Billie Hyde

Fireweed

As a child living in Alaska, I remember seeing Fireweed everywhere during the summer. It grows wild and loves areas that have been newly cleared or burned. Since most of the populated areas of Alaska were newly cleared when I was growing up, there was a lot of it.

This summer, living in Denali has given me the opportunity to get reaquainted with my old pal Fireweed. It seems as though there was none in evidence just a couple of weeks ago, and suddenly it’s everywhere, two feet tall already.

As wonderful as the Fireweed is, there’s a sad side to it. You see, Fireweed blooms from the bottom up. All Alaskans know that once it reaches its full glory, with the blooms going all the way to the top, it tells us the first frost is nearly due and winter isn’t far behind.

That’s OK, Fireweed, I’m glad you’re here anyway. You make me smile every day.

What was that about silence?

In the last week I’ve been listening-really listening-to the sounds of the wilderness. Well, this isn’t exactly wilderness right where I’m living-not when you have 90,000 of your best friends coming to visit during the season. So at times there is a need to filter out the cars and buses and airplanes, not to mention the guests and several hundred employees who are in the canyon where we live and work. But most of the time, there is an opportunity to stop, to listen, and to hear the sounds that are not man-made.

There are the raucus ravens who hang out around here. Earlier in the season it seemed as though the seagulls had taken over the territory, but apparently the ravens have recaptured their traditional place in the heirarchy. This afternoon I watched as three ravens chided me for infringing on their territory. Unfortunately, I’m not as easy to get rid of as the seagulls were.

We also have a healthy population of Columbian ground squirrels in residence. They run and chase each other from tree to tree, and when they realize I’m watching they move around to the other side of the tree and squeak at me. How brave.

There are plenty of other, smaller birds besides the ravens, and of course the river nearby and the wind in the trees cooperate to bring the counterpoint to the animals and birds. I love it in the early morning, before the tourist trade gets into full swing. It makes for a wonderful walk to work.

Silence Is Golden

Mountain Rainbow — This was my reward for hiking on the top of a mountain in Alaska.

One thing I’ve always enjoyed about the wilderness is the silence. Well, the wilderness isn’t really silent. But it’s quiet.

There are few places you can go in this country today where you can hear nothing but the sounds of the wild. Even most of our national parks ring with the cacophony of cars, trucks, people, airplanes, and all the other sounds of civilization. But there are rare times when I’ve been able to find that corner of quiet, where the only sound is the wind, the water, the birds.

Last weekend I had the privilege of going on a heli-hike. One of those noisemakers, a helicopter, took a group of eight of us to the top of a mountain and dropped us off for a three-hour hike through the high tundra. For a number of reasons, it was an experience I’ll cherish all my life. One of those reasons was the silence.

Yes, there were eight of us. But all were lovers of the outdoors, and the conversation focused on the experience we were sharing. There were also some opportunities to walk up over a ridge and find a few quiet minutes. The wind carried away the other voices, and the only sounds were those made by Nature herself. Definition of magical: one of those moments when the world seems to expand, when you can look around you and feel a part of something greater than yourself.

I stood at the top of a mountain and looked across the valley, two mountains tied together by a rainbow. I could hear a bird calling, and the wind murmured back. The ground was soft under my boots, a cushion of tundra decorated with tiny alpine flowers. Yes, magical.

Seasons!

After fifteen years of desert living, I almost forgot what it was like to experience the seasons. Here in Alaska, especially interior Alaska, the seasons change with a vengeance. Summer is short, and winter is long and harsh. And dark. The wildlife and the plants know that, so summer is like walking down the streets of New York City: everybody is in a rush but not quite sure where they’re going. Where they’re going is Fall…and then Winter again.

I arrived in Denali on April 30. There were snow patches on the ground and everything was brown and gray. Alaska welcomed us the next day with a white world. Hey, I haven’t owned snow boots for years! It continued for the rest of the first week, with temps in the daytime hovering around 40 degrees. As we snuggled in temporary quarters and crossed our fingers hoping for warmer weather so they could turn on the water in our housing, the weather teased us with warmer nights, then freezing nights again.

Suddenly in mid-May the weather warmed up and the sun came out, and we took off our jackets in the balmy 60 degree heat.

