A different thread

 

Beaver Creek, Alaska, on Dec. 30, 2024. Temperature -34F.

Hello 2025! Later this year, this blog will turn 20 years old. Twenty! I was just a few years older than that when I started writing here. If you still venture back to this cobwebbed corner of the Internet, you may have noticed that I haven't posted in some time. Although I hadn't intended to abandon this site, I now post most of my adventure stories on my Substack:

https://jilloutside.substack.com/

I originally launched the Substack as a reliable archive of a writing project that I thought ... hoped ... no one would read about an old trunk full of mementos I wanted to archive in the digital realm. Thus the name that I should probably change but haven't, "Adventure Unpacked." I haven't changed the name because the essays are still about "unpacking" adventure, in the sense of analyzing something into its component elements. 

There is still so much that intrigues me about putting my body in a difficult environment and grinding away at a physical challenge — emotion, relationships, identity, spirituality, physiology, psychology, philosophy, the list goes on — that I still haven't stepped away from writing about it after all of these years.

In 2023, I grew increasingly frustrated with this ancient platform — Blogger.com — and Google's refusal to support it. I was inundated with Spam comments that I couldn't moderate despite putting restrictions on commenting. Meanwhile, the real traffic to my site had slowed to a trickle. Social media killed the blogging star, and the once-rich landscape swiftly became a wasteland. The communities we built up in the early days of blogging disintegrated, and social media algorithms so deftly hid links that even my family members didn't realize I was still posting missives to "Jill Outside."

Then Substack came along to take a form of online communication even older than blogging — the newsletter — and revived a new golden age of long-form writing online. People could subscribe to a newsletter and receive it directly in their inbox, which meant actually reaching the people who want to read your stuff. Even if only five people subscribed, it was still a boon compared to the struggling storefront in a nearly abandoned shopping mall that Blogger had become. 

Since I migrated to Substack, I've been thrilled about the space. All the people who miss the Golden Age of Blogging, and all those who aren't even old enough to have experienced the wonder years of the 2000s, are finding a similarly rich community of writers putting their best work out into the world and striving to connect with others. It helps that Substack has developed a subscription model that helps writers feel like they're "creating for a purpose" — even if it is just five subscribers, such metrics mean the world to writers who, like nearly everyone, just want to be heard.

The model has its problems, of course. Most everyone has subscription fatigue these days. I subscribe to the digital content of four daily newspapers and that alone leaves me glowering at my credit card statement each month. People have to subscribe to multiple streaming services just to watch everyday shows, Spotify just to listen to music and podcasts, Amazon Prime to read books, the list goes on. Paying a monthly fee to individual bloggers on top of that is, frankly, absurd. 

And yet ... as I said ... it means so much to us. I cherish every person who registered for a paid subscription to my Substack. Still, I don't intend to put my content behind a paywall. If you are interested in reading missives about cold places, mountainous adventures, trail running, and bikepacking, I hope you'll sign up for a free subscription here:

 

Thank you for reading. 

Thyroid update 7

 

Whenever life feels all uphill, I find that a literal uphill slog always helps.

Hello, old blog! For six months, I've switched my online writing efforts to Substack. I switched because I hoped to expand my subject matter beyond obscure outdoor adventures and potentially reach new readers. Still, old habits die hard. I'm still mainly writing about obscure outdoor adventures, and my reach hasn't exactly blown up. But the Substack is up to nearly 700 subscribers and I am grateful for all of you!

I planned to use this blog for occasional personal updates. My ongoing health journey seems a good place to start. My last update was this time last year when I wrote about autumn ennui and my frustrations with the health purgatory I was in at the time — subclinical hypothyroidism. To summarize, my thyroid became a problem about eight years ago when a bunch of antibodies created by my own dumb body descended on the gland and launched a full-scale attack. The thyroid responded by overproducing thyroid hormones to a toxic degree. This resulted in all sorts of alarming symptoms such as tachycardia, tremors, muscle weakness, shortness of breath, brain fog, and the not-insignificant risk of cardiac arrest. 

This was diagnosed as Grave's Disease in February 2017, and I went on medication to reduce my body's absorption of the overabundance of thyroid hormones. Over the next year, my thyroid slowly calmed down. By November 2018, I was declared "euthyroid" and was able to go off the medication. But my doctor warned me that I was unlikely to stay in remission for life. I'm still a prisoner to those infuriating microscopic snipers that my body sent out to attack itself — meaning I'm still full-up of TPO antibodies. Some Grave's patients always overproduce hormones, but the vast majority of us experience a slow, sputtering battle as our thyroid fights for its life for a number of years before it finally gives up. When and to what degree it gives up is a matter of debate, but afterward we need to take replacement hormones to restore our health. My endocrinologist admitted this was likely before cutting me loose to fend for myself because, you know, health insurance. 

