Earth and Sky

The oxide colors mix with everything on the mountain: with soils and rocks; and leaching into the lichens that draw the rust oranges out from the earth. The ground up here is warm and magnetic, even as the cold winds pour over the sides of the ridges, drying up the moisture of the last snow-- dry as a painted desert. I rest my eyes on the cool sky and waters of the inlet 4000' below, wondering whether this beauty is just a passing mood. Even the glittering feldspar crystals blind my eye in the bright sunlight, from blackened talus with sparkling touches of high noon sun. I retreat again to the cool lavenders and blue-greens further out in a vast valley space. The softness of distance reveals hidden valleys, smudged in the haze, where in layered nurseries, groups of thunderheads begin to rise and gather. Around and below are the valleys of Peters Creek to the south and Matanuska to the north: they are like hollowed cups of air and moisture, where on updrafts the eagle spirals into the sky. Up here I feel like a bird too, able to see the broad mansions of the earth through a cushion of air. Here, the human spirit can fly and join with the elements; perhaps, in rare moments, touch the outer fringes of immortality.

The Law of Unintended Consequences

Sitting in a saddle of the jumbled rock crest, I paused and reflected on the moment: it hadn't been my plan to be there, but I was; and that moment freed me from the heat and mosquitoes that fed on me below, that framed the mile high mountains across the valley, and opened windows of spaces into less traveled ridges and peaks. Yes, behind were the trails, the crowds that would soon be there, and the nearby human settlements. I came there to see. I came to get away. The valley I had come through was beautiful : grey-green lichen fields and meadow flowers in full bloom, fed by small streams that trickled down from the snow melt, meandering through the carved ravines below. But the hike still had seemed unfinished. Six miles in, six miles back out...and in the summer light that hollow space of valley, filled in with a carpet of color, was just a beginning. The dark silhouetted mountain above, jagged against the skyline, came as an afterthought-- but it had to be climbed. Only then could I be satisfied. And there, in the topmost part of the valley, in a notch between the rock spires, a larger picture of the world had opened its book to the airy heights. I had left behind thoughts seeking escape from the hollow confines. The trail had ended there in the valley, fading out the human part, the scars of footsteps hungry for the comforts of completion. A new trail has no past. But it meant 1200 more feet of climb to escape the gravity of the lowlands. Up there in that narrow saddle, the Mind's eye was opened: perhaps, I had arrived by some Law of Unintended Consequences, rewarded by that experience of not to give up until the heart of yearning is stilled. Even so, that moment of sparkling clarity didn't last. Along the western sky the afternoon thunderheads filled and approached. Slowly I descended into the darkened valley...

The Undiscovered Dreams

An ATV road leads into Bird Creek Vally, along the creek, along bluffs, and through hemlock forest, slowly narrowing five miles in. The track is filled with large smookth rocks, broken rocks, and mud ruts. At the end of this machine route the trail up into the higher reaches of Bird Creek Valley begins. The day was overcast but fairly dry except for a few sprinkles of rain from the gray dull sky. But I wanted to see what the road and trail looked like further in. However, I didn't want to walk the ATV track for five miles. After all, the evening approached too soon to walk the distance. Instead, I pulled out a street bike I had in my garage and placed in it into my station wagon. "Good," I thought, " After work I'll peddle up to the trail and walk a few miles in on the trail." 4:30 PM came and I quickly left work, drove down the highway south, arriving a little after 5 PM. No one was there at the beginning of the ATV track. I dragged the bike out and put on my pack and shotgun. The valley is a bear corridor to the fishing grounds of Bird Creek. At first the road is wide and a bit bumpy, but as I peddled further on, beyond the first bridge, the track became bumpy with stones and puddles. Soon, the thought of a comfortable ride vanished as I found more and more stretches of rough road. To insure my insides weren't too bumped around, the bike was maneuvered around the rocks which meant more time to get the five miles into the valley. The Hemlock Forest and Alder Fringes were filled in with bright ferns, Cow Parsnips, and Plants with bright flowers. The smell of Azalea Shrubbery was strong in places. Deeper within, the foilage and trees and jungle of ferns closed out more light, producing a hemmed in feeling of danger around each hidden turn. The ATV trail ended in a open space of camping ground enlarged with fire pits. A wood marker and sign had been blasted by shotgun pellets. From here on the trail lead away from the machine world that encroached along the edges of the forest. Still, a rocky path dropped down and over a stream and back up over several hills before passing into Hemlock, Spruce, and Birch areas. The trail narrowed and filled with thick shrubs--a veritable choke point where visibility shrunk as the trail wound its way deeper into the valley. Above the valley, the ridges revealed themselves through spaces in the foilage. The sound of gushing water sounded in a hidden ravine below. I was now six miles from the road, from other people, by myself in the silent reaches of Bird Valley. But the trail went on for many more miles until it reached a Pass deeper still within the ranges, where it opened finally into North Fork Ship Creek. To me the indistinct outlines of far off places serve as glimmers of dreams and hopes, of things that someday shall reveal themselves, becoming new doorways for ideas to gather in the gardens of experience. I am attracted to places where others find only malignant surprise by the robust and untrameled forces of nature; the margins where human activity fades. Here the indistinct outlines, the shapes of unseen things, would have to wait another day. The fading light and clinging grey clouds hover above while the throat of a hidden catarct rumbles below. Time returns...and the mind reengages for the five mile bike trip back to the road.

