A Few Adventures in Not Having a Car

The destination was Fairbanks, 120 miles away from Healy, and I had the day off and some errands to run. I grabbed the old guitar I was hoping to fix up and an empty backpack and left the house around 10 a.m. After two rides, the longer of which with a package delivery guy, I got dropped off in the city around 1:30 p.m. on the opposite side of town from where I needed to go. I thought, I could try to hitch a ride, or without a car, I can be alright with hiking a few miles when necessary and not bother anyone else. Grass roots guitar was my first stop where I picked up a new nut and a package of light strings. Next was dinner at a local bakery restaurant, followed by a visit to Home Depot to shop for materials for my boat. Finally, I went to the Safeway and filled up my backpack full of non-perishables and went looking for a good spot to try to hitch back. Where I hoped to hitch from was no good, so I decided to walk back to where I got dropped off. After getting a little lost and doing some backtracking, I made it back to where I started, waited a bit then caught a ride to the next small town, then another one all the way back to Healy, finally getting home about 12:30 a.m. Total hitching distance, about 240 miles. Total walking distance around Fairbanks, about 15 miles. Check out my course.


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Last week I needed to get back to the house for a three o'clock tour after spending the morning down in the canyon. The first van that passed picked me up. It was a friend who worked at the bar who was going on a hike before work, and could only take me about halfway. I got out with her at the trail head and continued down the highway, thinking it wouldn't be a problem to catch a ride from there. Was I ever wrong. No one would pick me up, and realizing I was now going to be late, I started jogging along the side of the road with my two bags of expired potato chips I just got for free from the local store. Six miles later I arrived at the house barely on time just to find out my coworker was going to take the tour instead of me. A frustrating lack of communication on my part.

These two stories are accompanied by the daily routine of figuring out shuttle times, and free bus trips, and using anything lying around the house like bikes and scooters to get where I want to go. Cars are definitely convenient, but necessary? No. Regardless of location, I think if you begin a new lifestyle without a car, you'd be able to make adjustments and do alright without one. If you've become accustomed to having one for so long then I think it'd be mighty difficult to give it up and try to go without one. I know it'd be extremely challenging to do in Southern California, I just don't like hearing people say it'd be impossible.

Dragonfly Creek

I joined a friend on a little hike down Dragonfly Creek the other evening. The weather was just about perfect, and the low sun filled the canyon with such warm light. We explored around a few waterfalls, past a fun little beehive, and down to the fast flowing Nenana River. Hopping along the rocks and making our own trail when the bank became to steep, we hiked along the river until we were underneath Windy Bridge, sat ourselves down on a rock, enjoyed a beer each, and waved to rafters as they passed. It was an impromptu little trip and was ever so satisfying.





Now here's just a random thought for the day, with not the slightest correlation to Dragonfly Creek, that I would love someone to explain to me. It's a simple concept that I just can't seem to grasp. It's nothing new. Statistics are different all over the internet depending on who did what study and when it was conducted, but generally speaking the U.S. contains five percent of the world's population and consumes about thirty percent of the world's resources (energy, water, food, forests, etc.). I think we've all heard these statistics before and are fully aware of them, but why do we conveniently ignore them without feeling any motivation to alter our lifestyles. Where do we get off continually consuming more then our fair share just because everyone else around us is doing it? That's just speaking about people in general. Now take the religious person who claims to live selflessly and beyond materialism, and they should be called to live to an even greater extreme when it comes to contrasting consumerism, right? Yet often times referring to their lives as "blessed" allows them to live extravagantly. Now I'm obviously typing this on a computer meaning I'm not living the simplest life I can, but I feel like there should be such a greater urgency and heated discussion with regards to why we feel entitled to have whatever we can get our hands on. If someone could explain to me the numbness and complacency towards these facts I would be ever grateful.

Sunshine.

Ah. After a week straight of cloudy days, cold temperatures, and tours in the rain, I walked outside this morning after a full sleep and was surprised by overwhelming sunshine and big white happy clouds. Nothing seemed just except to sit at a picnic table and do nothing but take it in. Now to seize it more, I'm off to the lake and my boat to catch up on reading, relax, and practice a little guitar in the open air. The song that kept coming to mind this morning and a good representation of the mood I'm in would be John Denver's Sunshine on my Shoulder. Listen to it and understand. Hope today is good to you.

