan of opening crevasses.

The impassive, impressive mountains watch over all and send forth volleys of snow, ice, and stones unhinged and tumbling rowdy and free in the heat of this endless summer day. The day the mountains poured down to the the sea and the runs of salmon danced up to meet them. They met in a frenzy of post-solstice copulation in that long summer day. They were too tired to care by the time the fireweed had done its celebrating and popped the last pink firework off the top. They languished spent in the shallows. Their lazy tails rotted but they didn't care. The mountains stood blocky, crumbling and naked in the summer heat. They weren't embarrased. Somewhere in the great debauchery of the summer melt they left their dirty sides exposed and lay passive as busy, active gravity stole pieces from their flanks and shoulders. There was little ado and no fuss, much noise and great piles to finally greet the first firming freezing snowstorms that would again blanket and solidify, beautify and homogenize. Those snows and that freeze would allow those small dots of frenzied carbon to move freely across the landscape. To land the little planes dwarfed against the massive shoulders of wanton, uncaring, beautiful, senseless mountains.

Those busy pieces of carbon are folding up shop by the end of our weeks there. I have met many I know from other places in these weeks, beginning the one abiding theme of the summer: the affirmation that I have indeed built community in the places I have been and the circles in which I have traveled, a roving, mobile community of serious men and incredible women who love mountains and wild places.

By the time we have broken the National Parks Service basecamp into a pile ready for Chinook helicopter transport (highgrading Nutella and fresh foods from the loads flown down from 9 and 14 camp) it is too warm to transport our four human souls plus the high camp patrol (also four) out on fixed-wing aircraft. In swoops Bruce, the Kiwi pilot of Papa Hotel (papa?), to save us from the long walk out sucking smoke from the many fires and glacial silt. After transporting High Camp patrol to Talkeetna the four Basecamp patrollers climb on board for the ride of a season or lifetime, depending. We buzz the Moonflower Buttress, hover at the pass towards Huntington. We nose up to the Harvard Route and my mouth gapes like a dying fish. On our way back down into the green we pass chaotic icefalls, turquoise meltwater lakes languishing on top of glaciers, miles of moraine, huge waterfalls coming off sidecanyons fed by the melt of major peaks. And return to bright town.

Kodiak (Town), July 24

Backstory: A brief conversation with the captain I had worked for in 2006 and 7 out of Valdez painted a bleak portrait of Prince William Sound's salmon returns. I opted instead for a marathon journey to Hatcher Pass to climb the spectacular route Toto with two Alaska Mountaineering School guides, then an all-night hitchhike down the Kenai to catch the ferry to Kodiak the following day.

Really good day today. Down to coffee shop with overburdened Lisa - as is her style has taken on six big projects, teaching at a camp on Afognak, director of her work leaving next week, preparing for her trip to Mongolia, etc, etc...it took two cups of metal-lined coffee to wake up, then walked around. Geoff from Westport on Beverly J, met all on the dock. Skiffman on Bev. J gave me heads up on a 38 footer, this while I'm talking to Steve at the Aleutian Lady. Later I helped Steve put a bumper - like chafing gear - on the front of his skiff. He bought me a Subway for lunch for this help, unasked for by me. Steve asking casual questions about my life. CILM, (Crazy Insane Luggage Man, so named by Djuna) was nosing around with his small backpack, rolling suitcase, messed up face and a sturdy stick he had wrapped in 100 year anniversary stickers and electrical tape. Hitting stuff and playing with Vicky knives, trying to ask for a quarter or for Steve to also buy him a Subway. Steve's son was asking CILM for a quarter. "Why?" asked CILM. "To buy a Subway." Steve's son really good at quoting from The Perfect Storm - 'fishin' in New Bedfahd on the Grand Bahnks' - in a really good New England impression. The kids on the Aleutian Belle were the ones who told me about the guy walking around with 'Super G' duct taped on his shirt. "What does that stand for?"
"Super Greenhorn"
"You better take that off."
"I think I'll just leave it on."
"Then you might as well make it say Super Gay."
Another funny story - some ten year old kid in King Cove at a bonfire party: "I'm gonna drink a bottle of Crown, smoke a doobie and punch someone in the face. My grandfather was a fisherman, my dad was a fisherman and I'm a fisherman." The same kid was seen later that night in a stolen car with his seventeen year old friend.

Walked over after helping Steve to cannery, then Dog Bay, with Kenny the Fishhugger. He has a company so named in Phoenix where he sells frozen reds for upwards of $20 a lb, promoting sustainable wild fishery harvests. Married with 3 kids, fishes for his share of fish for his business, has been for 14 years. His family is beef ranchers, runs a sustainable amount of cattle on their land. He eats lots of fat and natural honey. Has photosensitive square glasses, a startled blink, a no Pebble Mine hat.