Climbing Bird Ridge on a Friday Night

Bird Ridge provides an open view of two valleys; Bird Creek Valley to the east and Indian Valley to the west. Around 8 PM I climbed 3000' along the popular trail to the top. My interest lay in getting a overview of Bird Creek Valley to the east, a place where salmon return and bear advance down the valley to feed. The trailhead below, from where my climb began, was quiet with no vehicles in sight. The recent bear scares in the area, the absence of hikers may be due partly to these reports. However, the valley bottom and where the creek meets the lower fish areas would have a higher probability of bear sightings. So the quiet had a tranquil effect as I climbed. The lower area of the ridge is the domain of spruce, aspen, alder, and plant life. Further up, the mountain ash and willow and alder predominate. between these areas of trees and shrubbery are the rock areas where flowers bloom and brighten the landscape. Once above the shrubbery and trees, the ridge opens to a serpentine line of rock, piled and broken and sharp, lessening as the ridge approaches the head of the valley. Bird Creek Valley splits into two other valleys; one around the base of Penguin Peak and the source of Penguin Creek; while Bird Creek passes by another side valley before curving around to its source. Along Bird Creek Valley an ATV trail accesses five miles of the bottom land that runs parallel with Bird Creek. At the end this road a trail begins its long passage beyond Bird Creek, up through a pass to the North Fork of Ship Creek to the north. Hemlock forest can be found here. Down this valley bears make their way to the fishing grounds near the highway. From my vantage point on Bird Ridge the vast spread of valley opens its secrets to me. The distances recede, with one range of mountains forming walls from the coast, only to be succeeded by taller walls of rock and tops of snow deeper inside Chugach State Park. The high country, once the snow recedes, will be my entrance into the far country.

The Hanging Valley Seen from the Pass

In this middling area, along the borders between Indian Valley and the other valley to the east, I sit astride the ridgeline that is the Pass. And what originally brought me here to the Hanging Valley was a wedge of rock on which sunlight shone through soft mist and fog. But human desires are never satisfied. Now, gazing down from my perch, this place of mountain air, of talus slopes where sheep trails run, I see the valley in all its glory. The oval shape of the valley is less than a half mile in length by an eigth mile in width. The south side is steep with rock fall and snow that the sun seldom warms. Small melts of water gather in pools, flow down the valley, and empty into a narrow niche of black stone, where the waterfalls of gushing voices are heard in the ravine below. The lower part of the valley is greener, filled with small juniper fields that hug the ground. Nearby, a small hill, elongated in form, bottles up the entrance but cannot stop the eroding influence of water which circles it like a castle moat. Up the valley are the flat fields of alpine flowers and primitive plants that make a mat of greens, tans, and yellow-whites. Then beyond, a half dried out lake of stepping stones occupies a small bowl of ground. The head of the valley is a moderate dash of twenty minutes of uphill climb. Finally, on the north side of the valley are green steep slopes warmed by sun, open to the revolutions of light and night. The top of the slope is capped by broken stones and jutting, dark cutting shapes; a jagged back of rock crumbling in thaw and freezing cycles of the seasona. Even here, on the backside, the chill of wind and light rain, fog and changing light, brings to thought the ephemeral nature of my being here. Human life is short, while the geological changes in the valley, slow and imperceptable, humble my sense of importance.

The Valley Beyond

Even maps can't excite the imagination as much as the physical reality. Standing on a ridge, a narrow pass at the end of the small valley I had traversed across, my eyes had new views beyond the original one; now another valley beyond, other hanging entrances waited my steps through their narrow corridors. New lakes, streams, and alpine meadows sprawled across the open land. Mountains hung near the sky in different shapes; some tall with jagged tops, ramps of narrow ridge lines forming trails to their peaks; others sheer walls the defied even sheep to climb their vaulted tops. Somehow I would find a way into these inner places, adding new views and going deeper into the Chugach Mountains.

The Endless Quest

Only when Mystery reveals herself to me, when my eyes first see what is unknown, and what it is that brings me here in rain and cold, can I really know a piece of myself, restless and excited by a world that lies outside a pedestrian view. I believe looking beyond means more passes, more valleys, more huge walls of rock that mask, in shadowed corners, the way beyond. What brings me here is but a sign post to an endless wandering in the beyond and beyond. A lifetime and more will never quench the human urge to break new ground in a shrinking world of knowns. The idea that brings me to this valley, that has given birth to another desire, takes me across the level ground to climb another hill. And on the other side, another view, another valley filled with lakes and connecting streams. But more so, the larger view, seen from other angles-- the mountains, valleys, and the hand of time that has carved these places-- will reveal both emptiness and form. Looking back from where I came, I know from a U-shaped entrance above, across on the western side of Indian Valley, that another question and another answer waits my view, and where a spark of understanding keeps the journey alive. But for now, I settle for smaller gifts, just to know what is beyond the Pass at the head of this valley.