Cibecue Creek, part 3 of 4, possibly 5: We happen upon a frog, experience a bit of adventure, then hike into a place of magic

I will begin with the frog, which we happened upon shortly after we started to hike. As you can see, it was a tiny frog, but it brought to mind a bigger frog that I encountered very near to this place over 30 years ago. On March 10, I wrote a bit about my friend Vincent Craig, who was fighting the cancer that on May 15 took him.*

One of the experiences that I recounted was a nighttime rescue that he led that took place in a canyon cut out by one of the creeks that flows out of the White Mountain Apache reservation into the Salt River.

Perhaps it was this very creek, Cibecue. I cannot remember for certain, as we did the hike in and out and scaled the cliffs from which two waterfalls fell in the darkness of night. I have no visual memories of the terrain through which we hiked.

This creek does lead to a couple of falls, however, and it is a creek that is sometimes visited by non-tribal members, such as the blond woman who fell on the cliff and broke her leg.

There is another creek further upstream that also does. So it could have been either one. Somewhere, I have it written down and stored away, but that document would be hard to find and I haven't the time to look for it.

Near the beginning of that rescue hike on that night three decades ago, I was stumbling about on the rocks as we worked our way upstream when suddenly I felt something cool and clammy plop down upon my left wrist. "Snake!" was my immediate thought - "rattler" in particular. I let out a little shriek, but kept enough composure not to jerk my hand away until I knew what was on it and what it was doing.

I transferred the beam of my flashlight from the rocks below my feet to my wrist and there saw the startled eyes of a big frog, looking back at me.

Lisa holds the frog out for Kalib to see. Kalib cautiously touches it.

From the moment we came upon the creek and I looked at the walls rising into mountains on all sides of us, this line from Vincent's song, Someone Drew a Line, came into my head: "Between The Four Sacred Mountains we lived in harmony..."

These were not The Four Sacred Mountains that Vincent wrote about, yet, in their way, I believe all the mountains to be sacred and so it seemed appropriate. This song would stay in my head throughout the hike - for every minute of it, every second. Not for a moment would it leave me.

Sometimes Kalib hiked on his own power. Sometimes, he would be carried - either by his dad or his uncles, Caleb, Rex and Charlie.

Due to my shoulder, I could not carry him.

Mostly, we hiked through water. Before we started to hike, the heat had felt oppressive and I had wondered how we were going to do it. The water mitigated that heat. It turned out to be no problem at all.

Jacob trips and goes down while carrying Kalib.

Jacob gives Kalib an assist up a boulder, to his waiting mother.

There, atop the boulder, she changes his diaper, then helps him into a new one. Let no one doubt - she will pack the dirty diaper all the way up and all the way out. Other than temporary footprints, we would leave no sign of ourselves behind.

Kalib splashes water.

Jacob and Lisa hiking up Cibecue Creek.

Lisa comes to a big rock. She debates whether to go over it or around it.

She chooses to go over it. I walk around and get this picture of her as she tops it.

Although everyone had spread apart, we somehow all came together at this point. Something in the sky then caught everyone's attention.

It is a magnificent bird - a turkey vulture. At this moment, I kind of wished that I drug along my big cameras and my 100 to 400 zoom, but it was really nice to hike with a just a little tiny camera that I could slip in and out of my t-shirt pocket.

As everyone was gathered in one spot, we decided this would be a good moment to make a good group portrait - sans me. Kalib had grown hungry and so dug into his nose to see if might find something good to eat there.

He did. And he ate it.

Rex carries Kalib as we continue on.

Jacob and Lavina, hiking through the water.

Lavina and Jacob, stepping out of the water.

Melanie pauses by a big rock.

Kalib rests upon a rock.

Jacob and Rex survery the terrain ahead.

Jacob climbs over a rock and comes upon this drift log, wedged into a crevasse. "It looks just like a big b..." he exclaimed. I will leave the "b..." to your imaginations.

I will probably get in trouble with some of the female members of the family for even having said just this much.

Jacob climbs out onto the log and waves at Kalib, who is still working his way in this direction.

Uncle Caleb assists nephew Kalib as he works his way over a series of big rocks alongside water that was too deep to walk through.

Kalib tops the rock. Caleb offers him a "high-five."

Melanie finds a very pretty rock, which she shows to everybody. 

She by-passes a deep pool via a well-scuplted boulder. By now, we can hear the distant roar of a water fall. It sounds kind of like a jet.

As we move upstream, past cutouts in the rock, the roar of the falls grows louder.

And here it is, the lower of the two Cibecue Falls. It feels as though we have hiked into a place of magic.

Tomorrow: We frolic in the place of magic.

