Sunshine in Southeast

There aren't many towns in the world in which a day at the beach and a day at the glacier are the same day...

Eagle Beach, an exceptionally beautiful puppy playground

Winter in Alaska can look like this.

Looking a little more Scandinavian... Or Alaskan? And which is more evocative of a frosty high noon sun?

An abrasively fragile winter texture.

The mighty Mendenhall looking as crisp as ever.

Out the Road

After a couple cups of the Panamanian coffee black that I've been nursing for the last month and a chocolate chip/peanut butter waffle at the waffle joint, I figured I'd head out the road to see what the sunshine situation was like a few miles out of town. Alas, no golden sunrays, but I did find a solid afternoon without precipitation. A first in a while! As most weekend afternoons at the beach go, this one was theraputic. Looking across the Lynn Canal at the Chilkat Range, peaks upon peaks and millions of acres of wild, undeveloped forests and watersheds. Beyond which is Glacier Bay, Mt. Fairweather, Wrangell-St. Elias, and more wildness. It was good to set my eyeballs upon the reasons that drew me back to Alaska. Wildness. Undevelopment. Rugged old mountain valleys not yet consumed by the machine that is the new world order. Uncorrupted and natural. For now.

I shared the beach with a few other folks absorbing the 10,000 foot ceiling that will qualify as somewhat of a sunny day. Mostly dog owners out walking their always happy four legged rascals on the holiday afternoon, along with a few dozen harbor seals bobbing their heads in and out of the shallows offshore. A couple bald eagles played it cool roosting in nearby trees, and a few mallards and loons soaked their feathers in the seawater. Pretty good company.

Looking east into the snowcaps from Eagle Beach.

The Lynn Canal, with the weighty Chilkats standing guard beyond.

A family out for a stroll on the tide flats.

The casual holiday scene was indeed this: snow on the beach, a couple guys hauling their scuba gear into the icy drink for a quick forty minute mingle with the crustaceans, and a happy go lucky husky rooting them on from ashore.

Peaks for weeks.

Juneau, January style

Pulling into Juneau on a crisp January morning was a mixed bag of feelings. On the one hand, it was great to be back, especially on a ruby dazzler of a day like the one pictured below. Winter in Alaska (not only a collection of words used to describe a time and place combination, but also the name of an experimental electronic gypsy-pop solo musical act, so I'm told). I questioned whether I was up to it, and there I was. About to drive away from the ferry terminal into the day to day of a Juneau January. On the other hand, as I drove past a few familiar haunts in Auke Bay, I had more and more of what Jules in Pulp Fiction called a moment of clarity. I realized where home is, and who and what are important to me. Montana is home; it feels like no other place. It feels like home in a way that words can't describe. Better yet, words definitely could describe the feeling, but I'm trying to type this whilst eating spaghetti, and I don't have the capacity to excel in sentence creation while simultaneously chowing on last night's dinner... Anyhow, coastal Alaska does indeed have it all: the ocean, fresh seafood, sea kayaking, rock and ice climbing, mountaineering, alpine hiking, abundant wildlife, sizeable brown bears, bald eagles roosting around every corner, and any other magical experience you'd like to get mixed up in in the out of doors. But it ain't home. And it's a pretty solidifying feeling, at least for a pseudo vagabondish ranger type like myself, to definitely know who and where home is.

Sliding into Auke Bay in Juneau. I could smell the chocolate chip waffles at the Southeast Waffle Company from the boat. Which, actually, was a total lie. But those waffles were certainly among my priorities as I began to line out my first day back in town...

A quiet morning alpenglow on the Chilkats south of Haines.

A late winter sunrise sneaking its way through Youngs Cove on Admiralty Island.

The early a.m. on the Lynn Canal.

Unfortunate winter sailing weather south of Wrangell...

Midwinter Alaskan Inside Passage

Well, for those fans of quirks, idiosyncracies, and insignificant claims to fame, hear this: I was aboard the first ferry north to Alaska in this new decade. Departing January 1 from Bellingham, the crowded MV Malaspina tardily made its way north into the darkness.