I Have a Boat

Last year there was this old metal tin, painted red boat sitting in the water down at the lake shore. Filled with water and fall leaves, I wished I had more time and the okay to try to fix it up and take it out on the lake. This year, I had both. And now I have a boat to explore all of the inlets and shorelines of this here Otto Lake. It's maiden voyage consisted of me standing in the back with a long piece of driftwood, pushing off the shallow lake bottom as far out as I could go seeing if it could hold off water. Then my boss and I got a beautifully silent trolly motor for it and a spare paddle. It's been my companion in enjoying midnight sunsets and exploring beaver ponds in far corners and discovering private sections of the lake and choosing to paddle back in the dark instead of using the motor. I think tonight calls for another adventure in it.

Last September

This summer, the first trip with the new (used) motor

Besides that I've fixed up an old guitar that was living in the garage when I got here. I'm slowly learning chords and practicing them on slower Iron and Wine songs. People are intriguing me more and more each day. Future plans shift from one hour to the next. I took a family from Ecuador on a tour yesterday, and after getting over myself, I attempted broken conversations in Spanish with the grandpa and two young boys. I decided I want to go to South America as soon as I can. Then last night a friend said she was looking for a travel buddy to volunteer at an orphanage in Africa for a few months next spring, and as of now nothing seems like a better thing to spend the money I've been making up here on. Friends are going to Vietnam to teach English for a year, or spending 6 months performing on a cruise ship between New Zealand and Australia. Meeting people brings inspirations and opportunities. Hooray for that.

More Lonesome A Capella

Last week kicked my butt. I ended up working about 50 hours, 20 of those on Saturday and Sunday with a middle of the night visit to the Anderson Music Festival between them. My reward come Sunday night was getting Monday off, but I couldn't just let a day off pass by without going and and doing something. I decided to climb Mt. Healy.



I got dropped off at the trail head around nine o'clock and scrambled up to the craggy summit just before noon. It was a beautiful day. I took a break along a grassy ridge to watch some Dall Sheep climb on a distant cliff, then continued up the mountain a bit more to find one on my trail. It stared at me blankly as I said hello and tried to persuade it nicely off the trail. Fortunately it listened and meandered down the hill away from me as I snapped this photo.



I wanted to find an alternate root down just to keep things interesting, so I went off the backside of Healy in search of a trail I'd heard connects to the park highway. There was no such trail. Instead, I found my way into a gorge I knew was feeding at least in the right direction.

The canyon flatted out and turned into a gentle creek bed, varying from just a few to fifteen feet wide and lined with heavy brush. The perfect environment for grizzlies and the worst place to run into them. There were bear prints and bear scat everywhere, and I was convinced I was a gonner. I sang the whole way down again, getting tired of songs I knew and creating originals. It was four o'clock by the time I finally saw telephone poles and electric wire in the distance, accompanied with the sound of busses on the park road. What comfort they brought. The solitude and serenity of marching through the flowing creek was too muffled by the paranoia of what was around the next bend. I won't be hiking alone again for a good while.

At the top, before the trek down

Yesterday morning I took out a couple from San Diego along with an office girl we just hired on our extended tour. It didn't feel like work. Then last night a few of us met up with that couple to enjoy all you can eat Salmon, ribs, mashed potatoes, and corn at a dinner theatre nearby on the house, with of course a hefty tip expected. Here's a look at a section of our extended trail, not a bad office to show up at every day huh?

What a Day Was Yesterday

Technically, it started with a victory in Chinese Checkers, a midnight snack run, and an unnerving bike ride home through a windy and almost dark night. Then after the quarter to six alarm, a tired shower, making sandwiches and packing snacks enough for two, a phone call to a flaky friend to not surprisingly discover I'll be on my own for the day, I was off on my adventure into the park on the same bike as the night before, down Otto Lake Road towards the highway. At the highway I ditched the bike and began walking in the direction in which the entrance of the park laid thirteen miles down the road, hoping for generosity from the limited number of passing cars. Five bucks later I arrived at the Wilderness Access Center, and reserved my seat on a bus going 90 miles into the park to Kantishna, twelve hours round trip and as far as they let people go.





