Nice summer-winter days

It was the perfect Colorado weekend, which is to say it was 70 degrees and sunny over the Front Range on Sunday, then dropped to 30 and snowing by Monday morning. Beat is still trying to ease back into training after hip and shin issues pestered him for most of the summer, so he didn't want try anything too ambitious. It seemed like a good opportunity for the High Lonesome Loop, which is a 16-mile, relatively mellow climb over the Continental Divide. I hoped we'd have a chance to do some running, but packed gaiters and spikes. Although it had been warm for most of the week since last Monday's storm, I didn't hold out hope that all of the snow had melted.

Beat at King Lake. Note the bare calves and rolled-up sleeves. We were both overheated. It felt downright summery in the forest below the lake, although I later learned the high in Nederland was 51 degrees. It was probably just 35 to 40 degrees at 12,000 feet.

Post-holing our way to the Divide.

Looking toward James Peak, feeling satisfied about deciding against this more ambitious mountain as the day's destination. It's a steep climb with the switchbacking trail, which was obviously buried.


An icy wind swept down the Divide. I'm used to the prevailing west wind, but this gale came from the north — the direction of the approaching storm. Upon cresting the ridge, the ambience quite suddenly shifted from summer to winter. I put on a shell and pulled a buff over my face. It seemed Beat only had his two-ounce wind jacket and no gloves.

Travel was slow and treacherous up here, with a breakable crust disguising sugary drifts of unknown depth (ranging from ankle- to knee-deep.) While slogging into the icy wind, my breathing became labored and I panicked a little about it. I really think I'm mostly healthy right now, but it's still difficult to gauge my breathing or trust a higher heart rate. I'm not sure how or if I'm going to rebuild that trust. Yes, when working hard, it's normal to feel winded. I know this. And yet even whispers of hard breathing or oxygen deficit set off internal alarms. I don't want to push too hard, yet winter conditions often leave no choice. It will be an ongoing battle, I think, this transition from "sucking wind and crawling" to "tranquil respiration while moving and happy about that" to "breathing fire and scorching ground." If I ever again reach the third step. I remain stoked about the second.

The view near Devil's Thumb Lake. On the slope you can see my and Beat's tracks where we scorched a deep-snow descent. Beat didn't have pants and his poor shins where torn and bleeding from the icy crust. But that was really the worst of the experience. It was a beautiful outing, not easy by any means, and took exactly the six hours that I estimated even though there was a fair amount more snow than I even expected. This may be our last Divide trip for the season, although this would be a decent place to snowshoe when regional avalanche conditions are well in the green.

On Monday morning, as forecast, we were hit with eight inches of heavy, wet snow. In the afternoon the temperature climbed a few degrees above freezing and there were blasts of sunlight through patchy breaks in the clouds. I headed out for a "run" that many times actually did involve a strained shuffling motion through slush. It still feels weird to call 20-minute-miles "running," although I tend to qualify most of my on-foot efforts as runs. Whether I'm pounding out the rare downhill 7-minute-mile or scrambling a rocky uphill 60-minute-mile, my effort level remains fairly consistent. It's the level where my breathing doesn't yet scare me.

Heading into Walker Ranch. Sure, it was Monday afternoon, but I was still surprised no one had been out yet. 

The leaves only recently began to change in this area. I enjoyed catching brief glimpses of color.

Snow makes everything so much prettier. I can't grasp why some people, maybe even a majority of people, don't like winter weather. No, the reality that there are people who don't want to put on gaiters and strain to move slower than two miles per hour up a hill is something I'll never understand.

South Boulder Creek.

Looking through Eldorado Canyon, toward Denver and the Plains. Looks like they got some snow, too!

Weirdly my legs were quite a bit more sore after these six miles than 16 miles in the mountains on Sunday. A good reminder that I don't have the slogging fitness dialed in just yet. But if we continue to have this perfect mix of heat and snow, I'll get there.

Fog, leaves and thundersnow

I was laboring up a knoll near 10,500 feet when I heard an all-too-familiar crack of thunder directly overhead. Familiar, and yet so out of context that I stopped pedaling and did a double take toward the dark clouds billowing over a nearby mountain ridge. The temperature was just a notch north of freezing, and the rocky road was coated in ice-tinged puddles and patches of snow. 

