The Penalty Box

Writer, Wastelander, nerd. I leave words and photos here sometimes. 📸

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Arctic Drive Field Notes #5

After exploring the delta, the tundra, the ice and the ocean, after acclimating surprisingly well to the constant presence of sunlight, after taking as many photos as afforded by opportunity...we (somewhat sadly) had to begin our latitudinal descent.

The Dempster Highway weaves through a few different mountain ranges. The first on the way down - but still above the Arctic Circle - are the Richardson Mountains, named for the Scottish surgeon and naturalist who sought the Northwest Passage with John Franklin, first on the overland end of business.

And wouldn't you know it? It was here we finally had trouble.

The thing about the Arctic is that getting there isn't the endgame. You have to get back, and sometimes (even in 2026), nature does what it will.

The only ominous moment leading up to this point had been the Peel River crossing, the second of two ferries on the "descent." The weather was a revolving door of bright sunlight and sudden downpours, such that the Peel was significantly choppier than when we'd first crossed going north.

We were also the only vehicle in the queue this time, so the boat was considerably more lightweight. We could feel the punch and roll of the water below, the entire operation rocking as if we were at sea. When the ferry reached the other side of the Peel, its crew couldn't align it properly with the approach - the rushing water kept pushing it (and its cable, I assume) downriver.

After several attempts, this sideways approach was the best that could be managed; one of the crew waved us to disembark with a little more frantic enthusiasm than one would normally like, and Chris floored it.

We wondered out loud if the ferry was doomed to close for weather. Perhaps we'd just gotten very lucky.

I wonder now if it wasn't this confidence that made us believe we'd already seen the worst of our obstacles. Maybe, also, we felt we'd made acquaintanceship with the Dempster Highway on the way up. We knew what to expect now - or at least, we thought we did.

Still, not wanting to be reckless, we called ahead to the refuelling outpost to make sure they had gas.

Then, in one of the more desolate (and beautiful) curves of the Richardson Mountains, the right rear tire violently decompressed. Chris had less than thirty seconds to find a suitable shoulder to pull onto - or a stretch of road wide enough to pass as having a shoulder - before the tire was completely airless.

We were alone, on a remote stretch of dirt "highway" above the Arctic Circle, in the pouring rain, engulfed in a cloud of swarming mosquitoes. No sat phone, no cell service, no communication.

Fortunately, we planned for this. We had not one, but two full-size spares, ready to go.

Still, the circumstances were not pleasant. Chris had a moment of panic, and I had to give him a sort of "I'm here too, you know, pull yourself together" pep talk. Then there was nothing to do but pull the supplies and tools out and get to work.

Thanks to the weather, however, it wouldn't be so easy. Chris put down a plank of wood to stabilize the jack, but the plank began to sort of...sink into the road. It was then that he also noticed something else: the edges of the road, heavy with moisture, seemed to have cracks growing in them, like the highway itself was a soft cake beginning to crumble apart.

Very slowly, with great care, we drove the vehicle to a new position further down the road where the ground seemed more stable, and resumed work. With the mosquitoes as bad as they were, it wasn't long before Chris ordered me to stay inside - only one person was necessary for this part, he argued, and he was willing to sacrifice himself (penance for his previous panic, maybe).

So, with no small effort (I cannot emphasize enough how terrible the insects were), Chris removed the dead tire and had its replacement ready. His adrenaline was beginning to drop, taking his energy and strength with it, so I was prepared to hop out again to help finish up when three Canadian bikers (whom we'd already met) just happened to catch up to us.

(Shout out to Nigel and company for helping Chris to get the lugnuts securely fastened, so that I didn't have to. Perfect timing!)

Once the crisis was over, Chris was in a much better mood. Delirious with relief, he joked, "See, if only Crozier and Fitzjames knew how to change a tire, none of this would have ever happened."

But by the time we got to the lone refuelling station - even though we'd called ahead - said refuelling station was, you guessed it: out of gas.

GOOD THING WE HAD A FULL JERRY CAN FOR EXACTLY THIS POSSIBILITY.

By now, we were a combination of salty, bemused, and hysterical - and our luck was still perfectly good, precisely because of our preparations.

We would have just enough fuel (about 100 kilometers of pad) to make it back to Dawson City, which would also have services like gas, food, repair shops, and communication with the outside world - but we needed no further interruptions or unfortunate surprises.

Meanwhile, my body was having strange reactions to the large amount of mosquito bites I'd acquired. Any bites near a tattoo were causing the entire tattoo (sometimes ten years old) to rise again as if the wound was fresh. This bite, on my thigh, began as a circular welt but then spread in odd configurations.

As we continued down the Dempster, we saw that entire sections of the road had washed out, eroded into the ditch or down the mountainsides. Most of these sections were already marked with road cones; some were not. Often, one "lane" was the only available passage when the other side was simply gone.

By now it was very clear to us that this road possesses certain characteristics that are not to be tested or taken for granted.

The section we'd popped a tire on has black shale mixed in with the gravel, and this shale is very sharp. It's used because it's readily available and handles temperature fluctuations well. I would also argue that it's not meant to be driven on at normal speeds; we got cocky and deserved the outcome.

We have also found out, since then, that some recommendations for tires on the Dempster suggest 10-ply; ours were only 4-ply. So it could have indeed been more interesting/even worse, and here we thought we were ready for most situations.

By the time we hit the Ogilvie Mountains, the rain had stopped and the sun was low in the sky, but its light would never quite leave us. We both found ourselves in a contemplative, awestruck sort of headspace, I think.

This journey isn't simple, even in the modern world. Since our departure, the rains have escalated, the rivers have been full to bursting, and both ferries have closed - to my knowledge. The Peel River Ferry actually saw its landings washed out entirely, before its cable then snapped. The boat drifted downstream for about 12 or 15 kilometers before it could be recovered.

As I write this, people are currently stuck on the Mackenzie River delta, or are sleeping on the lobby floor of the over-full lodge where we stayed on our route north. Reports are increasingly anxious as patience runs out. While it's not a life or death situation, I do wonder whether supplies would need to be airlifted in, or people extracted similarly. And then what of the vehicles? I know a few bikers have found safe (albeit expensive) crossing with some enterprising boatmen, but full-size vehicles? (I guess you could always abandon them and walk thousands of kilometers to rescue, but if I've learned anything, it's that scurvy, lead poisoning, and supernatural bears will get you first.)

To paraphrase what someone said recently in those reports: "This is a beautiful road, but it's a dangerous road. And it's the only road - the only road here, and the only road that will get you to the ocean by land. Many people want to get to the Arctic Ocean, and not everyone succeeds. Nature is still the boss here, no matter what we do. If you get to the ocean and return without incident on your very first try, God had your back."

I'm not religious, but I feel the sentiment.

Heard.

A clean hotel room, with walls cracked by permafrost, was our finish line.

