There's a joke at the LD5 household. The robot voice on the NOAA Weather broadcasts here in Amerika is funny. Since Ankh Ridge is surrounded by lots of water and there's lots of boating going on, the weather forecast does cover the waters. The windier it gets, the choppier the waves of the seas. So, we'll hear: "Resurrection Bay. Variable wind 15 knots. Seas: 4 feet." Well, I interpret that as the weesaur claw forecast...how many one can be expected to see. Sees four feet.
Well, my wife Jenn and I saw four feet yesterday.
It takes a lot to make it happen, but since it was an Amerikan Hollow-Day Jenn persuaded me to not only see a movie but to go somewhere fun, so since I saw a news report on "some new trail" at Portage Glacier, which is only about 40 miles south of town, I decided we should go hike it. There was also the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center there, which was fairly unremarkable, and we had done the brief glacier cruise to the end of the glacier a few years back, so I knew sort of what to expect.
We started off fairly early, having breakfast at IHOP and then driving down the very scenic coastal road, the Seward Highway, towards the glacier. Really spectacular lighting and wind and choppy waves in the bay, was gorgeous.
Now, I should mention that I was prepared for chilly weather. Most visitors bundle up like they're going to the North Slope when they go to Portage. Jenn had long pants and a thin jacket. Me? Shorts and a short-sleeved T-shirt. Yeah, I knew my arms might get a little cold, but we were going to be hiking, no big deal.
The weather, as it turned out, was abysmal. At the AWCC, a mile or two away from the lake and glacier, it was light rain and gusty wind. No big deal, we had hats.
It was like watching a hurricane come in on the edge of the glacial lake. Choppy light blue water, blasting wind and rain. But fuck it, we said to each other. We were going to hike, even if we only hike a short way and turn around. Getting wet is no big deal.
Fortunately, the wind didn't blast as much once we got a few hundred feet down the path into the forest. Still, the rain started to get heavier, and our shirts were fully soaked, pants half-soaked. Even though the weather was shitty, I was only a little cold and it was a wonderful isolated walk, didn't see a soul.
It was just about when we were getting ready to think about turning back -- about 40 minutes into the walk -- that we saw the black bear up the path. Now, black bears are mostly man-sized and seem small compared to brown bears, but they're still a lumbering heavy bear. Our only defense? The "bear bell" I had on my walking stick -- the one I almost left at home. I had been jingling it the whole walk to shoo them off, and at first blush, when I gave it a loud rattle, the bear saw us and scooted off further up the path then off it.
So, we thought, it would probably be unwise to go chasing after it, so now was as good a time as any to turn back. At that precise location, however, there was a small path off to the side, so we figured we'd check that out before turning back.
The small path, about 20 feet through underbrush, led to a now flooded grassy plain, six inches to a foot deep in water now. It was still a place to take a short video, shoot some pictures. Just as we turned to leave, we saw the bear in the underbrush, a dozen feet away.
Well, shit.
So we rang the bell again, backed off, got our ankles wet.
He still seemed pretty interested in us.
Well, shit.
We jog quickly back the way we came, but through the bog. He seems to be still snuffling after us.
Well, shit. We'd better blast a new way thorough the underbrush and get the fuck back to the paved trail, which we did and after double-timing it a short distance, yep, he was back on the trail.
It took about 10 minutes to finally lose him walking briskly up back up the trail, me clasping my hand around that retarded bear bell that was only going to lead him to us now. By this time, we had a half hour walk through the now pouring rain ahead of us, me constantly looking out for more bears and making sure the one we had lost was still gone.
Of course, getting back to the glacier lake and our parked car, it was twice as bad now. The wind was unbelivable, the rain felt like bullets on our skin. We were absolutely drenched as if we had been swimming when we got in the car. The temperature? Fourty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. I was still mostly okay, my one arm was pretty chilled, but Jenn was shivering, so on came the car heater.
Actually seemed to get worse when we stopped off in the visitor's center nearby. We had nothing to dry off on, and only when we went to the small cafe and sat before a fire did we feel okay in our soaked clothes. Leaving the warmth gave an instant chill.
So we returned to the car heater, got in a long line of cars waiting to get home, and danced out of our soaked clothes when we finally reached home.
Now THAT was a fun walk in the woods.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
Members