And sure enough, the measure used to determine thyroid functionality — TSH — continued to creep higher. Thyroid Stimulating Hormone is the hormone that tells your thyroid gland to get to work. It's a sort of thermostat, cranking up the heat when the thyroid is being sluggish. When I was hyperthyroid, my TSH was at 0.0. When I was taken off Grave's Disease medication, it was at what is considered an optimal level, 1.4. The standard for "normal" thyroid function runs between 0.5 and 4.5 mIU/L. However, the upper limit for 97.5% of euthyroid (normal) people is 2.5 mIU/L (Source). People who land above that range but under the hypothyroid standard of 10 mIU/L must languish with the uncertainty — am I healthy? Am I slightly not healthy? Doctors don't know the answer and studies are mixed. The Internet overflows with theories and complaints about life with subclinical hypothyroidism — for good reason, I believe.

I can't say I've felt "normal" since before 2016. But my best years were definitely between 2018 and 2019. By 2020, my TSH hit 3.5, and I first started to feel something off with the levels of fatigue I experienced at odd times, my sudden inability to sit around the house without a blanket, hair that was thinning again after growing back thicker following the hyperthyroid years, and my useless brittle fingernails that I must keep trimmed to nubbins to prevent them from breaking off. Things like that. It was also 2020, which was an odd time for us all. And I was still "normal," so nothing could be done.

I ignored my thyroid for the entire volatility of 2021 and most of 2022. But by October, routine bloodwork at my physical pegged my TSH at 5.25 mIU/L. My cholesterol was also 263 mg/dL, which isn't just borderline high — it's high. As recently as 2019, my metabolic panels were pristine, so this was a surprise since my weight, activity levels, and diet hadn't changed. Maybe low thyroid hormones are affecting my metabolism? But my primary care doctor did not think this was likely. So off I went, into another year of purgatory. 

Over the winter, my mental health took an enormous dive. I've struggled with anxiety for years, really since I was a child. But the winter of 2022-2023 brought a sudden dip into depression — deep lows that had no basis in anything I thought should be affecting my mood. The depression in turn exacerbated the anxiety, and it was all-around an awful few months until I started taking an antidepressant in February 2023. 

October 2023 rolled around, and with it the autumn ennui that I interpreted as unresolved trauma and thus began EMDR therapy with my counselor. My sleep improved substantially with the antidepressant, but since I returned from Europe, I've been sleeping a ton. Upwards of 10-11 hours a night if I don't set an alarm. I've gained almost 15 pounds since May — summer is a time for adventure and not a time to watch my diet, and I just spent several weeks in Europe where food is delicious, so it makes some sense. But still ... 15 pounds seems high for what I've always understood as my body's calories-in, calories-out ratio. 

I went in for my annual physical last week. My TSH level measured at 8.72 mIU/L. Even worse, my cholesterol is still 262 mg/dL after all of the changes I made over the past year. I cut way back on ice cream. I added fiber. I switched to low-fat dairy and limited other sources of saturated fat. I gave up eggs! WTF.

My primary care doctor referred me to an endocrinologist, and I got in fast thanks to a new doctor who just started at the clinic where I was treated for Graves Disease. She thinks it would be helpful to start on a low dose of thyroid hormone replacement to see how I respond. I haven't had my thyroid hormone levels officially tested in a few years (I used to track these through self-ordered testing, but haven't yet this year.) But I'll have those tested in two months, hopefully when I'm in a better place all around.

I'm excited! Truthfully, I've been reluctant about thyroid hormone replacement because dipping back into hyperthyroid territory would be awful — I know how it feels and I definitely do not want that. But there's little risk on a low dose, and I'll check in soon enough. Perhaps I'll start to feel like I felt in 2018 again. That would be amazing. If that happens, I definitely want to celebrate by relaunching a winter training routine and signing up for a spring race. Right now I'm thinking either the White Mountains 100 in Fairbanks (which hasn't been officially announced yet) or the Bryce 100 (for which I'm not currently qualified and would have to finish a 50-miler first.) Hundred-mile ultramarathons are so rewarding but so hard that I want to stick to familiar territory for my foray back. By March or May 2024, it will have been five years since I last finished one, which is not a trivial amount of time.

Autoimmune disease is the pits and I have one of the gentler ones ... although I know I'm at higher risk for other autoimmune conditions, so I count my blessings each day that I "only" have a wonky thyroid and asthmatic lungs ... and generalized anxiety ... and mild depression ... and seemingly incurable grass allergies ... and chronic back pain ... and a tendency to fall on my face with such frequency that my primary care doctor laughed at loud when she saw all of the items on my 2023 chart. 

Perhaps it's just life that's the pits, and we're all doing the best we can to get through it. 

I'm grateful for the medical community and all of the assistance they've given me in this regard. Thanks, science. 

I'll write another update about my progress. If you're interested in my past thyroid updates, you can find them here:   

Thyroid update: April 12, 2017

Thyroid update 2: May 19, 2017

Thyroid update 3: July 19, 2017

Thyroid update 4: May 24, 2018

Thyroid update 5: May 10, 2019

Thyroid update 6: October 9, 2022

On blogging

All screenshots are from the Wayback Machine — such a fun rabbit hole to dive into.

It’s odd to acknowledge that I’ve been blogging for nearly half of my life. I launched my first blog in late 2002 at the naive age of 23. Blogs themselves were still in their relative infancy. I’d recently latched onto bike touring as a large part of my identity and decided since my new hobby had changed my life, I wanted to help others discover it as well. 