Though still in the Yukon, just below the Circle, we felt like we could safely say we made it.

I felt exhausted - mentally content, but definitely some degree of physically unwell. I showered and covered my body with aloe. Most of my exposed skin was now mosquito welts, so that it felt like I was thoroughly sunburned.

Chris, whose eyes had been bothering him a lot on this trip, has been switching from glasses to contacts and back again, somewhat self-consciously. I told him he's handsome no matter what he does.

Can Arctic crisis bonding inspire sexual encounters with your expedition partner, no matter how exhausted you are? YUP! Field tested in real life, you're welcome.

For now, even with loads of DSLR photos to process, I sit basking in the realization that we were lucky, that we've done it - this disbelief of having accomplished this journey exactly as we said we would. I have a charity art auction I'm contributing to next week, we have scripts to go over for an independent fiction series in early preproduction, and our most immediate project - for which I think we have a meeting this week - may or may not involve shooting nudes (don't worry, I won't subject anyone here to that), but my head, in spite of all of this, is just...thinking about the Arctic.

Entering the Circle was like crossing a border whose tangible effects didn't register at the time, and now I return to the world...different. Remixed. A "Northern Reach" version of VanderMeer's Area X.

If you've read all of this, thanks for sticking with me. These travel posts are often lengthy and deeply personal, but nevertheless rewarding to write. I'm sure I'll have more nonsense to come, in some format or other.

Cheers.

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Arctic Drive Field Notes #4

Or: we finally touch the Arctic Ocean. (Yes, that's ice on the horizon! It was actually much closer to the shoreline a couple of weeks ago, so its seasonal recession is pretty recent. The leads are well and truly open, boys.)

There are lots of roads, buildings, and topographic features in this part of the world named for a certain flavor of 19th-century Arctic explorer, as you can see. In the Northwest Territories, when things carry fragments of the name Franklin, they tend to be referencing the Man-Who-Ate-His-Boots era. (You know, his first terrible expedition.)

I'm fine getting into that, but in this entry I really want to talk about the indigenous peoples who live and work in and sustain these communities, because one has to.

Let's start with Inuvik, whose population these days is over 65% indigenous (and about 25% white). Most (but not all) are Inuvialuit Inuit or Gwich'in First Nations. Native art and culture is dominant here in a tangible way, but maybe that's how it feels to someone like me; sadly, where I'm from, indigenous culture is often relegated to the sidelines, an optional thing for those who want to give the appearance of care or interest.

This is a sculpture outside of the Arctic Visitors Center on the eastern edge of town. I tried to track down its name and artist, but it looks to be a collaborative effort commemorating an arts and culture festival.

The front of the central market was covered in neat murals, too (some of them with potent messages).

We stopped at a craft store and gift shop whose proprietor at the register was a very old native woman. As she slowly rang me up, we talked a lot - mostly about seasons and bears. We have bears where I live, too, but not like this; she told us about a recent episode where a grizzly had peered into her living room and she'd had to scold her dog for starting to growl (which would not have de-escalated the situation). Then she explained the syrups and teas I bought, and we were on our way.

The teas, by the way: both wildcrafted herbal teas used across the Canadian Arctic, one a cloudberry tea for vitamin C, the other a crowberry tea "for hypothermia." I'll try them the next time I feel like I'm freezing to death or coming down with something.

Oh, and I bought a horror anthology written by indigenous authors, many of whom are from neighboring Nunavut. I'll probably save it for a fall read later this year.

Tuktoyaktuk, then! Another bone-rattling dirt "highway" will get you from Inuvik to this little settlement on the Arctic Ocean's Beaufort Sea.

Tuktoyaktuk, or Tuktuyaaqtuuq in the Inuvialuktun, means "resembling caribou." The name comes from the legend of a woman who watched a herd of caribou walk into the ocean and turn to stone; these caribou are now, apparently, the reefs visible at low tide.

Also called "Tuk" for short, this was the first Canadian indigenous settlement to reclaim its original name in 1950 - previously, British colonizers called the town "Port Brabant."

I tried to get a sense of the local languages, but there seem to be so many variations, all of them unfamiliar to my English-first brain. English and Inuvialuktun appear on signs simultaneously; some dialects are also spoken in Nunavut.

The Beaufort Sea is apocalyptically harsh and frozen most of the year - or at least, historically that was the case. Climate change has shifted things a bit. Normally, a narrow passage 100 kilometers wide would open in late summer, but now those periods have extended. The Beaufort is supposed to be an important regeneration hub of Arctic sea ice, which rotates into and feeds the greater Arctic ice pack.

We could still see quite a bit of ice in late June, at least, but it was also pretty warm.

(The air was warm, not the water. Of course we touched the water. Had to. I've taken some cold fucking cold plunges before, but the Arctic Ocean is...well, the Arctic Ocean. You just go numb wherever you've touched it, and then slowly a dull ache rises in your bones that becomes increasingly knife-like for half an hour. If you're into that - and I'm not saying I'm not - go for it.)

We stayed on the shoreline until the mist rolled in. It was a really special experience, and I'm still contemplating it. Not many people get to stand here, even if they want to.

The latitude of this position is a little higher than 69° N, and it's the farthest north one can possibly drive in a contiguous straight shot on this continent. It's about the same latitude at which the cold boys of The Terror and Erebus met their end.

And, now, if I can get (even more) serious for a minute:

While I entered this journey already aware of my luck, support, and privilege, I feel it's best to discuss that directly here. I am white. The reason I get to travel to strange places and work in the arts, to even nurture those urges with a BA way back when in a country where nobody can afford school now - this isn't just because I work hard. It's the product of having had an advantage for generations.

Indigenous peoples and whole communities have had their ways of life disrupted, their mobility restrained for generations. In Tuk, you can still see the BAR-3 "Distant Early Warning" radar station where the US, along with Canada, essentially established itself as a policing force in the era leading up to the Cold War for its own purposes, building the installation because they couldn't be told not to, occupying it because they could, and all while controlling the people who already lived there, in their own space. Tuk was also a victim of Canada's residential school project, which you may have heard of.

I rarely talk about these things anywhere online (I much prefer real-world discussions as I find them more productive), but these travel posts have felt like a weirdly safe space and this aspect of the conversation feels absolutely necessary here.

So often, when I see another white person attempting these thoughts online, it comes out in the form of a reshared meme either going "we suck amirite" without actually digging into the meat of anything, or giving the appearance of caring about marginalized peoples in the most flaccid, "friendly reminder!" kind of way. It feels, to me, like a subconscious seeking of absolution.

But, you know, nothing can absolve us of this, and this discomfort is something we all have to sit with.

There is an echo that is not lost on me, concerning my position when I visit distant places and write about them. I want to believe that taking only photographs (and buying teas consensually) is the least aggressive, outermost ripple in that wave of behavior carried across time.