*Today, June 6, would have been Vincent Craig's 60th birthday. Today, his mother Nancy Mariano passed away, also from cancer. 

Back in Wasilla, where a moose ran into the trees and Branson caught a fish, I glimpse back at Cibecue Creek

It is a beautiful Saturday here in Wasilla, Alaska. The sun shines brightly upon foilage, lucious and green. The air is pleasantly warm, leaning towards hot but not quite there yet. A light breeze rustles the leaves and the aroma given off by all this new greenery and blossoming flowers is sweet.

So I don't really want to spend the day inside, yet I have spent the past two-and-a-half hours doing just that - editing my take of May 27, when several of us took a hike up Cibecue Creek from the place where it empties into the Salt River. This, of course, took place in the homeland of Arizona's White Mountain Apache Tribe, of which my wife and children are all enrolled members.

It was a hike that began in desert heat intense enough to cause me to wonder if it was such a good idea for all of us to take off into it with a two-and-a-half year old boy walking along, but our destination would be one of magic, if we could but reach it.

Do you think this little boy, Kalib, could handle the six-hour hike that lay ahead of him?

I can't spend anymore time on it right now, but please come back tomorrow and I will show you.

I have a great deal of catching up to do - from my trips to Arizona and to Anaktuvuk Pass. I hope to get all caught up within a week, possibly two, certainly no more than three, because three weeks from right now the plan is for me to be on my way to Greenland - I MUST be caught up by then.

Kalib, by the way, is enrolled not in the White Mountain Apache Tribe but in the Navajo Nation. Both the Apache and Navajo are matrilineal societies, hence Kalib and Jobe belong to their mother's tribe and clan.

Just to make it clear that I truly am back in Wasilla, where I am attempting to slip back into my "normal home routine" for the three weeks that it might be possible to do so, here is a moose that I caught with my pocket camera as I drove down Shrock Road.

Even as I catch up on Arizona and Anaktuvuk Pass, I will drop in images from Wasilla, just to keep up to date.

Just before I came upon the moose, I had made the usual afternoon stop at Metro Cafe, where Carmen showed me this picture that she took of her son, Branson, her husband Scott and the fish Branson had just caught. As you can see, it is a special moment, but it is even more special than you likely realize, for there is a bigger story here.

I will tell it when time and circumstance permit. Carmen is going to throw a big five-year birthday party for Branson on the 27th. She thought that this would be a good time for me to come, take pictures and tell the story, but I will be Greenland then.

I am excited to be making my second trip to Greenland, but I hate to miss this party.

That's how this life is, though. To experience one thing, you must miss out on another - no: a trillion-plus others. An infinite number of others.

I find this very frustrating.

In keeping with tradition, I now title this image: Through the Window Metro Study, #6699.

A little storm blew in just before tax day and came down upon an American bald eagle

I have fallen behind. April 15, tax day, is drawing close to its end and I have not even put up a post yet. It was a fairly eventful day for me. I went to town, had lunch with Melanie, visited with Warren Matumeak, who readers met in yesterday's post as he drummed for Suurimmaanitchuat, and his daughters; drove home, passed a Volkswagen, saw a bit of the Wasilla Tea Party rally.

But I am going to go to bed early tonight and I will wait until I get up Friday morning, April 16, and then I will blog about April 15 and try to have it up by noon, Alaska time; 4:00 PM East Coast. That means that this post will only be at the top of the page for a very short time.

In the meantime, just so the day does not end without me putting up a post, here are a few images from April 14, when a minor storm of no consequence blew in.

In the afternoon, as I headed toward Metro Cafe, I saw these kids walking through it.

I then drove down and crossed the bridge over the Little Susistna River, where I saw a bald eagle sitting in a tree. I was a little irritated with myself, as this was a job that my pocket camera simply was not up to. I wondered why I couldn't keep a DSLR with a long lens in the car, just for occassions like this?

Yet, when I set out to document the world around me with a pocket camera, I know that I can never do with it what I can do with a DSLR, but the goal is to get a picture that is somewhat worthwhile anyway.

So I parked the car and decided to see how close I could get to the eagle.

In places where eagles hang out by the score and more all the time, getting close to them is no problem at all. They will practically let you walk right up to them.

But this is not such a place.

At first, I walked straight toward the eagle and it watched my every step.

Then I turned so that I was not walking directly towards it, but rather at an angle to the tree, but was still closing the distance between it and me with each step. Then I turned back, still at angle to the tree, until I reached a point where something told me that if I came any closer, the eagle would fly.

I raised my pocket camera.

And the eagle flew.

