With a trekking pole in one hand and an ice ax in the other, I am naked except for the rigid mountaineering boots on my feet. With all my clothes in my backpack, I cross three braids of the glacier-fed Chitina River in Alaska, stopping to partially recover from the cold on the gravel bars in between. But I know the last ford is going to be the trickiest.
Heavy brown water is pouring through the valley in dozens of plaited streams. The torrents are so forceful there is a roar in the airβwater gouging its way through old moraines and rolling boulders along the bottom of the riverbeds.
In some places a strand of the flood may be only ten feet wide and one foot deep; in others it is too deep to ford. I consider hiking upstream a few miles and scouting a different crossing. But that will take too long. The bush pilot is arriving in an hour. Besides, I know this route; I crossed here at 5 this morning. It has been a hot day in southeast Alaska, though, and meltwater has been gushing off the glaciers all afternoon.
I step into the water, facing upstream, the toes of my boots pointing into the current like salmon. I shuffle sideways with small steps. Then it does. I flounder desperately, weighed down by my pack, trying to swim. In a weird moment of clarity I realize I could drown, and what an absurd death it would be.
.webp "Prostitutes in Moulins")
The pick sinks into the sandy bank and I drag myself out of the river on my hands and knees, coughing up gritty brown water. Elias National Park and Preserve to experience its spectacular environment, a vast mountainous terrain dominated by glaciers and riven with furious meltwater.