Yesterday Lisa and I took a short run through Fort Abercrombie Park. Her poor truck is ready to shake the back end off. Day before I was driving up partway to the windmills on Pillar Mountain and locked her keys in the car after running in the wind and rain. The guy who unlocked the car was a rather eccentric guy - normal for AK - who runs the antique store. The run was very windy, green vegetation all around at the top.

Picked salmonberries with the Mycological Matrix guy, who said he knew all the healing properties of mushrooms, especially Reishis, and had concocted a brew that would get you wasted and prevent a hangover a the same time. This while picking salmonberries big enough to cap the ends of our thumbs on a steep slope behind the cannery and telling me of the rigors of nursing school.
Me: "My aunt and uncle are really involved in the Oregon Mycological Society. They had a show with all sorts of wild mushrooms and labeled them with red for do not eat, yellow for be careful and green for go ahead and eat."
MM: "And purple for psychedelic?"
Me, deadpan: "Actually paisley."
MM, emphatic: "Yeah, that's right."
Lisa saw me walking with him just as it was dawning on me via the turn in our conversation had taken to psychedelics that this was indeed the Mycological Matrix guy who was all but 86'ed from the Brew Pub for harassing people into trying his vomit-inspiring brew. We exchanged looks - Lisa, I told you all the weird people always find me - and I quickly loaded up into the haven of her red and rattling truck under her sleek sea kayak.

Avoiding little boats, green skippers, tenders, and known non-payers, savoring the respite from Denali's sunburn brightness in the Kodiak rain I told Steve of Aleutian Belle one Friday that I was going to get a job the following day. "I don't see why not," he replied. "Everyone likes you."

Santa Flavia, F/V Carlynn (56ft) July 27-28

Laguna Star, Venturess, Valiant Lady, Erika. We waited in line until 9pm, set, delivered to tender after dinner. 2am bedtime day, but 21k lbs! Great first day! Kenny Fishhugger great skiffman, experienced seiner. Rick Blair a good skipper, calm and confident and experienced though young. His dad knows the good spots, he grew up fishing Kodiak. Mac is learning but needs a better mentality for boats - very intellectual, nose in book constantly - but seems to be adjusting albeit slowly. Andy an experienced fisherman, Dungies in La Push and knows me from Len and Nell's boat Lady Nell! Told me of a small Puget Sound Dungy fishery that goes on in Oct, herring in Westy. Boat in alright condition, gear works. We caught a salmon shark on day 2, after we caught a rock on the first set. Rough weather, wind came up, rain, a small Dungy crabber Andy's uncle used to own (Chiniak) running for the cover of the bay with its stabilizers down. Fucking hole started in my Grundens jacket, Kenny teasing me to get a new one, me being broke and sensitive about it. Fished till about 10 and watched Boondock Saints until midnight.

Day 3 small sets and a fouled web, stern haul. TIME BANDIT a movie star Deadliest Catch boat invited us aboard. Drawer full of candy from fans and fancy electronics. Huge engine room. A sauna! Electric heater. As the salmon slime melted out of my pores in luxurious beads of human sweat I saw a patch of slate blue glowing sky outlined by trees bobbing gently with the motion of the boat. The TIME BANDIT song started to play very loud on speakers just outside the sauna. Paraphrased, it went something like: "We're on the TIME BANDIT, we're gonna go catch a bunch of crab, then we're gonna go to Dutch Harbor and deliver our crab and I'm gonna DRINK A BEER then we're gonna catch more crab because we're the TIME BANDIT. La la la." At times like that I think there is no way I could have ever predicted this.


Uganik, Aug. 1-2

Rough seas crossing from Santa Flavia. I stood wheel watch for first time on this boat. Skiff got shifted by a big wave and guys had to hook it up with single line on hydraulic boom through hole in back of boat. Didn't puke, made dinner in rough weather. What day is it? Uganik, some boat telling us to go ahead for fishing, so we leave and motor on. The south part of the island has fewer trees. The passages we went through last night, Whale Pass included, were forested and beautiful, brooding and hung with fog, like Prince William Sound or Southeast. Here in the north the landscape is sparse, streaks of willow dotted with the occasional tree. There is a clean and open beauty to it - big stretches of water with sodium yellow lights of seiners far off. The bright orange buoys of setnet sites. Beautiful white cones of volcanoes across the water. Varied light and shadow on the steep green sides of mountains. How improbable is it that after two lost years of commercial fishing I could come to this incredible place? We motor to these beautiful bays and capes, so many. I not in a state of jangling disharmony, of blind and determined striving towards redemption from exile from mountains, but rather a state of excited and interested grace, of learning, exalting in this beautiful environment. In the fresh clean smell of seawater as we haul the net. In the delicious heaviness of hearty boat food. In the ache of hard work (not that hard yet) and the sense of space gained in open water. At the promise of the unexpected that lurks at the periphery of vision and knowing in Alaska.

