The Grouse Grind

I take some pride in usually passing more than half of the hikers going my way, especially when it’s uphill.  When a twenty-something looks at me with his sweaty face and lets me pass, I receive more pleasure than it’s wise to show.  I just smile and say thanks.  I claim no diligence or special training, just good parents and the luck of genetics.

While waiting to board a ship in Vancouver, BC, that would carry a group of us to Alaska, I set out on what seemed a normal day hike, about the same distance and elevation gain as I’m used to.  It’s a popular hike with locals, and I expected it would come with lots of young people to pass, lots of smiles and thanks for me to give them.

They call it the Grouse Grind for its steep unrelenting grade as it ascends 3,000 feet to Grouse Mountain, a ski area in winter, and a local hiking challenge in the summer.

A few young hotshots came up and passed me in the first mile, but there’s always a few; they didn’t bother me.  And then more came, and more.  I hadn’t passed anyone yet.  By the time I was halfway to the top, a hundred hikers had passed me, and I had passed only about six.  I was a weakling compared to them.

 But there was one who stayed with me the whole way.  We leapfrogged each other all the way to the top, resting and hiking at the same overall rate.  Had she been the athletic type we saw in the recent Olympics, I might have felt better.  But given her weight an overall appearance, I could only express praise for her determination and stamina.  She thanked me and said I made her go a little faster then she would have.  

I told her that Canadian fitness is something I hadn’t counted on, something I haven’t seen.  Americans are softer, on average; I’m convinced of it.  These mountain hemlock and Sitka spruce trees seem to agree.

Love Life of Salmon

Near the town of Ketchikan along Alaska’s inside passage, they make a pilgrimage to their place of birth, to partake in one grand love-making event.   I was privileged to watch them, and they did not even seem to notice my presence. 

Ketchikan Creek, where it dives into the inside passage of Alaska, is a rapid flow of water, almost a waterfall, and it's as much a part of nature as the fish within it.  Yet it seems unaware of the driving passion it holds.  Passion thrusts itself upward against fast water and pounding boulders.  I stood here a long time trying to see just one of the lovers scrambling, jumping upstream.  They climb against the most difficult odds for what they must believe is right, or they feel it's the loving thing to do, be it right or wrong. 

They’ve been four years at sea, since their birth, and now something pulls them from salt water to fresh, from easy swimming to a frantic struggle against waterfall current. 

I leave the ship and follow these determined fish.  But I go the easy way, along Deer Mountain Trail.

Unlike trout in mountain streams who shy away from humans lurking on the bank, these single-minded fish keep swimming even in my presence, even as the water becomes so shallow that they expose their backs to the air.   

A male comes up beside a female, but he’s quickly driven away by the larger and stronger male behind him.

The battered suitor, tired, with white bruises on his back, cowers away from the prize that he fought so hard for. 

The  dominate male, having chased off all competitors swims up beside his prize and moves in.

He has won her, and she gives him no resistance.  He comes close to her and quivers, which she finds irresistible.  Simultaneously, she releases her eggs and the male fertilizes them as the two fish are side by side with the eggs behind them.  For this moment each of them has struggled almost to the point of death, having never met each other before the last few minutes.   

After this ultimate quest of their lives, they die within a day or two, and the stench of them fills the canyon.  It doesn’t sound like love to me, and I, for one salmon, would not do it, would stay in the quiet ocean.  I wonder how many do that.

Klondike Goldrush

Approaching Skagway, Alaska

Now that my father is gone, I come to Alaska and rediscover him, following rumors of gold.  The Great Depression left him and his parents penniless.  So he traveled to the American River in California where gold was still waiting to be panned and sluiced from gravel.  I remember his dinnertime stories of bears and horsemeat and selling just enough gold to send some money home. 

But his stories don’t match those of that hoard of accountants, school teachers, and draftsmen who sailed into Skagway Bay, Alaska, in the 1890’s.  Those ill-prepared gold diggers tramped over the mountain to Bennett in the Yukon, waited out frigid winter, then made rafts and floated into Dawson rivers, filled, in their dreams, with gold. They had missed the California gold rush of 1849, and they would not miss the Klondike Bonanza.  

Nearing Skagway, Alaska

Our ship unloaded in Skagway, where the prospectors began their arduous journey, and with some effort, I hiked close to where they struggled over the mountain.  I didn’t exactly retrace the steps of those intrepid gold seekers of the Klondike Stampede, but the hike to Lower Dewey Lake out of Skagway gave a feel for the mountain they crossed.

Looking down on Skagway, I imagined a town of  20,000 people in 1897.  Today there are 12,000 including cruise ship passengers.

On the way up, I saw a familiar backpacker’s scene—food hanging in a tree, out of bears’ reach.  And soon their camp appeared beside a lake.

A vein of Quartz in which gold sometimes precipitates from the liquid magma cooling slowly millions of years ago.  This vein, high on a mountain, is still intact.  But the Klondike Stampeders were looking for river gravel that contains eroded chunks of this rock.