Up next:

We absolutely get stuck in the Arctic.

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Arctic Drive Field Notes (B-Side)

This morning someone asked us, unprompted, if we'd seen the Tuunbaq. (For context, we've just driven into the Arctic.)

I unthinkingly replied something to the effect of, "Yeah, and the trauma bonding led to some unexpected moments. We're husbands now." (I don't know, man, I couldn't stop myself. It was the first thing I thought of saying.)

But THEN they asked which one of us is the Fitzjames and which one of us is the Crozier in this relationship

and

I am beside myself

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Arctic Drive Field Notes #3

I have a reliable internet connection again, as well as a chance to rest. Hopefully I can use the time to get caught up, because days are beginning to feel like months and time is getting slippery.

We left pavement on day 5 - at least, I think it was day 5 - and ventured onto something called the Dempster Highway. We're familiar with old forest service roads, but by most metrics, the Dempster is not at all what most people think of upon hearing the word "highway."

I'll get into the physical nature of this road later, and to some extent why it is the way it is, but for now, a brief historical anecdote:

In 1910, four Royal Northwest Mounted Police (a precursor to the modern RCMP) left Fort McPherson for Dawson City on the winter solstice to do a mail patrol. In classic fashion, they dismissed their Dene guide (Esau George) after they made it over the Richardson Mountains, whereupon they promptly lost their way but kept going. When they didn't show up in Dawson City, search parties were sent out in the spring, discovering their bodies and journals only 40 kilometers away from Fort McPherson. Three of the men had starved; one had shot himself.

Corporal William Dempster led the search that found the missing party (now known as "the Lost Patrol"), and the highway - which follows an approximation of the route these men had hoped to take - is named after him.

Tombstone Territorial Park is located on the early stretches of this road, and the Ogilvie Mountains are some of the most beautiful I've ever seen. This is a cell phone shot, but we stopped often to use our DSLRs and do the photography we were meant to. This was also the first area where snowpack became a regular feature of the landscape, albeit intermittently.

Also: moose!

Because we were unfamiliar with the nature of the Dempster, and because we felt that slower going was safer (the road is very choppy in places), we chose to err on the side of caution. We stopped halfway at the roadside lodge and refuelling station (which did indeed have fuel, in spite of having run out recently; we called ahead to make sure anyway). The further north you go, there are fewer and fewer reliable services - fewer EV charging stations (if any), scarcer gasoline, landlines holding the fort down in lieu of reliable wireless, etc.

There is technically camping available, but we were now firmly in the territory of terrible mosquitoes and plentiful megafauna in an unfamiliar space, so we got a night in the lodge.

It makes sense that everyone else staying at this place is also a weary traveler, and information is predominantly shared the old-fashioned way: word of mouth. When you get in off the road, anyone in the lobby asks from which direction you came and what the conditions were. An older man promptly warned us of a small wildfire near the Arctic Circle (he'd just come in from the north). Traces of information like this could be found online - when the internet worked - but only ghosts of it.

Checking out the next morning, I saw the first example of one of these, pinned to the board by the main entrance:

These are pretty silly souvenirs, but they're also neat in the sense that you have to go to the Circle to get one. Everyone who issues them - and there are a few offices - has their own recognized look, verbage, and style, so you get a feeling of something authentically sourced, so to speak. We didn't get one here, but...

...we did make it to the Circle shortly thereafter.

The road improved a bit more on its northern end, and the remainder of the drive to Inuvik seemed less hazardous than the day before. Still, we saw lots of people using large (rented? refurbished?) military vehicles like this one:

There were two ferries toward the Mackenzie River delta: the first, above at the Peel River (whose ferry is the Abraham Francis), and the second, across the Mackenzie River itself. The name of that ferry escapes me for the moment, but they had really nice bulkhead latrines.

In Inuvik, our hotel was propped up on a sort of elevated foundation - as all the buildings are in this part of the world. It's a permafrost thing. Where I live (which is much, much further south), sometimes buildings are elevated like that to keep the pipes from freezing. Here, apparently, it's to prevent the building's heating from melting the permafrost, which is already so unreliable. The ground heaves and rolls with temperature fluxes, causing structural instability.

So, you walk up serrated metal platforms (which also helps give tread in icy conditions) almost everywhere you go.

Finally, we took a walk outside at 2:30 am, unable to sleep - because of the travel, I think, not the sun. We're so close now, you know? Almost there! Thoughts like that. Walking keeps the mosquitoes away - mostly - but if you stand still for two seconds, they'll end you.

This is a shit picture, but I'm doing it to show the lighting. This is 2:30 am -ish. Just us, and our buddy, Perpetual Daylight.

The sun has a seemingly normal arc across the sky during "daytime" hours, but it seems to slow down as it approaches the horizon, so sunset feels like it lasts a long time - and then never happens. The sun kind of "rolls" along the northern horizon and then whips back overhead again. It's really cool, and as someone with an irregular sleep schedule, I find it weirdly comforting.

I think this is a good stopping point for now. I'm resting in a place with a good connection at the moment though, so hopefully I can write and share more soon.

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Arctic Drive Field Notes #2

We're at 3,209 km (1,994 miles) so far.

After two days of largely no cell service, we've reconnected with civilization for a final resupply of food before mostly decoupling from the grid again. In spite of our first encounter with some pretty dicey road conditions, we have really good internet tonight - so I'm gonna take advantage of it.

But first: when we parked at the grocery to restock our food bins, we looked up and saw this license plate. Good sign? Bad sign? One of you?

Yesterday's journey was smooth, scenic, and isolated. We lost count of how many black bears we ran into, but so far no grizzlies. This one was so nonchalant about our passing that it just...yielded to us, and then wandered back into the lane again.

We made it into the Yukon last night, and camped in good weather. Am now covered in mosquito bites that I somehow didn't notice at the time. Heard unidentifiable guttural noises off in the distance (animal, not sure what kind), but were too tired to worry much. Slept with bear spray in the tent. Had next to no cell signal but great views of an 11:50 pm sunset.

The sky never fully went dark, either. It just got this funny sort of day-for-night, cinematic twilight aspect to it instead.

The lighting inside the tent around 12:30 am:

As for today, that factor has multiplied. We're not above the 66th yet, but we've officially experienced full midnight sun. It's 2 am as I scribble this, and the "twilight" is lighter than ever. No need for a torch now when you can see everything plainly.

From after midnight, in one of the last towns we'll drive through before the Serious Road begins:

Road conditions today were mostly okay, but we've definitely encountered multiple patches now where, if we were less patient, we'd probably be using one of the spare tires by now - which in my opinion is too soon. Trying to hold onto our backups as long as possible.

