Downpours and Lake Adventures

About a week ago I was on my bed, laying on my back, having just completed my morning shift of tours when I was shaken by what sounded like a gunshot in my backyard. I jumped from my bed and pulled the shade back to find my backyard as I'd left it, but shrouded with dark, ominous clouds. A storm was coming in. I'd never heard thunder like that. In California thunder and lightening are two very different weather occurrences. Most of the time you don't see the lightening that caused the thunder to boom, and the noise comes rolling in, growing in decibels as it travels across the valley. The thunder that had disturbed me from my rest was completely different. You could HEAR the crack of the lightening. It didn't shake the windows or the structure of the house, it cracked and moved across the surrounding valley and reverberated off the surrounding mountains, probably rolling on through the canyons and on up the highway for miles and miles. I was beside myself with excitement for the storm that had descended upon us. I ran downstairs and outside to where our tours are launched to find Travis, having just launched one of our evening tours, grinning from ear to ear and this beautiful rainbow


I told Travis I was going down to the Lake where it appeared the rainbow met the ground for a good picture and a better view of the lightening storm. By the time I made it to the lake, about a 200 yard walk from my front yard, the rainbow had gone, and had been replaced by sparse light that was burning its way through the still very active clouds, draping the hillsides with gold and green like something out of a picture book. I snapped this picture, not knowing that seconds later I'd find myself in the thick of the storm.

No more than 5 seconds after taking this photo I heard a loud noise on the water to the left of me. I snapped my head around expecting to see a moose in the water, or some folks motoring about in a boat, but was faced with a wall of water swiftly moving across the lake. The storm was coming on top of me and I knew I had less then a minute to find some shelter before I was drenched. At this point I had wandered down the bank of the lake some ways and knew there was no way I could make it back to the house in time. I took off at a full sprint hearing the splash of the rain on the lake growing louder and louder as it came bounding on top of me. I made it to where the trail begins that leads back to our house and dove beneath a black spruce just as the downpour began to pound everything around me. The small spruce surprisingly provided good shelter and provided me with 5 blissful, dry minutes to finish my smoke and enjoy the show mother nature was providing. This is single handedly my favorite memory so far in Alaska and no words or pictures will EVER do it or the feelings I felt at that moment justice.

I figured I'd wait a few minutes for the hard rain to pass and make a run for the house when it calmed down. That moment never came, and the spruce that was my shelter from the storm became saturated and was no longer keeping me dry, so I made a run for it through one of the biggest downpours I've ever experienced. I made it home out of breathe and with no words to describe the what I'd experienced to my friends sitting with their face to the windows watching the storm I'd just come sprinting out of, only my picture of the calm before the storm, my drenched clothes, and the biggest smile I've ever had.

Later that week, after the storm had passed and after another morning shift, Travis pulled into our driveway and pulled from his car a big battery. Last year Travis found a boat on the banks of Otto Lake and bought a small electric trolling motor from our only local guide, Sterling. The battery was the last necessary item to put the boat in working order. He said, "We're going out on the lake, lets go," and Chris, He, and I set off for the lake. We dragged the boat down to the bank and assembled the modest engine set up and Chris shoved us out into the water.

After figuring out that we had the charges backwards which was making the motor operate in reverse and quickly righting that we were off (albeit at a slow speed) on our first boat adventure of the year. I named Travis my first mate, and Chris the wench, and of course myself the Captain.


We trolled on down to the South side of the lake where we encountered a beaver flapping through the water using his tail as his propeller. Or at least I think it was a beaver, Chris swears it was too small and thinks it was a muskrat. For the sake of a good story we'll maintain that it was a beaver. We took to chasing him around the lake and he proved to be a formidable chase, disappearing under water and emerging back on the surface on the other side of the boat. At one point he even returned to the surface and came swimming full speed ahead right at our boat in a game of chicken, ducking below the surface only 10 feet before we overtook him. After about 10 minutes of this cat and mouse game he finally had enough and took to the reeds that make up the southern bank of the lake and disappeared from sight.

Travis steered the boat to a break in the reeds, no wider than 15 feet and into a channel no deeper than a foot and a half as the mountains beyond the water were drenched in the alpenglow from the midnight sunset. I used the ore to check our depth every 15 feet or so and we slowly entered a cove I'd never noticed from our side of the lake, or even from the overlooks on our tours.


