There is a clear difference between wildness and emptiness. Driving through the Thompson Pass towards Valdez was my first proper experience of the second. Here in one of the snowiest locations of Alaska, white was not one but at least a dozen odd colours. Glacier ice gleamed blue and sharp, powder snow softening some of its edges, fog steaming and swirling in a trance. Rocks and stone tried their best but beyond their shape were quietly smothered by a crunchy shroud. It was early June but the whiteness that surrounded me seemed invincible. I pulled over to step out and experience the meditative clarity of nothingness. Even the dark maroon of my Kia Optima seemed risqué in comparison. Two massive snowplows loomed out of the fog, currently off duty but the only creatures that could claim to call this home. In a forest, I never felt truly alone as life surrounds you – a tree, a bird, an insect under the leaf litter. The nothingness here was breathtaking. It was afternoon by local time standards while I was there but this was a place that seemed to have cast off such unnecessary frivolities. A half light infused this world, cold, pale and immensely alone.
[Part of the Series: Notes from the Last Frontier]
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