I initially started “Bike to Shine” — a play on lyrics from Ben Harper’s “Burn to Shine” — on Blogger. At the time, the platform didn’t offer a lot — no photos, for example. So I continued to update journal entries from Blogger (which was possible to do from rural county libraries.) But I also taught myself a rudimentary amount of HTML and launched a digital "magazine" at biketoshine.com. 

BiketoShine.com was an expensive endeavor for me — I believe at the time I was paying something like $30 a month for hosting. Since I didn’t have personal access to the Internet at home (I lived in a house with eight roommates and only one desktop computer and dial-up phone line among us), I usually worked on my blog after-hours at my desk at the Tooele Transcript-Bulletin. I wrote wordy posts about the wisdom I’d gained on the single bike tour I’d completed thus far. I also tried to pass myself off as an expert in whitewater rafting (a sport I was already terrified of) and backpacking. I promoted my site everywhere I could — Ken Kifer’s bike forum, crazyguyonabike.com, plastering a printout of the Web address on the back of my friend’s truck shell. I hoped to gain thousands — or at least tens — of readers and leverage my great new Web site into a lucrative carrier in outdoor magazine writing. 

Comic Sans! The horror! Also note: "I'm not athletic. I don't particularly like challenging myself physically."

Obviously, it didn’t work out that way. I did gain at least tens of readers, but eventually, I began to resent the thankless after-hours work and hosting fees. When I announced I was shutting my site down, another blogger offered to mirror the poorly designed pages on his site. To this day, I can still access remnants of my first blog at http://bonius.com/biketoshine.com — a fun (if embarrassing) time capsule of my youth. 

Ausilia and I pose with Dave in Anchorage in 2014.

Going online also revealed the cyclical nature of life. After a few months of writing, I added a PayPal link urging readers to “Get involved in the adventure!” I still remember the thrill of my first donation from a man named Dave Cushwa. Here was a complete stranger who took me seriously as a writer and adventurer! The Internet seemed so young and innocent back then — these types of distant connections were still a novelty. 

Eleven years later, we connected again in Anchorage, Alaska, before the 2014 Iditarod Trail Invitational. I don’t remember the reason Dave was there — I think he was helping out Italian competitors Ausilia and Sebastiano in some way. But I remembered him. He greeted me and I reminded him of the $10 and the subsequent confident boost he gifted me when I was a baby adventurer. 

“You’re basically the reason I’m here,” I joked. Dave flashed a knowing grin. 

Bike to Shine went dark in 2004. I too went dark, moving to Idaho to work late nights on a newspaper copy desk followed by later nights of bars and parties and days of sleeping and hangovers. My relationship with my boyfriend was in tatters. My bike sat dormant on an unused trainer. My more adventurous endeavors lapsed as well. This was the “quarter-life crisis” that led me to make a last-ditch effort to revive both my relationship and adventure dreams by moving to Alaska. 

 Within a month of moving to the 49th State, I was a full convert to all things Last Frontier and wanted to reveal my discoveries to everyone I knew. I started what one might now call a newsletter, but at the time was simply, “the annoying reply-all mass e-mail.” An acquaintance sent me an unnecessarily mean “unsubscribe” sort of response, and that’s when I slinked back to my origins and discovered that Blogger.com was not only free, it was way better than it used to be. 

I launched “Up in Alaska” and published my first post on November 3, 2005. “So this is my new online journal about moving to Homer, Alaska — a place where it snows in October, where moose traipse through my backyard, and where everyone can spell my last name but if you can’t spell “Xtratuf,” well, so help you God.” 

 At the time, I had no conception of where this blog would take me within a matter of weeks. I couldn’t foresee the connections I’d make with Alaskans in the blogosphere, how they’d introduce me to this crazy thing called “snow biking” and the then-inconceivable goal of a 100-mile wilderness race on the Iditarod Trail in the dead of winter. I couldn’t imagine that complete strangers would cheerlead my audacious race goal and offer crucial gear and training tips when I had no idea what I was doing. It was this whole thing. I’ve already written an entire book about how this blog changed my life. 

It’s strange to realize that this fateful step took place nearly 18 years ago — that if my blog were a baby, it would have grown into adulthood this year. What growing up have I done in that time? It’s difficult to quantify. I’m still riding bikes. I’m still hopelessly dedicated to adventure. I'm still making editorial and design choices I'll likely regret later. I’m still a newspaper copy editor who’s actually okay with the fact I’ve moved laterally through a low-end career. I figured out early that I don’t find value in work just because people pay me to do it. Money and some measure of success are necessary in life, but they’re not interesting in and of themselves. What feeds my fire, and what gives my life meaning, are stories. I value moving through the world, accumulating experiences, observing all the details I can take in, learning what I can, and telling stories as a way to connect with others. 

The blog was the simplest way to accomplish this goal. This is the reason I stuck with it even after social media caused a sea change in the landscape, and even after the community that brought me up through my baby years abandoned their own blogs and disappeared into the void. Although I remained, I realized that the community is what I missed the most. I again began to resent the time and energy I was spending on an endeavor that was feeling more and more like whispering into the void. 