Am also hearing rumors that one of the only refuelling stops between here and Inuvik ran out of said fuel recently (though other rumors suggest a recent resupply). Also hearing that the ferries were closed recently too (happens a lot for ice jams, all you can do is wait FOR THE PACK TO UNFUCK ITSELF), though they appear to be in operation again at present.

Going to coordinate some contingency plans and pass out for a while, I think.

Soon: the Arctic Circle.

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Arctic Drive Field Notes #1

Two days, a little over 1,450 km (900 miles). Feels like hardly a dent, but at least we're on schedule (it's been slower going thanks to the innumerable glaciated passes and gorges we've driven through on the first leg north).

First day was all north, today was mostly west, tomorrow's north again.

And tomorrow feels like it'll be the real day one, given that things have been fairly populated and lively so far (moreso than where I actually live, even), but services start to thin out soon.

Camped last night in a (massive) burned out valley outside of Jasper, setting up the tent by the light of a 10:30 pm sun. (I've been trying to watch how the sunlight changes, and as I write this it's still quite light outside, but a sunset before midnight doesn't feel too extreme to me yet.)

It was warm enough yesterday, but we made camp just in time for temps to drop sharply and for us to get heavily rained on. The wind was pretty wild, too. I hesitate to say katabatic, but I think - maybe? After the first wave of storms passed, the air finally got a breath warmer again...and you could hear it almost roaring down the slopes in all directions.

Every time we had to check the tent or use the facilities, we took turns wearing Chris's rain jacket, and inevitably crawled back into bed shivering. Huddling together for warmth is absolutely a real thing - and it was only night one. 😭

I slept in my sweater and brushed my teeth in the washroom nearest our site, where I noticed a sign about keeping the taps open slightly to avoid frozen pipes. There wasn't anything specifying what time of year this protocol's in effect, and after the night I had, that felt correct.

Today was beautiful as well but the scenery varied less - fewer scenes to shoot and fewer ways to shoot them - and we were critically underslept, so we took turns driving. (I'm usually a passenger princess in charge of "maps" or "directions" or whatever needs doin', but we both know I'm just good for morale.)

Saw a tall, gangly black bear crossing the highway today. I have seen a massive black bear do the same thing on the highway nearest my actual home, but that was once in five years. Seeing a black bear in the same circumstances on day 2 feels more auspicious.

More travel thoughts later, I'm sure.

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Aaaaaand we're heading out! Taped this bumper sticker to the inside window for good luck (its final home will be on a different vehicle, but we had to). Seems like the exact kind of sticker one of you lot probably made.

The first leg of the trip will be a bit more lush/normal (if scenic) compared to where we eventually end up, but I'm still keen on observing how much the sunlight changes the further north we go, and of course the further north we go we'll probably find more polar exploration-relevant material.

I swear I'd be making more sense if we weren't half-exhausted already just getting all of our supplies together. Extra spare (for two spares), extra gasoline, extra water. Tools and tarps, etc.

Anyway, this is the moment of departure. I don't want to keep abusing the Terror hashtag, but I'll probably hit it again from time to time if we encounter something applicable (and we probably will; we are heading to the western mouth of the Northwest Passage, basically).

Stay tuned and wish us luck? I think.

Sleeveless Chris saying goodbye to the cat jumpscare below the cut. ⬇️

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Terror fans, polar enthusiasts, fellow freaks, etc.

Sharing this here, in the off-chance anyone might be interested in reading about or following this kinda thing:

I post travel stuff sometimes (have been doing so a lot lately), and long story short, I'm leaving for the Arctic Circle (Northwest Territories) at the end of the week. We're traveling by land from a considerable distance out, and then going as far north as it is possible to drive. The endgame, if successful, is the western mouth of the Northwest Passage! And it will be a long trek. There will be a lot of camping...where it is safe to do so.

This is a planned and researched but not guided thing. It's me and That-Guy-I-Do-Everything-With, on our own, on a photography mission. This has been in the works for some time and we have the support to do it, so here we go at last.

And yeah, I'm bringing the big ol' book of letters along. I haven't read all of them and it might be nice to remind myself that whatever situation we find ourselves in, things could be worse. The other night, we were literally poring over our maps by lamplight (power outage), so, you know, at least our provisions weren't made by Goldner's.

Anyway, just thought I'd mention it if anyone's interested. Cell service will be limited, mosquitoes on the tundra will be terrible, and I'm about to find out how easy it is to sleep in full daylight.

Cheers!

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getting all the bad karma out of my system while I can

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La Paz

I've been writing a lot this month. With another, weirder excursion pending soon (the butterflies are beginning to kick in), I know I'll be writing about that, too; thus, these travel retrospectives serve the multipurpose function of allowing me to distract myself while producing actual articles that'll probably find their way into the world here and there. (As for "here," I know it's old-school to post a travel blog on Tumblr, but therein lies the safety, I think.)

In order to round out this current crop of travelogues, then, I've traded the cold February of yesteryear for a much warmer, contemporary February. A few months ago, we found ourselves in Baja California Sur. It was a surprise, last-minute endeavor wherein we became acquainted with the Gulf of California (and the Pacific Ocean, in new ways), and I realized that Chris wasn't kidding: he really doesn't know how to swim.

Our sudden appearance in La Paz was the result of an unexpected opportunity, and a pretty run-of-the-mill one at that: Chris's brother had been planning a late winter vacation with his wife, and they happened to have extra room at their chosen lodgings and asked if we'd like to meet them there.

We'd have been crazy to say no.

(The house was beautiful, only a few blocks' walk from el Malecón in downtown La Paz. Generally speaking, I'm not "normal" until early afternoon after copious amounts of caffeine, but I went out of my way to wake up slowly, in solitude, in that courtyard pretty much every morning.)

To say that I was surprised by the invitation is an understatement. Chris has just the one brother, and their relationship can best be described as supportive but reserved. Following a previous misunderstanding about my preference for nontraditional lifestyles, I had also been left with the impression that Chris's brother's wife wasn't particularly keen on me, either. The guys' parents have been split since forever now, and people rarely see each other; I just didn't have this particular type of family-oriented hangout on my bingo card.

But then, suddenly, there we were. Two middle-aged art kids and our comparatively normal counterparts, wandering around a Spanish-speaking city while trying to reconnect. It felt like the setup for a comedy drama.

The guys don't speak Spanish at all; the brother's wife and I do. Her soft-spoken consonants tended to come out bluntly American, over-enunciated. I can't imagine what my accent sounded like. I have a decent ear for language and details, and my teachers had assumed I had a Spanish-speaker in my home growing up (I did not), so in a way I wouldn't be surprised if I sounded arrogant, like a white girl who only thought she knew what she was doing.

In terms of practical use, my Spanish is functional but not quite fluent. (Had I stayed for a couple of months, I'm certain that I'd get there.) As it was, it still worked out that Chris had me to navigate and communicate whenever we parted ways from the others - which turned out to be often. We would regularly take walks, just the two of us, visiting the nearby coffeehouse or meandering into some new corner of downtown to find a restaurant or sculpture.

