Nowhere, Alaska

I’ve been nowhere for a few hours and gone a day or two without a shower, but that’s about it.

Alaska was different. My compatriots and I talked for months about how we’d feel when the float plane took off and left us to our own devices in the Alaskan wilderness. It was surreal and even though our 8 scheduled nights turned into 9 because of heavy fog, we made it back home safely.

The fishing was ridiculous at times (in a good way) and the creek we began in morphed into a much larger river after miles and miles of the complete unknown. We didn’t see any sign of human life for 5 full days and although I yearned for a shower and cold, frosty beverage after days and days of float camping, I miss the wilderness.

We caught and ate sockeye salmon, grayling, char and the freshest silver salmon I’ll probably ever taste. We made coffee along the river when the wind and rain decided to show up, but it didn’t dampen our spirits, which was obviously because of the coffee.

The camaraderie and friendship we had day in and day out was the real reason we chose Alaska for Darren’s 40th birthday adventure, but it ended up being more about nature than anything else.

It’s God’s Country out there and although bear and moose tracks reminded us daily that we were in their world, ironically, we never saw either species until our fly out back to civilization, and reality.

It took me a couple of days to reacclimatize to people, motor vehicles and the never ending sounds and progress of humanity. I’ll miss the river background in my ears each night and the constant chirping of various birds I’d never laid eyes on before.

I’ll miss the simplicity of daily goals, which will vastly change when I return to school on Monday. We hunted for fish, drank from the river and decided where to set up camp each night; that was our life. I had never seen so many miles of new water before and I’ll miss that too.

You gotta pay to play and although we had a few minor mishaps and countless bug bites along the way, I wouldn’t trade back any of it.

Alaska harbors secrets I’ll never fully understand, but I’m grateful she revealed a glimpse of her beauty during our special fly fishing journey into the unknown.

August has arrived and the heat is on. Stay safe out there and don’t forget to look up.