Howling winds are today’s alarm clock, and they are also our nemesis in getting our gear packed without it flying away. After employing the strategy of using trees as a windbreak and then moving over to help others, our camp is soon packed up, and we are ready to push the rafts back onto the water to start our day of moving a little further downriver in search of our next stops and ultimately camp.

Maybe I’ve repeated this one too many times already, but the idea that we are experiencing summer feels elusive. On the other hand, my imagination of the winter conditions says that if it were, in fact, that time of year, we’d be experiencing fiercer winds, temperatures dropping into the deep negatives, and would find most rocks and waterfalls covered in a thick blanket of snow and ice. Should I ever have the means, I could see coming through here some cold January day when light is as precious as warmth to snap a few photos of what this corner of the world looks like when no one else is present to witness it.

Throughout our journey southwest, we are presented with this abundance of glacial ice and snowpack; we are, after all, in the drainage of the largest non-polar ice fields on Earth.

Looking at this image not only am I once again struck by the size and scale of our environment but also our insignificance in comparison. I enjoy the opportunity to dwell on the details that allow me to consider the dirt-and-debris highway that rides atop these glaciers. Boulders that become erratics and moraines that are left in the glacier’s wake, granite that is pushed around, and surfaces scrubbed bare are the handy work of time, ice, water, and grinding weight that transforms ice into the blue hues we stand in awe of.

Our liquid highway today has been cutting through the Fairweather Mountain range and had us passing the enormous Novatak glacier, which, if I’m not mistaken, is that massive sheet of ice in the far background on the left. Like all other days, we needed to make a pit stop to collect firewood, though we hung around long enough to grab lunch at the same time.

Not only was this a stop for firewood and lunch but it was also the spot that would serve to take a hike from.

We were heading to get our first glimpse of Alsek Lake. Cresting a small hill on the fairly worn trail, a gaggle of geese on an iceberg became a skein as they departed, flying close to the lake’s surface.

We humans, on the other hand, are surface-bound but happy to be here. Our arrival at Alsek Lake, though, is a bittersweet moment as it signals that our last campsite of the journey is about to be had. Caroline’s beanie is a clear indicator of what is on our horizon: Yakutat Coastal Airlines is the company that will fly out to Dry Bay to ferry us back to our regular and ordinary lives as compared to these days of the extraordinary and exceptional.

A cluster of huddling mushrooms will never know my world, and I can only observe them in their natural environment for minutes before my attention is taken to the next observation. These photographic memories allow me a revisit and study them to finish contemplating just what it was back on this particular Saturday that intrigued me about these fungi, pulling my senses their way and, in a sense, asking me to immortalize them.

From a view on high, this chilly corner of the world is monochromatic, but on closer inspection, the full palette and vibrancy of the rainbow are scattered about for those observant enough and willing to invest their time to explore such sights.

Every other day when I’m in the world I call home, I repeatedly see the same roads, same kitchen, same office, and mostly the same faces, so when I find scenes such as these, I must capture them so I may gaze upon them repeatedly as well.

We lounge lakeside with some visitors indulging in short naps while I restlessly meander across the area, looking to fill my memories with as many mental snapshots as I’m able to hold. What I can’t bring back is how the impressions of bear paws create a sense of alert that one could stroll by at any minute. The feeling of the air and the sound of icebergs rolling over, echoing across the water before the ripple laps at the shore, letting us know that it wasn’t a mere ice cube that was tumbling, will also remain a distinct remembrance. In a sense, I’m like one of those frozen water molecules out there in front of me, locked in a moment, except I’m trying to understand what potential exists for me once I escape the clutch of the universe that has trapped me in my current existence.

I’ve never seen moss move, nor will I likely ever have that opportunity. That I never will is okay because it affords me that delight in seeing it sit quietly and serenely as I inspect it, touch it, smell it, and fall into wonder how it knew that by attaching itself to something of such a strong contrasting color it would allow it to be all the more beautiful.

I’m an equal opportunity connoisseur of things beautiful and hold rocks in high esteem.

Time for the two-legged animals to trace their way back to the rubber crafts that allow them to traverse water from above instead of within like normal water-going creatures.

Just because we must return to find new adventures and even more sights doesn’t mean we don’t have to walk by and not appreciate those things we missed when we first passed through.

Their colors sang to me and, like Sirens, lured me with their song and enchantments though fortunately, I escaped without having to encounter a kind of aesthetic shipwreck at the price of being drawn to them. Should you guess by now that I’m a romantic, your observation wouldn’t be wrong.