I walk up a hill to my office every morning, and I watched day by day as the bushes along the road first showed little buds, then hints of green, then bright green new growth. Now they’re in full leaf, celebrating the rain and the sun and warmth. Just to add to the celebration, wildflowers are jumping up. Yes, I mean jumping up. One day there will be a cute little flower peeking up, and the next day there’ll be a whole bouquet waiting to greet my day.

So for the next few weeks the animals and the plants will be reveling in the heat (it was 78 yesterday) and the long hours of sunlight (21 hours a day as of this writing.) They’ll be busy feeding for the winter and reproducing for next year. Then before I go I’ll see the whole process in reverse. One day the plants will start to turn orange and yellow and red. The animals will begin looking for winter quarters, and so will the seasonal workers here in Denali. The chill will be back in the air, and termination dust will start decorating the mountains. And I’ll start packing my bags to go back to what will likely still be 100-degree heat in Arizona.

Trains

Living in Denali has brought me back to a memory of my childhood. I grew up in both Alaska and Montana. Please don’t ask me how much time I spent in each-I’m getting old and having trouble remembering what I did yesterday, let alone what happened fifty to sixty years ago. The bare bones are that I was born in Montana and first went to Alaska when I was six. From then until my Junior year of high school, where I lived depended on what stage of marriage my mother was in. I did spend my last two years of high school in Anchorage, and graduated from there. But I attend the Cut Bank, Montana high school reunions. Go figure. But I digress.

Growing up in Montana, I grew itchy feet early on. Inherited from my much-married mother, I suspect. We lived in a house on the edge of town overlooking the railroad trestle off in the distance. I spent many hours sitting in front of the big picture window watching the trains go by. I’d count the cars in the long trains pulling the oil tankers from the refinery outside of town. And I’d watch the Empire Builder, wondering where the people on board were going. Were they headed to Chicago? To Seattle? Somewhere even farther and more exotic? Like Minneapolis? (I was a kid. My geography wasn’t always accurate.)

So that’s a long intro to the trains of Denali. I’m again living in a place where I can see the trains go by-now they are Alaska Railroad trains and the river is the Nenana River. And my bedroom is situated so I can hear them rumble by. Those trains are the lifeblood of this area. They bring the guests for the hotels and the National Park, and they carry the coal from the coal mine in Healy. The trains during the day are the people movers, and at night the coal train starts its trek to the coast for shipment. I can lie in bed at night and hear the train rumble by, sometimes for a long time-lots of coal going somewhere. At first it was a little disconcerting, but then I started remembering the trains of Montana. Now I can listen to the rumble and know how lucky I am. Now I’m in one of those exotic places I wanted to go.

Starting Over (Almost)

I finally got my Internet challenges resolved today-for the most part, at least. It turned out that my mobile hotspot wasn’t working properly. A new hotspot, activated courtesy of my hubby (you can’t activate it in the wilderness, I’m told) and the slowest Priority Mail package in history, came today and it’s burning up the satellites.

I have a LOT to catch up on-the leaves have sprung us right into a full green summer, and the place that just three weeks ago was all white is now 70 degrees. The mountains around us change daily…no, hourly…and provide a constantly changing show.

I had the privilege of having dinner with the editor of Alaska magazine and their photographer. For a lover of the written word and of Alaska, it was a real treat!

I walked into the entrance area of Denali National Park last weekend and shared the walkway with a moose-very cautiously, of course. The whole walk was exciting-one minute I’d be marveling at the vast mountains, and the next I’d be on my knees inspecting the newly-blooming flowers. Even the rain, when it came, was fun. It was a soft rain, making everything look more intense.

Pictures are now no longer such a challenge, so I hope to be able to build some posts around some of my favorites.

Getting Settled

Finally moved into our housing for the season, although even that was a challenge. For the first few days we didn’t have water, which required the use of a porta-potty and walking a goodly distance to the showers in very chilly weather. Then we got water, but it promptly froze up every night. Each night I’d check that we had hot water and would go to bed looking forward to a nice hot shower in the morning, then in the morning there would be nothing.

A trip to the dumpster one day revealed the reason for the water problem…the pipes are running above ground! Hey, it’s Alaska.

Anyway, the weather finally turned nice just in time for my birthday. I got to try out two

Climbers on Denali — Mountain climbers head to the base camp on Mt. McKinley.

tours in a row-the tour vendors want to show us how great their adventures are so we’ll tell the guests. First we did a helicopter tour over Denali National Park. The following day we did a flight around

Mt. McKinley. The weather was absolutely spectacular, and we could even see the mountain climbers hiking up toward one of their base camps. It was a truly thrilling experience and I feel so fortunate for it to have turned out so perfect.