It wasn't just the comments that faded away. It was any kind of reciprocal reader engagement. The intimate stories that people used to share on their blogs became snarky memes, generic photo captions, and hashtags. In turn, I felt over-exposed and self-conscious in this space. I considered pulling away — I even tried going dark a couple of times. But it never stuck. I still don't care about viral content or influencer culture or any other measure of Internet success. All I want, still, is a space to be vulnerable, to scratch my name into the proverbial cave wall, and to continue to learn and grow. 

My blog as written by ChatGPT

These are interesting times to be a creative person who has essentially grown up online but also remembers what the landscape was like before the Internet was ubiquitous. Beat has been dabbling in AI development at work. Last month, he sent me an example of an essay that ChatGPT-4 would pen when instructed to: "Write a vivid and introspective blog post in the style of Jill Homer, author of the Jilloutside.com blog, detailing a challenging yet transformative endurance adventure in the wild." 

The result provided an unsettling mirror that I did not like gazing into. Through its generic scope, ChatGPT did capture me. But it seemed to capture the worst of me — the flowery language, the overwritten descriptions, the navel-gazing. I don't claim to have fixed any of these issues in my writing — this, in many ways, is who I am. Still, it's uncomfortable to acknowledge that yes, this is my digital footprint. When our AI Overlords take over, this is how I will be replaced. 

"You should have ChatGPT write your blog for you," Beat teases me, and I won't admit to him how much this suggestion hurts my feelings. If there is no longer value in connecting with other humans through the power of the written word, what even am I doing with my life?

I feel as though I've reached another crossroads with blogging. In Spring 2022, I launched a Substack newsletter as motivation to continue working on a personal archiving project I'd started. I figured a few family members and friends would sign up — or maybe not even them, because most didn't seem to check in with my blog anymore. What I found was a surprising amount of interest. And not only that — new engagement. Other writers who I'd followed on Twitter for years were writing on Substack. Authors on road trips. Runners grappling with past eating disorders. Mountaineers addressing trauma recovery. Feminism and journalism and essays about what it means to be an "Oldster." The more I dug in, the more I realized, "Here it is! Here is the blogging community I've lost. It's back!"

This realization came just as I'd grown weary of the Substack corner I'd boxed myself into, which was essentially writing only about artifacts from my more distant past. I too wanted to expand my writing to any and all of the issues I'm exploring in the present — including mental health, grappling with climate change, the challenges of middle age, grief and loss, existential philosophy, and of course, outdoor adventure and travel. 

I decided to shift gears. After doing so, the only pieces I've written are a day-by-day account of a recent bikpacking trip through the Scottish Highlands. It's the same sort of thing I've been writing on this site since the start. It's not exactly my wider goal with my Substack blog. Still, the response has been satisfying. I nearly doubled my subscriber list within a month, including 23 paid subscribers. Paid subscriptions are a thing with Substack. They're voluntary, and in my case still more of a donation or tip than an exclusive subscription. I haven't yet published subscriber-only posts, although I likely will in the near future. I like that there's a place where I can be particularly vulnerable and honest in my writing and still connect with readers without having to blast the entire Internet with my deepest feelings. 

Thank you to those who opted to "support the adventure." It's certainly not a requirement, but it means a lot and motivates me to stay committed to the craft. Perhaps, like Dave, our paths will cross someday and we'll be able to muse about the good ol' days before ChatGPT took over the world. 

While I dip my toes in the Substack ocean, I'm not exactly sure what to do with this space. It's been around for so long that it remains a great way to connect with people from my past. I still sell a few books each week directly from the links here. I certainly have no intention of taking down its vast archive, which I sadly nearly did when I was in the midst of mental turmoil last November. But will I continue to update this blog? It's difficult to say. 

If you are still around and still reading, I'd encourage you to check out my Substack page and sign up for the e-mail list. You don't even need to sign up, though; you can simply bookmark the page and read posts online, similar to any other blog. If I truly make a full migration, I'll post a much shorter update and link at the top of the page. But it's been fun to take this trip down blogging memory lane. Thank you. 

Long-lived beauty, short-lived pain

Evening at Wolf Run cabin, March 2023.

Alaska's White Mountains have the cure for what ails you. Don't believe me? How many places in this world are so accessible and yet still so wild? So rugged and primitive and yet infused with promises of comfort and peace? So cold and distant that quiet is all but assured and sublime beauty is guaranteed? There are many places like this, I suppose, but the White Mountains seem custom-designed for me. 

I discovered this place through the White Mountains 100, my favorite race. Miraculously this event has survived four different race directors and two pandemic-related cancelations. It's been four years since the last time I raced and I wanted to return in 2023. Really, I did. But the sign-up period in November was not a good time for me. Not at all. My mental health was crashing, and then I physically crashed while trail running, sustaining injuries that lingered for weeks. A large part of me wondered if I'd ever get up again. 

Just as I started to come around, the 2023 event was already here. Corrine had formulated a fun adventure to ride the classic loop backward (with bonus spurs) over four days and photograph all of the racers we encountered on day three. She invited Betsy and me. While I resisted for a strangely long period of time, by the time I got on board, I was giddy with anticipation. Since I've been writing such long posts about the White Mountains, it seems a good time to sum up my history with the race that started it all for me: 

Possibly my best-ever day on a bike, the 2014 White Mountains 100.