As we rounded the corner and entered the cove we came upon a small house and a moose standing on the bank munching on the tall grass. As we got closer to the moose we realized it was a bull moose, with a modest rack, being that its still early in the season. This was my first bull moose. Travis named him Roosevelt.


We circled around that cove a half dozen times, Roosevelt never taking his eyes off us and chewing on his dinner all the while. We came within 30 yards of him several times and he never moved an inch. The sunset grew more and more incredible with every passing moment until the entire sky was burning with vibrant shades of pink and red and blues. It was the greatest sunset I've seen this year and probably will be unmatched the rest of this season.

It was getting to be late, about 1:00 a.m., and a bit cold on the water so we decided to make our way slowly back home. We said our good byes to Roosevelt and he kept chewing on the grass, as unmoved by our departure as he was by our arrival. As we exited the cove and rounded the corner to the final stretch home the sunset continued to burn.

Hiking (Hitch or Otherwise) the Road to Enlightenment

"...Because the only people that interest me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing...but burn, burn, burn like roman candles across the night."
-Jack Kerouac

I boarded my flight to Alaska with two books in my bag, Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild," lent to me by my good friend and astute businessman as of late, Roy Shanklin, and the Original Scroll Edition of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road," so graciously lent to me by my brother Ryan. Being that I recently read "On the Road" and that "Into the Wild" was required reading for my job, I began my summer of reading by diving into Krakauer's account of McCandless' travels. It made for a good, quick read and brought me to peace with the anxiety that was getting at me having just begun my own adventure. I was on a reading high and was excited to read "On the Road" as Kerouac originally wrote it. The Original Scroll has no paragraph or chapter breaks. It is one long unending paragraph and most interestingly includes the real names of the characters, rather than the Editor's required fictional names (for example, Dean Moriarty was the fictional name of Neal Cassady). I'm currently still reading it, although these days I hardly have any time to commit to reading with all the construction going on (we've been building the 12 room employee housing this week). I'm finding that the Original Scroll is difficult to read, being that there's no breaks. You don't know where to stop as the whole thing is one continuous stream of thought. there's no telling where Kerouac himself took a break in writing.

The result of the style used by Kerouac to create "On the Road" in its original state is one of immediacy and importance. Kerouac wanted to get it all down while every detail was still burned into his memory, a memory that was all too often scattered by drunkenness and sleep depravity. His lifestyle was not conducive to remembering, nor is mine, and I think the fact that I can relate to his immediacy is what is causing me to become more involved in the story this time around.

Before coming to Alaska I made plans to bring my recording equipment up here because I was hoping to create some music during my stay, as I was sure I'd be inspired unlike I ever have before, being in what I was told is one of the most inspiring places in the world. But its funny, although I have been inspired, I've never felt so uninspired to write music. With this sudden sense of clarity, being here and having my purpose (at least for the summer) so plainly laid out in front of me, I've been inspired, but in no way to write music.

I'm inspired to explore, and I'm inspired by all the people I meet who seem to appreciate the art of exploration as I've learned to. I've only had a few chances to get away and do some exploring on my own, but even on the tours I'm overcome with peace as I experience the changing landscape, the wildlife, my friends, the customers and all that Alaska has to offer even when I'm at work.

As I've mentioned in my previous blogs, Travis and I attempted to climb Sugar Loaf Mountain on one of my first days off. Also as I mentioned, we never quite made it to our destination, admittedly probably because of me, as I'm sure Travis would have never quit had we not separated, but none the less we were both completely satisfied with our attempt and felt no disappointment coming off that mountain. After all we had reached the peak of the range and walked the ridge, allowing us to see the the endless expanse of mountains beyond mountains, beyond mountains beyond mountains, and so on, probably all the way east to Canada. I commented to Travis that it was extremely humbling to gaze upon the nameless and perhaps mostly unexplored, but none the less immense and spectacular mountains. Could we find a peak that was reachable and previously untouched? Was there a mountain out there waiting for us to come and be its first chance at being conquered? I don't know but it sure looked like it when we stopped for those brief moments to catch our breathes (mainly mine) and took a moment to try and fathom the immensity of it all.


