What an exciting night, not a great one for sleep, but the sounds of icebergs rolling and the glacier calving was an experience that I hope to never forget. I’d tell you that we woke at the break of dawn, but it was never night; this is such a strange phenomenon. When we finally do shake ourselves from our tent, we see that we are apparently the first to emerge. Our first point of business is to head to the lake to see what changed overnight. On the right of the nunatak was this iceberg now showing part of its blue underbelly. The wave created when this giant started to roll must have pushed the other bergs out of the way because we have a beautiful view of this berg that was obscured last night. I wait, I sit, and I try to remain patient, hoping that it will continue its rollover. It didn’t budge.

Coffee was ready before the majority of the camp was awake. This is a time of day on river trips that I truly appreciate: while my senses are again focused and aware, the voices of the others remain silenced. The driftwood that had been collected yesterday continues to snap and crackle as the fireworks turn it to ash. I sip my coffee, look, and listen as details are found and bookmarked. Soon, others are stirring. I may never understand those travelers who wake with an explosion of energy that is best released through the gregarious noise of announcing they have arrived. Maybe it’s a biological holdover from our distant primate ancestors who reveled with loud celebratory screeching at the Sun that it indeed had returned to reanimate us with a new day. Surely, my ancestors were from a branch of life that did not draw attention that they were ready to sacrifice themselves as a meal to the next predator.

Today is known as a “layover” day, meaning we are staying put. Well not really staying in one place the entire day, but we are staying in the same camp for two nights. The reason for our layover is that our boatmen have a special adventure mapped out for us: we are to hike Goatherd Mountain. Only the “we” will be minus “me,” though I won’t be alone because fellow passenger John Hoffman has decided to stay back too. The hiking group gets started around lunchtime, the weather had been questionable up until that time. Caroline takes one of our cameras with her; a good thing we brought two DSLRs. Quiet once again overtakes the lakeside.

With the others gone, it was time to sit peacefully at the lake. For hours I watched the play of clouds hug and release mountain tops. In the distance, the roar of thunderous calving would elicit my standing attention to try and find precisely what was occurring; nothing could be seen. I walked the shore looking for a better vantage point for the next performance of ice ballet, but that spot was never found. As the sun peaks out from behind the clouds, the lake’s surface becomes a mirror, while the moments of silence are the mirror that reflects my inner voice. How does one question the enormity of what, in comparison, is actually a very small space, this lake and glacier of infinite detail that for the majority of time goes unobserved? How many fantastic scenes of beauty are never witnessed by the curious minds of those with the ability to recall and tell of the serenity that can be found in that which overwhelms our senses? I become smaller as I recognize the immensity of time and how nature does not care if it is the center of attention. How petty are we humans when compared to the generous magnanimity of our Earth?

Meanwhile, Caroline is high up the slope of Goatherd Mountain; that’s me on the shore far to the left! This overview represents approximately 8 miles from side to side and 40 miles of depth to the most distant peaks of Mt. Kennedy. From up here, it doesn’t seem so far-fetched that a massive wave could throw rafts up a hill; heck, it almost looks flat down there. Upon getting back home, it would be this view that we placed upon our desktops to bring us back to the Yukon and our Alaska adventure every day in the months that followed. Do not wonder if I am or was disappointed in not seeing this view. We humans cannot do it all, not even when right at the place to “do” something. While those who took the hike have this memory embedded in their imaginations, they did not see what I saw. How do we rank what is more valuable to our experiences than something else? How is amazing more amazing than amazing?

Orange lichen, because orange is way more exotic than plain old green, and this place is nothing if not exotic. Wikipedia calls this ‘common orange lichen,’ the contributor to that entry obviously does not live in a desert. The trail up and down Goatherd is not for those out for a stroll in the park; it is hard work. The payoff for your efforts are sights like these, though I suppose this might only appeal to those who are not only interested in the big picture.

