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[I don’t know what this fungus is called but I love it. Note the aspen leaves littered all around it. Two weeks ago the leaves were still on the trees. Now, the bluff trail is barely visible [...]

…And though you have written 6 new pages of fiction today, which you decipher averages out to approximately one page per hour. And though this does not include the long minutes during which you [...]

My new favorite color is Alaskan Twilight. Dusk lasts for hours here. Just as the “noonday sun” is not directly overhead, sunset this time of year is not your typical ball of orange dropping [...]

I’m the only person here and when I’m sitting at the desk, I don’t make a whole lot of noise. Last night, the thudding and thumping outside the west wall of the cabin was unmistakably not my own. [...]

Activities I have gone jogging and stumbled upon an airstrip. I have met strangers in the forest, heard bumps in the night, and dreamed of moose and bears. I have taken sauna showers and bucket [...]

I’ve been walking the bluff trail for 3 miles every day, getting acquainted with the views, charting the Nenana River, and scanning for wildlife. There aren’t any other cabins for a [...]

I intend for this post to be enjoyed as a long essay draft or to be read in fits and starts (hence the convenient sections). My first five days in Denali felt like living three lives at once: the [...]

[Cabin at Milepost 22x] The set up is one only a writer could dream up: Friends have a cabin just outside the Park boundaries, perched high up on a bluff above the meandering Nenana River. [...]

First, there is a quickening of the heart like one thousand hooves charging up a mountainous, scree slope. Then, there is the electricity of neurons firing to all four limbs—that same magnetic [...]

[Farewell view of American Creek Valley] We woke to frost each morning, especially thick on Day 4, and cooked our favorite meal of tundra-picked low-bush cranberry, crowberries, and blueberries [...]