A lonely Wasilla Democrat; the raven who would not fly; the dog who didn't get run over; two moose who grazed in the yard; the tax-preparer who drinks Metro coffee

Remember how last week I came upon Dodd Shay and his new pup, Scotty, on Seldon? Remember how he stopped to chat, but then traffic came along and so he pulled over onto nearby Tamar and told me that he was planning to start showing up at Metro Cafe at 10:00 Thursday mornings and wanted to invite folks of Democratic bent to stop by and have coffee with him?

Today, as I walked on Seldon, Dodd and Scotty came driving by and stopped again. I asked if he had gone to Metro at 10:00 and yes he had. I asked if others had joined him and he said he saw another Democrat there, but they did not get together. They took their coffee separately.

Ten in the morning is not a good time for me to get together with anybody, anywhere. At 10:00, I am trying to figure out how to deal with the day, or I am walking, which is part of what I do to figure out how to deal with the day.

Some days are pretty cut and dried, though - it's all sitting right in front of me and I don't need to figure out anything - I just need to find the the will to get to it. Today was such a day.

Dodd and I did not get to talk long, because pretty soon a car showed up coming from behind him. There was no convenient turnoff, so he said goodbye and drove on.

A bit further along, I saw this raven sitting atop the cell-phone tower. As I noted way back when, we had very weak reception here before they built this and were always suffering dropped calls. Now, we get all bars reception and if a call gets dropped, it's because it happened on the other end.

I decided that I wanted to get a picture of this raven departing the tower. With the pocket camera, you've got to be ready, because you're only going to get one chance and, unless you're already applying enough pressure to the shutter button to keep it active, there will be a little delay.

So I kept the camera focused on the raven, kept my finger lightly pressed against the shutter button and I waited.

Five minutes... ten minutes... 15...

The raven just sat there, not flying. 

The raven might not understand photography, but ravens are smart and cunning birds and very mischievous. I knew that the raven had figured me out. The raven knew that I wanted it to fly and that I did not intend to leave until it did. So the raven decided to wait me out, to stay put. 

The raven decided that it would not fly until I walked away.

This was a game to the raven and it was determined to win.

In time, another raven came flying by. Usually, when this happens, the perched raven will de-perch itself and take off flying - either to join or squabble with the newcomer, depending on what kind of relationship they share. But this raven knew that this was just what I wanted it to do, so it stayed put. It did turn to watch the other raven pass by, though.

Finally, after more than 20 minutes, I decided that I had to get going. I gave up and started to walk away. The raven flew. I quickly raised my camera and got a shot off but because I was walking I messed it up and it was blurry.

You may not believe me that the raven knew and planned it this way, but I am not joking. I am serious.

Ravens like to play these kind of games and they are hard to beat.

Do you remember this dog? The one that ran out into the middle of Seldon not so long ago and nearly got run over?*

Cars just kept coming and it just kept getting in their way, even as they honked.

I wandered how long that dog would live.

This is it. It is still alive. It had found its way into that part of the marsh that Dodd holds title to, the part where the signs on his gates tell snowmachiners and fourwheeler drivers not to enter, but many enter anyway and tear up the property regardless.

Then it was back to my office, where I tried to work until 4:00 PM, at which time I grabbed my jacket and headed to the car so that I could stop by Metro, get my brew and listen to a bit of All Things Considered in the car.

I headed straight out the door and into the car and was about to back out when I saw this adolescent moose in the front yard, right beside me.

And here is it's mom. That's Joe's house in the background. Were it not for Joe, Chicago kitty would be dead. One day, I will tell the story. On the whole, it is a terribly sad story, even though she survived.

In fact, it is a tragic story, but we are very glad Chicago survived.

It is also an amazing story.

Through the Metro Window Study, #12,682

This is Juanita. Carmen says she is her "H&R Block lady." It's that time, isn't it?

"How often do you come here for coffee?" I asked Juanita, thinking that maybe it was tax business that brought her here today. 

"How often do I come here?" she laughed, with a bemused look on her face.

"As often as you do," Carmen answered for her.

This is what the Talkeetna's looked like on the way home. The winter darkness has been defeated. Soon, dark will be but memory. We will not even want to think about the dark.

That's why I hate to go south in the time of light. Down south, it gets dark every night, even on the summer solstice. I can't bear it. I just can't.

Please. Keep me in the north, all summer long.

Do not make me go south.

But I'm already committed. Late May - Arizona. For a very special reason. I cannot miss it.

As I approached my house, I saw that the moose were just leaving.

*I was going to write, "damn near got run over," but then I remembered that one of my readers left a comment awhile back telling me that her ten-year old daughter reads my blog every morning, so I decided that I had better not swear. Thus, I did not write, "damn near got run over," but rather, "nearly got ran over."

