I now have an abundance of breakfast vouchers, so I invite Aaron to join me at the buffet table of the Alyeska Hotel.
Today I go on to Palmer, and when breakfast is over, we start. I'm sitting in the front of Andy's car, in the familiar right-hand seat. Aaron is driving as Andy has gone on ahead to arrange everything.
Today's program includes a ride on what Hungarians call quad-bikes, but are known over here as ATVs. At home they are not very popular amongst hunters, as their loud noise makes hunting impossible; but the fault really lies with the drivers, not the vehicles.
In Alaska an ATV is an almost indispensible piece of hunting equipment, as many remote areas are inaccessable by jeep, and planes cannot land in dense forest. These vehicles have been designed to cope with the roughest terrain, and I soon learn just how capable they are.
Andy comes to collect me in a giga-sized pickup - it's bigger than any mini-van I've seen so far. A 6000cc. engine is rumbling away in the white GMC monster, which takes up half the road. A trailer has been attached, and on it, in two rows, stand five ATVs, firmly tied down with ropes. We set off to the sound of "Midnight Special", and stop at the first gas-station we see to get our supply of Gatorade. My new friends are getting to know me, and realise that I can't function without it. During our conversation we discuss the animosity in Hungary between ATV drivers and hunters, but they don't really understand the problem. This is a huge country, and there's room for everyone.
The machines we're given are 500cc. semi-automatic Hondas. After a short practice run I get quite good at it, even though I don't drive much at home; there I drive at an old man's speed. So I do not go at full-throttle. There's no need: these machines are extremely powerful. As I'm not yet totally familiar with it, I follow Andy's lead, watching the trail he picks, and how the bike behaves beneath him, and try to do the same.
We soon leave the forest, and are riding along the coast. The tide has created islands,separated from each other by channels of varying depth; Andy gets off his ATV, and in his long, rubber waders, searches for a place to cross. It's no good here as the water's too deep, so we go on; but it's all hopeless; the water is always too deep. There doesn't seem to be any solution. Eventually, we come back to the first place we tried, and see a couple of local fishermen trying to cross on their ATVs.
A brief discussion ensues.
Finally, we make a decision. One of the fishermen is out in the water, testing the depth step-by-step.
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We follow on our machines, trying to keep exactly to his path. Each ATV manages to get over, and we are soon on a beach that is sometimes underwater, but right now is dry and smooth, except for the occasional pebble.
And now we can really go for it!
I increase the throttle, the tyres bite into the ground, and I move into top-gear. It's an excellently designed, stable, piece of machinery. We've been using rear-wheel drive, but as the terrain becomes more challenging, we switch to four-wheel drive.
We race across the flats; struggle through the mud; reverse on the sand; ride over rotten trees, and nothing seems able to stop us. At one point we plunge into a thicket and go through it as if we were driving tanks. We come to a sandy beach, but because of all the dust we're making I can't see a thing.
I catch up with Andy and ride along, sometimes beside, and sometimes behind him, like in the Paris-Dakar Rally,leaving dust-trails that rise several feet in the air behind us, as our speed hits 60mph. The sandy part ends, and we are now racing over stones the size of a child‟s head . Imagine how strong these chassis must be to take all this!
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There's a sudden bend, and, as we go round it, a glacier appears, filling the horizon, and exhaling an ice-cold breath over us. Huge blocks of ice, thousands of years old, have crashed to the ground, and now form bizarre shapes. We take a break, man and machine resting together. Out come our bags of food, and Andy lights a fire. Nature-lovers speak the same language all over the world, even if they do live several thousand miles apart. The ATVs standing beside the fire remind me of the times when the only method of transport was the horse. Right now, at this very moment, we're not really any different from our ancestors, who also sat around similar camp-fires; perhaps in this exact spot by the glacier.
Except that the veins of our horses carry gas, rather than blood.
During our rest I fire my first shots in Alaska. The gun is a Mossberg pump-action shotgun, in a somewhat neglected condition. Even Andy, its owner, admits this, but says it is only his working gun.
He takes it everywhere; it's either dumped in the back of his car, or, like now, tied to his ATV. Because of his work, he often has to spend the night out in the open air, and sometimes, using his gun, he has to find his own food. Also, it could come in useful to scare off bears, though it is doubtful how effective a 20 Gauge shotgun, loaded with light pellets, would actually be against one.
What's certain, is that I have managed to demolish a dead bush with it.
On the way back I'm beginning to feel so tired that I start to lose concentration. It's a tough job riding an ATV all day. Suddenly, on a steep hillside I almost get into trouble.
Forgetting that my ATV has four wheels, I Iean sharply to the left and immediately feel that I'm going to tip over. Quickly, I decide to put down my left foot. The machine continues to lean to the left. My foot gets trapped between the ground and the footrest ... and then the machine gently tilts itself back to the right. I got away with it that time, but I must concentrate more, and drive more slowly. Breaking my leg is not something I'd like to do. I deliberately fall back to the end of the line of ATVs, and, for the remainder of the long journey back, I focus solely on keeping the Honda firmly on the ground.
A moose appears, evidently not frightened by by the rumbling of our machines. It's the second one I've seen in the wild; the first was near Anchorage, and we almost ran it over. This is a young animal, and stares at us with a puzzled expression. It doesn't seem sure what to do at first, but then decides it has seen enough and lumbers off into the forest. Back at my hotel, I take my leave of Andy and the others.
The Colony Inn is an old, wooden two-storey building, and has comfortable, nicely-furnished rooms.
It's proud of its history, and maintains it's old-world look throughout the hotel. I have to collect my key from a different building; I'm alone in the hotel.
Completely alone.
There's nobody here, not even a single member of staff.
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I go into the bathroom, but I can't get the shower to work. Over here, showers are generally pretty sophisticated things, and this one, I have to say, has completely defeated me. I'm running about with a towel wrapped around me, searching for somebody, anybody, but I can't find a soul. Finally, I come across a telephone, call reception, and they promise to send someone over.
Soon a cheerful-looking man arrives to help me, criticizing the way the shower works; he says he can't remember anyone in the last few years who has managed to figure it out.
He also says that to compensate me for my inconvenience they will launder all my clothes free of charge. This is just in time - they were last washed at the Anchorage Hilton, and that was a while ago.
In the evening we drive to an old mine called Hatchet Pass. Not a very interesting sight. It was exhausted years ago, but they have kept all the mining machinery and the miners' huts; some years later they put down walkways, called it an exhibition, and now you can go there to see the remains.
They obviously didn't spend much, so it probably won't run at a loss.
It's a partial success.
There's still no news of my gun.
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One of the Two Upstairs Rooms
Talkeetna Roadhouse
Talkeetna, Alaska