Rasperry Cape, Aug. 3

Good day at Raspberry Cape, 35k lbs, dogs and 1 huge silver, 1 huge king about 50lbs. Leads over purseline all day. Yellow flowers starting on hillside, sunny in morning - AC/DC Back in Black 'Givin' the Dog A Bone.'
Me to Mac, who had it stuck in his head: "Mac it's your song."
Andy to Mac: "I'll give you a bone."
Tender went by with a guy Andy knows - Crazy Mike - the only person since the 1800's to be charged with piracy on the high seas - for boarding a longliner who had been stealing their gear with Vicky knives taped to buoy poles. Kid on a tender gave me a lead on crab jobs for fall.

Santa Flavia, Aug. 6

Motoring towards Santa Flavia. Town last night, Andy and Rick got groceries, everyone yapped on cell phones. Kenny has endless energy and Mac finally showered.
Lisa off to fieldwork. Geoff brought me chocolate ice cream and gum because I could not leave boat.
Lots of fish at Duck Cape, but we're going to the SE. Rick doesn't like lines. Beautiful weather but very windy yesterday morning at Steep Cape. Difficult to pile net in wind. Kenny doing good job on skiff, he, Andy, Rick very experienced. I lumped in with Mac in 'new guys' and it makes me determined to learn more so I'm not just cork monkey/galley help.

Town, Aug. 8

Saw Djuna randomly at coffee shop, offered her some ice cream float - she got a surprise (a skiff ride) and did not meet me at brewery for hours. Then beer in sun with friends, joking about Real World Kodiak and Quentin Tarantino pornos - sitting on loading bay of brewery with fireweed and fishing boats and canneries in sight, deckhands walking by. Overheard: "We should just get a keg of beer and roll it back to the fucking boat." Sunny day, treats at store, Djuna's house tall and with many rooms and wood floors, now off to Duck Cape.




Ghost Rocks, Aug 13

Big day full of sets at Ghost Rocks yesterday - 45k! Worked hard. Rick: "You guys are on autopilot." Calling out jumpers, the jasmine rice everyone likes, short plunger pole, tied-on seine, fixed net yesterday PM. Incentive - Linnae and co. - best tender ever - so much Dr. Pepper today my teeth hurt - gave us ice cream and pop and groceries yesterday PM - yesterday also averaged 3 dogs per suck and stood at really nice sorting table (flat plastic bottom!) smiling joking as fish went on by.



GHOST ROCKS '09!!!!! (Sometime in late August)

Great hauls last few days, nonstop, up @ 3:30-5:30, set @ 1st light.
Kenny in wheelhouse, jogging sets watching tide rips those lazy humpies want to wake up, yawn, have a coffee, then get going.
Mack growing more competent.
Rick: Get a million lbs, keep going.
'That's why we have a fifth guy I'm not stopping.'
One day deckloaded, 69k lbs! Over $1000 crewshare for me that day. Sunny days last 2, laundry yesterday, conversation about writing with me and Mac today.
GHOST ROCKS 09! Carlynn and Legasea.
God is great, beer is good, people are crazy. Bad wind for fish, blowing from SE, blowing fish out, humpies are lazy don't want to fight it.

The salmon run died quickly. Rick, as efficient in his decision to quit as he was making decisions while fishing, packed up his seine and skiff and he, Andy and Kenny flew home. Mac got on a boat doing silvers. I relaxed a bit at Lisa's (including a not-so-relaxing hike up Mt. Sharatin) and flew home soon after. Chris and I immediately hit it hard and climbed Rebel Yell, a beautiful offwidth on Chianti Spire in Washington Pass. During this climb it became apparent that my nagging shoulder injury was worse than I had thought, so when it came time to go on the Idaho climbstravaganza I was pretty well out of commission. That old trickster, circumstance, is again beating me at my own game of always planning and living in the future and telling me to learn balance. For this is my practice as I stare down the latter half of my twenties: learning to balance physicality and contemplation, constant geographical movement and career/community building stints in certain places, brutal honesty of word or expression and a socially appropriate, even friendly demeanor. This injury is even teaching me to balance hard work with periods of rest and recovery. Teaching me to think in longer timelines. I'm in this game for the duration.