I have really cleaned up my blogging language since I learned about this 10 year-old girl.

Tracks in the new snow; mama moose blocks my path; a treasured seed winds up in the garbage

Finally, it snowed again. Regular readers have read my lament - about how it has basically not snowed here since early December (oddly enough, it has snowed in Anchorage a couple of times, but not here). Yes, you may look at this blog and see snow everywhere, but that is only because this is a place where the snow that falls in October is typically still here in April and sometimes even in patches as May begins.

(Contrast this to the Arctic Slope, where the snow that falls in September can linger in patches into July).

This year, of course, there was no snow in October here. It did not come until early November and then it never built up to much. And the weather has been so warm, for us, even as it has been cold to the south, for them.

Thank El Niño. Thank the Arctic Oscillation.

But, last night, I noticed a few flakes coming from the sky. Then, as I lay in bed, more flakes came. They kept coming, one on top of the other, piling up, piling and piling and piling up until finally this morning I stepped outside and disovered that they had piled up to a depth of...

1/8th of an inch, give or take 1/16th, depending on where you were standing.

Well, one-eighth was enough to allow feet to leave new tracks on the roads.

Here are the tracks left by a young moose and a raven.

And here are some tracks left by some ravens who got together to eat out. What did they eat? I don't know.

I walked on from the spot where the ravens dined and then stepped away from the road and into the marsh. I headed toward Dodd's trail, the one he has tried to keep open for walkers, but to close to machines. It's not that he is against machines, just selfish and immature drivers who tear things up with them and sometimes even wake homeowners from their sleep. I took this picture about 100 feet from the barricade with the "no trespassing" signs that he has placed at the entrance to his property.

When the wind blows, it tears through the marsh. I cannot eliminate the possibility that the wind ripped this sign free from his barricade and planted it here.

More likely, though, it is the work of someone on a snowmachine or fourwheeler who is undoubtedly very possessive of all that is his and wants everyone to respect his rights and propety, but has no respect for the property and rights of others.

Being a walker on good terms with Mr. Shay, I continued on, headed for my house. I soon happened upon some very fresh moose tracks.

And then I saw the moose, separated from me by a few bushes. There were two actually. This one that you are looking at here is the child, the nearly grown calf.

The child decided to step out into the open and the mother quickly followed, keeping her eye on it and on me.

And then, standing right in the middle of the path, they played. Regular readers all know that I love my pocket camera, but right now I was wishing that I had one of my DSLR's, and my 100 to 400 mm lens. But I didn't. When you set out to document your surroundings with only a pocket camera, you understand the limitations from the beginning.

You just have to live and work with them.

If you look through their legs, you can see the trail going on beyond. That is where I want to walk. Right here, I am no more than 300 yards from my back porch - if that far.

But this mama moose is not going to let me pass. I have to back up and find another way.

Two calves used to hang out with this mother. I wonder what has become of the second?

And when I do, I come upon Patty, who, according to the doctor who refused to treat her cancer and told her to go home and prepare to die, should have been dead for two, maybe three months now.

But she is strong and getting stronger. Her eyes match her hat and coat.

When I get home, I find Margie ready to drive to Anchorage, to try once again to help Lavina prepare a room for her sister, who will arrive from Arizona tomorrow so that she can help with the new baby.

I decide that I might as well walk two more miles so I have her drop me off at Metro Cafe so that I can still get my afternoon coffee even though I will have no car to listen to the news in.

Carmen's sister, Theresa, has come out from Anchorage to help out and has brought her son, Evan, with her. While a few pass through the drive-through, I am the only customer in the store right now. Everyone is pretty comfortable with me, so Carmen's son Baranson and Evan get away with staging a little wrestling match.

After the wrestling match, Baranson is feeling pretty bad. It seems his teacher gave him some kind of special seed at school, but Evan took it and threw it in the garbage. 

Somehow, I missed that part.

So Carmen and Baranson look for the seed.

Evan comes bearing a little gift, hoping to make up for having throw the seed away. Baranson is not interested. He wants the seed.

Carmen, Baranson, Evan and Theresa. 

Just before I left, as I was paying for my coffee, the seed was found and Baranson got it back.

Margie returned late in the evening.

"No baby, yet," she said, "but Lavina is feeling a lot of pain."

Man. That's why I want our new grandchild to come soon, even three weeks ahead of it's due date - so this two week plus labor that Lavina has been in can come to an end.

PS: I was just headed for bed and I looked out the window... it is snowing. It looks like it might be for real, this time. And somewhere out in that snow, with no shelter but their own fur and tree branches aboe them, those moose have settled down for the night.