Northland

Sam studiously taking notes from her reading while I sip cocoa.

gem-like waters of lower Reed Lake

cuuuuuuute Mint Hut

another impossibly gorgeous glacial lake

After countless times packing and unpacking, evacuating and returning, I remained skeptical that the season was finally ended.  Because even after the final mopping, last breakfast, and my walking tour to bid adieu to favorite trees and flowers, there was just enough time to watch “Point Break” one more time.*  And then a bunch of us rode in a van together for a few hours, and a handful even stayed the night together in Anchorage.  If there’s a better way to ease a transition than Ethiopian food with a dear old friend (love you, Jams!), I don’t want to know it.  Also in the wildly helpful category: a fun hiking/travel buddy, and a decadent late night picnic spread in your cozy cabin.

Mountains and rivers and glaciers and clouds of fog like dragon’s breath have enveloped Sam and me in a chilly autumn embrace.  It sounds like a fairytale—go up Fishhook Road almost to the pass; follow the winding stream past gnarled willows and enormous mossy boulders tossed there as though by giants; try not to slip on the gooey muddy footholds climbing to the ridge; then, if you’ve been deemed worthy, the mists will clear and a squat red hut will materialize on the mountainside.  There you’ll find lakes of the bluest blue, smooth valleys of granite below jagged shale peaks, and, in spite of the crumbling and shifting and rushing waters filtering through the glacier’s terminus, a deep stillness.

And next, Denali.  A visit to my original Alaskan foray.

*Our staff lounge contains VHS copies of almost every Patrick Swayze movie.  “Point Break” played on repeat for the entire week of staff training in May, and was screened regularly throughout the season.

Tidying

Lots of big ol’ jellies washed up in Seward 

fall time

more fall time 

After a few days of limbo in smoky Seward, we three kitcheneers hatched a plan to see the Alaska state fair.  In addition to record-breaking squash and pet-able goats, we were determined to see preeminent jam band/white reggae artists extraordinaire Slightly Stoopid.  The trip took us north past Anchorage, where we delighted in Vietnamese food and I rejoined the segment of the population that owns hiking boots.  

There’s probably one of those long compound German nouns, a word to describe responding to chaotic and trying circumstances by making and eating decadent food.  Friends evacuated and scattered to the winds, and a small corps of us returned to the wildfire zone to close up camp.  Of course it’s only natural not to let good things go to waste and to put extra care into meals with a more intimate group, but there’s also some ineffable force that goads us to elaborately affirm our humanity in the face of an inevitable terminus.

It’s been easy to overlook the yellowing leaves and crispness in the air, but fall is indeed here.  It gets dark, and it gets dark at a normal-world time.  The merest drizzle of rain combines with spent foliage to saturate the air with the scent of decomposition.  “And I miss you most of all, my darling/when autumn leaves start to fall.”