Our bus was friendly. In the first ten minutes we sighted a grizzly just off of the highway. Throughout the day we saw several more grizzlies, mamas and their cubs and some lone riders, plenty of caribou though none too close up, two beautifully colored red foxes, and one moose with a giant rack. Blueberries grow wild here, and I took time by Wonder Lake to bag some. They're great in oatmeal. There were a couple of backpackers on the bus I talked with and of course became envious of their multi-day adventure they were in store for. I offered to move their car from the day parking to the overnight lot, and they trusted me enough to take me up on it. After handing over their keys, exchanging contact info on old receipts and torn book pages, we said we'd try to meet up at the music festival this weekend as they set off away from the highway and up a mountain.

Mt. McKinley, also goes by Denali, meaning "The Great One"

It was growing late as the bus was on the return trip home, and I wanted to scrape a little bit more out of the day and go explore somewhere. I got dropped off in the general vicinity of Cathedral Mountain, and had roughly two hours to make it back to the highway to catch the last shuttle out of the park. Singing and talking loudly to myself the whole time to notify any nearby animals in hiding that I'm coming, I made my way across a creek, up a steep valley then around a crest and up another vertical stretch to what I thought was the peak. From the top another peak on the other side of a deep canyon was visible, much higher and with a visible trail circling around along ridges and slanted scree slopes to the base of a crazy steep scramble to the top. I had fifteen minutes before I had to turn around and still be comfortable on time. I went for it. Running where I could, being careful where I needed to be. After a few falls and a bloody couple of fingers, I made it to the top twenty minutes later. A quick rest in gusting winds and it was time to turn around, sliding down the rocky slopes, running around the ridges and taking shortcuts I was now aware of. Then what sounded like the shriek of an eagle caught my attention, and I saw two wolverines skirting around on a rock quarry. Wolverines are some of the rarest animals seen in the park, and known to be pretty ferocious, especially for their size. I hesitated for a second, now reminded I was alone out here in this wild place, and took the long way around, singing louder then ever in my anxious hurry back to the road. I made it back into the valley I came up through, except now as I rounded a bend in the mountain in front of me was an enormous mama grizzly and her two cubs, about a hundred yards away and blocking my way back to the road. Encountering a grizzly when hiking is never a good situation, add to it your alone and she's got two cubs with her and you didn't see them until you're a little too close for comfort and its worse. Again I hesitated, then bent low and slowly backed away hoping they hadn't yet noticed me. I backtracked up the valley a bit, climbed over a ridge now separating me from the bears, and, singing and yelling still louder, made my way down to and across the creek and back up to the road. It wasn't long before the next bus came. I let the driver know to look for the grizzlies, and we sat on the side of the highway looking down into the valley I had just come out of. As I listened to a bus full of tourists like myself 'ooohing' and 'ahhing' at the size and beauty of the animals, I sat back and relished in this moment, in this safe seat in a safe bus a safe distance away, in my experience of terrifying adventure that in hindsight is the always best kind.

From the actual top of Cathedral Mountain, just before the real adventure began

I enjoyed meeting more great people on that bus, sharing my stories and hearing what they're up to around here. I found the car I was responsible for and moved it to the appropriate location, accepted a ride to a bar from the grandparents and granddaughter I sat next to for the last few hours of the ride, relaxed with friends over a drink, went and had a hearty half-off burger with a couple of guys I work with, and then back to the house where I gratefully laid down and passed out, exhausted from a day that could not have gone any better.

Travel is good?

My good sister filled the title page of a book she gave to me with this quote by Mark Twain...

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."

I got into a conversation with a friend about whether it's okay to be intolerant towards people's willingness to stay put. I don't know if it has to to with having the mountains to the north, a border south, an ocean west and desert to the east, but from the outside, I notice Southern California is a difficult place to get out of for most. I would say that gaining multiple perspectives on something is the only way to see something for what it truly is, whether its the world, different cultures, humanity as a whole, or the place you grew up or what you believe in. I'm fully aware this is a mighty convenient perspective to have given my current situation.

