The open road
Hatcher Pass.
It doesn't sound like someplace you want to get stuck. It almost sounds like the kind of place where you'd hear the echoing strains of duelling banjos floating around the snow-covered rock edifices surrounding you.
Apparently, it's also not a place that gets plowed entirely until the Fourth of July. I'm serious.
In one day, I had gone from sea level in Anchorage to above the treeline in Hatcher Pass, hoofing the last mile or so of closed road to the site of the long-since-abandoned Independence Mine. There's a (closed) visitor's center there that won't even be opened this year, and without snowshoes (as I was), that's as far as ya get.
Which was fine.
It was an interesting place to see and to imagine hardy miners and their equally hardy wives living over half a century ago, days' travel from the nearest town and surrounded by scenery that could either stir you into deeper communion with God or drive you to fling yourself off one of the cliffs. A lot of the buildings are still standing in one way or another, some leaning on others or on rocks under the weight of years and snow and (dare I imagine it?) avalanches ... each time I fixed my binoculars on a window, I half-expected a shadowy form to move in front of it, and I was prepared to scream like a little girl and wet my pants if such a thing actually happened.
No dice.
Here's a funny Sarah-in-Hatcher-Pass Story, though:
To alert bears and other wildlife that you're in the area and to discourage their approach, it's recommended that you make as much noise as possible. Conversation is a good way to do this, but as a lone hiker (spare me the lectures), conversation looks (and feels) a little loonier than even I'm willing to be.
I did pray out loud for a little while, assuring God that I felt absolutely tiny and insignificant in the presence of such brutal majesty ... but prayer for the out-of-practice doesn't go on for very long, and soon, I was quietly making my way up that pass again.
Singing, then.
The only thing that came to mind, though, were Christmas carols.
Oh, well, I thought, I'm the only one I've seen on this road, and the bears don't care that it's not actually Christmastime. Here goes.
My boisterous, warbling strains of "Deck the Halls" bounced around me and gave me comfort in the knowledge that any hungry wildlife had likely been repelled by the noise.
Upon leaving the visitor's center, though, I heard other noises echoing off the mountains.
Voices.
Men's voices.
Binoculars pressed to my glasses, I scanned and scanned and scanned ... only to find a group of what appeared to be college-aged men snowshoeing along the ridge far above me. I'm pretty sure they were as repelled by my carolling as the local wildlife was.
Quite embarrassed, I made my way back to my car a mile below ...
Good grief.
But I didn't get eaten by a bear in Hatcher Pass, either.
It doesn't sound like someplace you want to get stuck. It almost sounds like the kind of place where you'd hear the echoing strains of duelling banjos floating around the snow-covered rock edifices surrounding you.
Apparently, it's also not a place that gets plowed entirely until the Fourth of July. I'm serious.
In one day, I had gone from sea level in Anchorage to above the treeline in Hatcher Pass, hoofing the last mile or so of closed road to the site of the long-since-abandoned Independence Mine. There's a (closed) visitor's center there that won't even be opened this year, and without snowshoes (as I was), that's as far as ya get.
Which was fine.
It was an interesting place to see and to imagine hardy miners and their equally hardy wives living over half a century ago, days' travel from the nearest town and surrounded by scenery that could either stir you into deeper communion with God or drive you to fling yourself off one of the cliffs. A lot of the buildings are still standing in one way or another, some leaning on others or on rocks under the weight of years and snow and (dare I imagine it?) avalanches ... each time I fixed my binoculars on a window, I half-expected a shadowy form to move in front of it, and I was prepared to scream like a little girl and wet my pants if such a thing actually happened.
No dice.
Here's a funny Sarah-in-Hatcher-Pass Story, though:
To alert bears and other wildlife that you're in the area and to discourage their approach, it's recommended that you make as much noise as possible. Conversation is a good way to do this, but as a lone hiker (spare me the lectures), conversation looks (and feels) a little loonier than even I'm willing to be.
I did pray out loud for a little while, assuring God that I felt absolutely tiny and insignificant in the presence of such brutal majesty ... but prayer for the out-of-practice doesn't go on for very long, and soon, I was quietly making my way up that pass again.
Singing, then.
The only thing that came to mind, though, were Christmas carols.
Oh, well, I thought, I'm the only one I've seen on this road, and the bears don't care that it's not actually Christmastime. Here goes.
My boisterous, warbling strains of "Deck the Halls" bounced around me and gave me comfort in the knowledge that any hungry wildlife had likely been repelled by the noise.
Upon leaving the visitor's center, though, I heard other noises echoing off the mountains.
Voices.
Men's voices.
Binoculars pressed to my glasses, I scanned and scanned and scanned ... only to find a group of what appeared to be college-aged men snowshoeing along the ridge far above me. I'm pretty sure they were as repelled by my carolling as the local wildlife was.
Quite embarrassed, I made my way back to my car a mile below ...
Good grief.
But I didn't get eaten by a bear in Hatcher Pass, either.
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