Mmmm, Candy Mountain. I licked it and can attest to the fact that it is indeed taffy, stone-flavored taffy! Seriously though, this was part of Caroline’s hike on Goatherd, so to be truthful, I didn’t taste it, but she did and insists that it is just like candy. Oh, how I wish to be the all-knowing geologist with a scope of knowledge that could tell you (and myself) how these formations have come to be, but I cannot. If anyone reading this can offer up some insight, I would gladly plagiarize your comment in order for me to appear more knowledgeable than I am right now.

After my wife finished eating Candy Mountain, she got busy wearing down Candy Slope. By this time, I was starving back in camp. It was already after 6:00 pm when Caroline snapped this picture of what she was leaving for other sweet-tooths who might visit this sugar-laden sight for the eyes. My hunger was probably amplified due to my shivering. You may know that shivering burns a lot of calories, and I had good reason to be so cold. With Mr. Hoffman well out of sight and no one else around, I stripped down to the bare essentials, that being what hair I have on my body, and bathed in Lowell Lake. No, I did not go for full immersion; sadly, I could only stand in the lake for moments, just long enough to pour a few gallons of ice water over myself. Yowza, that was cold, but it was also exhilarating. Now fully adrenalized, I was ready to start washing up. Being the environmentally aware folks that we are and that we had a good amount of Dr. Bronner’s left from our rafting trip down the Colorado River, I got to lather up with spearmint soap. Now likely looking like a cross between Santa Claus and a polar bear with severe hair loss, it was time to rinse off. Back into the water with my bucket. Ooh, that water’s cold. Oh no, I still have bubbly suds in my hair, suds that a second bucket doesn’t fully clear away. My head is starting to shrink. This is like an ice cream headache I’ve never known; the entire skull is crushed in pain. A third dousing and I have to pause; I’m out of breath and squealing while small chunks of iceberg float by. Reduced in appearance to a sex-neutral, fat Ken doll, I go for the fourth and final rinsing. I am now squeaky clean and thrilled that at least this once, I will have had the luxury of bathing in a lake of giant ice cubes on a spectacularly sunny day while standing naked in the Yukon. I hope I didn’t just admit to breaking any Canadian decency laws.

One view is not like the other, nor is any view like another. Perspective changes, even small incremental shifts, have the ability to bring into focus scenes that leave us in astonishment that a head turn should deliver so much new to see. What is hard to see are the animals. Signs of them are everywhere, we see bear, wolf, and moose tracks, just nothing to attach them to. Good thing the sights are able to make up for it. Excuse me while I ooh and aah at the scenery while watching for bear.

It’s after 7:00 p.m. when the first wave of hikers re-enter camp; it will be another hour before the rest of our group comes home. While the fire is ready to start cooking the burgers and dogs we’ll be having tonight, we’ll have to wait on the others. Meanwhile, we are getting guests from a nearby group of campers who are on the same journey as we are. They arrived earlier in the day, see photo above, and are setting up camp just up the road. This is a favorite stop for travelers on the Alsek River as it is the first glacier encountered, and groups are well situated to take the hike up Goatherd Mountain.

With time to spare, I got right to work on Caroline, telling her how invigorating my bath was; she was hooked and soon followed my steps. Armed with a bucket, soap, and a towel, she’s just as eager as I was to throw off the clothes and take the plunge. Between my hysterical laughter and her yips of reaction to the cold, I manage to help slowly rinse away the soap. I admit that I languished in a slow-motion pour, allowing every drop of water to roll down her back as she believed there was still more soap to rinse off. Don’t go thinking I was mean about this, it is our normal.  If you asked her, she would tell you, too, that she wouldn’t trade it for anything. The piece of ice in the photo? I had to break that out of Caroline’s hair.

