If you blink along the trail, you’ll surely miss the turn-off. The sun was still high when Maggie and I stumbled onto the little fork in the path.
Do you want to do a slow run later today?
Emphasis on slow, please.
It was as easy as that.
A day off the water, a short drive to Kenai Lake as if we were heading on the 13-mile Lost Lake trek, but this motivation under a rare southcentral sun was different.
A sore foot, a new pair of trail runners, tired arms and the growing pains that come with August. We wanted to explore in silence, to sit amongst the moss and eat the blueberries left behind by bears.
And so, we plod along the winding trail—
Hillier than I expected.
I can only nod in agreement. My tentative legs have only done so much cardio this summer.
We don’t make it all too far.
How far do you think the lake is from here?
I have no idea. I shrug my shoulders and look at my phone.
SOS.
I guess we’ll never know.
We opt for a quick turnaround and afternoon swim instead of trying for an unknown lake in the *hopeful* near future.
It’s as easy as that.
A quick wander, a calm decision, there is no need for extra cardio or more mileage or vertical that crushes your quads for days after the fact.
All we needed was a quick trip to the trees.
It’s easier to talk about the future when only the birds are listening.
I knew I wanted to return to Long Lake. I still had never seen it.
Was it wide open like Lost Lake?
Bright blue like Kenai?
Or was it tucked away, a less attractive spot for wandering tourists?
I would never know if I didn’t go looking.
A week later, maybe less, and summer is fleeing like sand through my fingers. I am back along the turning, whirling path towards the lake—quicker this time, more from the fading sun than anything else. A face I can map with my eyes closed, falling into step behind me, little switchbacks here and there, each bit of the trail lined with fungi.
Was all this here the last time?
I cannot recall the mushrooms the size of my head or the ones so small I would have missed them if not for the extra set of eyes behind me.
We wind around corners and over crests and alongside the forest alive, and finally, I can see the lake. She is soft around her edges, with no true access point. You are not meant to swim here.
Can we even get down to the water’s edge?
Neither of us know the answer.
We reach a little fork, a tiny cut away towards the lake, and wind our way around the edges on a little trail that seems more like one person made it as opposed to a trail crew.
And then, a clearing.
Small enough for two people, barely large enough for a tent, but a clearing all the same, to watch the water, to stare at the trees, to listen and feel and settle into the soil.
It barely takes a breath before I am laying in the clearing filled with silence / it felt only necessary, the trail run can wait.
It’s so quiet here.
A necessary pause, deep breaths filling silence, while the day moves forward without us.
It’s silly really, I am inches away from my partner, side by side but our hands don’t touch.
Like the movie scene you watch in high school where you sit on the edge of your seat waiting for the first kiss, the first handhold, the first anything.
and here I am in that silly little movie where the hum of birds falls softly away into Rattlesnake by Jack Van Cleaf.
That is in my head, surely.
It must be.
maybe it’s all in my head, this music and the hand almost touching my mind and the way I wish I could stay here forever in this little clearing in the moss by the tiny little lake, or maybe this is falling in love. With people. With places. With moments in time documented only within memory.
I went to long lake to run lazily with friends, to feel like a blur of arms and legs and spirit moving through the trees. More often than not, I move with boldness / a jarring brashness in a frantic world. Underneath the hemlocks, I felt almost penciled beneath the trees, within them / a splash of pale paint on a green canvas. I went to long lake, because I had never been, because I had no expectations telling me what to think or how to feel. After a summer of going and panting and sweating and hurting, I sank into that moss like a cradle, with people beside me that have probably changed my life in more ways than I will ever know. And I have no further urge to bring people to this place. It’s not mine. No land is. But the moment is. The emotions sink into my amygdala and build themselves a home. And I welcome the comforting reminder from my hippocampus of deep green and the soft twinkling of birds and bushes and branches in the wind. I went to long lake to get outside. I left long lake with a reminder of the intricate multifaceted layers that are the place I choose to live. I left long lake with a sense of calm in a month that means tear-stained goodbyes and $30 cakes bought at Fred Meyers in an attempt to eat away the scars of loss. The Kenai peninsula has given me a magnitude of emotions and experiences that I could have never dreamed of, and Long Lake, in her small, shy, softened self has reminded me that it’s not all mountain giants and tattered quads. Sometimes, all you need is gentle moments in the woods to remind you of all that you love, and all the love that you have still yet to give.
a.h.
-Abby Host
Abby Host is a marine biologist with a penchant for wide open spaces. She splits her time between Seward and Fairbanks and writes about everything there and in between. In just a couple of years, Alaska has quickly become the love of her life, and to her, there is no better way to love a space than by sharing its joy and wonder with others.
Long Lake lithograph artwork by Erik Johnson