Chris took an interest in the language, but did better at reading it than speaking it. I tried to teach him some useful phrases, but his brain only held onto the ludicrous ones (which I threw into the mix to be funny or keep his attention). As of my writing, the only phrase he knows - yes, after all of that - is lléname con hormigón ("fill me with concrete").

Baja California Sur is located at the bottom of the Baja peninsula, with the Pacific Ocean on the west and the Gulf of California to the east. It's only a small exaggeration to say that the variety of marine lifeforms that inhabit and traverse these waters includes most things in the ocean. (I saw the nickname "the world's aquarium" more than once.) It's little surprise, then, that many of our planned activities were water-based.

Planned activities, as such, are not my usual travel style. It was an interesting experience, relinquishing an itinerary to someone else and going along for the ride. Our way is more "hey, what's up here?" and casually poking our heads around; the brother's wife seemed drawn to recommended attractions and then booking guided tours.

Which, hey. In this instance, I got a grey whale out of it. (Many grey whales, actually. An entire pod seemed content to keep pace with our fleet of boats as we cruised along the Pacific coast.)

The whale tour launched from the fishing village of Puerto Chale, which seemed to have more dogs than people in the best way.

At the café where we ate lunch, we made friends with a boisterous boxer who threw himself against our legs and sprawled across our feet under the rickety table. (And by "lunch," I mean that everyone else ate lunch while I sampled every hot sauce in the condiments bin). Our server spoke no English, but I got from her that the boxer was only a year old, especially likes accosting four-tops, and believes the entire village to be his home, coming and going as he pleases. He's clearly right about that - I mean, look at him.

The last water-based adventure seemed to test our little group. It wasn't the nature of the thing itself (another tour the brother's wife had booked, this time to Isla Espíritu Santo and La Partida), but how tired everybody became en route. The uninhabited islands sit to the northeast of La Paz in the Gulf of California, accessible by a roughly hour-long motorboat ride (depending on sea conditions like wind direction and chop).

I was offered pills for motion sickness, but I withheld because I don't typically have issues on boats. Chris also declined. Interestingly, those with sensitive stomachs took the pills accordingly and ended up looking miserably ill anyway.

Wearing wetsuits, we pulled up to the fabled sea lion nursery first, an island covered in bird shit (believe me, I was thinking it) on the furthest reaches of the archipelago. Apparently this was one of the main inspirations for booking this tour, but to be honest, sea lions are generally a day's drive away from my regular location, and I wasn't as interested in them. (You want a sea lion, I'll get you a sea lion by five o'clock.)

We left the sea lions with no one having jumped into the water with them, which seemed to make our leader temporarily salty. I tried to encourage her (if it were me, I'd do it anyway - nobody minded, after all), but she insisted that she was self-conscious. So it was off to eat our packed lunches on Playa Ensenada Grande instead.

After lingering there for an hour or so, I asked our guides about finding a quieter reef to snorkel on. I hoped that maybe, having dropped the sea lions, we could use the time elsewhere. They were amenable, and we scooted off to an empty beach further down the island. An anchor was dropped offshore, and we came to rest next to a reef of desert coral. A pair of other boats apparently had the same idea and pulled in behind us, but everyone gave each other space.

Having announced that I was about to "upskirt some fish," I held my camera in one hand, swung my flippered feet over the edge of the boat, and dropped into the sea. I'd never been snorkeling before; as startling as it was to get my bearings, this perfectly normal hobby was already a mind-blowing treat. I was so happy.

Chris, not so much. He'd jumped in after me, hoping that some kind of natural instinct would tell him what to do, but it turns out that it's not a joke - he genuinely cannot swim. Shaken up a bit, he had to climb back into the boat to suffer the mild indignity of being stuffed into a life vest before he could re-enter the water.

I thought he was doing okay after that, but he insists that he was plagued with anxiety most of the time. (In spite of this, he looked good.)

As I would later find out, Chris's brother had stepped on a bit of coral at Playa Ensenada Grande over lunch, and it had punctured his skin; getting into the water again at this new location proved to be too uncomfortable to endure for very long. His wife explored for a little while, but grew tired quickly, and soon she returned to the boat as well.

Which left poor, anxious Chris, doing his best to tread the sea, and ecstatic me, having the time of my life.

I found parrotfish, puffer fish, foot-long king angelfish, Panama sergeant majors, and a group of very large, almost shark-like fish that I could not identify and so casually thought of as los tiburones.

Swimming into a school of king angelfish and Panama sergeants, I had a fit of the giggles. I couldn't stop laughing. I thought for sure that at least one of them would bump into me, and we'd have this "AH!" moment of mutual touch, but they swam just close enough to avoid contact. They didn't give a single fuck about me otherwise.

I SPENT AN ENTIRE HOUR DOING THIS. And would have taken much longer if I hadn't had to check in with anybody.

When I finally poked my head up and realized that I'd been off in my own little world, I saw that the boat - with everyone on it but Chris, who was trying to wave at me from some distance away in the water - was about a football field apart from me, small on the horizon.

Sheepishly, I swam back to it, and then, ignoring the tired faces of my fellow vacationers, just plowed on with giving an oral inventory of every single fish species I'd seen down there. (I was REALLY excited.)

Only one of the guides, María, seemed pleased that I'd taken so much joy in an experience she'd probably been having since she could walk. She passed me a laminated, fold-out chart of the local marine life and we briefly discussed the fish I'd encountered. Then, because an hour of swimming in the ocean burns calories even in calm water, she forced me to eat something (maybe to shut me up). While I crunched on an apple, the rest of the group fell silent, exhausted.

Chris, meanwhile, shivered under a beach towel like the victim of a near-drowning, which is sort of what happened, though I insist he did better than he thinks he did.

...I'm not an astrology person, but I do enjoy the idea that Chris is a water sign who can't swim.

While I can't say that I gained any clearer perspective on where I stand with Chris's extended/immediate family, I'm glad they invited us and I'm grateful for the opportunity we had in being able to join them.

I'm also pretty lucky to know Chris to begin with. Even if he can't swim - even if the only Spanish he remembers is an aggressive request to be filled with concrete - he's my first choice for exploring new places and ideas, every single time.

And boy, is there always a next time.

[the-penalty-box]

Hubris for Men. Smells like death! (Warning: contains lead.)

(Another dual-version, unhinged, Terror-themed billboard I threw together and then dropped into Cities: Skylines.)

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Throwback: SNOWIE

I'm writing a series of travel retrospectives right now (in preparation for more of the same - I have an upcoming photography excursion that's somewhat intimidating to be honest), and I thought it would be fun if my second of the triptych truly came from the vault: February 2017.

