the power of alaska

That's it. It's decided. I'm going to get rid of a lot of my stuff. It's just stuff. My brother made a good point about how, for all we know, when we die everything goes black. And then it's all gone anyway.

I would feel good about letting most things go to a good cause. People in need. Like a women’s shelter.

I will keep all my outdoor gear for camping, etc. That REI tent is of high sentimental value. Many memories in that thing. Like that one bike trip from Anchorage to Seward.

It’s a two-person tent, but sometimes we squeezed in more. That trip, I shared it with Rita and Devan. We got super stoned that night and came up with (what we thought was) a brilliant, mind-blowing invention: THC infused power/granola bars.

Mind you, this was long before there were legal dispensaries where one could get anything under the grow light in edible form.

We had several clever names and even some slogans going for it. (I always enjoyed wordsmithing.)

The one name I remember clearly, but doesn't sound at all that astute now, 15 years older sitting clear headed on a comfy couch in the city.

Back then, it sounded so fucking spot on, man. Legit AF. It was the name that would get us so much green for this new ingenious green product. We called it Ganjar. It was a play on words with ganja and bar. Get it?

It was so stupid, but so were we: stupid young and high off our faces.

What we also did, besides come up with his crunchy (pun intended) concept that we thought no one in their right (pun intended) brain would have ever thought of (i.e. a healthy, organic granola bar made of weed), was also plan the ingredients.

It would consist of granola (duh!), seeds and dried fruits. It'd basically be an active hippie’s Cliff Bar to restore energy and calories from crazy intense adventures — like riding on the side of mountain highway passes with semi trucks full of whatever shipment needed to get across the last frontier.

That side of highway — a shoulder, they call them — was barely the width of an 80’s shoulder pad. How we didn’t get thrown off the road and down the moutain from the gust of whipped wind by passer truckers? Don’t ask me. Cuz I really don't know. All I know is we survived. And here to tell the story.

That was probably one of the many (high)lights of my days in Alaska. I do sometimes and often wonder why I ever left it. It was my happy place. Then.

It really is the one place that made me into the Mountain Megan I am today. It’s where I really became an adventurous soul and adventure seeker. And not only have an appreciation of the great outdoors, but an innate need to be one with them.

Writing this actually gives me heartbreak. A slight regret of having left her and that life behind.

Alaska just smells. Big. Nature. Evergreen-y. Spruce-y. Pine-y. Mine-y.

My friends were always up for adventure. You wouldn’t live in that state if you weren’t.

We hiked up peaks with death in their name. One of the most memorable was called Suicide Peak, for example.

We crossed raging rivers of frigid temps. I think Rita got frostbite that night.

We skated on frozen lakes. That they would zamboni cool meandering paths into.

We fly fished with fucking bears — no fucking joke. Zach, if you ever stumble upon this entry, thank you and fuck you for that experience.

We fished for halibut the size of barn doors on rickety boats on rocky waters that could flip the Titanic.

We climbed glaciers for days that stretched for them, too.

We skate- and cross country-skied at -20°F. Sometimes en route to a hot breakfast. Often just because we were crazy.

We kayaked where whales could have breached, but cute seals popped up next to us like fishing bobbers instead.

We went to Iditorade races to watch handsome bearded mushers mush and cute fluffy dogs fly.

We got buzzed in parking lots, then onboarded Chair 6 to snowboard with no sense of inhibition or suave direction. Down a fucking moutain.

Idiots we were.

We built thick igloos up on thickly snow powered mountains and hotboxed them. I called it hotglooing (get it? — like hot gluing).

Someone brought a gun. It’s Alaska and some people carried guns for bear protection, but more than anything many folk up there were rednecks and that’s just what they did: carried. We all shot it. At a beer can. Drunk. Idiots we were.

Reflecting on all these crazy, wild adventures in the wild, I seize to wonder why Alaska had such a powerful effect on my character, my life.