Don’t think for a minute that rocks do not also hold a special place in my heart. In my book, “Stay in The Magic,” I devote a healthy dose of love and appreciation for all things geological as we moved down the Colorado River through that stone temple known as the Grand Canyon. While the landscape here may be newer and worn differently, it is no less spectacular and serves as a powerful lesson about differences found between geological epochs and locations.

Does that look like a 10-story-high iceberg to you? It doesn’t to me either, but it’s at least that tall. Such are the tricks of scale played on the mind of the explorer in such exotic places.

It’s just amazing what boatmen do to make all of these experiences possible for those of us who have no other way of exploring this type of environment. While he’s finally out of silhouette and not laying on his back, hardly recognizable, this is Pauly, although under the hat, behind the sunglasses, and with his jacket covering his lower jaw, you’d hardly know it.

In Alaska, rocks know how to float.

We have arrived at our camp in front of the Alsek glacier and its lake. This will be our home for nearly 36 hours and if this were the extent of how we might spend a weekend just sitting lakeside with an occasional paddle out among the icebergs, we could be happy, ecstatic even.

While Caroline communes with the horizon, I pick up some of the details to ensure there are no gaps in our visual memories.

The skies above the Fairweather Range start to clear.

The rugged mountains and heavier coastal precipitation make for some stark snow and ice forms riding atop the range. Like waiting for the fireworks to begin on New Year’s or the American Fourth of July we are in anticipation of some particular clouds giving way to a rare sight: the top of Mount Fairweather, which is still shrouded to the right of this photo.

Starting to feel like it’s almost evening. To the right of the rafts lies the channel the Alsek is exiting on and the one we will take the day after tomorrow.

Dinner in the golden light of the Alaskan wilderness but Fairweather remains elusive.

So flowers must remain my constant visual companion as we wait for the big show. If you, too, had been here on this day, then maybe you also would be smiling with me as your memories danced with the color of mid-summer here at 59 degrees, 12 minutes, and 5 seconds north.

Moving towards the end of the day, the light remains spectacular.

And just as the surrounding landscape is turning darker, the clouds clear long enough to offer us this most beautiful view of Mount Fairweather. That beast is towering 15,325 feet above sea level and is one of the tallest coastal mountains on earth at only 12 miles east of the Pacific Ocean.

We close out the day around a campfire, warming our toes and enjoying the conversation of a day, a week, a life well spent. Tomorrow, the adventure continues.

Snow and glaciers are part of a gorgeous start to a day on the Alsek River, well, that and a hot breakfast.

We won’t be in camp much longer as it’s almost time to get out on the river.

The mountains in the background are part of the Noisy Range. The sky is a mixed bag of shifting clouds that is, on occasion letting bits of sunshine speckle the landscape.

Straight out, far in the distance between these two mountain ranges, lies the Pacific, and fortunately for us, that’s not the way we’ll be traveling today. For one, no river runs out that way, but if there was, it would mean we are almost finished with this journey. We are now entering the confluence of the Tatshenshini and Alsek Rivers. While this is just one small braid joining us, soon we’ll be on the full flow of the combined rivers.

Another hanging glacier falls out of the mountains alongside the merging Tatshenshini and Alsek Rivers in British Columbia, Canada.

This photo was taken in the middle of the now merged Tatshenshini and Alsek Rivers which at times feel more like a lake.

One minute, I’m looking behind us, and the river reflects the golden light of the early morning sun, and then a minute later, we are looking at winter.

Here’s where things start getting a little more difficult because the Alsek is about to become a thousand shallow braids, and our trip leader, Bruce Keller, has to make some serious decisions based on his years of studying rivers. This labyrinth demands we engage in a zig-zag hunt for the path that will take us to End Glacier, which is just ahead on the left. While that spot down there in the United States might look relatively close (we estimate it to be between 6 and 7 miles from our current vantage point), we have about 15 miles of rowing ahead of us due to the course we will have to take.

We are sitting in that mess of braids, as seen in this satellite image I found on Google Maps. It was taken in winter when flows are low and much of the river in its thinnest parts is frozen, at least on its top layer. On the day we were running the river, the entire channel may have looked much like a lake, but in some places, the water would be only inches deep.

