The Secret Beach

Earlier this summer Lillian went with a group of friends to Kincaid Park out on the west side of town and when she came back she talked about how she’d been to the beach.

Now I’ve lived here my whole life and I know darn well that there’s no such thing as a beach in Anchorage, Alaska. Never has been, never will be. Mudflats we have, marshes we’ve got in abundance but a beach? With sand?? Not quite.

So when she came back with this wild story I was highly suspicious but yet intrigued and after extensive interrogation of my youngest daughter I promised the kids that on the next sunny day we’d go and try to find this mysterious beach of which she spoke. But it turns out it was a promise easily made then forgotten because our wet and gray summer didn’t have another sunny day until the first day of school (which the kids thought was highly ironic and infuriating). Nothing but rain and clouds for two months and then, on the first day of school, out comes the sun. Apparently even the elements celebrated the event as much as I.

In fact it was sunny every day after that. Gorgeous, clear skies that seemed vaguely familiar after all those days of rain and I decided that after dinner on Monday night we’d take advantage of the weather and do something wild and crazy--we'd go outside. Andrew came home a little early, we ate dinner as ravenously as wolves around a carcass then jumped in the car to find that pot of gold.

Once parked and out of the car we were a little unsure of where to go. We were, after all, following the directions of an eight year-old, and after wandering around the Frisbee golf course, tramping through the bushes and up, around and over hills for 20 minutes we finally found the trail that seemed to be vaguely leading west toward the water. We could see the inlet out there, it was shining with the evening sun but how to get there still seemed a bit of a mystery.

We walked for half an hour—Andrew figures it was about a mile—until finally Lillian said, “This is it!” and pointed to a winding dirt path leading off into the bushes. Andrew and I looked at each other skeptically and then at Lillian.

“Are you sure this is it?”

“Yup! It’s here. Follow me.”

She lead us into the vegetation, the cow parsnip and alders and willows so thick along the way that they grew up on either side to meet overhead in the middle with barely enough height for us to stand upright. Once on the path a random cloud blew in and began to drop water and I couldn’t help thinking we’d got ourselves into some horrible mistake. Forget about the bears and moose and other wildlife that would be happy to nibble or trample one of us, there’s nothing like rain to make a trip miserable and nasty.

But as we winded along single file the drops hit the leaves above us and nothing seemed to get through to us below. The rain picked up until the patter sounded like a large stream rippling over rocks and swirling in foam eddies overhead but we were always nice and dry below, following our intrepid daughter who still assured us that we were going the right way.

About the time I had the disturbing thought that I was insane--I was trusting our navigation to someone who had a hard time remembering to close the car door after herself let alone one who could remember a trail taken nearly two months earlier--along comes a guy on a bike. How he got his bike through the bushes I’m not quite sure but there he was, coming toward us through the underbrush.

“Keep going,” he said in a great, thick Latino accent. “You’re almost there.”

How he knew where we were going he never explained but somehow his encouragement was just what we needed and we perked up, ready to follow the trail to the bitter end if necessary. The kids picked up on his words and we all kept repeating his accent and words to each other as we joked and laughed with sudden hope.

And then, suddenly, we were there. We came out of the brush and were on the top of a sandy cliff with tall grasses swaying in the breeze. The clouds were gone and the sun covered everything around us—from the trail leading down to the beach below where the tide was slowly reclaiming the sand to Mount Susitna across the inlet.

It was tricky getting down the steep, sandy slope but once on the beach it didn’t matter that it was only about 68 degrees, the kids stripped off their shoes and socks and went for the water (assuring us that it was “really warm” while Andrew and I walked along the shore and I looked for beach glass.

I’ve lived in Anchorage my whole life and had no idea that this place existed, had no idea that there was something so beautiful and between the joy of the discovery, the warmth of the evening and the fun at being together in the sand we had the best hour of the whole summer.

When we finally had to head home—there was a least a mile and a half of hiking between us and the car—we were swearing to ourselves that we’d be back right away and the kids kept saying how it was the best family night we’d ever had.

Funny how a beach can do that for you.

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