It might have been in gravel like this on the shore of Dewey Lake that they panned and sluiced.  These gravels are like a bond between glacier and river—father and daughter.

Frederick Trump

Few of them sent any money home, as my father did, and most of them lost what they came with.  But a few entrepreneurs got rich off the gold diggers, by mining the miners.

In 1898, Frederick Trump opened the Arctic Restaurant and Hotel in Bennett, which offered food and lodging in a sea of tents where prospectors were holed up for the winter.  In 1900, he established the White Horse Restaurant and Inn and prepared 3,000 meals per day plus gambling and other “entertainments.”

Our current republican candidate for president is the grandson of Frederick Trump.  

Life Aboard Ship

Glacier Bay, Margerie Glacier

Glacier Bay, Margerie Glacier

The spire of ice in the left picture leans precariously, on the verge of something scary.  Having never fallen, it has no plan and no means to make a plan.  Its story, told in the right picture, comes from forces thrust upon it.  Like a poem, its course is directed outside itself, having meaning that depends on observers.  My view of its falling is different from yours and from its.  We could say that its story is all “sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Yet, as I watch it fall, hear its thunder, and feel its waves from the deck of a ship, it signifies a joining of imagination, physics and idea.  A forgotten dream returns, and will not be easily forgotten again.  

It’s like those Asian pioneers who, finding the sea level rising as the ice melted some ten thousand years ago, trudged eastward from Siberia to North America on what is now ocean.  They knew nothing about the country beyond, yet they were driven from a homeland that had become intolerable.  Or maybe they just wanted adventure.  Syrians today move away from their home for the former reason, I do it for the latter.

These explorations, that I so excitedly anticipate, usually bring unwitting passion, different from anything expected.  Some of us are curious and some inventive; most of us are both.  We fit together with our differences and stimulate one another, especially when freed from editors who select between us and press us apart.

My sister on the right and my Ventura friend
with whom I often stay on the left

But the cruise in July was a different kind of adventure.  My sister’s son, who works for the cruise line, put together a group at low cost. I traveled with friends and family, which had its own inspiration and some unexpected rewards.  

Deck 15

Our Cabin

Our cabin on the ship provided more comfort than camping in the woods, and the pool on Deck 15 with its hot tub and views of snowy mountains inspired a kind of unnatural blending of wilderness and plush comfort which is hard to write about.  

Mt. Cooper in Glacier Bay from Deck 15

As we sailed north, the air got colder and rain often fell.  I was happy to find fewer people on deck, but it came with a greater longing for silence and a stiff walk uphill.

The food was good and elegantly presented, but I can’t say that it was better than freeze-dried packages from REI cooked over a tiny gas stove, 20 miles from any restaurant.  

Stay tuned for “Love Life of Salmon”,  “Klondike Goldrush”, (with which I am personally attached), and “The Grouse Grind”, before we venture to Glacier National Park.

Please leave a comment below, and click on any picture to enlarge it.

Rivers of Ice and National Parks

Glacier Bay

Russell Island in Glacier Bay

Map of glacier Bay

It’s nice to think about ice water, glaciers, and snowfields while sweltering in Southern California heat.  So in this introductory posting, I’ll lead us back to July and Glacier Bay in Alaska’s northern panhandle.  We’re on a vessel sailing where no ship could sail a mere 150 years ago.  Back then, the water beyond Russell Island was the solid kind, piled up 200 feet above sea level.  The red line on the map is where a wall of ice faced John Muir in 1879 as he camped near its base on the island.  Today we sail ten miles past the island to  Margerie Glacier.

Margerie Glacier

We arrive at a cliff of ice, colored in shades of blue, brown and white, an ice wall, moving toward us at about six feet per day.  As it moves, pieces crack and break, falling into the sea, to rise again after a few seconds as icebergs, sending out waves that could topple a smaller ship.

Margerie Glacier

Margerie Glacier, one of the few that are still advancing, gathers snow from high in the mountains and compresses it so hard and deep that it scours out this fjord from solid rock.  It takes 100 years for this conveyor belt to carry its load twenty miles to where we see it calving into the sea.

Margerie Glacier

Margerie Glacier

Notice the leaning column of ice (left picture), pressed down and made dense by weight of ice above it.  See how it topples and falls into the sea (right picture). Hear its thunder.  Then watch as waves from the impact move toward our waiting ship.

Mt. Shasta July 20, 2016 

Mt. Shasta, June 2, 2012

If that image does not give you chills in August heat, try this.  Mt Shasta stood before me with is glaciers and deep snow in June of 2012 when I attempted to reach its summit.  Though I didn’t make it all the way, seeing the great mountain again this July from the window of Amtrak brings urges to try again.

Flying Home

Flying Home

In this time of anticipation before going to Glacier National Park, I'll send a few more introductory pieces to get us all in the mood.

See you soon,
Sharon