And Now We Have Pictures

The setting moon over the Alaska Range flying into Fairbanks. There's something about traveling alone, spending time in airports and meeting other people doing the same thing as you that is a type of rush. It's the foreshadowing of adventure. That rainbow glare is just the result of my laziness in not wanting to take off the polarizer, oh well, it turned out cool.

This is what I had to adjust to. My first day in Healy, I spent all of it sitting around, reading, not doing much at all, which was an extreme contrast to the previous couple weeks in California. Transitions are made easy when you have something like this to look at, this is the view of Otto Lake from a small beach a short walk from the house. My favorite place to be when the bugs are tolerable.

All last week I was looking forward to Saturday and my first day off since I got here. When I switched shifts with someone and it got pushed back a day I didn't care and went hiking anyway. This is the view from the top of the first peak you summit on the trail to Sugarloaf. It's about the half way point, I ate a small lunch, took a little nap, and turned around here. In the very near future I'll be making it all the way to Sugarloaf.

Ah, and then there's my day off. Going on a hike the previous day meant I felt no obligation to do anything but lounge. It consisted of huddling in the shade of some trees down by the lake, trying to avoid the too-warm sun. A seventy-five page sprint to finish a book I was previously unimpressed with. A phone call from my childhood babysitter letting me know we just happen to be working in the same small town in Alaska this summer (who I finally did rendezvous with last night, we had a great time hanging out and letting everyone know just how far we go back). Bright purples wildflowers surrounding me in the brush. For hours hearing nothing but the sound of swarming bees, horseflies, and mosquitos, and young kids playing somewhere in the distance. The book ended on the note that the overdone pursuit of physical beauty and social acceptance will mutilate you. Thankfully, as I was easily reminded this day, beauty runs fairly deep here.

This is what I do...

If you look close enough, you might just see me in there in a shot or two. I've been working since I got here and tomorrow get my first day off. Just about to head out with friends for a 'free' (we get comped for things so we can then go ahead and advertise them to our customers, except then we're expected to leave a better than average tip making it still barely worth it for this frugal kid) all you can eat salmon and ribs dinner theater, and then I'm thinking I'll try and hitch a ride to a trail head in the morning and climb Mt. Healy, a nearby peak I've been giving tours under. There's bush fires north of us so the visibility hasn't been great the last week or so, but we've been getting some afternoon thunderstorms here and there and it's cleared up a bit the last few days. I've been hoping for a perfect partly cloudy day tomorrow all week, with some giant white clouds that cast shadows across the land and air quality that allows me to see for miles and miles from atop the mountain. We'll see what we get.

From Alaska

It's Saturday about midday, meaning I've had enough time now to settle in to the new routine of things. My flight out here went fine, meeting a few friendly and interesting people on the flights. I sat on the Seattle runway and watched the sunset, then as we took off it rose just a little bit back into the sky and for the next three and a half hours direct to Fairbanks it didn't move a bit. There was the beautiful dusk glow out my window the entire flight as we flew over incredible landscape, the last of which was the Alaska Range and Mt. McKinley. After collecting my baggage and walking outside, I was just in time to see the sun again go behind some hills just after midnight.

I ran some errands around Fairbanks and then drove a couple hours to the small coal mining town of Healy. There was definitely a necessary lifestyle adjustment when I arrived here. There's more time to do nothing, and to read and to write and to cook meals. It's much simpler. My second day at the house was my first day of work. I spent some time in the garage learning about the machines, something I didn't do at all last year. Then I tagged along in the rear of our Stampede Trail tour. Yesterday I was able to lead a few of our Otto Lake tours, and am now into the flow of things. The land is as beautiful as it was last year, and still surprises and amazes me constantly. I'm grateful to be here.

Graduation Day!

Woohoo, what a good day yesterday was. Days centered around ourselves are always fun.

Thank you Bethie for the signs...

