Tuesday, November 3, 2009

McHugh Trail, second time, sunnier day, with Nic & Autumn

This is a post I have been longing to write, and more importantly, show pictures with! People, Alaska is ridiculous. I love it, and I'd love for you to love it too, if you don't already. We hiked McHugh trail the second time about a week after the first, and it was drop-dead gorgeous. I mean that. I felt like it would've been a-okay to drop dead right there, either by the overwhelming beauty or from some other cause (with the possible exception of being sucked dry by leaches).

The body of water you see is the Turnagain Arm. The ocean, man.
Every now and again, if you're lucky, you'll see a pod of beluga whales coming in with the tides.

This particularly bright Sunday afternoon, we drove to the trail past the road of my cousin, Autumn, and her husband, Nic, and we called them. Groggily they said, "[yawn]....Your call woke us up from a nap....[yawn].....but we want to come along!" Were we ever glad for that. Walking frees you from the weak and silly parts of life to talk about the good and whole and meaningful. Autumn is in training to become a midwife, for one thing, so there are always new birth stories to be enchanted by. But also, we'd recently seen with them the documentary "Food, Inc." about the way a handful of companies pretty much control the food industry of our country and aren't fans of small farms and people trying to provide for themselves.

RABBIT TRAIL: this is a whole 'nother post, or twelve, but we have GOT to get more interested in and serious about the very basic life issue of where our food comes from. Let's grow more of our own food, make more of our own things and entertainment, be our own people! We're all working on parts of the puzzle. Let's keep learning, and keep teaching each other! Let's regain the old skills, recapture the ingenuity and sense of responsibility for ourselves that made our country great. Let's slap ourselves out of drone-ville, taken by flickering lights and quick results, worshipping at the alter of convenience.

END OF RABBIT TRAIL, PRETTY MUCH: More recently, we've seen with Nic and Autumn the Michael Moore documentary, "Sicko." Also, we are working our way through the U.S. Constitution together, though we have to pause frequently to read a phrase again and feel like modern, literary dunces.

So you can see why, hiking with our friends this day, on a trail where a person starts at the sea and is free to climb as high as they wish, I longed to shout "REVOLUTION!"


break time and photo shootpottyin'feedin'Isn't this a neat one? taken by Jason (clearly)shoe-tyin'That little black dot on the horizon is a small airplane.

Do you see a special something in this last photograph?

Straight up from the setting sun, near the top of the photo, is the silhouette of a ptarmigan.

6 comments:

Christi said...

Oh, wow. That looks amazing and your pictures are SO great. It makes me want to be there with you.

Rachel @ Lautaret Bohemiet said...

Holy buckets, sister! This is one of the best posts ever! For one, yes, yes, YES on the rabbit trail. All good points (great points) and yeah, why are we the way we are?! Aaaaaagh.

But mainly,the pictures were priceless, all of them. Holy cow. Seriously. The scenery ones were just BEAUTIFUL and made me REALLY miss Alaska. And the ones with Zor pointing. And Zor in the air. And Zor walking. And you and Zor looking pensively at something on the ground. And Zor laughing. And Zor's freaking little CARHARTS! And Zor pottying. Man. And Zor hanging upside down, all casually, while Jason tied his shoe. You know just how to put the perfect grouping of pictures together to be the perfect post and to really really cheer a gal up, don't you?

This was a great post.

tamie marie said...

Hey....will you print out a couple of those pictures and send them to me? (Seriously.) The one of Jason holding up Zoralee with one hand high above his head, and the blurry one of you feeding Z., and the ones with Z. on your knee. Oh, hm, now that I think about it maybe I can copy them onto my computer and print them out myself.

I've recently decided that I need to hang more pictures of friends.

Those pictures are beyond words. We need to move to Alaska. End of story.

(We watched Food, Inc. a couple months ago, and Jon watched all of Sicko...I could only watch part of it because it made me so sad and ill and despairing.)

Anonymous said...

What could I possibly say Rachel said it all every word. This was the best ever group of pictures you have ever done. Since I had the wonderful pleasure of having my RV place to stay when visiting you guys in Alaska and looking at the turnagain arm and the winds came and rocked my home I am having a want to be there time. WOW!!!! Thank you!!
Mom,Nana,Barb

Matthew Kellen said...

Oh McHugh Trail, I have fond memories of that resting spot and of skiing that valley in the Spring. It was a breath of fresh memories, and insight. Thanks.

Unknown said...

I'm just catching up on all these blogs from being gone 2 1/2 weeks. I LOVE all these pictures and your stories! Z is growing up thinking that hiking in Alaska and being taken everywhere with her parents rather than left with babysitters is normal, totally oblivious to the fact of how blessed she really is. She's having some great life experiences!