A somewhat-brief synopsis of my history with the White Mountains 100:

2010. My life was in shambles. I was depressed and grieving a failed relationship, which led to a rash decision to leave my intolerably stressful newspaper job without a solid plan for the future. Another important change I decided to make during this time was to quit endurance racing, which had unquestionably complicated all of my problems. The day after I put in notice at my job — coincidentally — I received an e-mail from a Fairbanks friend who was starting a new 100-mile race in the White Mountains. No one from Juneau had signed up yet, and Ed wanted to round out the roster. I showed up two weeks later to bike a course with endless hills, ice, overflow, and temperatures dipping to 25 below. I finished 14th overall in 22 hours and 23 minutes. 

2011. Signed up again and invited my new love interest, Beat. He initially agreed but then balked at the biking part of our plan. I finished in 17 hours and 55 minutes. Beat needed 35:41 to get around the course without the aid of a bike. 

2012. Again with a bike and several inches of new snow. Finished third woman in 20 hours and 47 minutes. 

2014. After training all winter to complete the Iditarod Trail Invitational 350 on foot, I took a bike to race the WM100 for fun, fatigued and undertrained as I was. Frighteningly fast trail conditions made it almost no effort at all to finish in 11:34. I felt amazing! But this was the only year I didn't "podium" as the fourth woman. I blamed ITI legs. 

2015. Decided to complete the course on foot. I lost all of my gear to the U.S. Postal Service before the race and had to buy a bunch of stuff last-minute at Goldstream Sports, including shoes. Beat wanted to join and "paced" me self-supported, but I ended up dropping him (poor guy, he'd had an unbelievably tough year at the ITI.) I just barely skirted under 30 hours in 29:54, the third woman on foot.

2017. Thyroid disease prevented me from racing anything that winter, so I volunteered for the aid station at checkpoint one. It was a frigid year and we had to stand outside for five hours. All of the soda froze solid and we ran out of water, so I had to melt snow on a propane cooker. 

2018. Returned to race on foot as a true glutton for punishment, having finished the ITI 350 on foot just two weeks earlier. I was finally starting to understand the depth of strain that sled dragging puts on my body, but not in time to start a 100-mile ultramarathon without some of the worst leg pain I've experienced. 33 hours and 59 minutes of pure hurt. And no, it never went numb. But the incredible Northern Lights display made everything worth it. Alaska runners Teri Buck and Laura McDonough once again put me to shame at a distant third.

2019. This was to be my year. The White Mountains 100 was my A race. I wanted to crush my 100-mile PR — 27 hours? 26? Not outside the realm of possibility! I trained hard all winter, spending a month in Nome where practically all I did was train and pretend to write. Trail conditions were superb and I made it to the halfway point, Cache Mountain Divide, with daylight to spare in 13 hours. But then it started to snow. It snowed eight inches overnight. And everything fell apart. I was again the third woman on foot, finishing in 31 hours and 22 minutes. 

For so many years, I showed up at the White Mountains with my life or body or spirits in some sort of shambles, and the White Mountains never failed to provide triumph and revival. (Except for 2019. That year can go to hell.) I was grateful to Corrine and Eric for making this tour possible, and to Tyson for the generous offer to lend a fat bike to a stranger. Since nearly all of our Christmas trips have been on foot, it's been a hot minute since I've ridden a bike in the Whites. So fast! So fun! 

Skies were overcast with light flurries and occasional breaks of sunlight. There was about an inch of fresh powder over the trail base, which had firmed up considerably since I hiked this way two weeks earlier. It took us about an hour and a half of leisurely pedaling to reach the mile 11 trail shelter, where I reminisced about the five-hour battle I'd endured to reach this point on March 10. 

"Bikes sort of feel like cheating," I mused to Corrine.

The light was flat and featureless, making for more difficult navigation because the trail base was never obvious. We started using the term "Braille Trail" for lines we had to feel out with our wheels, moving as slowly as necessary to gauge the path. Corrine likes to surge ahead but eventually became frustrated with doing all of the navigation, so we took turns leading. 

There was one brief section of overflow at the Wickersham Creek crossing. I became more alarmed than necessary — one of my first indicators that anxiety, though meaningfully diminished, was still with me. In my defense, I'd seen overflow here two weeks earlier and the fact the area was still wet meant there could be rotten ice. We could even see flowing water through a couple of holes in the ice. Of course, this is a small creek and even breaking through to the bottom was likely to be thigh-deep at worst, and there was a cabin nearby, and the air temperature wasn't all that cold. Still, I trembled as I pulled on my waders while Corrine bravely scouted the crossing. 

A leisurely lunch at Borealis cabin, a few more pedal strokes, and suddenly we were at Caribou Bluff — the cabin I'd failed to make two weeks earlier because I was so shattered after walking 19 miles in 9 hours. This time, we reached the mile 28 cabin with energy and daylight to spare. I hiked to the ridge to take photos of Eric and Betsy approaching the cabin. 

Skies cleared and the sun came out for early evening libations (I was down to the last of the cinnamon tea that Mark donated to my hiking endeavor during my first White Mountains trip. I would have killed for an afternoon coffee, which I'm still depriving myself of on orders from my therapist.) 