It should come as no surprise that reading "Into the Wild" and "On the Road" inspired me on an afternoon after a couple of tours to get out on the highway and do some hitchhiking. I've always wanted to give it a go and I had been told that Alaska was one of the easiest places to start. So after my morning shift was over on a beautiful afternoon I walked the mile down Otto Lake Road to the highway and put my thumb out and waited for my ride. My first ride was a pretty pathetic one to say the least. I sat there waiting for 15 minutes while my friends/fellow tour guides who live in the rail car near the highway watched on laughing at my feeble attempts to get a ride. What made my first ride so pathetic was that it was from the Salmon Bake's shuttle (the FREE shuttle for a popular bar & restaurant) which drops me right where I was heading. Even worse was that I had to tip my driver. I think paying for your first hitched ride kind of stifles the excitement. Luckily though my ride back was legitimate. I was picked up by a gentleman who worked in the Park as a helicopter pilot and was headed home for lunch in Healy. In 12 miles he told me all about his time spent in Alaska and his home in Florida where he came from and all the beautiful girls on the beach in their bathing suits, and how even though he misses THEM he has no regrets. I thanked him for the ride and the pleasant conversation and walked on down Otto Lake Rd. home, content with my first hitchhiking experience, despite the illegitimacy of my first ride.

walking down Otto Lake to the highway. You can see Sugar Loaf peaking over the closer mountains on the left.

Brian and Tim heckling me for "looking so gay" and my failure to get anyone to even look at me, much less slow down

Brian's Facebook caption says it best: "Some drivers looked like they might stop, but then they realized it was Joey and kept driving."

Last week I had my day off with my friends Chris and Ryan. I slept in and spent half the day sitting around on my computer and feeling pretty disappointed in myself for not waking up early and doing more with my one and only day off. Then Chris came in the house at about 2:00 and told me to put on my shoes and go for a ride with him somewhere to do something. With no real plans, going "somewhere to do something" sounded great because somewhere would have to be better then sitting here. So we picked up Ryan at the rail car and started South down the highway and ended up stopping near the entrance to the park where a bridge expanded across the Nenana River and a small sign read "Triple Lake Trail." Chris said he'd never done it but heard it was pretty cool and not overly challenging, which is always nice. The hike takes you up a pretty good climb for the first half hour or so where it flattens out and winds back into the valley along a beautiful tree covered mountainside. It extends deep into the valley, passing three quaint lakes. We took our time as we were in no hurry, and sunlight is in no short supply here, eventually returning to our car and stopping for a few beers on the way home. After the beers we started our way back home but didn't get far when Chris pulled to the side of the road and said we were gonna walk down to see some waterfalls. It's apparently called Dragon Fly Creek, and being just a little buzzed I stumbled my way down, laughing all the way and grabbing at the branches of the trees to catch me from falling on my face. It was a great time and the falls were a wonderful end to my day off.





It might be a shame that I don't get to go out and explore all too often with my work schedule being so hectic, but even so I get my daily dose of peace and reflection at the lake in my backyard every day and that can sustain me until my next adventure (perhaps hiking Mt. Healy? or if I can find a way to get out there, visit McCandless' bus? we'll see) and for that I am completely and utterly grateful.

Otto Lake, just steps from my driveway. You can actually see the ridge Travis and I ascended in the middle of the screen. we reached that first peak and followed that ridge left pretty much just to where it disappears behind that closer mountain.

Mt. Healy from my bedroom window

Denali Ridge Adventure

I awoke Monday morning, May 31st, tired as any college student is waking up at 8:15 a.m. on a summer morning, but excited for the new tour that lied ahead in my work schedule. The Denali Ridge Adventure was my final tour to be trained on and I was told by many of my co-workers that it was our most fun, challenging, and beautiful tour we offered. Not to mention the Wilderness Adventure (our most basic tour) gets to be monotonous when you do it for a few weeks, a couple of times a day. This tour was to take us down Dry Creek, a small segment of which is featured in our Wilderness Adventure, far, far back to where orange stakes mark the border of Denali National Park.

Being that this is our most challenging adventure in terms of riding conditions, customers must have extensive experience with the machines making for a fun, light-hearted tour. I had to remind myself several times that these people were paying customers and not my buddies out enjoying a day offroading in Alaska with me. We led the tour but there were several times that our own Rhino became stuck in the deep, dank mud in spots where tires were swallowed and spun uselessly with no traction. We'd free ourselves and search for a way around and the customers would weigh in with ideas of their own on how to get past it. I almost feel bad that I'm paid to have as much fun as these customers who paid good money to get out here, but someone's gotta do it!

