I think previously folks were much more inclined to look at where lines had already been written
down for them and I think we still hear that conversation now.
Lines and rouse are being discovered and to be thinking up our own and doing these is really
satisfying. A huge appeal on going on adventures like this is that I get to have intimate experiences
with nature. Actually like the best way to say it is that to me what has always been
important is that every day I want to be living.
It's a whole darn thing. So Kim Bjorn, Sea Kayact, on their own journey.
We, Ben and I flew into Anchorage, took the train down to Seward, met up with everybody
and repacked our gear, got bikes and pack wraps all situated, made sure everything was
in order to go and then we took to the woods. So took Resurrection Trail up to Cooper Landing,
got on Kenai from there. I'm going to get things so backwards. But then traveled the
whole Kenai River and then did some beach riding all the way down back to home.
Should we bring this many? How many should we bring? Emergencies? Is it nice to have
more than one a day? Yeah.
We paddled into a pod of humpbacks and they were moving around in the water pretty fast
chasing after these little fish and these sand lands. So I was filming and then I heard
Kim scream and I looked behind and one was right underneath her and as it was passing
it kind of flipped her with its pectoral fin.
We see kayak from Homer to Seward through the Kenai Fjords which is a really rugged remote
coastline exposed to the Gulf of Alaska. It's a pretty advanced sea kayaking trip.
The most exciting thing for me about it is that sense of exploration and discovery. You
know to go around headlands and capes that I've never seen before and not knowing what
the rock formations will look like or you know what kind of landscape it's going to
be or what kind of animals you're going to find, plants, that kind of things. This amazing
remote rugged coastline with a very rich animal habitat, you know, sea, land, air. The wildlife
between Seward and Homer is just incredibly rich. It's the Kenai Fjords National Park
for most of the way so it's a lot of protected land. And so Kim had been really pushing for
a while that we do that trip so when she said let's do a sea kayak trip I said yeah okay
well let's tack on a fat bike and packraft element to it too. And so that ended up being
this kind of circumnavigation of the, you know, not quite of the entire Kenai Peninsula
but of the Kenai Mountains I guess. We've seen a whole handful of marine mammals that
we would expect to see. Sea lions, seals, sea otters, humpback whale and even orcas
a couple of times. And then land animals we've seen, mountain goats, black bear, river otters
and even a wolf which was really cool.
Part of what has always attracted me to the different pursuits that I've done is that
the pursuit itself is rewarding in a kind of a playful way. You know, for example like
on our sea kayaking trip it's not necessary for us to play in the rock gardens when there's
swell or to stop and surf for a little while if our goal is to only just get from point
A to point B and yet we always try to kind of have enough time in the day and enough flexibility
in our schedule to take advantage of those opportunities when they come up.
Our friend Daniel came from Homer to Seward with his fat bike and packraft and we had
left our fat bikes and packrafts in Seward and Ben and Amy flew to Anchorage, took the
train down to Seward and we all met up there. Dang, that's a sexy looking bike.
Because it is easy for us to jump out and get to the store later and see what's up.
There seems to be this kind of common idea which I think most people would probably identify
with that if you're in the woods it's this sort of sanctuary, calming, quiet, reflective
place which it is. But having these tools like the packraft and the fat bike it allows
you to get to those places to have those experiences but unlike walking where you're just carrying
your stuff and you can sing and like skip and like you can come up with some stuff.
But if you're on the fat bike you can like bring this level of it's just kind of like
being a kid which I think is a huge part of exploring you know and like all this adult
seriousness isn't necessarily the only piece of being spiritual or connected to the land
like being playful is also a big part of it. Kind of a neat thing about being on these
trips is that you're filling a niche sort of within the natural environment. Traveling
by human power through these natural corridors you really get to feel intimate with the landscape.
So you have these parameters that we can exist within the wilderness. It really feels neat
to feel like you're sort of tapping into this natural rhythm and that it feels like there's
a place for us out there.
You got to really be honest about what your skills are and where you're lacking and be
willing to learn and be humble coming to it. But there's totally a level of anxiety learning
a new skill and I think that's an important thing to not let conquer you. To know this
is a new skill and all new skills are uncomfortable and they're going to be making you feel a
little tense. But if you push through them then you have this whole new series of equipment
that you can turn and say hey I can navigate this river. I can connect these points in
a different way because I've taken the time to learn this.
Coming right to the steady line and then lean into it. And then pally yourself into the
heady.
I feel like all of these sports I guess you'd call them these pursuits you can really take
them at a variety of different levels. Like if you're a beginner there is something there
for you. If you are an intermediate there is something there and if you're really advanced
you can push it to that next level and go extreme if you want to. So I think that these
are all great pursuits for anybody who wants to have an experience with adventure and with
their natural environment.
You can take a myriad of lines to get to where you're going. You can choose the most
direct line or you can choose a really screwy line that takes you off left field and it's
bumpy and rocky and you drive through a creek and whatever. There's always different ways
that you can approach the train you're riding on. And that's the playful side of it. For
me is I like trying to keep that to make it be fun and interesting moment to moment.
Drop in right there. You can do it. You can do it. You can do it. Come on. You can do
it.
And with this trip I definitely felt that every time we were on a beach and it transitioned
into a more rocky landscape because you're finding rocks that look like ramps naturally
and so you can't help but just go off of it and challenge yourself and kind of feel all
your camping gear shake as you get that descent but then you're also picking your own line.
Things that go on in the world that kind of bring you down and you go out into a wild
landscape and you get to be reconnected with things that really matter. It's seeing nature
on its own terms.
What we've lost is our confidence and our sense of how adaptable we really are because
everything that happens in the world is basically fed to us or given to us or someone is doing
it for us. We don't know where it comes from. There's all these miniature divorces everywhere
but I think that inherently people are not divorced from this sense of allowance because
we've had to live picking our berries and starting our fires and hunting our food way
longer than we have been turning a knob and buying it in the store. So I like to believe
and I do believe that that is more a part of who we are. So the key then I think is
encouraging people to get out there because what I've seen is that when they do they're
immediately it might take a day or two for the people who are really not confident or
feel intimidated by it but it's there and then when people experience that it's such
a sense of accomplishment.
I have a rainbow around this town that I always see framed, I know. When I go rambling round,
when I go rambling round, if the wind comes from the north, the rain might turn to see
The rain might turn to snow, but I'm about to do the best I can.
