Feet Sink

Alaskans' hiking boots are not your ordinary sturdy leather boots. Rather, the locals in many parts of the state wear rubber boots that come up to just below their knees. They're the same as the boots I rented for trekking in the muddy cloud forests of Guatemala and the jungle of the Amazon basin. Needless to say, I was surprised to see these boots as part of the local wardrobe so far north. The only time I wore these boots in Alaska was when I wore rented ones for my kayaking trip.

Part of the reason why Alaskans prefer these waterproof shoes has to do with the very high level of rain that many regions receive. The boots are also good for walking in water which can happen if you're taking a kayak in or out, or when you want to access a good fishing spot. The other reason, though, I learned has to do with the various types of terrain that your feet can sink in, even if you are careful.

My very first hike in Alaska took me through lush, green moss so thick that my feet sank several inches into its wetness. The moist moss was plusher than any shag carpet you could imagine. I think that they best way to walk on it would have been barefoot so that your toes could experience the full spongy pleasure. I later walked through thick lichen that was similar to the moss. Despite the GORE-TEX coating on my shoes, I was left with soggy socks.

Later in Southeast Alaska, I experienced the muddy reality of hiking through temperate rain forest. This part of the state receives so much rain that the locals have the saying, "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing in the rain." Fortunately, the trail that we took had plank boardwalks through some of the swampier sections. While these were very slippery and, therefore, tough to navigate, it beat the bare sections that were little more than mud wallows. By the end of that backpacking trip, my new shoes were broken in with a nice crusted layer of mud.

On a kayaking expedition in Glacier Bay NP, I encountered a different kind of mud so intimidating that I kept my feet in the kayak. This super thick and silty mud was glacial mud - a mud ground so fine by the weight a glacier moving slowly over it for years. While I actually had rubber boots on this trip, I had been warned to avoid stepping in the glacial mud since it acts like quicksand and can snatch your boot off or worse. I only dared to dip my paddle in this rich mud and found that it was so sticky that water alone would not remove it. I had to rigorously rub it off with my fingers. If only I had a jar with me to take some of this home to use for facials.

In Denali NP, I encountered what appeared to be crusted over glacial mud, though it could have been just your ordinary type. In a gulch that used to hold a glacier that is now a receded remnant of its former self, a river forced me to scrambled up the wall which had sections of what appeared to be caked earth. Once my body weight settled on this dirt, the thick top layer cracked open to gooey mud for my foot to sink into. While very careful stepping and poking by my trekking pole helped to reduce the number of times I broke through the crust and sank into the messy mud, it was impossible to avoid breaking it altogether.

The one other type of ground sink that I encountered was in the Arctic. With the help of permafrost, rocks and large boulders are pushed up from underground. Walking through meadows of these frost-heaved rocks is fun, but requires careful stepping. Lichen and other groundcover grow over the gaps in between rocks creating a trap door effect. If you step onto one of these spots, your risking a stumble or twisted ankle. Alaskan hiking boots won't help you much here, but poking with the trekking pole can help a bit.

Alaska really is different country, not only from the ground up, but from the ground below, too.