On my birthday I walked to the post office to pick up my mail; it’s a mile and a half each way, but a nice walk. Then I treated myself to a king crab dinner. My coworkers provided a cake during the day, and then we gathered in our trailer for a glass of wine in the new wine glass I was given.

This was a birthday I’ll remember for years!

Summer is Coming…I Think

The first week brought new people, new tasks, and a constant stream of learning. After the hundreds of nights I spent in hotels in my career, I walked behind the desk for the first time. Being in the huge lobby with all the furniture stacked and covered, it was an eerie feeling at times, evoking memories of Jack Nicholson wandering through a closed and creepy hotel.

Every meeting brought an exchange of names, a discussion of where they are from, what they will be doing in Denali, and how many seasons they have been working here. Despite the seasonal nature of the work, there are a lot of people who return. There are retired policmen, a former Coast Guard officer, a chef who has worked all over the country in great restaurants, secretaries, teachers. We have young people looking for a new adventure, college students, young couples, retirees…they come to earn a living, but mostly they come for Alaska. The mountains, the wildlife, the immense beauty.

As I walked through the property, it seemed as though every time I made the walk the mountains looked a little different. The light changed, the clouds changed, the weather changed, and every change brought a new look to my surroundings. I found it hard not to just stop every few steps to think about how fortunate I am to be in Alaska again.

We were greeted the first day with snow that started as flurries, but occasionally became swirling white. The next morning we woke to a white world. It didn’t last long, but it was a reminder that winter owns this land and only gives it up temporarily.

One challenge of being here in the wilderness is that Internet service is slow, and at times nonexistent. While I hope to post pictures, unless I have a great connection it tends to send my efforts into a black hole. Stay tuned. I’m hoping it will get better as the season moves on.

Heading for Denali

Off to Denali National Park! I was amazed to see a traffic jam in Wasilla, which used to be nothing more than a couple of bars and a gas station on a gravel road. Once we got a few miles out of Wasilla, however, it started looking more like the Alaska I know. Funky little roadside businesses, and trees. And mountains. The best part of the drive was the first glimpse of Mount McKinley. I’ll not call it that again…in Alaska we just call it Denali-The Great One. As you drive along the Parks Highway, suddenly you round a curve and there is that amazing mountain towering above everything.

We also had a caribou cross the road in front of us, so we had our first official wildlife setting. I’m not counting the moose in Anchorage. They are ubiquitous there.

Because our housing isn’t quite ready, we’ve been put in temporary housing. It’s a building that used to house pipeline workers on the North Slope. It’s nothing more than a bunch of modular housing that was moved here and stacked up again. The funniest part was the bathroom. It’s down the hall, and there are two doors-one at each end. both ends have sinks and toilets, and there are showers in the middle. On one door the sign says “Men” and on the other it says “Women”!

Starting a New Adventure

Last summer’s trip to Yellowstone and Glacier prompted me to think about seasonal jobs. Remembering a conversation with an employee in Denali Park a few years ago, I decided to apply. So today I sit in Anchorage, getting ready to leave for Denali. This will be the record of my summer adventure.

First, it isn’t summer here. I left Phoenix three days ago after a couple of 100 degree days, and arrived here to mid-50s. Although I spent a lot of my childhood in Anchorage and graduated from high school here, I find the city barely recognizable. Controlled-access roads where there used to be gravel trails. Hotels where I used to live. And my favorite bar, which started out in the late 60s as a log cabin with soft chairs and a fireplace, is now a two-story giant sports bar.

Some things don’t change, though. Heading out to pick up some items from the store yesterday, I first encountered hills that seemed out of place. Turned out they are the leftover snow from winter that got dumped there after they cleared the roads. It had to go somewhere, you know. And on the way back to the hotel, traffic slowed to a crawl to allow a moose to cross the road.

And the light. It’s different here than in the desert. Most of the time since I arrived it’s been overcast, which I remember to be a pretty common state of affairs. But then late in the day, as the sun gets lower, it peeks under the clouds and hits the mountains. Anchorage is surrounded by mountains, still covered with snow at this time of the year. They light up and glow with the sunset, blue and white and jagged against the sky. It brings so many memories of my younger years, when the mountains were the backdrop to my life.