I pitched my tent on a little bluff above the beach with the skimming stones we’d sat on the night before. It was a really spectacular spot: a flat, soft little clearing in an elegant grove of trees with views out over the beach towards the distant lights of Whittier and across the water to the glaciers and mountains on the other side of the inlet. I had the place to myself and the solitude was wonderful. On the first afternoon I left the raincover of my tent off and dozed in the cool shade of the trees, then later ran down to the beach and jumped in the water. I dried off after my swim on a rock in the hot sun, which stays high in the sky well into the evening in the Alaskan summer.

I spent the first couple of days taking it easy and simply existing in such a nice place. I’d walk twice a day to a nearby waterfall to collect water to filter, exploring the narrow, often overgrown, trail through the trees and the damp, lush meadows which extended up the hill beside it. When camping in bear country, it’s good practice to keep the area around the tent free from smells which might interest the wildlife so I spent a lot of time walking back and forth between my tent, the meadow where I kept my bear-proof food container and toiletry bag and the beach where I cooked all my food. In the evenings, I’d sit on a piece of driftwood on the beach, writing in my diary and making myself endless cups of tea on my camping stove. True bliss.

On the third morning I woke up to find a bunch of kayakers had paddled out to my beach. We chatted for a little while before they took to the water again.

That afternoon I packed up some food and my water filter into my small rucksack and took off along the trail in a more serious way, hoping to make it all the way out to Emerald Cove, several hours’ walk away. The trail had a great mixture of terrain, climbing up into the meadows above the trees with views of the mountains and then dipping down again into the dark, humid rainforest. I particularly enjoyed the wildflowers and other shrubs carpeting the ground.

In a couple of places, side trails ambled down to the waterfront and I spent some time at the end of one of them, exploring a little lagoon surrounded by stacks of crumbling slate. There was a cool spot at the head of the lagoon where driftwood had accumulated.

After a couple of hours of walking the trail abruptly disappeared in the forest. I searched around for a long time trying to find where it went without any success. It seemed to disappear into nothing. Frustrated, I clambered down a ravine to a little cove where I sat on some rocks and made myself a sandwich. As I ate, the tide gradually receded, uncovering more rocks around where I sat, and I had an idea: instead of searching around in the forest for the trail, why didn’t I just wait for the tide to go further out and clamber straight over the rocks all the way to Emerald Cove?

So off I went. The still-damp rocks were covered in exceptionally-slippy kelp and I nearly fell over on at least three occasions. Despite my precarious footing it never occurred to me to turn around and I kept going for what seemed like a very long time, though it was probably only about twenty minutes. After passing over a section of rocks so slippery that I had to weigh up each step for ten seconds before I made it, I clambered down from the outcropping and with a rush of excitement realised that I could see the mouth of a cove just ahead of me. My plan had worked! Surely this was Emerald Cove!

Feeling triumphant, I wandered around the corner and was very surprised to find in front of me a row of tents and a small crowd of people cooking dinner beneath a suspended tarp. “What the hell are these guys doing here?” I thought to myself, quite taken aback, and used the excuse of photographing the cove to take a moment to compose myself.

If I was surprised to see that group of what turned out to be kayakers, it was nothing compared to what they felt when I casually wandered into a cove that was supposed to only be accessible by water. I walked up to their camp, waving my hand in greeting. “Is this Emerald Cove?” I asked, cheerfully. Several of the group were looking at me like I’d emerged unbidden from beneath the waves, but a lady sitting near me smiled and said, “No, this is Emerald Bay. Emerald Cove is on the other side of that ridge.” She pointed at a forested hill across the water from where they were sitting.

“Ah,” I said. “Can I get round there from here?”

She shook her head.

“Drat,” I said, suddenly sounding exceedingly English in my own ears. “I don’t suppose you have a map I could look at?”

She rummaged around in her bag and pulled one out. In a straight line, I was about two-thirds of the way to Emerald Cove but my scramble over the rocks had taken me on completely the wrong path. There was nothing for it but to turn round and go back the way I had come. “That’s a shame,” I said, suddenly feeling very tired. “Thanks for your help.” And I began to walk away.

“Wait a minute!” one of the shocked-looking people called after me, still incredulous. “Where did you come from?”

“Over there,” I said, pointing vaguely out of the cove and continuing to move away from them.

“Where are you from?” he called, louder this time.

“England,” I said, now approaching the end of the cove.

“And how did you get here?” he shouted.

“I walked,” I called back airily and disappeared out of sight around the corner.

Now that I was tired, the clamber back over the rocks felt considerably dicier and I took it exceedingly slowly and carefully. As I climbed back up out of the ravine to the trail, I started to feel a little frantic: I was still a long way from my tent and it suddenly didn’t seem so fun to be out hiking alone in a forest in bear country. With my adrenaline pumping, I began to hurry, shouting out the customary “Hey, Bear!” to warn the wildlife of my presence a lot more frequently than usual. After a few minutes, I was chanting it continuously, like a mantra. “ʜᴇʏ, ʙᴇᴀʀ!” I’d shout in a high-pitched lilt, followed by a low rumbling “HEY, BEAR!”, over and over again, barely pausing for breath.

I half-walked, half-ran, continuing to chant, for nearly an hour and half back along the trail, sweating buckets in the rainforest humidity. In my haste, I took the wrong turning at a three-way junction and only realised my mistake after I’d gone for nearly ten minutes in the wrong direction. Back on the right path, I stumbled several times over fallen logs and other obstacles, always emerging unscathed, until I slipped off a rock and trod knee-deep into a huge pit of mud. Startled, I pulled my leg out with a revolting squelch and inspected the damage: thick, damp mud stuck to my right trouser leg, coating the top of my sock and, worst of all, beginning to seep down inside my boot.

“Fuck,” I said quietly, as I stood taking in what had just happened. Then again a little louder, “Fuck!”, as the mud began to harden on the only pair of trousers I had brought with me to Alaska. And then again and again as I began to walk once more, my swearing gradually picking up momentum and volume as my temper rose and my speed increased, until eventually I was charging through the undergrowth in a blind rage, shouting “FUCK!” over and over at the top of my voice as I railed against the injustice of the universe.

I can’t quite decide now whether I’m relieved or disappointed that I didn’t bump into anyone on the trail while I was letting it all out. It would have been funny to see how they reacted to a crazy English guy running through the woods swearing his head off, but equally it would have been embarrassing and difficult to explain why I’d got myself so worked up about getting a little dirty when out on a relatively gentle hike. I finally began to calm down when I was forced to stop by the waterfall to filter water into my empty bottle.

I think on reflection that’s what caused me to act so strangely: I was dehydrated from sweating in the humidity of the forest and even the couple of litres of water I’d already drunk weren’t enough to stop me drying out. I don’t think I brought enough food with me either, and threading my way along the overgrown trail, and over those slippery rocks, probably used more energy than I realised. In any case, by the time I’d made it back to my beach and sat down on the log to inspect my boot, I was back to my normal calm self again.

I washed off my trousers, socks and boots as best I could and hung them out to dry, then I cooked a large dinner and drank several cups of tea. In the morning I packed up my stuff, walked the several miles along the coast to Whittier and got a ride back through the tunnel to Girdwood in the middle of the afternoon. By midnight I was dancing to a live bluegrass band at a summer solstice festival in a log cabin overlooking a lake, but that’s a story for another post.

 

Total distance hitchhiked: 2,267 km.
Total number of rides: 16.
Distance from Nabesna: 539 km.