Eric seemed somewhat indifferent to the biking part of this trip (he admitted that he doesn't love long sloggy rides) but relished in the cabin chores. These chores include gathering, sawing, and stacking an impressive haul of firewood. I tend to be lazy when it comes to this tedious labor and will opt to spend long hours on the trail and then wear my puffy suit inside cabins just to minimize the need for indoor heat. Eric, on the other hand, carries snowshoes and a hand saw on his bike and will gleefully stomp into the woods to find the best stashes of "standing dead" black spruce trees. I felt some obligation to help him out and did enjoy the hauling part of firewood collection — the best part. These trees don't look so large, but they're heavy, and hoisting them through thigh-deep snow without snowshoes made me feel like a badass.  

The sunset was subtle but lovely. As skies cleared, temperatures began to plummet. It was 5 below by the time darkness fell. The four of us squeezed into the tiny cabin, not much larger than a typical walk-in closet. 

Top bunks don't treat me well, and I tossed and turned through a lousy night of sleep. But the benefit of insomnia in Alaska is more opportunities to catch the elusive Aurora Borealis. This display erupted suddenly when I was already outside and walking along the trail to burn off some insomnia jitters without disturbing the others in the tiny cabin. I wasn't quite dressed well enough for an extended stay in the 15-below night without mittens or a hat, but I tucked my hands into my coat to warm them enough for a few phone photos. 

Witnessing the lights dance over these jagged limestone summits is a spiritual experience. My brain sent out subtle warnings that my hands and feet were in trouble (I was also sockless in my hiking boots, having failed to locate my socks in the dark.) But in my mind, there was a powerful urge overriding these signals, a drive to sprint toward the northern horizon and throw my arms into the air to release the bursts of joy that demanded to be freed. 

Corrine and Betsy had expressed a desire to be woken up if the lights were out. I regret not doing so, but in my defense, I was reluctant to disturb anyone's precious rest when sleep had been so elusive for me. By the time I made my way back to the cabin — shooting one last photo before my fingers stopped working entirely — the aurora faded as quickly as it began. My friends, rising to use the outhouse at other hours of the night, reported that the lights didn't seem to come out again. 

Even lacking sleep, it had been a beautiful night and I felt revived the next morning. It was a short 10 miles to our next cabin, and I was already scheming bonus miles (maybe to avoid those tedious cabin chores. You'll never prove it, Eric!) Temperatures hovered around 10 below as I pedaled up Fossil Creek. I know it's a good morning when the individual hairs on my nose freeze.

The Fossil Gap Trail was a new-to-me route, one of the few connectors in the White Mountains Recreation Area that I had yet to travel. It was fun to explore new territory, so I used the excuse of bagging other new-to-me trails to extend the day's ride — the Colorado Creek Trail, and if I had time, the Big Bend climb all the way to the point on the ridge where I gave up and turned around during a day ride back in 2013. 

It was such a lovely day, and the trail conditions were superb. I knocked out the 9 miles to the junction in just over an hour. The temperature had risen to 0 degrees. In the high March sunlight, it felt oddly warm, even hot. 

I continued another 12 miles, starting with the gradual climb along Colorado Creek. This broad valley is windswept and desolate with only a few patches of stunted spruce trees to break up a daunting expanse of white. Lacking wind protection, the faint trail is rippled with sastrugi. I don't think the Big Bend Trail sees much use and is probably almost always buried in drifts. A soft base with endless collapsing speed bumps makes for strenuous pedaling. I was feeling strong and determined to stay in the saddle as long as possible, so I queued up a 10-minute-long song by Metric, "Doomscroller," which includes a fast-paced repetition of the line "Don't give up."

I'm a true doomscroller

I can't seem to shut it down

Until the worst is over

And it's never over ...

A couple of miles past Colorado Creek cabin, the route makes a sharp left turn to take the direct route over a ridge dividing Colorado Creek and Beaver Creek. In two miles the trail gains nearly 1,000 feet of altitude, topping out with impressive views of a wilderness that stretches a hundred miles to the Yukon River and beyond. I had burned most of my energy matches battling the wind drifts, but was still determined to reach the summit, so I left Doomscroller on repeat. For a song that starts so mean and despondent, it segues beautifully into a soft, hopeful redemption. As I marched, I breathed out the lyrics that I'd come to hear as a reflection of my own mental health recovery.

Take this for the heartache

Not some cure to negate it

More like a magnification mirror, full-size

Inner reverberation happens outside.

I left the bike at the last tripod on the hillside. There, the trail steepened to a veritable headwall, and I thought I might need my hands free to crawl up it. Finally, I gained the ridge and continued hiking along the broad spine to the high point, a place where I remember turning around during a 70-mile day ride in 2013, having determined that this trail was ridiculous. Strange that another ten years passed and I still hadn't attempted to link it together. Or perhaps it's strange that I'm still here, walking this remote and foreboding ridgeline, ten years past a point of no return.

A Snicker's bar restored my energy (I was still trying to choke down my two-week-old trail mix with limited success, but I did bring some candy this time.) When Metric revved up the tempo, I started running, punching deep boot holes in the barely-there trail. When the song neared its refrain, I surprised myself by bubbling over with emotion, dropping to my knees, and releasing an ugly, snot-soaked cry that I now recognize as sudden grief.

