Prepared for the Weather

On the way to Cairn Peak

I’ve become my mother in many ways. But in one way that’s extremely obvious to me is the inability to leave the house without running back in for something I’ve forgotten. My mother is classic at this. As she’s often late for appointments and work, and just life in general, she’s always in a rush and her departures tend to be a bit frantic with a last minute search for keys or her phone. And she can never just leave with one bag. She always has at least two, if not three - one is her purse, one has her work shoes and other miscellaneous objects, and one tends to have a bunch of papers, like mail she needs to go through. As she locates things and gets her outdoor shoes on, she’ll say her goodbye and reminders and shut the door. Within minutes, you can almost guarantee she's back for something.

I like to think my departures aren’t as frantic, but I do tend to find myself exhausted with just trying to get out the door some mornings. And often, after I’ve locked the front door, loaded Lota in the backseat of the car, and started the engine, I have to run back into the house for something. Lately, it’s because I’ve forgotten to close the shade or the bedroom window curtain.

This morning - it was just a Sunday, too - I found myself in the same predicament. I locked the front door, loaded Lota into car, and thought to myself, ‘I might need gloves and a hat.’ So I got the house keys off my key chain, ran back into the house, and grabbed the items.

As Lota and I walked on the Nugget Falls trail at Mendenhall Glacier in the steady cold drizzle, I had never been so happy to have run back to the house. There is something so gratifying about being prepared for the weather.

And it continues to rain into the evening. More than a drizzle. It’s a heavy rain - the kind that a little raincoat could not stand up against and I’m glad to be inside.

This is a gratifying Sunday evening after a three-day weekend. Thank you, Alaska Day. I promise to find out tomorrow what you represent.

Instead of going to work on Friday, Scott and I went on an epic ten-hour hike to Cairn Peak. Epic for me and likely for the average person. Scott could’ve done the exact same thing in less than half that time. But he was patient and kind and a great hiking partner even when I became the opposite during the last two hours of the journey.

After leaving the alpine and walking through the flat, wet muskeg, I reached my tipping point when we got back into the woods and everything was a steep, slippery downhill.

That was my second time on top of Cairn. Last year, it was part of an overnight, so once we got up to Cairn and little beyond, we camped out and rested. Doing a roundtrip of Cairn was a different beast altogether. Plus, since it’s already October, the presence of snow made the summit more challenging than it already was.

But I will not dwell on the challenging (or hellish) parts of the day. Instead I will dwell on the sunshine that day and views that are beyond human appreciation.