Today we entered the desert-southwest portion of the Brooks Range, with dry canyons, arroyos and the sweetest sage I’ve smelled north of the Wind Rivers. People often compare the Arctic to the desert. Both are dry and give similar sensations of freedom and wildness. But the Arctic has a harsher bite thanks to its extreme latitude north. But this place we’re hiking in today feels like New Mexico or the desert canyons in Wyoming.

Today we ambled up into the high reaches of the great river we’ve been following since we were dropped off at ocean’s edge eight days ago. The river is a healthy teenage stream up here, brilliant clear, energized and excited as it winds and tumbles across boulders. Caribou bands head the opposite direction, evaluating us warily before going to the opposite end of the canyon, ambling cautiously at first, then walking extremely slow with the clicking of their hooves as they pass, and then bursting into a fast trot before stopping, turning around, and wondering why we’re not chasing them like every other large animal out here does.

We left the river bed and entered a tighter canyon, filled with sage, small shrubs, bushes, canyon walls and cliffs. The smell of sage took me to a daydream, back to my NOLS instructor course in 2009. On that trip, sage grew everywhere, and one of our instructors taught us how to make sage sticks and burn them to keep the mosquitoes away. That course was marvelous but it was a transition for me, the beginning of the end of my old life. Life events converged and the immediate aftermath of that course was the greatest crisis I’ve ever had. There were some dark days that followed that almost have a dreamlike quality to them now. I survived that crisis and came out better for it in every way. I remind myself of this when things are hard out here: keep moving, in the Alaskan wilderness and in life.

The pacing of this hike feels like a NOLS course. Because we will be out here for so long, we’re wary of burning ourselves out. This is our home for the next three months, and there are no hotel beds, showers or burgers in between. I like it. We’re seeing a lot. We’re feeling even more. Fifteen or twenty years ago, I would have been too impatient to slow down a little bit, to spend 45 minutes watching caribou, to pick up fossils, to linger a little longer at break, to listen to birds. These are rich experiences that we don’t normally get because we often don’t take the time to watch and listen.

I’ve spent a lot of my life pushing. It’s nice not to have to push quite so hard and still feel good about myself. This is a wilderness trip, not a thru-hike. It feels like something out of my old “Boy Scout Field Book” that I’d read cover-to-cover, folding pages in the tent set up in my bedroom, learning how to build a dozen different types of fires and even more knots, how to use a compass and a topo map, or even how to build an igloo. This feels right and sustainable, like we could be doing this for the next few decades at least.

It’s a nice evening. We’re enjoying a wood burn for dinner, the temperature is pleasant, and creek next to our cooksite is perfect for washing away the day’s sweat and grime. Caribou scamper up the canyon walls nearby, migrating north to the arctic, away from this desert oasis, to the land of tundra, roaring glacial rivers and high rocky peaks. But right here, this is as lovely and easy as it gets in this far northern mountain range. No doubt we’ll pay for this pleasantness soon – that’s how the Brooks Range works – so we’ll enjoy it while it lasts and expect something different tomorrow.