"Alaska, why would you want to go to Alaska?"  

That was the most common question I heard when I first announced to friends and family that I planned to travel north for a summer break from college.

When my boss at Pancho Villa's Mexican restaurant asked the question I was for some reason stumped.  I just wanted to travel and see some more of the world.  I'd been to Europe, Mexico, Central America and North Africa already.  They were all too crowded, too expensive, too foreign, too weird.  I wanted to see some unspoiled country and enjoy the outdoors- not just study it and talk about it in Environmental studies classes.  I wanted to get away from the confining atmosphere of southern California.  The rush of constant hubbub.  I wanted to drop all this career planning bullshit and just go start having a life.

My boss could see I was struggling for an answer so he succinctly answered it for me.   "Adventure", he asked.

We had a saying amongst my friends there at UC Santa Barbara- "nothing to it but to do it."  By which we meant that at some point you have to call a halt to all the research, overcome the analysis paralysis and just get on with your project the best you can.  So, in 1974 I accepted a resort job at Mt. Mckinley National Park and hit the road north with two friends in a VW bug.  It was the start of what would turn into a life-long adventure.

This blog is an attempt to recall and recount some of those times along Alaska's Rivers and Trails...