With nothing else to do, we meander up and down the shore. Both of us ensured each other that our day was nothing less than spectacular. Caroline tells me I’m lucky I didn’t go on the hike as my vertigo would have likely gotten the best of me; I tell her how lucky I was to have the day to watch the comings and goings of ice as it drifts across the lake. I also remember telling her of a particular attention-grabbing lake event that happened a few hours earlier when something large and unseen turned over. While I couldn’t manage a glimpse of precisely what it was, its effect was unmissable. Following the rollover, a large wave kicked up radiating from the iceberg’s location and sent a short foot and half-wall of water toward a nearby cove. The wave mostly dissipated before reaching me, but maybe even more interesting was the fluctuation of the lake level. Slowly, the lake level went down and then sloshed back up. Back down and then up again; this happened a good half a dozen times before leveling off again. I tried to imagine how big the iceberg had to be that could affect that much water displacement, especially considering that I couldn’t see it with all of the other icebergs that were blocking the view. Obviously, it wasn’t the biggest of the big; I can only wonder what that would have looked like.

In all our lives, neither Caroline nor I could remember our shadows having shadows. No need to correct me; I understand that one set of shadows are those made directly by the sun and the others from the sun reflected off the water. Enough of science; I’m going to stay in self-delusion and choose to see this as a special glacial phenomenon that only occurs on select days when the sun is in a particular spot in the sky, and enough ice melt has occurred. Double shadows all the way!

It took the other group of hikers longer than expected to return from their hike to the Arctic, not that it much mattered; sights like this satiated my appetite. As 10:00 pm approached we were finally sitting down for a bite to eat. After a cloudy start to the day, the long afternoon sun and the almost clear sky have been dreamy. We, too, have floated on the surface of perfection just as this ice has, the only difference being you can be sure we are not as beautiful as this amber ice jewel.

It’s not long before midnight when I snap my last photo. With countless days of adventure still ahead of us, it’s hard to let go of this one. The layover will be finished in the morning. We’ll pack up, and if ice doesn’t block our way, we’ll leave the lake for a new destination further downstream. I can’t help but wonder if I have really seen anything that was here.

We rise early in a place that doesn’t really have a night, and the new day may as well be a continuation of the one that preceded it. Without the fall of darkness, the sounds of the day do not take pause and so this day must be another part of the same day. The waterfall behind camp continued to roar as we attempted to sleep, the river in front of us maintained its chatter with the rustling tree leaves that danced to the winds and is still doing so now. There is no telling where we are truly going, how long it will take to get to any particular point, or if anyone should really care about anything more than the idea that here we are, and that is that. Time must have been persuaded to vacate the area. Only the second day on the river, and already I am losing track of how long this adventure has been unfolding, as though that mattered or had a bearing on what will occur as we pull our sleepy heads from the clouds and exit our tent for another glimpse of this beauty that extends beyond words.

All we have to do as humans is put ourselves into the path of life, where nature has the responsibility of crafting an earth that sustains, feeds, and entertains us while accepting our abuse. Out here, armed with paddles, rubber rafts, and cameras, we are no match for the strength of spectacle that is employed by the life that surrounds us. We are consumed by the immensity and are hostage to its whims, or we can be guests of its graciousness if we choose to see our humble place within it. This method and location of travel is rare; only a few brave individuals dare venture into these parts; maybe this is a testament to the dearth of character among people who are worthy enough to be allowed passage on such hallowed earth. But here I am, forced to take stock of what has put me here. How have I earned the right to make myself present in this cascade of the profound? Do others recognize their obligation to tremble in respect before the grandeur through which they travel?

Permanent death comes but once, but tiny deaths chip away at lives guided by routine. These types of adventures are opportunities to get off the treadmill, to go out and find that which has not been seen, at least by our own eyes. Most things that demand our senses to be focused on experiencing the unknown are part of an adventure. One mustn’t place themselves in harm’s way to know what the horizon looks like from a new perspective; we can also look up, look over, and look all around us right where we are. Open our minds to the idea that what we don’t know doesn’t make us stupid; it only suggests that we haven’t given something a try. Tolerance, love, empathy, and inspiring others are not weaknesses, they are the tools one requires to work on making ourselves better people. Some day, our walk on the trail of life will end, just as it did for this moose. Will the memory of our existence leave behind a beautiful treasure that speaks of what our lives may have been like? Or will the ashes of our memories be scattered like silt into the river that empties into the sea?