...and the cake

First and second attempts were backwards, there was no S-I-V-A-R-T at the graduation, after that they were right on

You want an insight into how cool us Math majors are? Well we were those kids who wrote numbers on the tops of our caps and sat in a precise order... 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, ... I think we got all the way to 2584. Cool huh?

Da Pops

The Story of Stuff

If you have twenty minutes, spend it watching this video. It's good. If you don't have twenty minutes, my condolences for your too-busy life.

THE STORY OF STUFF

with Annie Leonard

Attempting to Define an "Open Mind"

These thoughts stem from this post and it's reactions, which wasn't intended to be about whether religions oppose each other or not, it was about whether it is okay or not to have an open mind towards them.

I know that people say it's okay to have an open mind towards other religions and when reading other religious canons, but I don't believe most of them mean it. (This idea is new to me lately, that people are capable of saying things and thinking they mean them when they don't, but anyway...) It's politically correct, or religiously correct, to believe it good to have an open mind towards things other people hold to be true and dear to them, but I think that's more because the positive connotation we associate with having an "open mind" and less about what it really means, or I guess I have to say 'what it really means to me'.

I think all too often people, like me, venture into other religious ideas and texts and willingly engage in conversations with those we think differently from only after our mind is already made up, tipping our toes in the foreign water out of curiosity, out of a desire to be deemed as less ignorant. I don't think that's being open minded.

I think that when we first believe that the Bible is exclusively divine, we then sacrifice the ability to read other texts with an open mind. Listening to ideas from other religions and agreeing or disagreeing with them based on whether they agree with the Bible or not is not having an open mind.

To approach something with an open mind, we have to be willing to earnestly give every idea a fighting chance, whether it agrees with what we already believe or not. In order to approach things with an open mind our ideals must be fluid, with plenty of room for those thoughts not yet included, and the openness to discard of the thoughts already present for better ones, or different ones, or to discard just for discarding's sake, without feeling the need to replace them with new.

That said, I think most people don't have an open mind towards things, and that's alright with me.

Mountains

From Robert Pirsig-

Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you're no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn't just a means to an end but a unique event in itself. This leaf has jagged edges. This rock looks loose. From this place the snow is less visible, though even closer. These are things you should notice anyway. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here's where things grow.

Along the trail of the Routeburn Track last February

A Chautauqua of Sorts

So I was up in Utah with a couple of Christian buddies a few weeks ago. I woke up and started doing the breakfast thing, incidentally leaving my current reading endeavor face up on my sleeping bag as the other guys began stirring around inside the tent. It's dull green cover reads in simple white capital letters, "Zen and the Art of Mortorcycle Maintenance."

Out on the trail that day the guys joked with me a bit about being Buddhist, which I didn't mind knowing it was all in fun. But it did lead me to ask them, as well as myself, "What is it to be Zen and what's so bad about it?" I was surprised to hear that they didn't have much of an idea, and neither do I some 270 pages into the book. But then again I don't think the author would claim to have a firm understanding or dare give a definition of it either.



I have been reading through this book with an open and earnest mind, doing my best to give every train of thought of Robert M. Pirsig a sufficient amount of dwelling time, sifting through his ideas and information, and grasping onto that which I believe to be of value and worth and allowing it then to tweak my perspective towards the things.

So why is it sometimes looked down upon to have an open mind towards those things we are unfamiliar with?

And why do we look at those things that aren't deemed to align with the Christian religion as therefore against it?

Blabber

I was distracted by a non-sense article that was supposed to let me know if one of my slumping fantasy baseball players was going to turn things around or not, and a few clicked links later I came across this page.

Cognitive Decline Begins Around Age 27

I was interested first because I remember my friend Gregg telling me that once you hit 27, you really start feeling like an old man. What really caught my attention was the subtitle for the article that says:

The Peak of the Brain is at 22 Years of Age

So this means with this past birthday, you all better be willing to pay very close attention to what I have to say. If you're 22 like me, I'll respect you and listen to your opinions and ideas as well, if your a measly couple of years either way, I'm sorry, you just can't think on the same level as some of us, so try to keep up.

