"Nothing" at Granite Tors

My husband has been gone for a few days on a hike with a friend. Jake showcased his photos last night and I remembered an in-joke from Company... I don't remember how this started exactly except that Jon Polk was involved.

We did a LOT of van travel across Texas and the surrounding states and there's a lot of fairly flat land involved. (slight understatement!) We'd get somewhere outside of a town and someone would say something along the lines of 'There's nothing here!" And I'd respond with a critique of the visible land- something along the lines of "Look! There's power lines, a fence, lines painted on the road, a road sign... There's a barn and cows! That's not 'nothing'!"

So, I thought I'd offer some pictures of 'nothing'... Jake and our friend, Patrick, were gone for 2 nights and 3 days to a hiking trail at Granite Tors. The fun thing about the trailhead for this hike is that it's only about an hour from Fairbanks. The trail itself is about 15 miles and Jake loved it. He's sore, sun-burnt and exhausted but had a wonderful time climbing every one of the tors he could get up and seeing more of Alaska.

The most amazing 'nothing' I've ever seen is through the Yukon Territory- Wish I could share some of those pictures! I might be able to find some from our trip two summers ago...

Anyway, Canada is just smashingly beautiful, and through the Yukon, in particular, you could drive for almost an entire day and not see another car, much less power lines or painted lines. I'll admit that during this last trip I was surprised at how much 'civilization' had encroached on this area. The Yukon gets biting cold and nasty winds during the winter, and is not friendly to humans. It shocks me that anyone would choose to live there. (Okay, I'm sure there are many out there who would say the same about Fairbanks... ;) However, we're talking -80's plus wind chill... We only get -60's for a couple weeks, while they can get those freezing temps for months... (Tee-hee! ;) Yes, I'm defending myself. Okay, who thinks it's a wonderful thing to be anywhere at below 0 degrees?)

Every time I've driven through they've torn up another section of road and are repairing the weather damage. Freezing cold and permafrost is HARD on concrete and as of yet we haven't really figured out a way to create roads that don't sink, pit, split or heave. That's true of Fairbanks, too, but it just doesn't seem to be as bad here... Probably 'cuz we don't have as much permafrost underlying everything...

Back to the 'nothing'... Through much of the Alcan highway you can drive for hours and hours without seeing signs of humanity except for the concrete you're on... I've seen bears, moose, fox, & rabbits right up next to the road. The road is really no different to them than the surrounding area. In fact, this last trip I discovered that almost the entire highway is now paved- I think I remember that we went over about four 5-20 mile stretches of gravel. When my family drove me down to start seminary in '95, we went over at least an entire day of gravel roads, probably more...

An odd part of me craves those drives... Craves endless days of driving through 'nothing' in my little traveling bubble of civilization. Yes, we'd get on each other's nerves, but we also got closer as we'd be required to get along through whatever we'd deal with on the way.

For example:

This last trip we got a flat tire through a nasty little stretch of gravel. Jake started changing the tire, so everyone else hopped out to help and to stretch their legs... Within five minutes we were COMPLETELY inundated/swarmed with mosquitoes. I don't know if I can adequately express how bad or crazy it was. Everybody who could (my mom, my sister, Deborah and a very pregnant me) got back in the car and then had to squash the more than 20 mosquitoes that had gotten in the car during our few minutes of walking. It was insane! Jake started kind of talking/muttering/swearing to himself about the mosquitoes so I got back out and tried to wave them away from him and me while he finished changing the tire... Each of us had huge patches of bites and I suspect that the car still bears some of the squashed bodies from that stop.

There's a local 'myth/urban legend' that mosquitoes can swarm and kill a moose that gets into a marshy area... I don't know if that's true or not, but I can attest to their power to drive someone mad enough to start shooting at them and then shooting off their own foot in the general craziness... Of course, our mosquito tire-changing story has ended up as part of our family language and can be used to express an overwhelming situation or a being driven mad by a stream of tiny details. This event brought us closer because we succeeded in defeating the mosquitoes...

It's easy to forget how big Alaska is and how much 'nothing' surrounds us. Alaska stretches the length between Washington and Florida and is bigger than three Texas' together... Most of it cannot be accessed by car. During our time in Kotzebue the only ways to get out were plane, dog-sled, or snow-machine... Miles and miles of 'nothing'... Not even a gravel road...

I love 'nothing'! I love how beautiful it is. I love how it brings a family or a group of friends closer together as you drive through it and overcome it's challenges. And I love losing myself in it... I love escaping the tediousness of my schedule and the daily necesseties of life at home. I love looking back at the memories of my time there.