We met our customers in front of the house where they're dropped off by the owner of Denali ATV and our Driver, Mike. They were two young couples from Los Angeles, the first fellow Los Agelines I've come across in my (nearly) three weeks here. They were eager to get on their machines and get into it and took to driving really easy. We kept a good pace, stopping at the "Sand Castles" pictured in my first entry, which is our third stop on our Wilderness Adventure, and continued on further down Dry Creek where we encountered the deep mud for the first time. After a few tries and failed attempts to go around we pushed through and carried on with our tour. We encountered a Jeep roughly 10 to 12 miles out, it was stuck in about two feet of mud and was seemingly abandoned. Etched into the thick layer of mud coating the back windshield read a note "1 adult 2 children, walking down stream out," with footprints that matched those of an adult and some kids walking in the direction we'd just came. We hadn't seen any people on our ride so we assumed they'd made it out fine. What a trek that must been with two kids in tow!

We reached the end of our tour at which we turn around and stopped to enjoy the surrounding valleys and mountains that formed a giant amphitheater around us. I did my best to capture how incredibly beautiful it was with this video, but the tranquility and the vivid colors are nearly impossible to translate in a video. There's no substitute for standing where I stood and the extreme calmness that came over me when I stopped and did my best to soak in every last detail.




We enjoyed some sodas and a few snacks with the customers, exchanging hiking stories, discussing our disappointment in how similar Disneyland and Disneyworld are (one of the other guides was from Florida and none of us realized they practically have the same rides!), our mutual hatred for driving in snow, and at one point just stood quietly enjoying the beautiful world around us. We were IN IT.

We headed back, keeping a faster pace then we had on our way out. As a result we had some extra time so we took them up to another ridge, and at one point down into an impassible stream due to the ice that has yet to completely melt away.


We had led them down into this stream, down a muddy bank and had left just enough room to turn us all around and drive the machines up and out with a little help from me and travis pushing from the sidelines.


It was another one of those moments where I felt like we were out messing around with some good friends, rather than at work.

Even with our few minor detours we arrived back at the "Sand Castles" with 45 minutes to kill. So Chris, our leader and the guide I was riding with up front, decided to take the customers to a three story, half-built, abandoned cabin that I'd noticed from one of our overlooks from our Wilderness Adventure.


We drove up Dry Creek a ways and arrived at the cabin. Two old trucks still sit parked in front of the dilapidated cabin to rust and rot in the unforgiving Alaskan weather. Chris said he'd seen a porcupine inside the cabin the last time he'd visited it and that we might get a chance at seeing it again. Chris led the way, with me, Travis, and the customers close behind. Chris began making his way through the house and to the second story and had gotten a bit ahead of the group when we heard him scream (like a little girl I might add). I ran to see what it was, figuring a porcupine had snuck up on him or something, but found Chris staring at this little guy clapping his beak and puffing his wings at him 5 feet away.


Chris laughed and said he hadn't seen him and nearly walked right into him. He snapped a picture with his camera and then took one for me and we stood there watching the baby Great Horned Owl for a while. One of the couples decided to go outside, afraid the baby's mother would be returning soon upon hearing the ruckus of the baby. I recorded this video before we heard them yell from outside "MOM'S BACK!!!" If you listen carefully you can hear them right before I turn around and run and stop the video.



I never saw the mother, but apparently she had a 4 - 5 foot wingspan and was much larger than the baby. I'm glad we didn't stick around to see her in retrospect.

After our run in with nature we started the 15 minute ride back, taking one more detour to the first overlook of our Wilderness Adventure. Its great to be able to do all the extras when we have experienced riders on the tours. There's no doubt about it, this is my favorite tour and I'll be thrilled at every opportunity I get to lead it. Unfortunately it appears that its our least frequented trail.

Hope everyone reading this is well. I've been missing a lot of you a lot lately. I should have some great pics for you soon, as I'm planning on hiking Mt. Healy in the next couple of weeks. Come to think I haven't posted the pics from my first hike to Sugar Loaf yet...I'll get on that soon.

Love you everyone!

Stampede Trail: McCandless' Last Adventure

When I first found out I had landed my job in Alaska at Denali ATV what excited me most, aside from spending a summer in Alaska of course, was that I'd be visiting and touring the trail that lead Chris McCandless into his final adventure in the Alaskan wilderness. The Stampede Trail is a mecca for Chris McCandless enthusiasts and critics alike. Last week I began my training on the Stampede trail and lead my first tour on Friday, May 28th.