"Aren't thunderstorms a summer thing? Maybe it was a fighter jet." 

Then I heard another boom, unmistakable. A flash above the clouds that happened seconds earlier was probably lightning. Although still below treeline, the 4WD road traversed a bald ridge, so I was completely exposed. "Babyhead" rocks littered the surface, and my riding had been so pathetically slow that I instinctively stepped off the bike so I could run faster. Near the top of the knoll, the clouds unleashed a barrage of icy precipitation, first in sheets of sleet, then sharp flakes of snow. 

"Thundersnow!" I'd heard of such a thing. I'd never experienced it. Really, I never wanted to experience it. I hate thunder and lightning even when the ensuing precipitation doesn't sting my face and blind me in a whiteout. The road surface angled downhill so I jumped back on my bike. This movement was instantly followed by another deafening boom. My hands were too numb to finesse the brakes and I could barely squint into the blizzard, so I just let the bike go and hoped for the best. There had to be tree cover somewhere close by. The bike bucked and lurched over unseen rocks. I held on for life, all but certain I was going to crash, but I was too frightened to weigh the odds of cracking my skull on a babyhead versus actually being struck by lightning. 

The swirling snow put a nice touch on those few chaotic seconds. I rolled beneath a thick canopy of pine and opened my eyes. At some point I must have bounced through a big puddle, because my entire lower body was coated in mud. Globs of ice clung to my tights. The snowfall was losing intensity and rumbling thunder already sounded far away. 

It was short-lived excitement, but intense. I'd say my brush with thundersnow was cool, but no, it was just frightening. And I was already bonked from battling babyheads to the top of a mountain. And now I was soaked and freezing precipitation was still falling from the sky. And I had a 5,000-foot descent in front of me. 

 Before that thundery Sunday ride, I had a couple of days that were completely different. I'd planned to do my long ride on Friday, but the day's thick fog and rain were wholly uninspiring. That was, until I coaxed myself out for a tough run over the home mountains, where the deep canyons and burns were nicely accentuated by spooky haze. Even though biking is killing me and regular running still hurts, I'm in fantastic shape for steep climbing right now. I went ahead and had fun with this run by smashing my PR on two tough segments, even though I was in the midst of a four-hour effort.

 My parents were driving home from a vacation in the Black Hills, and dropped into Boulder for just over a day. We did the obligatory leaf-viewing tour on Saturday. The aspens were a bit past peak on the Peak to Peak Highway — although they probably never had much of a chance given how wet the latter half of September had been.

 This is the best I could get for my Colorado leaf views this year. Oh well. No one can say I didn't try.

 Dad and I were going to hike on Sunday, but they decided to leave early after hearing Monday's weather forecast — calling for up to 18 inches of snow in the mountains and guaranteed road closures and chaos on I-70 (all of which came to pass.) So I set out in the late morning for the long ride I'd been avoiding all week. The day started out beautiful — sunny, warm, no wind, and classic Colorado singletrack through the autumn forests.

I had a chance to explore some new-to-me trails, but did grow weary of maneuvering with crowds of cyclists. Mountain bikers seem to concentrate in the area's small pockets of singletrack, which I suppose makes sense. It's not really for me, though. The trails can be fun, but they feel limiting. Give me the wide-open spaces and forgotten back roads rippling toward who knows where. That's where I long to be.

 Of course, the backroads are where I started to fall apart. Every time I explore new forest roads around here, I get so frustrated with the effort. What looks like a reasonable amount of climbing on a map is in reality an intermittent mix of horribly steep and mostly flat, all littered with loose babyhead rocks that require continuous bursts of power and make pedaling uphill all but impossible for me. I have hiked most of five miles to climb such roads in the past, but on Sunday I was feeling bold and determined to put my recent climbing strength to good use. The power bursts lasted a few good miles. I even impressed a jeep driver when I blasted through the woods to avoid his vehicle, causing him to comment through his open window, "That's some ride!"

Then I bonked, rather epically. Complete with lactic-acid-flooded legs, sore forearms, and dizziness. Then there was stumbling, and soft-pedaling, and more hiking, all while wondering if I'd ever reach the top of this apparently endless hill. And then the thunder came.

