Hiking with a Fox

The second morning in Aniakchak I again was the first person up. I was awaken by a bright light in my tent. I thought someone else was up and got up to see if anything was wrong. But it wasn't a someone with a flashlight like I thought. I saw a full moon shining over the cinder cones. It was so exceedly bright that it was dazzling. Then I looked at the rest of the night sky. There were thousand of stars most were just small shimmers because of the illuminosity of the moon but it was a breathtaking sky.

After admiring the heavenly skies for a few minutes I decided that I needed to go to the bathroom. Walking away from camp, I did what comes naturally and turned around to find a fox. Needless to say at first I was a little startled. But the fox who was a she, was quite friendly. Matterfact it walked up pretty close to me and got within about a foot away. Talking to the fox, I started to make my way back to the camp and the fox followed.

The sky was starting to lighten up and the sun was about to make its appearance so I decided to walk to the top of a cinder cone to watch the sunrise. Ms. Fox decided to join me. The fox accompanied me up to the top of the cinder cone walking closer to me than my dog does when I walk her. Together the two of us reached the top where there was a group of rocks. I found a spot to sit and the fox sat down next to me. Together we watched the sun rise above the rim of the caldera and as the sun rose the cloud formations were undescribably beautiful to watch. After about an hour I decided that I needed to have breakfast as my stomach was growling so loudly I thought it would scare off the fox.

She, the fox, sat by me the whole time. Watching the sunrise, me and looking for her breakfast on the side of the cinder cone. When I got up to climb back down she arose also. We walked side by side down the hill and when I reached the electrical fence surrounding the camp, the fox looked one last time at me then turned around and paraded away. It was a very special morning and I will not forget as I have never hiked with a fox before.