At the bottom right of this image is a hint of the “Braids” we will thread during this river adventure. Depending on the volume of river flow, the water that is rushing to the ocean will determine how much of the river bed is exposed. It is up to the experience of the boatman to find a channel that will allow our passage without running aground. One does not want to exit the raft in the river to help shift it forward; this water is cold, seriously life-threatening cold. Your effort to dislodge the raft may only see it getting stuck again a few feet forward, so it is prudent to know where the best channel is for safe passage. But, the deepest part of the river is not always the most desirable. What happens when a great opportunity arises that would give us access to an overlook where we can see sights such as what we are looking at in this photo? We then take a side channel, a braid, and keep our fingers crossed. Once committed to the narrow route, there is no turning around. In the distance at the foot of the snow-covered mountain, we are seeing hints of Lowell Glacier. For the indigenous people of this area, it is known as Naludi.

Don’t get lost in the expansive vistas, though; there is much to be seen in the cracks and crevices, too. What is it that entertains my sense of awe to look at a scene that no other human may have ever taken the time to stop and look at? Why must I typically go to a museum to look at patterns that are outside my routine when nature is painted with a vibrant pallet of colors gleaned from the visually stunning world of random chance? Maybe for those who are more desirous of the familiar, these are just some rocks and stuff. To me, this is the work laid down by the hand of nature only found in the passage of time.

And now the cracks. Look close, do you see the face? It is the most recognizable object one might see on this rock, but if you look even closer, you might find other motifs hidden in the lines and worn surface. This river valley was once part of a passage that the native people of the coast and those further inland used in order to trade. Hidden throughout this landscape may be the signposts left carved upon the earth by their ancestors, but with less than 200 of us a year traveling this corridor, the chance of finding those artifacts may take many more decades if we should ever be so lucky to find them at all. I cannot say this is a rock art panel with any certainty, but to my untrained eye, I see many things that nag at my curiosity as to what I’m really seeing.

We were only on the river a short time before we were exiting our rafts again. This stop will offer us an overlook with a birds-eye view of Naludi (Lowell Glacier). Even with people in the photo for comparison, it is not really possible to comprehend that the base of the mountain on the other side of the glacier is over three miles (5km) away. I sit here in silence for a time, trying to see it all, feeling that I am only seeing the surface of the atom, leaving so much more that will have to remain unknown and unseen. Should I ever return, I will be sure to roll around in the brush like a dog scratching its back; maybe then I will gain greater awareness that I’ve really been here. Looking back at these images, I stand in respect of those who have gone here and can hardly believe I was, in fact, one of those lucky people.

Welcome to the path you dare not cross. From our vantage on the hill and with my best zoom lens, this is as close as I could get to the glacier. This is a place of near-certain death. A frozen bulldozer of ice careens forward as it carves mountains into fine sand. It has no concern for those who might venture upon its jagged surface, and while one may get so far in their effort to cross its convulsive trail, there is no guarantee of being able to continue on your way or to be successful in finding a way back. Not to say there are no clues of those who have tried, as on occasion, bodies are found of indigenous people that were lost in the ice. For centuries prior to our arrival, they lived upon these icy lands and traveled its dangerous routes. The large rock formation is known as a “Nunatak.” Somehow, these rocks have withstood the abrasive forces of the glacier and forced the ice river to detour around its commanding presence.

Lowell Lake. Here, size matters. These icebergs are proverbial wolves in sheep’s clothing. The first thought in my head upon seeing icebergs was, wow, I want to see these up close. That is until you hear one rolling over, thunder explodes from the lake, and strangely enough, you will likely have difficulties even seeing where it happened. How, with such a great view, can you have a problem seeing it? Some of these icebergs are over ten stories tall, that’s how.

This is our wildlife sighting for the day. Wikipedia tells me the ptarmigan is of the grouse family and that here in North America, it is also known as the snow chicken. During the winter, the ptarmigan is white, some of that camouflage can still be seen. With summer in full swing, it is turning brownish to blend in with the low brush. It needs this cover to hide from its predator, the golden eagle. These birds are sedentary, which may make them some of our distant ancestors 🙂

The good fortune of a clearing sky is that we have this rare opportunity to see Mt. Kennedy in the distance some 40 miles (65km) away, which is also the location where Lowell Glacier gets its start. The mountain is named after President John F. Kennedy, but it was his brother, Robert Kennedy, who first summited the peak back in 1965.  Sitting up there at 14,000 feet (4,300 meters) is memorabilia from the President that Robert left in his brother’s memory. I took this photo as we were passing through a small rapid on our way to entering Lowell Lake.