I feel a certain sense of safety in the perceived anonymity of using this Tumblr account (I'm kinda banking on the fact that most people aren't going to read this, cathartic though it may be for me to write and share with the void). That said, I'm going to be intentionally vague with this one, to a degree. I'm only pulling from my collection of personal stills, and to this day I don't know how much of what we shot is on hold to be used, has been used, or simply belongs to the company that hired us and rots in purgatory.

Chris and I have been in each other's orbits for ages; I feel like I've known him for 200 years. Okay, well - this was nine years ago, anyway, and we worked on this together too, because that seems to be the natural order of things in our lives.

Our assignment was to obtain a selection of choice b-roll and talking heads for documentary use on the subject of specific kinds of climate research. Scientific instrumentation, interviews with certain experts and engineers, etc. It was my first time doing this specific flavor of film work, but it wasn't Chris's. In many ways, I deferred to his experience while doing more of the people-wrangling (not in love with that part, but work is work).

This project was one of the weirdest things I've been on, from a production standpoint. That doesn't mean I'm not grateful or didn't have fun - I absolutely am/did, and would do it again. It was...different, is all. Not a whole lot of prep time (I was reading scientific papers nearly up until the point we landed on scene), not a ton of clarity, a lot of miscues and accidentally harrowing situations. (At one point, we went completely the wrong direction, lost an entire day, and ended up on a cliffside in the fog.) In some ways, that made for a more interesting shoot, even if my evenings were long and my sleep diminished, having to frantically rearrange our shooting schedule all the time.

To be clear, I'm not a scientist; I'm trained for stage and screen, as is Chris. But I love working for scientists when the opportunity arises, because I have a sort of internal lure toward wild places, strange destinations, and unlikely circumstances. Some fiction productions will do that, but field science is a pretty good bet. If somehow you're reading this because you're a fellow fan of the first season of The Terror - is it any wonder how I come to it?

Here's me looking like an absolute nerd while posing with some kind of elaborate ice nucleus counter. I do not know how it works and I will not pretend to; I only know the principle behind it (measuring ice particles in the air). We drove halfway up a mountain to an obscure, unmarked location - its address was basically just a mile marker - to find this object and talk about it with its operators.

My favorite day of this entire shoot was, technically speaking, a bust. We were meant to get to a remote DOW radar site, whose live-in wintertime scientists had a satellite phone but weren't able to confirm whether or not the road up was clear of snowpack. The only way to find out if we could make it to them at all was to simply attempt the drive ourselves.

We followed a pilot vehicle, Scout 2, single-file up an industrially plowed road, through a narrow canyon of snow and ice for the better part of two hours. We were making progress; it seemed like we might actually succeed in getting all the way through.

The further we went, the more impossibly tall our canyon walls became.

Close, too.

Eventually we hit a sort of roundabout, high upon a ridge, beyond which travel simply wasn't possible. The road that would have continued up the mountain was packed in with snow and ice, big, drifting blockades of it that we didn't even bother to contemplate. This would have to be the end of the line, but Chris and I got out and shot scenic b-roll anyway.

The overlook was very pretty, in spite of - or because of - its remote winter bitterness. There was an ethereal, dreamlike quality to the place, apocalyptic but peaceful.

Because I'm a hungry little photographer at heart, at intervals I hot-switched from video capture to photos, feeling that no way was I going to let this landscape go. Other than the turnout upon which the two vehicles sat, stranded in their progress, the world appeared untouched. The snowfall glittered, thick but powdery, like so many meters of compacted confectioners' sugar.

When we returned to our lodgings that night, I felt euphoric. It somehow didn't matter to me that we hadn't been able to make it to the DOW's location. No one could fault us for nature's rejection, and we'd still been able to make use of the drive and its impressive scenery, besides.

I think, looking back, this may have been the first realization I'd had that my childhood aspirations were not so crazy. I had always wanted to be an artist, but I'd also always wanted to be an explorer - whatever that could possibly look like. Child me thought Lara Croft was the coolest character in the world, but whenever I'd said as much, older relatives and mentors offered benign pats on the head and told me that all of the edges of the map were filled in, and life was not a video game.

I don't know what they think I wanted. I crave novelty to an almost pathological degree, and a new experience to me is a new experience to me. This trait complements the artist in me too, I suspect. Exploring the world, exploring a story, exploring whatever this catastrophic itch of the soul is - it's all there. No matter what, I think I'd have ended up wandering to strange places.

Maybe it's only crazy good luck that we've been able to make it actually work.

[the-penalty-box]

Sometimes, when I'm trying to de-stress, I fire up a map in the original Cities: Skylines. But because I can't leave anything alone, I used a tutorial to make my own billboards. One thing led to another and oops, more The Terror everywhere.

I made up an ad for a fictional (I hope) company called "Northwest Outfitters" ("professional cold weather gear for surviving high latitudes!") and tweaked slightly different versions of each billboard.

Bonus: someone made a functioning Chernobyl asset! This town absolutely runs on nuclear energy.

[the-penalty-box]

that'll do it

[the-penalty-box]

Rock Lake (Pt. 2)

The last section of the trail changed shape entirely, transforming from the ghost of an old mining road into a narrow, single-person path that snaked sharply uphill, all precarious edges and constant hairpin switchbacks. Roll an ankle here, and your perfect summer day turns into survival horror.

Our backs were to the sun most of the time, but the cool, verdant, shaded places were much farther in between, and the incline in both the altitude and the proverbial mercury had sweat running down our bodies in slick, earthy rivulets. The effect was especially potent between my shoulders and the pack I carried there; my shirt was almost sticky with it. The air hovered around 90° F (~ 32° C), nearing its daytime peak as we were nearing ours.

I surprised myself by only stopping for water twice. Each time we rested, we marveled at the valley that lay below us, the way it revealed its splendor to us more and more the further we climbed above it. No amount of sweat and filth would have me not appreciate where we were, and Chris was, as always, the same. In fact, I think we looked pretty good, all things considered.

As we continued upward, my overheating core began working in concert with my exhausted brain to quickly stitch together a series of ideas: 1. I was desperate to cool down 2. As luck would have it, the terminus of this trail was, indeed, a lake 3. We were alone

Before I could stop myself, I found myself asking Chris if he'd ever gone skinny-dipping. Not immediately following my logic, he answered that he hadn't. We climbed another series of switchbacks, panting from the exertion but otherwise silent, sparing our words to save our energy. Just one more turn, one more corner, one more lip of trail, one more, one more.

Around one of these infinite bends, we reached an ancient wooden sign declaring that we'd just entered the wilderness area.

And, finally, there it was. Beyond a tumble of boulders and a copse of trees arranged like a natural campground, a shoreline of more boulders gave way to the aquamarine bowl of snowmelt that made Rock Lake. The water was framed by two peaks, sloping down in the middle and meeting each other in a draw. A small island of rock and trees sat placidly in the middle.

