You’ve always wanted to run all night, right? How about running all night on a shell of salt up to five feet thick? I bet you’ve always wanted to do that too. Jason and I signed up for the Dusk to Dawn Relay, a race that literally goes from dusk to dawn on the Bonneville Salt Flats, and convinced six friends to get salty with us. I’m so glad we did.

The Bonneville Salt Flats are 30,000 acres west of the Great Salt Lake covered in densely packed salt. The race was held on the Bonneville Speedway, a section of the Bonneville Salt Flats so level and hard that it has been used to set land speed records since 1935. We totally broke a few that night. (Obviously, I am kidding.)

The race commenced at 8:11 PM and ended at 7:01 AM. Over almost 11 hours, our eight-person team did 35 laps on a 1.71-mile loop and finished in third place. Not too bad for a group in it to… just run around a bunch and have a good time.

In addition to chatting with teammates and running loops, scheduled activities provided steady entertainment. One of my favorites was viewing Saturn and Jupiter through telescopes provided by the UVU Astronomy Club while eating Milky Way candy bars. Pretty cosmic!

We divided our running slots in the middle of the night so everyone could take a nap. At least, that was the theory. Jason and I accepted the time period no one wanted between 2:00 and 3:30 AM. We had one hour and 40 minutes to snooze before our turn, but we were unsuccessful in falling asleep.

Although we had the worst slot for resting, it was the best in other ways. From 2:00-4:00, the race organizers turned out all their lights. So, Jason and I got to dash under a sky swirling with sparkling specks unveiled by the new moon and our remote location. It was one of the best celestial spectacles I have ever seen.

The stars were a shimmering net cast over us, but the sunrise might have been even more beautiful. The heavens seemed to curve around us as bottomless blue turned into brilliant orange. I felt like I was inside a snow globe filled with hovering clouds that would be shaken back into the stratosphere by some unseen hand at any moment.

And the running? The course was flat (yup… Salt Flats), but the crunchy grooves and sticky brine represented a different kind of challenge. Plus, the sparkling firmaments kept us looking up instead of at where we were treading. I did five loops and Jason did seven. In total, I completed just over 8.5 miles and Jason 12. Why so many for Jason? He was definitely a victim of his own hustle. Jason was nominated to start the race and do the last loop when there were only 15 minutes left on the clock.

And the weather? The temperatures were nice, though a little chilly between about 5:00 and 7:00 AM. The wind was manageable even when it picked up for a few hours in the middle of the night. Salt would have gotten everywhere without that, but it certainly helped spread the saline. Yes, salt even got there.

Jason and I thought we would be okay to drive home after the race without taking a nap. We were wrong. About an hour or so from home, we both suddenly realized we had only minutes until sleeping wouldn’t be optional. We had to pull into a rest stop for a quick 20-minute snooze.

The Dusk to Dawn Relay was a memorable, fun, and unexpectedly stunning event. We felt like jerky cured in salt the next day. But man, what an experience! If you get the opportunity to run Dusk to Dawn, I’d go for it.

Driving from Denali to Seward would have been a lengthy task under the best conditions. For us, this drive was extended substantially by the McKinley Fire, which was burning on both sides of the Parks Highway for a 20-mile stretch, and road damage caused by floods. The fire had produced four-hour delays the previous day, but fortunately, we only had to halt about 45 minutes while waiting for a pilot car to take our direction of traffic through the smolder.

Despite the unwanted stops, there were still a couple stops we wanted to make. We paused at Beluga Point on the Turnagain Arm to sing “Baby Beluga” and at Alyeska Resort to take the tram to the top of Mt. Alyeska. Smoke made viewing the seven glaciers that surround Mt. Alyeska’s summit less than ideal but still possible. Past Alyeska, we hit delays again, this time because of flooding. We didn’t arrive in Seward until right before midnight. Why didn’t we just take an alternate path? The thing about Alaska is that there usually isn’t an alternate route. In fact, many locations can’t be accessed by road at all and require a boat or plane to reach. We planned our destinations for this trip based on vehicular accessibility. Expecting multiple ways to arrive at any of those destinations would have been greedy.

Our first day in Seward, we went on a six-hour boat cruise through Kenai Fjords National Park. This cruise was rather cold thanks to a constant wind. I combated that by wearing a short-sleeved shirt, long-sleeved shirt, two coats, a neck gaiter, and gloves; all those layers kept the temperatures tolerably pleasant. And our issues with smoke and blazes weren’t over. Due to Alaska’s unusually dry summer, even its temperate rainforest was in flames. The Swan Lake Fire, which had already burned about 150,000 acres on the Kenai Peninsula, was flaring up due to high winds. The resulting smog made the cliffs and headlands of Resurrection Bay nothing more than dark, jagged giants as our cruise began. That haziness decreased as the day progressed but never completely dissipated.

Despite the murk, the cruise was a beautiful experience filled with vulnerable aquatic life and nature’s dramatic sculpting. We saw a bald eagle, black-legged kittiwakes, tufted puffins, horned puffins, common murres, sea otters, Stellar sea lions, and double-crested cormorants. Out of the birds, the puffins were my favorite. They flapped their wings like crazy to stay in the air. Apparently, puffins can complete up to 400 beats per minute to keep their heavy bones airborne. Those bones are reinforced to save the birds from becoming leaky sacks when they dive up to 300 feet into water. Puffins aren’t endangered, but thanks to humans their numbers are dwindling.

Aialik Glacier was our U-turn point. This glacier is one mile wide and has cliffs 300 feet high where it meets Aialik Bay rather abruptly. Although fairly stable, it calves frequently. We witnessed some of this calving; the rumbling crackles and crashing ice were unforgettable.

Our last day in Alaska, we went to Alaska SeaLife Center as our first outing. The Alaska SeaLife Center is part museum and part aquarium. It features creatures found in Alaska’s voluminous waters. My favorite area was the seabird habitat where we watched puffins dive deep into the tank for delicious herring snacks.

After the SeaLife Center, we took the two-mile hike to the face of Exit Glacier or where the face of Exit Glacier used to be. Exit Glacier, until recently, was one of the most accessible glaciers in Alaska. You could walk up to it and touch it. However, thanks to global warming, Exit Glacier’s melt rate has accelerated dramatically in the last decades. Now, almost 300 feet are dissolving each year. The park service can’t keep up with trail extensions. Although Exit was less of a hands-on experience and more of a striking reminder of the stupidity of our species, our hike was satisfying and the glacier’s katabatic wind a bracing memento of its lingering power.

That was our trip, a spectacular and smoky tramp through distinct landscapes. When we opened our suitcases upon reaching home, the campfire odor was overpowering. Alaska is a worthy destination for oh… at least a dozen vacations. It’s size and diversity mean endless options for mind-blowing adventures.

Admittedly, this excursion reminded me that I have little patience for tourists that are inconsiderate. You know, the ones that crowd out other people on tours to try to get more than their share of too-many pictures or the ones that won’t stop talking loudly when a ranger tells everyone to be quiet so the fracturing of a glacier can be heard. Yeah, I have no tolerance for that brand of thoughtlessness. If you too find selfish sightseer syndrome immensely irritating, Alaska’s most popular destinations in the peak of the tourist season may not be for you.