We are at the lake and having our first encounters with icebergs. This deep blue, smoothly scalloped chunk of ice has recently rolled over. Under the lake’s surface, the flow of water sculpts bergs just as the weather above wears them down. It is this shrinking underwater part of an iceberg that creates an imbalance that ultimately contributes to the berg turning over. Due to this fragile relationship of which side is heavier at any given moment, there is great uncertainty as to when a shift in the wind or water current disturbs that fragile balance and over the iceberg goes. Inside of me is also a fragile balance of curiosity that wants to throw caution to that wind and make an approach to reach out and touch these glimmering objects of nature’s art.

The raft I was on was the first to weave its way through the ice gauntlet. This wasn’t easy and required some of us on board to help row, as the lack of current and strong winds made for a difficult passage. Care must be taken when passing ice; it isn’t easy to determine how much of it is submerged and out of view. The workout of dipping a paddle into the water and helping row is great for warming us in the wind. Between the time we passed through and the other two rafts finding their way, the ice shifted; it’s constantly doing so. This brought up an interesting potential situation: while we could easily enter the lake today, by the time we leave, it may not be so easy to do so. The exit could be blocked by an ice jam! Well, that could be interesting too because then we will learn how to portage three rafts, a bunch of gear, and a couple of hundred pounds of food.

This diamond of an iceberg is a floating jewel. I learned that it is clear because it is old ice, which is from the bottom of the glacier ice. The pressures it is exposed to is what has made it clear. It is in part, these information extras as to why we requested Bruce Keller to join us; this man is a font of knowledge. He explained how this clear ice forms and how the bottom of glaciers take on an almost malleable plastic nature when under such great pressure. Precisely, what was said is sadly lost in the myriad of details that were still and would continue to overwhelm me for the duration of the trip. What else is special about this mini-bergette is that just after taking this photo, Caroline and I plucked it from the frigid water to bring it ashore for cocktail hour. The boatmen had an ice pick on hand that was quickly within reach; you can guess we are not the first travelers to want to use Pleistocene-era ice in our refreshments. We chip into our catch to enjoy the oldest ice cubes we will likely ever use to chill our drinks.

Let the tears flow. From right here, our chosen campsite, while staying in front of Lowell Glacier, Caroline and I had our first encounter with an overwhelming emotional outbreak that drew the water from our eyes. Sure, we could have had a lakeside room with a view of the glacier, but it was this site that took my breath away. At this very moment, every element within this landscape converged to create the most perfect view that I felt I may ever camp before. A thousand-foot waterfall directly ahead, another taller one on our right out of view of this photo, snow-covered mountains, and the roar of a calving glacier on our left. Could it be any more perfect than this?

As it gets later in the day, Mt. Kennedy is still visible; the sun hovers low over the shoulder. The lake reflects golden tones, and the wind ripples its surface in silence. Icebergs travel at electron speeds in comparison to our full-stop halt before perching to absorb this view into our memories. Bruce tells us a story of how, on a previous journey down the Alsek at this very site some years before, the group heard a deafening roar; something big calved off the glacier. They had just pulled ashore and were getting ready to start unloading the rafts when they could see a large wave coming their way. The order was yelled to head up the hill to higher ground, in came the wave that thrust their still-full rafts 20 feet up the hillside depositing them right where we had set up our kitchen and more than a few of our tents. Now, it all makes sense why driftwood is scattered about the camp; this must be a rather common occurrence. Was this in any way frightening? Not a chance; by now, the sense of adventure is in full swing. I want to be ready for everything; it’s all just incredible. By the way, we had Thai food for dinner. Yep, life is something else away from the treadmill.