It is a favorite place in the White Mountains of Alaska, on the banks of Nome Creek, where clear water trips over polished riverbed stones and the mountains turn rust colored in the evening sun. We have camped here often in years past. Just shy of high country, the mountains above us are still dotted with snow melts, even in early June. We climb a rocky trail that is sprinkled with pieces of white quartz until we are beyond the tree line. Tiny white dogwoods and purple Arctic lousewort blossom on the alpine meadow. We pause, breathless, to take in a vista, immense and timeless.
The landscape has not changed in hundreds of years. We, on the other hand, have.
In the blink of an eye, the children have grown into young adults. Just yesterday they played “Antarctica” on remnant snow patches near the creek. They sat on the spongy tundra, picking blueberries, circumferentially, as far as their arms could reach. They held forked willow sticks into the campfire, willing marshmellows to brown rather than blacken.
Years later, some players in the group have shifted. The camaraderie, however, has remained unchanged. They stride ahead on the trail, their chatter constant, their laughter braided. A hike onto Tabletop mountain started in sunshine. Near the summit we are caught in sudden hail, pelting us sideways. We hasten our descent, drenched and cold, but have to laugh at this weather change, so typical of Alaska, always capricious and unpredictable.
Later, as we sit around a campfire with the mountains silhouetted by the midnight sun, the “kids” share their stories – from college, about holding jobs, of managing on their own. Soon the Alaskan summer will be over, a juncture, and we will part again. Somewhere embedded, we will remember the mountains and the creek and the trail.
It is a place of lastingness, even if we are just a tiny measure in time.
Birgit Lennertz Sarrimanolis 