But let me humble myself a little and say that I don't understand what happens between 22 and 27. If 22 is the peak of the brain, you would think that by the definition of the word peak there'd be an incline leading up to 22 and a decline directly after. Which leads me to think that the cognitive decline really starts at 23, not 27. Maybe there's a 5 year plateau, but that would mean 22 isn't the peak, just the beginning of the plateau. But who knows, I didn't even read the article, I just saw the title and subtitle and got excited.

Zion

My friend asked me, "Why do you want to go out of town for your birthday when so many people want to spend the day with you?" Well, if the pictures don't speak for themselves...

Dusty in the middle of The Narrows.

We hiked The Narrows on the actual day. Then, exhausted, went and enjoyed a campfire and birthday beer back at our free campsite. Not sure how else I would have liked to spend the day.

Adam and Dusty overlooking part of the canyon

We spend the weekend exploring the park that none of us had been to before. There were some sketchy hikes, some unreal views, obviously good campfire conversation, and even a last minute overnight stop at Valley of Fire on the way home to stretch the weekend out a bit more.

A Trend: Clearing Storms

It's been a busy week, and an especially long day that was all too frantic. Here's to staying up needlessly late for no other reason than that I really have no good reason to go to sleep early. Follow that? It's the start of a four day weekend and I'll be staying in town for all of it, hoorah!


I was driving home from San Clemente on Sunday afternoon as the tail end of a storm was passing through. I took my camera and, as I swerved down the 91 freeway from one side of my lane across to the other, snapped 35 pictures in about five minutes. Some through my windshield, some over my shoulder, some into the rear-view mirror. It just so happens that this one right here, my favorite, was the very first of the thirty-five.



I snagged this image from the Yosemite webcam earlier this week. Fresh snow on the valley floor in Yosemite. Another clearing storm leaving the darkest blue sky in its wake. I found out I'll be spending five or six days up in Yosemite early this summer after I graduate with the family. I'm hoping some friends find their way up there around the same time. Definitely something to look forward to.

Descartes and his Doubt

We have Rene Descartes, a brilliant French guy who excelled in just a few areas while he was alive: philosophy, math, science, writing; nothing too impressive if you ask me, except maybe the math part. He was called the "Father of Modern Philosophy" and if you've ever heard the phrase "I think, therefore I am," he coined it in writing his Meditations on Modern Philosophy. Here are some excerpts from On the Things in which we may Doubt, the first meditation from that work.

Picture Descartes, isolated in a one room log cabin with fresh snow falling outside, as he describes himself to be 'seated by the fire, clothed in a winter dressing gown, I hold in my hands this piece of paper.'

He begins the meditations,

SEVERAL years have now elapsed since I first became aware that I had accepted, even from my youth, many false opinions for true, and that consequently what I afterward based on such principles was highly doubtful; and from that time I was convinced of the necessity of undertaking once in my life to rid myself of all the opinions I had adopted, and of commencing anew the work of building from the foundation...

and he continues...

To-day, then, since I have opportunely freed my mind from all cares [and am happily disturbed by no passions], and since I am in the secure possession of leisure in a peaceable retirement, I will at length apply myself earnestly and freely to the general overthrow of all my former opinions.

It doesn't matter to me whether I agree on what he concludes at the end of his meditations or not, this mindset he begins with is rad and good and beneficial.

January.

At the turn of the New Year, I honestly wasn't too excited when speculating about my first half of 2009. So far, so wrong. Here's a little photo summary of January.

Happy Birthday Becky, in Idyllwild.

NZ Reunion (plus AJ) in Davis

Same crew of four as August, up in Mammoth.

A few highlights that stick out to me...
-Catching the last chair up 22 in Mammoth last weekend. Riding solo through the trees and fresh powder, stopping often to listen to the sound of nothing. There was a rare break in the storm that seemed to last all weekend, and the colors of the setting sun were briefly visible on the clouds and freshly covered mountains across the valley, stellar!
-Hiking up to the giant cement "C" that overlooks my school, spending an hour watching the sun set amidst the storm clouds from the day and the city lights as they began to brighten in the coming night, not to mention some good conversation to back it all up.
Uh, that's all that sticks out above the rest to me right now, onto February!