Whatever you do,

Either way, we're gonna love you,.

Never mattered,

Either way, we're gonna love you,

Never mattered,

How many or how much more you've been through. 

It struck me that the love I feel in these wild, frozen, foreboding spaces is the dream of universal love, a love that stretches beyond embodiment, beyond time, beyond even the great and unknowable ... beyond. For all of our striving, isn't this all any of us want — to feel a love we know can't be lost, and to feel worthy of such love? Strangely, out here in a place so inhospitable to life including my own, I understand that I have this love, that I've always had this love, that I am this love. 

When grief finds me, I understand this love all too well. It is pain as much as it is joy, because embodiment means accepting that everything is impermanent. It was all so intense that I felt weak in every muscle, briefly wondering if I'd find the strength to stand. The intensity of emotion washed over me and I mustered the final steps to the high point. Up there, I experienced a clarity of mind and vision so different from the brain fog that still hangs heavy over my memories of this winter. It was as though I'd been splashed with cold water and was finally waking up. 

The ride back to Wolf Run cabin was nearly all downhill with a tailwind, and I was feeling triumphant after the emotional cleansing. It was somewhat difficult to switch back from "seeking the wisdom of the mountains" mode to social mode, so I spent a bit more solo time sitting outside on the porch with my stove, melting snow. Wolf Run was in a gorgeous setting and I wished I could move here and live out my days in a tiny cabin, melting snow or collecting water from creeks, subsisting on berries and rice and lentils, collecting downed trees, and chopping wood. I don't love chopping wood but I would learn to love it just to spend my life with these wise mountains.  

It was fun to return to the warm indoors and have lighthearted conversations with my friends. Day three was to be a long day — 45 miles with 4,000 feet of climbing — so everyone was motivated to go to bed early. I finally got a good night of sleep, with just one trip to the outhouse to scan the sky for Aurora. There were subtle hints of green light to the north, but most of the sky was already obscured by high clouds. 

In the morning, we started out on another new-to-me trail, Windy Creek. This trail is gorgeous, climbing through a narrow valley beneath forested hills and jagged limestone spires. 

The trail skirts over a saddle at Windy Gap before descending to connect with Fossil Creek Trail and the classic White Mountains loop. The race had started earlier that morning, and we expected to see our first racers soon. 

Our group was a little more staggered on this day, with Betsy setting out first and Corrine and Eric determined to photograph every one of the 80-something racers on the course. I was a little nervous about navigating such "crowds," but 80 people and a few volunteers on snowmobiles are not actually all that many people when stretched out over 30-something miles. It was still a quiet ride and a lovely day despite the gray skies. 

When high noon sunlight finally did break through the clouds, the colors were subtle but surreal. In this photo, I was battling my way across the "Ice Lakes," which had drifted with shin-deep snow. A strong headwind swept down the valley, stirring up more powder. Two snowmachines passed and within minutes their tracks disappeared. 

The difficulty eased as the trail pitched upward toward Cache Mountain Divide. I spent about a half hour on the summit, snacking on crackers and waving at racers as they passed. 

Corrine approached and we started the descent together. 

We pulled over for dozens of racers. This is the lead woman Ana, who was the only biker I saw running while pushing her bike up the steep and soft final pitch to the Divide. Impressive. 

A few miles down the trail, I stopped for a biker I didn't recognize until she said, "Oh, hey, Jill." I was surprised to realize it was Missy Schwarz, who is one of the few women to have finished the 1,000-mile Iditarod Trail on a bike. I asked her how she was doing and she said, "I've never been in so much pain in all of my life."

This, too, was a surprising statement from someone who has ridden a bike to Nome, so I scrunched my forehead in confusion. "What? Why?"

She pointed to a jagged wound on her cheek, crossed with fresh stitches. "Stabbed myself in the face two days ago. Fuck it hurts."

Despite the fact she was racing, she stopped for 10 minutes to tell me the long story about how she was using her knife as a tire lever while tuning up her bike, how she felt it slip and watched the blade fly toward her face, how she missed her only good eye by inches, and fun fact, her other eye is nearly blind from a past bout with a virus. 

"Damn, that could have been life-changing," she mused, laughing about nearly becoming fully blind as she pulled out an eight-pack of mini powdered donuts and proceeded to eat all of them.

"I'm really bonking but it hurts to chew," she mumbled as white powder puffed out of her mouth like snow. "This was a dumb thing to do; why do we do such dumb things to ourselves?"

I shrugged. I was admittedly feeling envious. Not about the facial wound or terrible pain, but I was starting to wish I was a racer moving toward the long night. But I love Missy. The fun encounter made my day, and apparently, the powdered donuts made hers.

"I felt a lot better after that," she told me later. She'd go on to finish strong in less than 15 hours. 

The fun racer encounters continued, especially when I got to the runners, who were generally more than ready for a break at mile 30-something and willing to stop and chat for several minutes. I was feeling genuine FOMO for the White Mountains 100, which is such a fun scene. I do hope I have the opportunity to return again. I am going to find that perfect run, mark my words! 

