When Exactly Where You Are is Where You Don't Want to Be

Aerial View to Knic Glacier

Three Bump Airstrip

Knic Glacier Moraine

fireweed

It had looked easier from the air.

The day before when I had been a passenger on a Cessna 150, the distance to the glacier from our campsite had seemed minutes away.

But I should have realized things look a bit different when you land in the Alaskan bush via a runway entitled Three Bump Airstrip. We had missed all the bumps in our landing on the 1100-foot strip, but I went over to count them, just the same.

Three mounds of dirt.

One. Two. Three.

"I should bring a shovel my next time out and smooth them down," our pilot friend said.

That same friend invited us for a jaunt the next morning to Knic glacier.

"Should be about a mile," he said.

We loved the idea of examining a glacier up close - of walking on the white slopes. and touching the icy blue. My husband and I, along with our friend and his wife, all grabbed our water bottles, a light snack and a loaded 45.

Bear country.

The first part of the hike was easy as we kicked aside purple fireweed and rusty cotton grass.

"If we stick to the right, we should avoid the swamp."

The knee-high underbrush became chest-high bushes. The bushes became a tangled web of alder and willow with branches as thick as an arm and nearly impenetrable. Branches above us. Branches beneath us. Branches in front of us. Branches behind us. If Alaskans sing country western songs, we were in the middle of one. Looking up, we could see the mountains bordering each side of us in this glacier-carved valley, so we knew we were not lost. We knew exactly where we were, we just didn't want to be there.

"Isn't that bear scat," I asked, stepping over a large pile of partially digested red berries. 

Our friend fingered his holster. "Stay behind me," he ordered as he plunged into the thicket, following a narrow moose trail. I couldn't help but remember three decades earlier when we lived as neighbors in Minnesota and a bear ripped the siding from their cabin and ate our friend's birthday cake on the kitchen table.

There are reasons to carry a 45.

Our hopes of avoiding the swamp proved to be in vain. Moose trails invariably lead where moose want to be, which explained the swamp destination. We also came upon first one young bull moose, and then another, both curious, but wary, in their first encounter with humans. 2 1/2 hours later, we left behind the last willow entanglement and stepped onto the lateral moraine-- a black collection of rock and sediment on the glacier's surface margins.

Glaciers not only cause erosion, but also deposition as the glaciers carry rocks, boulders and gravel from higher elevations and drop them off at lower elevations, a collection of debris called overburden. *

Among the rocks and gravel were also areas of shifting silt - pulverized bedrock that had been sculpted and scoured as the glacier carved its way down the mountains.

The ground was very unstable. The plan for a walk on white snow was scrapped as the guys opted to snap a quick photograph and retreat with us to solid ground ... and to the return trip through a tangle of confusion ... going left instead of right and it making no difference ... knowing where we were, just not wanting to be there.

I have a friend who likes to say that hiking has three parts -- a beginning, an end, and a muddle -- that best-laid plans usually don't turn out as we originally hoped, and we are left wandering our way through a tangle. We go chasing white dreams, only to discover that the reshaping of a landscape is shaky business and haven't we all found ourselves facing the task of dragging along an overburden as we have forged our way into the future? 

This was such a day. A great big muddle.

We trudged back 2 1/2 hours, our water long spent.

Some muddles seem to have no point to them at all as the goal proves unattainable, the risk too great, and you find yourself knowing exactly where you are, but not wanting to be there.

Later, as we sat around the fire, we rehearsed the day and listened to the noises of the night and found humor in our quest - after all, we had survived and the 45 had remained holstered.

The best trophies do not rest behind glass on hardwood shelves, but are stored in memory and shared with lifelong friends.

A photo of a moose. A perfect 72-degree Alaska day. A bear that didn't materialize. A shuffle through purple fireweed. The sensation of stepping onto virgin ground that would one day support new life. Another story to share around the campfire.

Sometimes where you want to be is exactly where you started from.

* Glacier Bay national Park and Preserve by Kim Heacox