Back in the Southwest (of the contiguous United States), land of dusty dry nosebleeds and clockwork sun and stars, time to reflect on Alaskan explorations...
on beyond Anchorage through the Kenai Penninsula....
A land of green grass!
When I arrived the dandylions were already blooming and when I left they'd all gone to seed.
Winter had ended with May, but snow was still at sea level in Prince William Sound.
Welcome to Alaska!
I remember the first sunny day of summer, with all Anchorage turned out in force to sunbathe, run, and bike until midnight, when the sun briefly set behind the mountains to the North before rising again at 1:30am.
The old man who adumbrated another summerless year, the tourist who complained about "too many hicks and a general sense of wierdness".
Corinna, my Sackagawea in the land of Mignight sun, the final frontier, full of moose and bears and Giant Cabbage (skunk and otherwise) and pride in all of the above.
A disturbed landscape, the ecology still recovering from the Great Quake of ''64: the tsunami and land subsidence...
and the Great Oil Spill of '89....
...can be hard to believe in the context of awesome, untrammeled, wilderness.
But humans are ubiquitous.
My first Alaskan Bear. (the second was flung, unceremoniously, out of a boat onto the beach where Corinna and I were having tea. The bloody carcass was butchered for its skin, paws, and gonads.)
The Sonoran Desert and its six subdivisions.
on beyond Anchorage through the Kenai Penninsula....
A land of green grass!
When I arrived the dandylions were already blooming and when I left they'd all gone to seed. 
Winter had ended with May, but snow was still at sea level in Prince William Sound. 
I remember the first sunny day of summer, with all Anchorage turned out in force to sunbathe, run, and bike until midnight, when the sun briefly set behind the mountains to the North before rising again at 1:30am.
Corinna, my Sackagawea in the land of Mignight sun, the final frontier, full of moose and bears and Giant Cabbage (skunk and otherwise) and pride in all of the above.
A disturbed landscape, the ecology still recovering from the Great Quake of ''64: the tsunami and land subsidence...
and the Great Oil Spill of '89....
...can be hard to believe in the context of awesome, untrammeled, wilderness.
But humans are ubiquitous. My first Alaskan Bear. (the second was flung, unceremoniously, out of a boat onto the beach where Corinna and I were having tea. The bloody carcass was butchered for its skin, paws, and gonads.)
Its best to be protected the first day out in the wilderness. Racing clouds and sun meant sunglasses useless. Plunging through underbrush - stop at the edge of a copse of woods. So unfortunately that meant boots. There was evidence of Plenty - the squirrels had more pine cones than they knew what to do with; many lay unchewed in the relative clearing under the canopy of Engelmann spruce boughs.
The edge of the woods, where the aspen grow shorter, scarred by the testosterone-fuled frenzy of male Elk. There were battles here, symbolic and real; the snorting cry of chivalry and desire. Scattered bones stand silent testament to those too old to be fleet of foot.