There may have been water flowing over this gravel and sand bed some weeks ago, but now it’s an exposed bank that we are floating past. To my untrained eye, the water was going in all directions at once. While this river could be said to be flowing through a river bed, that path is changing all the time from day to day and week to week. In eddies, it runs back upstream; near gravel beds, it can run sideways until it spills back into the main channel. Water that is being dragged out of the main channel is called a bleeder and where water has accumulated and starts reentering a larger channel, that is known as a feeder. Earlier in my blog post, I spoke about how people on these rafts do not want to step in the water to help dislodge a raft that has run aground; this image is a perfect example of what might lay just below the surface and getting a foot wedged between half-buried trees in fast-moving cold water is not somewhere anyone wants to attempt a rescue.

Back in Canada, we had ice and rocks and a couple of flowers; here in the United States of America, we have lush mountainsides and flowers in abundance because America. I’m just kidding, of course, as this has been a large part of the landscape ever since we arrived on this side of the Tweedsmuir Glacier.

Around the bend from End Glacier, we get our first glimpse of Walker Glacier, thusly named because it used to be accessible. The name of Walker may no longer be appropriate, though, because it has been retreating since 1984 and the section our group hiked on five years earlier has collapsed and helped create an even larger lake in front of the shrinking glacier.

Where Caroline and I set up our tent next to the river was the face of Walker Glacier thirty-three years ago. Back in the mid-1970s, when Bart Henderson was out exploring the Tatshenshini before setting up the first commercial white water runs in this area, he must have encountered a very different environment. Back then, in this region, the mountains were perpetually snowcapped, and the glaciers extended hundreds of feet further than they do now. One has to wonder if someone traveling through thirty years from now on an October run will only hear stories of glaciers that used to be in the mountains and that people were even able to walk on them shortly after getting off their raft.

On our way for a closer look.

There will be no walking out on that jagged mess of potential death, but it sure is pretty.

Rocks floating in the water waiting to be released from the ice that for thousands of years have carried them to this point. Sometime soon, the ice will have melted and will be on its way to the Pacific, and the rocks will find their way to the bottom of the lake. This is another example of how erratics are brought to new locations.

Like a couple of erratics, these two from somewhere else keep ending up in places they are not originally from. Notice Caroline’s beanie from Yakutat Coastal Airlines? She got that one five years after her first “bush plane” ride. My beanie was handmade by Caroline, and has since been to Yellowstone for some snowshoeing, to Oregon on the coast during winter, and twice now to the Alsek.

As we explore the lakeshore next to Walker Glacier I’m struck by the idea that no one else on Earth could be having the experience I am right now. While in the city back home, my office, or the grocery store, we all experience a shared reality. Out here, there is ample opportunity for 14 people to have a distinct perspective of a view that only they will hear and see. And while any two people looking at, let’s say, the Statue of Liberty will have distinct but similar experiences, they are relatively the same as the Statue is unchanging, and the environment, aside from the weather, will be relatively constant. On the other hand, there are experiences like today’s that are dynamic and will be mostly different from anyone who follows. I think this fluid state of change is what draws many people into these types of experiences, such as when a surfer finds a wave only for it to dissipate, never to be ridden again, allowing it to enter a kind of mythological status. Are these kinds of journeys our way of joining the mythological narrative that surrounds our existence?

These moments of unique experiences well removed from our routines beg a question for me: is there a hierarchy of greater or lesser impact on the character of the individual from the grade of experience that affects us on a deeper intrinsic level? If so, how do they broaden or narrow one’s focus or affinity for what life is offering? Is our relationship to the nature found in these extraordinary locations extended and made more secure, or was our DNA and previous experiences already taking us down this path?

The waters of the Alsek River and the lake that has formed at the Walker Glacier are joining here, where even the patterns in the mud are strikingly beautiful to me.

One can easily get tired on vacation and in need of pulling up a spot in the sand to just lay down and get a little nap.

It’s 9:00 p.m. as I head to the river to check the lighting and make sure nobody has made off with one of our rafts.

The sun has come out to smile upon us here in Alaska as our day unwinds.

A few of us are up late on a clear, cool night. While the roar of 14 voices can sound cacophonous in this kind of landscape, the river seems to have slowed down in reverence to the moon and delicate light that is defining our night and is somehow quieter than it was when we landed. These moments late in a river trip are when one wishes to roll back the clock to when we were first launching and make it a point to keep sleepiness at bay so we could enjoy many of the nights where the midnight moon silently crawled across the sky while the rest of our travel companions slept warm and soundly over in their tents.