It really did transform me from a suburban, city gal to a big time, great outdoors, nature freak.

I’ll never forget climbing a mountain blanketed with burgundy berries and golden foliage that was soon to be covered with snow, at the end of autumn. I was with my new found friend who also just moved from the lower 48 and didn’t have the good gear (yet). We both found out the hard way, on the importance of waterproof layers and wicking wool instead of hippy hoodies and cotton Ts.

We got dumped on and drenched with sobering wet — not the fun little flakes kind, but the fierce and frigid you’re fucked kind — snow and could barely see the trail to get down and out to safety. In the moment, it felt like we could have been buried in an avalanche.

Eventually, I geared up on good gear from landing a part-time gig at REI that outfitted me (and him via my “Friends & Family” discount). Forever we were warm and dry. Although, not invincible.

He sliced open his foot on a jagged rock later the following year climbing a glacial erratic like an idiot. Luckily, another friend used her unused menstrual pad to stop the gusher. That’s when we learned we needed to remember to bring the important gear: a first aid kit.

This friend also got so shitfaced one night out on the town in Anchorage, he stole a car. He told me about it long after it happened. I never mentioned it to anyone. He’s been sober ever since. Supposedly.

There were also many a time when I almost ran into moose, as biking through trails was how I got to/from work/home/fun. It was my main mode of transport for the first year. At least.

Eventually, I caved and bought an old shitty Subaru. A couple of right-winged friends told me I was a lesbian because of it. That and because I played soccer. That combo means you're gay. Did you know that? In their closed minds, at least.

They’d be canceled today with the shit they’d say. They ended up nicknaming my car the Lesburu. I never called it that. Even if she was a butch of a beater.

It had a hole in the floor and constant issues with the gasket. I had to take it to a repair guy who proudly showed me his parole ankle bracelet. His crime had something to do with meth, he said.

Because of the hole, cold air would constantly come in. In winter — so eight months out of the year — I had to scrape not only the ice off the windows from the outside, but inside, too. I may just have well biked.

I was jamming out to my Discman. Yeah, you had to carry an entire CD in a tiny metal case and somehow it wouldn’t scratch the CD and only skip sometimes.

I was bliss-blading through the forest. (Sometimes I’d smoke a little dope and cruise through Chester Creek Trail on my rollerblades. It was fun. Don’t judge me.)

I passed a cute couple holding hands walking their chocolate lab and I thought, “Aw, I want that!” At the same time, “Did I?” And boom, out of nowhere, a massive moose was chowing down chow ten feet ahead on my left.

Had I been of a clear mind, I would have bladed on by. But like any paranoid skater girl, I decided to roll off the pavement into direct pine and pain. I bloody bashed my knee.

Luckily, no baby calf was in sight so I was able to scamper off sans momma attack, saved but not unscathed.

My friend and I dressed in costume as if we were in Pamplona decked out to run with the bulls. We ran with horny reindeer chasing reindeer in heat instead. They released female reindeers on their periods. Then the local locos (including myself) to run behind them. After which, they uncaged the thirsty bulls to run rampant with their big ass antlers.

Talk about getting caught up in a shit show of horny horns.

I saw bald eagles and otters on the pseudo reg.

I also saw weird hippie dudes who’s hair stunk like dirty dreads because that's what they were. I had a crush on him, his rank and danky dreads and his tiny town of Talkeetna where you could see Denali easy and on a clear day.

There was only one live music bar in town, where locals danced on wobbly wooden floors, drank strong shots and local dogs came in and out like they owned the place. It was always a hoot and holler of a time there.

Reminds me of the one and only bar in that tiny town in Andalucia.

It’s like I've been sucked into and shot out of a village vortex.

This is all the fuck all over the place. But it’s blips of memory that blopped out. To show/tell how Alaska, a place full of so much wild, life, and wildlife made me the wild Megan I am today.

And maybe “all over the place” is a lyrical metaphor for the literal and figurative state in which I lived my life for a few years.