12. Bystrinsky Park: Day 3:

"Kamchatka Peninsula" by Bike and Kayak
Mon 30 Jul 2012 06:53
55:38.0N 158:30.37E

I woke, and had to immediately peer outside to find out clues for my day's destiny! Strange for someone who is normally clear 'the plan'! I'm feeling my way here, and once again outside, it's thick with fog, I can't even see the big volcano that dominated my vista yesterday. Well it could be raining! If it was raining I'd stay put for the day, and read my book, Mt Ichinsky isn't that desperate a prize for me. Ok, as per yesterday, lets wait for the fog to start lifting and then head off with a goal to make the hut before Ichinsky. Making that by bike would be a good achievement. Back to the coziness and reading my book for a while. Gee, I could get used to this no pressure, luxury life..True freedom from one's striving, goals and unwritten, personal integrity commitments. Just doing what felts right for the 'now'...

By 10h30 I've had enough of the decadent now, I'm packed up and hitting the 'path' again, very keen to make the new goal, hut.

It's soon clear blue sky, and very hot, and the curtains are fully open giving full views to the more impressive landscape as I fork off up the new valley. The road is almost continuously 'wet', making for slow going, but somehow I'm feeling another swamp and maybe this time the path ahead will be closed for bicycles. It gets muddier and muddier, and eventually I'm back in long grass marshland. My resolve to the purpose is now seriously questioned.

I'm normally so clear on where I'm going, but I think, the whole formula of 'really nice, but not exceptional', was bugging me. and this was the final straw. It was special to be out on my own, in big bear country, the tundra was great, the mountains quite impressive, but the whole thing felt like I was putting a huge effort in, and taking on sizeable risk, but the counterbalancing reward wasn't coming up to scratch. I parked the bike and decided to think about 'it all' while I explored area around the lovely little meandering stream I was at. Long, long grass, obvious bear tracks leading to from and next to the river, but I feel free, the choices are all mine. I come across a section of the river that is truly pristine, a bright turquoise blue in places, lush green in another where the current is firmly blow waving the reluctant shaking, long stringed river weed, then the area of desert sand coloured, river sandbank. Lastly, as I stare mesmerized by nature's simple wonder and contrasts, a new exotic colour flashes in: the bright red of two medium size salmon. Gee, an artist couldn't have better selected these richly, complimenting contrasts. As I stand and watch I see more salmon. There in rush to make it upstream to their final resting place, playfully swimming / crawling up stream, half exposed above water as they pick the slowest moving water in an elevated, shallowly covered sand bank. They energetically frolic in the deeper, faster flowing upstream pool, just staying even with the river bank, before turning the heads downstream and enjoying a free ride back to the lush green river weed deeper, slower flowing recuperating area. They do this circuit a few times, but ass I change position to have a better view, they clearly pick up my presence and the potential risk forces them to hide out of sight in the recuperating area. '

The sight of these salmon brings a thrill inside me, I'm fully inspired, alive again, and nature has pulled me back with this simple, yet special to me, present.

I decide to make a primitive, and low probability of success, but 'fair odds with Nature', fishing attempt, and go back to the bike to collect the 'last gasp', bear attack, sickle. Hoping the salmon will resume their circuits, I cross the river with a plan to 'sickle one' as it makes its way half out of the water 'crawling' above the sand bank. I'm not a fisherman, anti-hunting, hate being cruel to animals, yet my basic male hunting for subsistence instinct kicks in! We are simple beings in the simplicity of the wilderness, and can't resist taking up the challenge to go back to our basic instincts. I didn't need the flesh for food, but sense the primitiveness of my fishing implement and its associated odds of success presented a worthy challenge in the moment. My whole instinctive reaction even surprised me!

Thirty minutes of cat an mouse games with thee salmon proved my poor odds to be worse than expected as the salmon were instinctively wary of my slightest presence. It was just fun immersing myself in the whole environment, not needing to make the kill, just enjoying the game.

The relatively freshly trampled grass bear tracks along the river bank now make a lot of sense, and I thought what a perfect fishing trap this river section was for a much more proficient and hungry bear? This was a small river for salmon this size, and it made me wonder why I hadn't seen any in the larger rivers I'd crossed. Salmon fascinate me, and adding my fascination with bears, and I'm in my element.
sand The sight of these salmon brings a thrill inside me, I'm fully inspired, alive again, and nature has pulled me back with this simple yet special to me present. .

Not being thinking about the long faded goal of Mt Ichinsky peak or the seemingly distant and irrelevant goal of the 'next hut', this salmon moment brought the perspective I needed: this was my turning point, the furthest I would go, I didn't need the pressure to go on just to tick off and race back, to say: "I did it". I needed more, 'salmon moments', and the prospects of still another two nights in the park, and a slow trip back, last night with my friend the ranger, made the most sense.

I'd loved to have camped near the salmon river, but the grass was either just too long, or the ground water logged and marshy.

I headed back to the place I camped the day before, the swamp being less of a challenge as I knew its definitive boundaries

I got to setting up camp around 6pm, and after a larger than normal, hearty dinner, I hit the sack a more personally enlightened boy...I had to remind myself that a conquest hadn't been the objective. Nature had helped me with a lesson on what's important in life, and that was valuable! I could have otherwise seen this as a failed conquest.