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Author Melinda Moustakis recounts life in Alaska on “KNPR’s State of Nevada” at desertcompanion.com/hearmore
discomfort zone
time with grizzly bears as people, and showered on a once-amonth basis, whether I needed to or not. When I vacationed, I went to the Arctic to migrate with caribou or to ice-fields to slog through wildernesses of glaciers and mountains. “What’s wrong?” the lady asked. “Four months ago I lied to a girl, telling her I’d been on the television show ‘The Deadliest Catch,’ so she’d date me. She moved to Vegas for university and is forcing me to visit,” I said, fibbing a bit. The truth was I didn’t want to spend another long, cold winter alone and this girl, MC, a wandering writer, was pretty and nice to me: two attributes that were rare amongst the women I’d encountered in the north. Uninterested, my seatmate launched into a lecture on an environmental convention she was attending. “The world is getting warmer, and lawmakers and politicians are doing nothing to stop it!” she said, slamming her plastic cup on the seat tray. A bleary-eyed and flustered man looked back. “I’m for global warming,” I offered, trying to make her feel better, “but against climate change.” “They’re the same thing! That’s what I’m talking about. Everyone is so ignorant.” She rambled on. I wiped her spittle from my ear and studied the dreamlike city surrounded by a sea of sand and mountains. I was struck by how Vegas resembled an island in the desert, how its network of streets and buildings ended and desolation began. Right then and there I decided if things went well with MC, and visiting became a regular occurrence, I might have to make a long walk around the city. S m a l l a nd f rag i l e During the next few years, MC taught me about V-neck sweaters, skinny jeans and how to deal with loud noises. She kept me on a point system, and when I’d earned enough, she’d take me out into the desert so I could run around, listen to the wind and howl with coyotes. “See, it’s not so bad here,” she said as we watched bighorn sheep standing beneath red mountains. The shock of crowds, flashing lights and billboards of nearly naked women — The discomfort: He’s a rugged Alaskan who’s never hiked the desert The zone: A quixotic quest to trek the entire circumference of Las Vegas
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The ice man cometh By Bjorn Dihle | Illustration Hernan valencia
To understand what happened during my 2013 expedition to hike the circumference of Las Vegas, I have to start from the beginning. It was late September of 2010. I was sitting on an Alaskan Airlines plane, watching the sunset redden an expanse of brown mountains, as a loquacious woman in the next seat claimed she’d recently separated one of her
30 | Desert
Companion | August 2013
buttocks in a freak canoeing accident — an injury I didn’t know was possible. Somewhere between ordering her fifth mini-bottle of wine and describing her physical therapy regimen, I saw the distant lights of Las Vegas radiating below. “Lord, what have I gotten myself into?” I muttered. A lifelong Alaskan, I was what you might call a bit woodsy. I spent almost as much