The tour is a bit challenging, so ATV experience is required, making the trip a bit faster paced and as a result more fun to lead. Its a 4 hour tour with about 2 hours of set up and breakdown. We arrived at the trail at 5:30 p.m. and pulled all the machines from the trailer, lined them up, cleaned the windshields and waited for the customers to arrive on their bus.

There's a few things that make this tour so fantastic. First of all, as I mentioned most riders have a little experience so we can keep a good pace. Second of all, there's TONS of water. Everyone loves driving through water!


Third, about half way down the trail on a good clear day you catch a good glimpse of Mt. McKinley which is a commodity around here being that it can be difficult to spot since its so large it generates its own weather patterns. Lastly, the tour includes FREE FOOD! When we reach the end of our trail where we turn around, we set up a camp, start a fire, and cook up some Hot Dogs, Hamburgers, & Veggie Burgers.



On my second training tour, which was Tuesday, I was riding in the lead rhino with Travis.


Now on my first tour we were told that one spot was particularly dangerous because we had to navigate customers around a deep bit of water that was our normal passage on our tour, but this time Travis said the tours in the two previous days had braved the water and made it across without a hitch. I was still skeptical because I'd seen the water and it looked unpassable. As we approached the water I said to Travis "God it'd be a real bitch if we had to pull someone out." I had no idea it would be us that needed to be pulled out. We entered the water and made it about 20 feet when the rhino stopped in its tracks and the floor started to fill with water. My first thought was "Please tell me no one followed us into this PLEASE!" I looked back and thankfully the customer immediately behind us had also been skeptical and had stopped short of the water. So we had our rear guide come up to the front and guide the customers around the water while we tried to pull out our very stranded and stuck rhino from the murky stream. We probably looked pretty funny with one guy standing in the back jumping up and down trying to get some traction and me pulling on the roll cage from the bank while Travis was gunning the machine. Eventually we were able to get it to move about two feet and get it close enough to tow it out with our 450 cc guide ATV that the rear guide was using. However our triumph was short lived. The machine wouldn't budge. The engine would rev up really loud but the tires just wouldn't spin. We'd flooded the clutch which was causing the belt to slip. We figured this was the problem so we pushed the ATV into the brush adjacent to the trail and left it to dry while we continued on our tour riding on the back of our two back guides' ATVs. It was an uncomfortable ride, but we made it to the campsite and had our dinner and exchanged our opinions of Chris McCandless' adventures and returned to the Rhino to find it still wasn't moving. So Travis and one of the rear guides took the customers to finish the tour and get them on the bus to go home while me and Sterling, our young local Alaskan guide, towed back the disabled machine.

I road in the machine being pulled by Sterling on the 450 ATV guiding it in neutral just 5 feet behind him. It was an interesting ride to say the least and at one point I didn't think we were going to make it up a muddy incline, but we did. It was actually a lot of fun.

This is one of my favorite tours of all our tours, falling just short of the Denali Ridge Line Adventure of which I trained on for the first time today and will write about in my next blog.

Miss everybody but loving my time in the great state of Alaska.

Planes, Trains, ATVs, Mountain Climbs: Life in Healy, AK thus far

I departed from Ontario Airport in Ontario, CA at 5:40 p.m. on May 15th. I arrived in Fairbanks, Alaska after 6 hours of flying, cut in half by a 2 hour layover in Seattle, WA, at roughly 1:30 a.m. Upon stepping off the plane into the empty, silent Fairbanks airport, my initial plans of crashing in the airport to wait for my 8:15 a.m. train to Denali National Park were immediately exchanged for a desperate want for a shower and a bed. I hailed a cab and told the cabbie, "get me to the nearest hotel to the train station." I arrived there around 2:00 and without a thought surrendered my debit card and told the front desk concierge, "I don't care what it costs just give me a room key." $110, a hot shower and 5 hours of much needed bed rest later, I was in a cab headed for the train station. You can imagine my excitement when I spotted my train and the realization came over me that I was almost "home."


I boarded my train, still rubbing the sleep from my eyes with my guitar and backpack stuffed with a thermal, a notebook, Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild", and some beef jerky, in hand. I recognized a young man from my flight from Seattle the night before and began a conversation discussing our travels to come in Alaska. About 10 minutes into the train ride I succumbed to my exhaustion and fell asleep for a little over an hour. I awoke to find my traveling comrade snapping pictures of the Alaskan landscape, of which I had yet to appreciate being that I was so tired. He told me I should really get up and head to the second story of the car a few cars back. I walked back a few cars, stopping to hold my head outside of the train and gaze upon Mt. McKinley which by this time loomed like a giant above all the mountains on the horizon. The sight was awe-inspiring, the air on my face refreshing. I snapped a few pictures and headed for the second story car.