 Picture now a cyclist who's bonked, soaked to the skin, shivering from a lightning scare, at 10,000 feet, and it's snowing. There was nothing left to do but descend into town, nearly 5,000 feet lower. As I lost elevation, the road surface smoothed out and turned to gravel. The snow turned to rain, and then heavy rain. The wind picked up. I put on all of the layers I brought with me, having planned for the possibility of 35 degrees and rain. But nothing actually shields against 35 degrees and rain — short of a Helly Hansen waterproof fishermen suit, that is. I know this, but I still imagine that I can dress to stay warm when it's 35 degrees and raining, even if I'm coasting downhill for most of an hour. No, I cannot. I can only suffer. It was an exquisite misery, really. So encompassing that the only thing I could do was embrace it.

Finally I was in Boulder and the rain had stopped. I still had a 2,000-foot climb toward home. I've never been so without energy and yet so grateful for a 2,000-foot climb. I stopped at Chapman trailhead to replace my sopping mittens with a dry pair. It took me most of 10 minutes to unclasp my backpack and switch out the mittens, such was the numbness of my extremities. I was still shivering and heavily bundled up as I climbed, when I was passed by a guy wearing shorts and a short-sleeved jersey. I must have looked quite silly to him.

 By Monday morning, the snow storm had reached our house. Our last winter storm was May 18, so it had been four months and 14 days between snows. I joked that I thought the drought was never going to end. Actually, I enjoy living somewhere where I might only have to wait four months between snowstorms (Knowing, of course, that this is Colorado, and not only will be 60 degrees again in a few days, but also might be in February as well.)

 I wanted to take advantage of the big snowfall to launch true winter training with the best slog-fest I could muster. Wednesday offered such a chance, with 18 inches of new snow in the mountains and temperatures predicted to hit the high 50s. Do you know what it's like to trudge for six hours through slush that has reached roughly the density of liquid lead? Most don't, because most wouldn't bother. I didn't see a soul on the trail.

 It was an absolutely gorgeous day, though. Sure, I could have waited a few days for the snow to just melt. But what would be the fun in that?

Since I was breaking trail, I loosely followed the Arapahoe Glacier Trail to the saddle below South Arapahoe Peak. Conditions were iffy enough and the climb had taken long enough — six miles in four hours — that I opted to skip the tricky route-finding on the class 2 scramble to the summit. Instead I sat on a rock and enjoyed my "lunch" (an expired organic nut bar that Beat brought home from Google at some point, and a small Rice Krispy Treat.) I rested for at least ten minutes, still just wearing a light long-sleeved shirt, no gloves and no hat. My lower body was predictably soaked from the deep slush, but the afternoon was so warm that my legs were hot. At 13,000 feet. In October. After a major snowstorm. That's Colorado.


After I started down, a single cloud sank into the ridge, and then I was in an incredibly disorienting whiteout for a half hour. Light definition was bad enough that I couldn't make out my own snowshoe tracks on the ground, so I relied on staring at my GPS to find the way (I'm always fearful of stepping off a cliff if I wander "off trail," even though this is a gentle ridge.) Eventually I started having bouts of vertigo and knelt down briefly to re-orient my body — meaning reorienting which way was up toward the sky and which way was down toward the ground. Such a weird thing to experience on such a warm, sunny day. But these are the mountains.

 Where the ridges were wind-drifted and manageable, the trail below treeline had become incredibly slushy in the afternoon. It was basically a thin layer of snow atop six inches of Slurpee. Finding correct footing through the rocks while sliding all over the place was the true challenge for the day. But, I continued to tell myself, great training for the stabilizer muscles. First slog of the season is always one of the best.

Launching into the season

This has been a dreary week. Just a few days after we returned from Europe and I complained about 90-degree heat and red-flag fire conditions, a whole bunch of clouds moved in. It's been 40 degrees and drizzling/fog-raining/heavily raining ever since. I don't really mind. The clearer and cooler the air, the healthier and faster I become. Thanks to bone-chilling weather, my transition from living at 1,000-3,000 feet back to 7,200 feet happened almost flawlessly.