Our last cabin was Crowberry, which is at the top of a bluff nearly a thousand feet higher than the crossing at Beaver Creek, with a fair number of rolling hills in six miles. Corrine, ever the optimist, had told Betsy that the ride was "all downhill" from the Divide. I'm not sure I got my warning out that the route is absolutely not all downhill from there, but since I know and already love this part of the trail, I didn't mind the climb. I had a nice chat with the sweeper for the race, who was napping in the cabin when I arrived. He was wearing a WM100 hat from 2012 and told me he used to work the 80-mile aid station, where he was always flabbergasted at the horrible condition of the runners who stumbled in and languished at the cabin. I have been a part of all of that scene, from the 2012 race to being a sad runner at Borealis, so I was a little bit hurt when he didn't remember me at all. 

That evening, everyone trickled in slowly, with Eric arriving more than two hours later. I moved as much wood as I could into the cabin, started a fire, and melted a pot of water for the group to use for dinner. Betsy arrived with wet base layers and a somewhat shell-shocked demeanor but seemed to perk up as soon as she got out of her wet clothes and had something to eat. Just as the gray sky faded to dark gray, flurries started to fly. I checked the weather on my InReach and saw that the forecast for the region was calling for 3-5 inches of snow on Monday. I didn't tell my companions because while some information is good — like knowing about the thousand-foot climb at the end of the day — some is just going to wreck a night of sleep. If it snowed, it snowed, and there wasn't much we could do about it now. 

Indeed, we woke up to about two inches of fresh powder in the morning, covering up a trail that had considerably softened in warm temperatures and heavy traffic the previous day. Betsy was stressed. We had 26 miles to ride back to the trailhead, and she was convinced we'd push our bikes the entire way and she'd miss her midnight flight, which was also when I was flying out. Her worry was understandable, but it wasn't exactly my dilemma (missing my flight would be a hassle but not that bad. I missed Beat, who had been home for several days after returning from his seventh successful walk to Nome. But there was nothing pressing on my schedule, and I certainly don't mind walking 26 miles. I'd have probably come here with my sled if I thought I could make the mileage.) 

Still, because Betsty was so worried, my own anxiety seemed to absorb the negative energy. Suddenly I felt jittery and nervous. I even began trembling. It's so strange to experience something like this — to tell yourself that you're actually not scared, that it doesn't matter, but have your body reject this truth and launch the panic response anyway. 

Everyone perked up after we left the cabin and discovered that the trail was still reasonably rideable. Drifting snow meant we had to hike most of the climbs, and the trail was often impossible to pick out of a blank expanse of white — true Braille trail. We traded the lead for a while, but after a long descent, I ended up in front. I found navigation to be a rewarding game — puzzling out my line in the powder, sometimes choosing poorly and toppling over, but more often feeling like I was zipping through the clouds, dipping and weaving along an invisible path. 

By the time I finished the last long climb to the intersection with the Wickersham Wall, I was in a great mood. It had been a fun day, and now the snow was coming down hard and that was exciting. This Monday of the White Mountains 100 was so much like my Monday in 2019, with the unexpected dump of fresh powder and Braille trail that upended my race. But now I had no animosity, and it felt like redemption in its own way. That year can still go to hell ... yet, isn't this what we seek from these wintry landscapes? We can prepare and plan and train to the heights of our human ability, but nature has the final say. 

From what I gathered later, Betsy did not feel the same way and was ready to be done with the "most miserable day ever." I admit that I worked for years to reach this level of Zen. There's little left in the White Mountains to surprise me, and thus little left that can break me ... except for overflow, for which I retain an irrational fear. But it was empowering to realize this — a foreboding winter landscape can't break me. So why do I let my anxiety break me? It's a difficult lesson to hold onto when the sea monster has wrapped its tentacles around me, but it's true. 

Just over a mile from the finish, I had my second encounter with my friend Tom, who was running his first-ever 100-mile ultramarathon in order to complete the White Mountains "trifecta" (finishing the race by ski, bike, and foot.) The Monday snow had upended his race as well. He was behind his hoped-for pace and "in so much pain." I regarded him with the deepest empathy — I have been there, standing right there, in this exact spot, and at nearly the exact same time of day, feeling something very much like what he seemed to be feeling. There is also great freedom in running a hundred miles. It hurts — so damn much — but it too doesn't break you. 

Ultimately it took about six and a half hours to ride the 26 miles out. Thick, wet snowflakes came down hard for the final hour, absolutely soaking everything I was wearing. These warm storms can be so deceiving because once you're wet, 32 degrees with a light breeze will feel like the coldest weather ever. I arrived at the trailhead about an hour before my friends. Even after stripping everything off and pulling my puffy suit over my naked body, I was still freezing. But I enjoyed waddling around and chatting with volunteers at the finish line.

This long, meandering blog post doesn't have a moral. Writing it was mainly an excuse to relive this trip, which was so rewarding with the perfect mixture of fun bike riding with friends, cabin relaxing, introspective slogging, and reminiscing about my favorite race. I am so grateful to Corrine, Eric, Betsy, and Tyson for giving me this gift. I may not be cured of mental strife, but I feel better than I have in a long time.