These are the Chronicles of Famous Surf Writer Ben Marcus and his trip into the Wilds of the Alaskan Frontier.
Latest Update: October 11, 2000

22:30 ALASKA TIME ROOM A211 AT THE DENALI NORTH STAR INN

Shoot, I lost a boot. Somewhere between this hotel and Fairbanks, one of my good leather boots fell out of the van when I stopped to take a photo. This was one of my favorite pair of boots. Joanne bought them for me last Christmas and they'd been serving me well on this trip. Especially today, because I had rivers to cross and icy parking lots to slide across. They were waterproof and had good traction. Shit. I hope I find that boot tomorrow. I hope a bear or a fox doesn't drag it off. I'm on a mission.

Oh well. The lost boot was the bummer end to what was otherwise a very good day. A day of driving from Anchorage to Denali and toward Fairbanks under brilliant blue skies, with snow-covered mountains all around. A day of slut-fishing some nice rivers, listening to the baseball playoffs on the radio, and enjoying the sensation of having most of Alaska all to myself.

I woke up in the Grizzly Bear Hotel in Lake Lucille to find that the snow and gray skies had gone away, and left behind perfect blue skies. There was no wind, the sun was warm and so I drove north, toward Denali. There were few cars on the road, and although I was more than 120 miles away, Denali was there in front of me, looming large and white against the blue sky.

You'd be pissed too if you were
hunted down and killed just to
decorate a hotel lobby.

There were a couple of really nice rivers along the way. I coined a term today "slut-fishing" which means flogging a river without even finding out its name. I did that several times today, stopping at nice rivers along the highway and fishing them, without even finding out what river I was fishing.

Didn't catch anything, and I may be gearing up to become the first fisherman to get skunked in Alaska. I havent even gotten a bite.

I drove and drove and drove, and was glad to get a clean ESPN radio station that broadcast the Yankees/Mariners playoff game. With something like that on the radio, the miles roll on by painlessly.

I stopped occasionally for water or Atomic Fireballs and to make a few phone calls.

But mostly I drove, straight at Denali and then to the right and around it, the terrain changing from snowless forest to iced-over rivers. The area around Denali is mostly wild. There are a few hotels and gas stations, but for the most part it is as wild as the rest of Alaska.

Outside in the cold distance,
Denali looms large.

I saw a red fox in the afternoon. It was on the side of the road, running into the forest.

At one point, the radio station faded out just as the Cardinals/Mets game came on, and I hit the "seek" function to find an FM station. I forgot I had done that and so the radio must have been searching for an hour or so before it found a clear signal from an NPR station.

All of a sudden, after an hour of quiet, a woman's voice filled the van loud and clear, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. It scared me pretty good, until I realized what had happened. I had "seeked" my way into a good NPR station, which was about to broadcast the debate between Bush and Gore.

It was around then that I pulled into the Denali North Star Inn and had a club sandwich. I didn't want to hang around to watch the debates on TV, so I pushed on.

Twice along the way I stopped to take a photograph or just listen to the sun set and the moon rise. It was a spectacular evening. This far north you get colors in the sky you don't see anywhere else. And it is absolutely quiet.

I listened to a Christian radio station and a right-wind radio station and a radio station playing classic Abbot and Costello bits.

At around 20:30 I stopped to take another photo and realized one of the boots was missing. I wasn't willing to write it off.

Reviewing the photos I'd taken with my digital camera, I saw that I had taken a photo of a sunset over Denali about an hour earlier, 20:31 camera time. (see attached photo) It was dark already, but I backtracked to that spot, hoping to find my leather boot.

Nice sunsent over Denali,
but was it worth a boot?

I didn't find it, so I came all the way back to the last place I knew I had both boots, the Denali North Star Inn. I checked in at 9:43, five hours after I'd left.

I was half-hoping that one of them had fallen into the parking lot as I was leaving.

No such luck.

It is irresponsible to lose a boot. This is Alaska, man. You could die with only one boot. Didn't you read any Jack London?

So now I'm in my hotel room, watching Chris Rock interviewing Pamela Anderson. He keeps using the "F" word. Not sure what channel this is.

I'm obsessing about that damn boot.

I'm going to get up first thing and find that bugger. I hope a red fox isn't dragging it into the snow right now.

Sorry Joanne.

Shoot.