My Achilles stopped hurting much faster than expected (not really tendonitis; I suppose I should be grateful.) As soon as the weather moved in, I was off my bike and back on foot. Although I've missed bikes, there's really nothing worse than cycling when it's 40 degrees and raining. I endured this almost continuously for five years in Juneau. Now I'm over it for life.

Running has been going so well. A couple of tentative jogs helped loosen creaky over-hiked joints, and then I was loping along faster and more relaxed than the weeks before we left for Europe. After one or two hours I'd come home so drenched that I'd have to remove all of my clothing in the entryway to avoid dripping on the floor. This would come as a slight surprise; I hadn't even noticed the wet and cold because I felt so strong. It was liberating.

By Wednesday, the fog had been hanging low for five days, and my motivation was beginning to wane. Staring into thick gray soup gets old. I bribed myself into running by downloading new mp3s, which always boosts my mood. (If I wasn't one of those runners loping through the woods with an iPod, I'd be one of those adults sprawled on a couch and listening to vinyl on a turntable. I enjoy music for its own sake, but the experience is enhanced by outdoor scenery and motion. I never feel unaware of my surroundings. I'm not surprised by others on the trail. It is possible to keep volume low enough to also hear what's going on around you.)

Anyway, I was a half mile into this run when I realized I forgot trekking poles, which shook my confidence. I was heading into a favorite run-hike route, involving a rocky descent into Bear Canyon and a grunt up Fern Canyon, which gains 1,800 feet in 0.8 miles on a veritable staircase of rocks — steep enough that the women's course record (in Boulder, "the fittest city in the U.S.") amounts to a 29-minute-mile. So it's a tough route and I've become fiercely dependent on my crutches, which help improve balance and shift some of the workload off of my wobbly left leg. (Should I explain why I believe my left leg is wobbly? Well, when I was 19, I most likely broke my ankle after falling down a flight of concrete stairs and dropping a (rather large 1990s) television. I never had it checked, but it's more or less permanently swollen, unstable and susceptible to rolling. In 2014 I tore the lateral collateral ligament in my left knee, and the resulting scar tissue also affects stability. Okay, no more long asides.)

Along the trail were hints of autumn color, dripping with a wintry gray. I was listening to Tori Amos's new album, which is beautifully ethereal, when I commenced crawling up Fern Canyon. The fog was so thick that even the nearest rocks and trees were a soft blur. Behind the quiet purr of music was an encompassing silence. Without my trusty crutches I felt like I was oozing up the canyon, cold fingers gripped on rocks and roots, whatever they could find for support. I was in a tranquil mood and my breathing reflected this, so everything about this effort felt slow. And yet I later learned I'd set on new PR, by two minutes, on a route where I've pushed the pace on at least two dozen times. The effortless PRs always signal bouts of renewed fitness. How long will it last? I don't know, but I can hold out hope for permanence.

My next big goal is the 350-mile version of the Iditarod Trail Invitational, which I want to do on foot. The last time I put in a big on-foot effort was this same course in 2014. In four years I've only been able to finish one 100-miler, and have only gained more reasons to distrust my body and health. For that reason, I *really* want to do well in the ITI350. I want to feel stronger, and possibly move faster (conditions willing) than I did in a year when the trail was relatively good, and I was probably as fit and I've been before or since.

It's a tall order. My health isn't what it was in 2014. Sure, I've had a couple of good months recently. But what happens when I go back to feeling the way I did in June or July? Or worse, last winter, when I was training too hard through malaise and desperation, for a race I couldn't even start because I really was quite sick?

All of this is to say that I'm not really sure how to launch this bout of winter training. I've conditioned myself to feel grateful for whatever my body's willing to give, whether it's effortless PRs, 9,000 feet of climbing in the Alps, or a one-hour jog that doesn't leave me feeling like there's a plastic bag tied around my neck and face. Or even if I do feel that way, at least I can still jog. I'm grateful for that. But this does leave a lot of uncertainty about committing to the usual specifics of training. I suppose I'll continue to play it by ear, and hope that this positive pattern continues.

