KODIAK -- "No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow." That quote by Lin Yutang was especially true for my parents in December when they finished their vacation with several nights on the SeaTac airport floor. The passengers broke into applause when their jet finally took off from the snowy runway.
While I was glad I wasn't flying through snowstorms, I was sorry to see our snow washed away by a week of rain. I had made plans to meet friends for a mountain hike with enough snow for snowshoeing. But on the day of our hike, we woke to a westerly gusting to 60 mph. Blowing snow blurred the mountain edges and williwaws streaked down the bay. A giant inflatable snowman that had escaped its yard somersaulted down the bike path.
The woods seemed to be the safest place for hiking, so we chose a six-mile trail that starts at Monashka Bay, at a beach still white with the ash of the 1912 Katmai eruption. The Termination Point trail is green year-round. It winds through hills blanketed in spongy moss and thins where it travels along the edge of steep cliffs. We were protected from the wind, but we walked under roaring treetops rubbing against each other in the storm.
Old friends make such easy company. I hiked with the Myrick twins; we've been friends since junior high. They grew up setnet fishing in Uganik Bay. We talked about how Adelia met her husband-to-be when he paddled up to their beach on a kayaking trip around Kodiak Island, and about whether there would be an engagement ring for Jenny under the Christmas tree this year (there was). When we came to a steep rise, I thought of these sisters powering up hills during high school cross-country races. Easy company, unless you are trying to keep up.
We followed the trail out of the trees and into the wind gusting over Termination Point. Seabirds hid close to the shore, bobbing in the choppy waves. The sunlight lit the grass a prairie yellow and glinted off rooftops on Spruce Island. The island is the site of an annual pilgrimage to Monk's Lagoon, where Father Herman established a hermitage in 1818. Across Ouzinkie Narrows the sky was clear enough to see the huge mountaintop cross, so large it had to be planted with a helicopter.
Though we didn't see any boats or airplanes or other hikers on our walk, this storm didn't feel as lonesome as a strong northeast that sets the buoys moaning under gray skies. On those days when fog grounds flights or the grocery shelves empty because a containership is delayed by wind, you're reminded of the challenges that come with living on an island. The New Year's Eve fireworks were actually last summer's Fourth of July display that was canceled because of bad weather.
Near the end of our walk, the path opened to sharp blue ocean. Out of the spindrift rose a tall, dark fin. Like a reward for our walking in spite of the storm, a pod of killer whales gleamed obsidian in the low winter sunshine. We didn't move until they had disappeared across the bay, and then we set our ice cleats scraping against beach rocks as we walked toward the head of the trail.
After Christmas, a second, stronger storm blew over power lines and uprooted dozens of spruce trees around town. While fishermen rushed to the harbors to secure their boats, most of us stayed inside as our houses shuddered with each gust.
Sometimes it doesn't take travel or nights in an airport to renew our appreciation for that old pillow or the good company of old friends.
Kodiak-based Sara Loewen, formerly a teacher and now a student in the Master of Fine Arts program at UAA, fishes in Uyak Bay with her husband, Peter, and year-old son.
Sara Loewen
Around Alaska