One of the guys first emailed me after hearing an episode of The Packrafting Life with me and Justin Yoder.
He was a graduate student in Colorado, a gay man, and already spending a lot of time outside. He had friends to go mountain biking and snowboarding with, but finding other queer people to do those things with had been harder.
He wrote about feeling like he had to choose between making meaningful friendships with other LGBTQ people and getting into the mountains with his straight friends.
Yeah... I knew what he meant.
He and his friends were getting ready to defend their dissertations and wanted to celebrate finishing their PhDs with a packrafting trip. After hearing the podcast, he reached out about Alaska.
His email had questions about bears and rapids, renting gear, whether they’d need a guide. Eventually, we started putting a trip together.
A couple weeks before they came up, I happened to be in Denver, near where they were based. We got together for dinner to talk through the plans a bit. I felt comfortable with them right off the bat.
By the time they landed in Alaska, we’d already spent some time together, and I was excited to show them around.
The original plan was Crow Pass. Some hiking, some packrafting, a few days out together.
Then it rained. Enough that we needed another plan.
We headed down to the Kenai Peninsula instead.
We took a boat out to a public-use cabin and spent time paddling around the bay, exploring near waterfalls, with sea lions and sea otters around us. We hiked in the fog.
We were silly together pretty much immediately. Dancing around, challenging each other to get in the bay without drysuits. Back at the cabin, one of the guys made curry for everyone. Fucking bomb. We played a game, smoked some weed, and had a really fun night.
Somewhere in there, we also started making gorilla noises and pumping our arms over our heads. I think I started it on the beach that first night, after we’d been swimming in the bay. haha.
It caught on. For the rest of the trip, we’d lift our paddles over our heads and do it from our boats. The perfect group hype thing. A bunch of guys celebrating finishing their PhDs, making gorilla noises across the water. hahaha.
I loved how easily everyone went along with things. The weather kept changing what we could do, and they were flexible about it. I didn’t feel like I had to keep apologizing for the trip being different from the one we’d planned.
We packrafted the Kenai River with salmon below us and camped at Skilak Lake. There were bears and moose along the way too.
I remember dancing on the hike down to the lake. Later, an airplane landed on the water and came right up to our beach, and I got to watch everybody take that in.
I love showing people Alaska. I can get used to things here, even things I know are incredible. Then someone sees them for the first time, and I find myself stopping to look again.
Sixmile Creek was more stressful.
One of the guys swam and got separated from his packraft. The group ended up spread out along the river, getting into eddies and secure spots on shore. We couldn’t all see each other at once.
There were hand signals and conversations across the water. If someone could see a person I couldn’t, I’d ask them to check in. People helped each other get situated and kept communicating.
I climbed along the cliffs to retrieve his paddle. His boat was downstream, and he couldn’t climb out to hike down to it. We talked through the swim he’d need to make to get down to where I had his gear.
I was stressed. There was a lot happening, and I couldn’t keep eyes on everyone myself. But people kept checking on each other and passing information along. I remember appreciating that so much in the middle of it.
When that first email came in, the part about wanting queer friends to get outside with stuck with me. I’ve spent a lot of time wanting that too. Having people you like in different parts of your life and wishing you could share more of it with them.
We felt comfortable together at dinner in Denver. That continued in Alaska, through the changes in plans and the stressful parts on the river. And through a whole lot of paddles over our heads, making ridiculous noises across the water.