Three days aboard the Malaspina, with plenty to think about. In the last three months, I've visited those that mean the most to me. Home for a spell in Gardiner, down to Colorado to link up with family and friends and a couple quick games of catch in Boulder, out to Utah for some relaxation, 3D movies, and hockey games, and on into Nebraska for the holidays with family and a moderately wild pack of seven house/farm dogs. Somewhere in the middle of it all, I managed to squirt down to Panama and hitch hike around for a few weeks, witness the exploitation of the global South by the global North, and dip myself into a couple oceans. Pretty heavy load to reflect upon on this journey back north...

I told a few people over the course of the last months that I am truly at peace, that I am happy. Now, here in Juneau at 5:45 in the evening, where the sun set two hours ago, I can still say the same. That I am happy. Yet, despite that, I must admit that the most recent goodbyes were some of the most difficult I've had. Teary eyed in Gardiner, Denver, Salt Lake, and Lincoln. What a salty set of weeks for a guy! You'd think after five or six years of saying these goodbyes, they'd become easier. They haven't...

As the ferry motored past Vancouver and up the eastern shelf of Vancouver Island with those thoughts rockin' around in my brain, there was some sense that the darkness and clouds were trying to forcibly tell me something. That after such heavy goodbyes and heading north into the winter, something dark and heavy was ahead.

Waking up the next morning with a cup of ferry-brewed coffee black, I stepped out onto the deck to investigate the temperature. I didn't realize until I'd stepped outside that the moonlight was illuminating the ridgelines of eastern Vancouver Island. I stood outside on the deck with a breeze biting my cheeks, absorbing the moonglow on the snowcapped ridges and thought to myself: shit, if this isn't what it's all about, what is? My camera was stowed away on the bottom deck, so there weren't any photo opportunities for the photo hungry beast that is me. Which I think may have been a good thing. I stood on the deck shivering like a southerner on a sea vessel nosing its way in the Alaska direction for a couple hours. I watched close to 30 miles of rugged Canadian coastline pass near me. And indeed, they were rugged miles of coastline.

The clouds loomed ahead, and overhead, and remained on top of us all day.

I ate dinner and had a great conversation with a travel nurse, thinking about what a lucky son of a gun I was to be in a cozy vessel motoring into the icy waters north of us. And onward we pressed.

I went to sleep thinking about family and friends, and what was in store for me with this new opportunity in downtown Juneau. Again, obeying my internal alarm clock set for mountain standard time, I woke up at about 5:15 local time. I put a few bagels down, returned for another cup of ferry's famous coffee black, and stepped outside to see what was happening. The sunrise was trying to manifest into something beautiful on the southern horizon. I went back inside and snatched my coat. And since the sun is at its wintery angle, I watched the below scene unfold for the next hour and a half..

Sunrise pressing its way through the forests north of the Dixon Entrance.

An hour and a half later, sliding into the harbor at Ketchikan. I talked to Erin on the phone while I was in Southeast's southern reaches. I had on a sweater, a hat, and a pair of gloves and couldn't have been more comfortable. Meanwhile, in the midst of another cold front, Erin was freezing her tukus off a thousand miles to the south...

Another early morning glimpse at wintery Ketchikan.

A few hours past Ketchikan, the clouds began to roll in once again. Things started to look a little more wintery. And within the course of half an hour, they felt wintery as well...

Heading out of Ketchikan toward Wrangell looking at the snow covered evergreens, I thought to myself this: happiness isn't the product of one isolated equation. It is not only Gardiner + sense of home + exceptional friends = happiness. It is not only Colorado/Utah/Nebraska + dogs + road trips + an exceptional set of siblings + an exceptional set of parents = happiness. True, those things equate to enormous happiness. But happiness can be found anywhere, if you're willing to feel it. It can be found on a farm in Nebraska, in the cloud forests of Panama, with family eating a favorite home cooked meal in Utah, in a sleeping bag in central Colorado in the back of your dad's truck, in a grotesque liquor and sex mecca of Central America, and it can be found facing a nasty winter wind heading north into a 3:30 sunset. It is where you feel it. And thanks to family, friends, dogs, and travels, I've felt it a lot recently.