My skin itched with sweat. Not-so-casually, I tried again. "What are the odds anyone else hikes in and sees us?"

"You could theoretically hike in from the ridgeline, but I doubt anyone will at this time of day unless they were planning on camping here tonight. Besides, I think some of the trails on the other side were closed for grizzly sightings. We're almost certainly alone on this trail - "

I took off my pack and placed it gingerly against a large rock by the trees, then walked to the shoreline and took off my boots.

"It's going to be cold," Chris warned.

"Good," I said.

I took off my socks and began pulling off my shirt. I suspect that Chris had been awaiting his late lunch eagerly, but now those plans were on hold; he watched me from a distance, caught in an apprehensive tug-of-war that only his inner monologue could illuminate and that only he was privy to.

"You don't have to come in after me," I said bluntly, wholly naked now, crossing the final rocks to the water, "but I am getting in."

I don't know if I was bullying him or giving him an offramp, but when I navigated over the algae-slicked minerals into deeper water and let my body fall into the lake at last, all cogent thought left my mind. The cold was colder than any generic cold plunge offered at every spa or hot springs I'd been to in my life.

All of the air was punched out of my lungs in a way that made screaming with pleasure or surprise difficult, so all that came out was a startled gasp. When I had acclimated and recovered my breath - which was genuinely not easy to do - I found myself giggling hysterically.

And I had company.

"Yeah, cold, isn't it?" said Chris, staring down at me from the water's edge, a playful scolding in his voice even as he kicked his own clothes aside.

"Yes," I agreed, laughing uncontrollably.

When Chris hit the water, he screamed.

"Cold, isn't it?" I grinned.

"FUCK!"

After his system recovered from the shock, we positioned ourselves on the shoreline and took a few selfies with our bodies still in the lake, our own incriminating keepsake to remember the day for its true nature, an adventure behind the adventure as told by our Serious, For-Real Photographs™ (which we would go on to take once we'd extricated ourselves from the water, dried off, and eaten from our packs).

I did privately post one of those selfies elsewhere, and was complimented on my "tasteful sideboob." When we later tried to (poorly) measure the temperature of the water, we got an approximate 45°-50° F (7°-10° C), though possibly colder.

Drying off, as it turned out, was as simple as wading out of the lake and letting the hot, dry air wrap around our naked selves as we moved around. It was during this process that the lone soul who might have witnessed us in this state appeared: a small aircraft, most likely spotting for wildfires, flew low and banked overhead. High on adrenaline, we smiled and waved at the pilot, who flew around once more and then left.

We spent the next two and a half hours at the lake, eating almonds, drinking down our water rations, and snapping our shutters at anything that caught our attention. Everything from the myriad rock formations to the reflections in the water, adjacent ponds and flowers and insects - it all found itself in front of our lenses, which we traded off with care as we picked our way along the terrain.

After this hours-long exploration, Chris and I both knew that we'd spent too much time at the terminus and we'd need to leave - soon. We repacked the majority of our lenses, stashed away what remained of the almonds, and began our descent.

As always, the descent was much easier than the journey up. We imagined that we'd regained some time, so we stopped for photo opportunities when they arose. The angle of the sunlight had improved somewhat, so I took a handful of photos on the way down that I'd earmarked for later on the way up.

By the time we reached the Heidelberg Mine and its waterfall, the sun was low in the sky, highlights and shadows in stark contrast with one another - but we stopped anyway, deliberately taking the sidehill path down to the waterfall's base.

Chris was using the one spindly portable tripod we had between us, so when it came to long water exposures, I had to improvise. I curled up on the edge of the rocks and stabilized my camera body with its own strap, using an intervalometer to manually trigger and hold the shutter open without having to touch anything else. All things considered, I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it, either.

On we went. The encroaching evening had a nasty effect on the Rock Creek Meadows leg of the trail, that marshy, semi-stagnant section of water down in the draw reminding us that mosquito season never ends when conditions are right. Where the heat of the day kept everything still, the evening had brought clouds of the whining insects onto our exposed flesh like they'd been starved of mammalian blood for months. We hurried through this mile as quickly as possible and soon found ourselves nearing the old mining huts.

I'd had half a mind to attempt some "real" photos of these huts with my professional camera; now that we'd hit magic hour, the light was infinitely more interesting. The trail steered away from the water's edge just enough to keep the mosquitoes off our backs, and I was just about to remove my lens cap and move in when we heard a loud scuffling coming from exactly that place - the same place by the huts where Chris had posed earlier.

We both stopped dead in our tracks, listening intently.

"HEY, BEAR!" yelled Chris. I clapped my hands and called out in similar fashion. Whether or not we'd been noisy enough in our hurry to get away from the bugs wasn't something I could remember or contemplate in that moment, but from that point on we deliberated as loudly as we could.

The crashing was caused by something large, that much was certain. There was a thrashing quality to it, like a massive creature casually turning heavy objects over or tossing them aside in search of food. It paused when we called out to it.

We kept moving away, kept hollering.

The crashing came closer, growing louder, momentarily curious. In the stillness of the evening, I had no doubt it could smell us.

I wanted to look. Didn't want to look.

Chris pulled the bear spray from the holster on his hip.

I like to fancy myself a brave, adventurous person, but in that moment my heart was in my throat. My thoughts were a Rolodex of terror, wheeling from a mordant "is this how it finally happens, then?" to "well, this is the bear's house, you put yourself here," mentally flipping through everything I knew about the megafauna of the area and why this was an unidentifiable bear but certainly a bear nonetheless.

Mostly, I was annoyed with how badly my instinct wanted to take over. I genuinely wanted to run. It was a struggle to fight that urge. My feet started moving too quickly of their own accord, but Chris brought me back to earth:

"Hey, word of advice - you might want to stay near the person with the bear spray." He was tense, jaw fixed, the can ready in his hands.

I stood behind him.

He stood between.

Silence.

"HEY, BEAR!"

More silence.

"HEY, BEAR!"

Pause.

The loud crashing finally receded. The bear went back to violating whatever patch of berries it had found by the water's edge, having decided we weren't worth its time.

(Side note: I know there are people who would call us fools for not bringing guns, but that's not how we operate. It is our strongly held belief that before you leave civilization, you understand that you might not come back, and that's a risk you accept every single time. If you need a gun to go on a hike, then it seems you can't be bothered to understand the environment you're entering, you don't have the balls of steel you think you do, and it'd be better for everyone if you just stayed home. We were not being careful about minding the time of day or clocking our proximity to a water source. We own that. Again, please see a professional Bear Advice Dealer before venturing into the wild yourself.)

Chris and I spent the rest of the walk back talking loudly, nervously, our naked cold plunge-fueled adrenaline now twinned with holy-fuck-that-was-a-bear adrenaline. By the last mile, we'd calmed a little bit, admiring how the evening light and colors were so vivid and soft and lovely, all at the same time.