I arrived at the station and called my buddy Travis to make sure he remembered to pick me up. Our boss Kyle had sent him out on a tour, and he told me he'd be a little late, and to sit tight. I took the time to grab my overstuffed duffel bag and ended up talking to an older couple who had been living out of their modest, road-worn RV for the past couple of years. They offered to buy me an espresso and give me a ride but I had no clue where I was going so respectfully declined his offer. I passed the next hour and a half pacing the train station, counting my steps and chewing on some beef jerky. Eventually Travis arrived and I piled into the van with all of my possessions in that camo-duffel bag and my backpack. We drove through the canyon, Travis pointing out the local bars where all the local employees meet just about every night, and arrived at the house around 2 p.m. I was excited to see my room and meet my co-workers.


I got settled that Sunday, and prepared for my first day of training the next day. For the next week I road along on just about every tour we booked, learning to recognize the turns on our "Wilderness Tour," how to keep a good pace, and just how foreign riding an ATV can be to some people. Training was fun being that there was little responsibility, leaving me to sit back and enjoy the tour and snag a few pictures, but I was eager to start leading my own tours and most of all, start receiving my tips!





I lead my first Tour on Monday, May 24th, just a week after arriving in Healy. I worked the morning shift of tours of 9 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m., and 3 p.m. with one of my co-workers and new friends Ryan. We were booked solid for the morning/afternoon and worked just shy of 9 hours without a break. It was worth it when we divided up our tips and each got $65. Not bad for a days work, and not a moment too soon, as my money supply was bleak (my parents can attest to that). Tuesday I began training on the Stampede trail. I was excited to ride that trail as it has a special place in my heart. The Stampede trail was Chris McCandless' enterance into the Alaskan wilderness and was the last place he was seen alive by anyone. I had been anticipating the day I got to ride it since I applied for the job way back in February. The preparation for this long and difficult tour was a bit overwhelming though I'm sure I'll get used to it in good time like everything else. The tour was beautiful and provided another lucky opportunity to see the great Mt. McKinley, looming vigilantly in the distance. Riding that trail, knowing it had been walked by McCandless was indescribable. It pains me to hear how misunderstood he and his motivation for entering the wild so unprepared by normal standards is by the locals. It comes as no surprise though as most great minds are often misunderstood.

Wednesday was my first day off. Luckily it was also Travis' day off so we decided Tuesday night that we would try to hike Sugarloaf mountain. Travis attempted to reach the mountain last year, but turned around two hours in upon reaching the peak of the first initial climb. We slept in, stocked up on water and bear mace and headed for our access to the mountain as we'd been told behind the Grand Hotel. The initial climb to the peak of the first mountain we had to climb to supposedly reach Sugarloaf took roughly 2 hours. My smoker's lungs huffed and puffed as they typically do whenever I climb any type of incline but we made it to the peak of that first mountain. According to everyone that we've talked to, once you reach that peak you hike north along the ridgeline of the adjacent mountains to reach Sugarloaf. This proved to be more difficult then was described to us. Thats what we get for taking the advice of people who had never actually done the climb. We hiked across some rough terrain on that ridgeline for some 2 hours before I ended up on a rock face that I knew I couldn't traverse and cut my hands trying to do so when I told Travis I'd reached my limit. It was decided that Travis would keep pushing forward while I began the hike back to the peak that would lead us down the mountain. I hiked for about an hour or so by myself on the ridgeline not straying from the path in hopes for some easier terrain than we'd seen coming in to the hike. I called Travis to check on his progress and he told me he'd turned around 15 minutes prior out of frustration upon not getting any closer to our destination. We eventually met at the peak and made our descent. We'd done some great climbing through some treacherous terrain and were not disappointed in our inability to reach our goal. Its hard to be disappointed when McKinley was out in all its glory for pretty much the entirety of the hike. There will be pics to come once I get them on my computer.

All in all my stay here has been incredible and already I can see a change in my perception of life in general. People are different here. They're friendly, down to earth, and genuinely care for the people around them. A welcome change from the self-centered, egotistical, self-aware assholes of Southern California (not that anyone reading this fits that description). I can't wait to continue to experience Alaska for the rest of this summer and meet all the interesting people that come through it. I miss and love you all. Be sure to check back for regular updates and pictures.