Friday, July 08, 2005

Red Rock Canyon Eternity

July 3, 2005
near mile post 214 of the Richardson Highway
camped in Red Rock Canyon


My lungs gulp for cool air like a fish pulled from water. My ears drum to the rhythm of my throbbing heart. “Man I am out of shape! Why do I do this to myself?” I mumble as I plant one foot up the steep slope and take another step.

“Hey dad, are you O.k.?”

I squint against the bright sky and see my 20 and 16 year old daughters patiently waiting for me about 50 yards above. Their golden hair glistens as it floats in the breeze and their smiles give no indication of the fatigue my 48 year-old bones feel. Sucking in enough reserve air for speech I reply, “Ya,,,I’m just checking out this cool looking plant….I think it’s a Lupine.” Hoping, but not really believing that my daughters will accept this lame excuse for why I stopped, I continue my trek.



Several minutes later I join my daughters atop the alpine ridgeline. All of Alaska seems to open up at our feet. The Delta River valley snakes through glacial rubble and is flanked by tundra, pot-holed with lakes, spreading out like a blanket to the eastern horizon. Directly below, our tents erupt like tiny bubbles from the ocher floor of our campsite. The fluffy green of mountain meadow rolls out behind us paving a dreamy path into the red, jagged peaks guarding the heart of the Alaska Range. The silhouette of an eagle soars on the afternoon thermals against the backdrop of the dark clouds approaching from the south. We lie down on the soft green tundra and are instantly swaddled in its sun warmed, mossy arms and fingers of fragrant lichens. Opening my eyes my mind is sucked into the infinity of the sky. We have climbed into heaven!

It is later now. The southern clouds with their biting wind and threatening rains eventually chased my girls and I from our mountaintop paradise. The descent went easier for me than the ascent. I think the extra weight I carried around my belly on the way up worked to my advantage on the way down! My son and his wife guided us back to camp with a scent trail of steaks roasting over an open fire and the promise of a foamy Guinness beer. We mellowed in the fading evening light playing cards, petting the dogs and watching campfire embers fade into nothingness. It is now after midnight and is officially the 48th anniversary of my birth. I wonder if my mother, at that distant point on time’s highway, had any inkling of a hallucination that her labor would result in me being at this place now. Did she sense the contentment, the peace, the solitary companionship I am experiencing. Did she know that the hard rocks that make up my bed tonight could feel more comfortable than the softest mattress? Does she know these things now?