blue ice: visits to knik glacier

IV.

Wind rides down from the glacier face.
It sweeps in from the Sound
climbs over the mountains
traverses the snowfield
then gains speed as it courses
between arêtes
that confine the ice and steer it
ever toward the inlet.
Lifting snow and silt as it blows
rattling across ice
and sastrugi
eroding ancient blue bergs
and this year’s drifts.
With the wind at my back,
I hear the grains skittering.

Much of the day, the wind passes my ears
White noise,
drowning any sounds from companions.
We four, not being savvy with hand signals
used by those who regularly are out of shouting distance
or have neither voice nor hearing,
must stop to communicate.

We tuck our heads
to keep the wind from our cheeks
Yet, must keep ever alert
for slick spots,
thin spots or holes in the ice
that might suck one of us under.
We pedal
On track to reach the face
It appears closer, though not by much
We ride on snow
On ice
On river rocks that range in size
from aspirin to dinner-plates
Keep pedaling and we can ride over anything
Unless it is the shape and size of an upturned wok.

V.
Another day
Sun pouring
reflecting off snow
blue ice, white ice
river ice, lake ice.
blue bergs frozen in lake ice
sculpted with dimples
locked as they are and still.
Ancient sea creatures
with scales,
breaching.
We ride past
raise our faces to the sky
wonder at the frozen waterfall
like drizzled icing on a wedding-cake.

At the face of the glacier,
we leave the bikes on the ice
climb onto the sun-warmed rocks
like desert reptiles
after sundown
seeking the residual warmth
the memory of sunshine.
Packs propped against glacier-carved rock
We recline and prop up our feet
look around
remember the distance we have traveled
over the last two hours.
Sun-drenched
we watch as flight-seeing airplanes
fly low across the ice
wonder if they see us resting there
wonder whose album we will end up in
when they return to the rest of America.

VI.

We meander close to the face
pass along uplifts
highmark on our bicycles
Ice made grippy by blown snow and silt
embedded in the surface in drifts and waved patterns.
We take our time
Exploring
Riding over sea creatures
Watching the March sun move across the sky
Marvel at the intensity of light
absence of wind
With a note of sadness
we turn back
skirt along the base of the moraine
and ride along ice made softer by a half-day’s warming.
Snow softening, water running, slick.

Our crossings become less certain
Open water wider
firm snow, now slush
A sure route is no longer
A muddy stream crossing
Flooded tussock field
Downstream over beaver dams
built of logs, twigs and rocks.

Like a good novel
or movie
the end is sadness
and satisfaction.
I hesitate before leaving the trail,
already nostalgic
for the day.

From a series of poems on biking on ice and snow. I began these during last week's write-a-thon. They are all works in progress, partly because a poem never seems done to me. It's not like a cookie where you can tell by the edges that it's just right. With a poem, you can change a word to change the mood or the meaning.

Over the years, I've found that poetry helps me with my other writing. Sometimes when I'm trying to write a story, it's best to pare it down to find the essence, then begin building. I don't know if other people do this, but it feels like a good form, kind of like stretching my brain before doing the heavy lifting. Thanks for reading.

photos:
1) Blue ice, white ice
2) Jon, with ice uplifts.
3) Jon and Alan, still miles from the glacier.
4) Me, Carey and Mauja. Lunch break.
5) Flightseers.
6) Lori and Carey.
7) Carey

more to this story

I must admit I've been trying to finish a post about a couple rides I did last week to Knik Glacier. Yes, the same glacier I wasn't able to reach earlier in March. Here's the thing: I keep trying to describe it and I can't quite find the right words or the right form for the story. There's something missing.

Tonight I went to an author reading and Q&A at the museum. The featured author was Susan Orlean, and she was being interviewed by local reporter, Julia O'Malley. Susan talked about how she doesn't use the term "writer's block." She described the three steps of writing: reporting (gathering information), processing and writing. The first two steps are critical to accomplishing the third. If you're having a hard time writing a story, either you haven't collected enough information or you haven't processed the information thoroughly (very common, I'm sure). She suggested that it helps to have another person with whom to discuss the idea so that the story may come to form through conversation.

She took the solitary process of writing and turned it into something interactive; telling us to speak our stories and see how they develop, thus finding the heart of the story. Because sometimes we can only find the story through telling it and receiving feedback from a trusted listener. Someone who knows us and knows what matters to us.

There is a lesson. So, now I think about the two bike trips I took to Knik and I think to myself: either I need to talk with Jon about this experience again or I need to make one more trip. For the sake of research.

knik river

Alan, Jon, glacier, driftwood.

We thought we could make it to the Knik Glacier and the route seemed promising at first. Firm ice on a mid-20 degree day with the sun radiant in the early March sky. The conditions we hope for in the last days of winter. The conditions we sometimes forget to hope for while enduring 20-below (or colder) days or rainy 40-degree days in the middle of January's darkness. And there we were: Jon, our friend Alan and me. On our studded tires headed up-river.

Open water.

I wasn't in a hurry and kept noticing shapes in the river ice: rocks and pebbles encased in more than a foot of solid ice; patterns of sastrugi, the snowdrifts of earlier in the winter eroded by winds that blow from the glacier, carrying fine particles of silt that land on the drifts, coloring them gray. Adding a gritty layer to the ice.

Sastrugi (The glacier is in the far right corner.)

Jon called out to me as I sat on the ice with the camera in my hand. I was so easily distracted that it's a good thing there was no open water right next to that section. I was focused on all the rocks, I told them as I caught up. "I guess you don't need any mind-altering chemicals, do you?" Alan asked. I guess not. Is that what it takes for people to enjoy just looking at one thing for more than a minute? Because I could have stayed in that one spot for another 15 minutes looking at the rocks and the ice patterns as they caught the noon-time light. As my body absorbed the heat. Instead, we continued.

Looking through a window of foot-thick ice.

We followed ice shelves on the river bank; we rode over miles of gravel bars covered with fist-sized river rocks and small pebbles; we plowed through low, crusty snow drifts that made barriers across our route. We got off and walked. The glacier appeared closer and closer, but only in small increments. Our tires sunk into a mush of pebbles and silt as the ground softened in the afternoon warmth. We decided to declare that, for this trip, the journey was its own destination.

don't break, don't break

After lunch, we turned around and followed our tracks back. Or we forged new courses, taking whichever route each of us preferred. Sometimes riding together; sometimes separate down the expanse of the valley. Me, riding slower, taking the time to look around. Thinking about the abuse I'd just put my studded tires through, feeling a new roughness in my bottom bracket - or was it my rear hub? Feeling a tiredness in my quads from riding out of the saddle on the roughest stretches. Relieved to arrive at each icy section for the smooth ride, even if we did have to pedal through dozens of crescent-shaped drifts that were spaced at intervals across the ice, another product of the winds that frequently blow down the valley from the glacier.

The sun was blocked by a mountain as we neared our entry/exit point. Our studded tires dug into the slushy top inch of the ice, breaking through enough that it released a slight whiff of methane that had been trapped under the ice as plants decayed in the mud.

It's nearly the middle of March. The days are getting longer. We haven't had snow in nearly three weeks. In many places the trails are hard-packed and fast to ride. In some parts of town, things are melting. March. This year it seems to be a most magical month.

Heart rock.