(I think we were still feeling it.)

Arriving back at the truck felt better than it usually does, both of us peeling the socks off our blistering feet and exchanging hiking shoes for flip-flops, reaching into the cooler we'd stuffed with ice packs and candy bars and sugar-free sodas at the beginning of the day, our cached reward-in-waiting for the completion of our exercise. I'm not even a candy bar person - but I am when I'm done with a hike.

In the following days, we'd go over our photographs and cull the losers from the keepers, sharing our haul with anyone interested.

A patron has been filling his Victorian reno with metal prints of mine and Chris's. After this hike, he promptly purchased another metal print - my favorite shot from Rock Lake itself. He showed it to all of his friends, who oohed and aahed and said things like, "I love Rock Lake! It's so beautiful up there, that really captures it!"

I'm flattered, and happy, but I smile to myself knowing that nothing about that photo captures being naked in the shocking cold of that subalpine snowmelt water, or being followed by a bear with your heart in your throat.

I love taking photographs, don't get me wrong. But sometimes, it's the adventure behind the adventure. And they have no idea.

[the-penalty-box]

Rock Lake (Pt. 1)

In preparation for an upcoming photography mission, I’m writing out a handful of travel journal retrospectives on a selection of previous adventures. I need to keep the writing muscles loose, and I love the weird privacy (as of right now, anyway) afforded me by sharing these autobiographical articles to this Tumblr account. If it’s a little navel-gazey, I’m sorry in advance; skip them. If you’re into random travelogues (with pictures, even!) then I dunno, there might be something here for you.

In late August 2025, we – some guy named Chris, with whom I do pretty much everything, and myself – had a couple of weeks remaining before we were to head down to California for a bit. Summer is precious to both of us, being that we have a mutual preference for higher temperatures and an affection for getting out into nature as much as possible. Unfortunately, the time afforded to do so is often limited. It turns out that many, many things are scheduled for benevolent weather, and wildfires increasingly choke the scenery earlier and earlier every year (which affects film and photo-based endeavors).

But last August, there came a break in our smoke pattern, and we had the time – again, too precious to waste – so under Chris’s advisement, I agreed to hike Rock Lake with him. (Chris has a BA from the same school I do, but he could absolutely moonlight as a wilderness trail guide if he wanted to, leading private hikes and whatsuch if he had the patience for people in that way. He knows this area like the back of his hand, so when he picks a trail, I trust him implicitly.)

Rock Lake is a moderate trail (class 3), good for a day hike. There’s a slow, steady uphill stretch for a mile or two, followed by a meandering flat section next to a marshy draw between two mountains. The real ascent happens over the last mile. If memory serves, the entire hike (in and out) is a little over eight miles long (about thirteen km). About an hour of rough, uphill, back-country driving to the trailhead is required first; use a high-clearance vehicle and don't get lost.

When we finally pulled up to the trailhead, there was only one other empty truck – nobody else in sight. Cell service was already gone. We checked our packs one more time, sidestepped the metal gate, and approached the trailhead sign, where it turned out that someone had left a note two days earlier: “black bear spotted ~ 3 pm @ first bridge.”

It was a late(ish) start, already 1:15 pm when we began to make our way up the path. We came to the first bridge only ten minutes later – well before 3 pm, though bears tend to keep their own schedules.

The first leg of the journey was actually full of neat, well-maintained wooden bridges, the water running below each one producing a cooling, soothing effect. It was already above 80° Fahrenheit (~ 27° Celsius), and temperatures were rising, but the real heat at that point mostly came from our own exertion – at least in the early stretch. There were thick canopies of evergreen forest providing plenty of shade, the trail floor below a soft, earthen, dirty thing interspersed with rocks. It’s the kind of environment that muffles sound, this trick of airflow being seemingly throttled, our voices surprisingly loud even in those moments when we forgot ourselves and spoke quietly.

(As a quick aside/PSA/reminder: speak loudly and make a little bit of noise when you’re in places like this. You don’t have to yell, but project like you’re aiming to hit the back of a theater. Chris and I generally speak in louder voices to each other while hiking; this is one of the advantages of having a companion on trails in bear habitats. Also, I’m just a lil’ guy doing forest art. Please consult a qualified Bear Advice Dealer and conduct thorough research before you head out into this kind of landscape. I am not responsible for your choices.)

Less than an hour into our adventure, we discovered the trail's first archaeological feature: the abandoned mining huts.

The huts themselves were full of detritus, a pungent display of tangled, rusting metal, sculpture-like compositions of old tools, bedframes, and who knows what else. Exploration of these huts was essentially barricaded by these time-rotted leftovers, insofar as we planned on making any kind of good time up the mountain anyway.

...It was also the kind of place where you could disappear into the shadows and reemerge, wielding the charred remains of a human femur in your fist, and I would have been only a little surprised.

Soon, the trail flattened out and opened up onto a marshy, seemingly stagnant section of Rock Creek. The water moved along slowly to our right as we continued up the draw between these mountains, our path pulling back just enough so that the Rock Creek Meadows became their own vista. I thought of getting a photo with my professional camera then, but decided to wait until later; the position of the sun and the cloudless sky made the lighting too harsh and pedestrian, so I continued using my phone (which, without cell service, was only good for taking quick pictures anyway).

Near one of the last bridges, we finally encountered the occupants of the other truck at the trailhead: two older-but-not-old gents, on their way back down. We exchanged a few benign words of greeting and then they were gone. While it is technically possible to hike to the lake by more unconventional means (hiking in along the ridgeline as opposed to up from the trailhead), Chris and I sensed that our likeliest reality was that we were now, officially, alone.

We'd finally come to the base of the incline, and with it arrived the strongest fingerprints of human activity: the Heidelberg Mine site, nestled into the face of the cliff.

This had once been the workplace of the former occupants of those huts; now, its apparatus lies dilapidated and rusting on the mountainside. I'm fairly sure this was mostly a silver mine, though some historical references claim a bit of gold was fished out of the rocks here, too.

To the left of the dead machinery, a waterfall tumbled downslope. To the right, the dark maw of a cave beckoned. Chris examined the sign and the security fence inside with some surprise, explaining that this was a new installation since he'd previously been up here. Admittedly, his last visit was some time ago, but he and his companions had been able to investigate the cave unimpeded back then.

Perhaps it's for the best.

With the last and most grueling mile in front of us, and the day's heat pressing down, we took only a few minutes to rest in the soothing presence of the waterfall before pressing on.

(see pt. 2)

[the-penalty-box]

I recently learned an old French euphemism for bisexuality. It means to be powered "by sail and steam," and it absolutely comes from a specific flavor of 19th-century ship.

HMS Terror and Erebus were bisexual, you heard it here first.

Happy Pride!