I didn't have any more pictures, so I'm posting a cute marmot that Beat photographed on James Peak a couple of months ago

Now that another European mountain bender is over and Beat and I are settling into an autumn routine, I've made attempts to return to writing. Ultimately I'm not thrilled with any of my current projects. I want to find something new, boundary-pushing perhaps, but I'm sputtering.

My friend and previous co-author Tim has been pushing hard for a potential research project on the "IT" factor for success in endurance sports. He's even sparked the interest of several behavioral scientists. I'm eager to be a journalist/observer in this project, but I don't feel comfortable taking charge in scientific research or bold declarations for "secrets of success." Take a look at my track record, and it's clear I do not have these secrets. I also have a chronic autoimmune disease that I largely blame on stubbornly refusing to quit a race until I had pneumonia, so I believe that our own conceptions of "success" can be critically misguided. Perhaps these reservations will add some depth to the project, and I hope to take part in any way I can.

I am still dabbling with subjects outside the scope of endurance racing. Biographies and historical narratives. Again, lack of confidence casts a large shadow. Social media exposes me to biographers and journalists tackling subjects that I'm interested in, with so much depth, and often without compensation. There's often no return for these efforts. Recently I put many dozens of hours of work into a compelling biography that ultimately didn't pan out, which is always a risk when you're working with others.

At the same time, I never lament all this time that I "wasted." I've been lucky to have the freedom to pursue projects that bring knowledge and fulfillment. Almost more than food, I crave an outlet for creative energy — whether cycling or running through interesting places, taking photographs, listening to music, or writing. I'm still amused when I manage to make a few bucks in the midst of these pursuits. I recently crunched some numbers and realized that I've reached a milestone, surpassing six figures in eBook royalties since I released "Be Brave" in August 2011. Spread over six years, it's not a lot. But it's staggering when I think in terms of physical value. It's just content, in a world inundated with more content than it can ever digest. Sometimes I feel silly adding to this glut, in the same way I feel silly riding my bicycle away from home and returning, again and again, accomplishing what? Then again, what do most people accomplish each day? We meet our basic survival needs and establish relationships to contribute to a larger community. Beyond that, meaning and fulfillment are largely what we believe them to be.

All of this is my typical long-winded way of appreciating those who enable my addiction to creative expression, whether you're a 12-year reader of this blog who has never left a comment, or someone who purchased all of my books in the more lucrative paperback form. I'm closing in on a year since the release of "Into the North Wind," which has been disappointing in terms of eBook sales (and an important reminder to branch out from this incredibly niche genre.) Yet, it many ways, it was my most fulfilling project, both in terms of the quality of the adventure that served as the subject, and the cathartic process of documenting the experience and preserving it for a vaguely distant future (at least until all of the digital remnants and paper decay, which happens a lot sooner than we'd like to believe. Okay. Last aside.)

Until then, less time basking in 280 characters in Twitter, and more time training and writing. And perhaps marketing, too. "Into the North Wind" is still available! ...

So long, Courmayeur

I recently learned that the Indonesian man rescued from Col Chavannes last week has died. Given the severity of his condition, the news did not come as a surprise. Still, I searched the Web every day for updates, hoping for a better outcome. Through these searches, I learned a little about his life. He recently earned his master's degree in chemical research from the University of Leicester in the U.K. He had a daughter. At one time he kept a blog with the title "give up on shelter." He was a self-proclaimed "jobless traveler" who wrote research papers on thermal degradation. He was 25 years old. Just another tragedy. I'm still torn up about it, ruminating on the clues he left behind, reconstructing scenarios in my imagination, acknowledging that in a slightly different set of circumstances, the person falling down switchbacks and freezing to near-death could have easily been me. Just another tragedy. Like Puerto Rico and Mexico City, there are degrees of separation, large enough to look away. If we ruminated on all of the world's tragedies all of the time, we would be clinically insane. But we do what we can. I e-mailed the Islamic Society at his university to inquire about donating to his funeral fund. 

But I didn't want to end my Alps posts on such a downer. There were so many great moments, and some of the best came at the very end, hours before we had to rush back to Geneva and a 6 a.m. flight. Beat returned to Courmayeur for our final day in Europe. Despite his still-swollen and squeaky shin, he'd been talking all week about climbing Mont Chetif. In turn, I had been dreading the prospect all week. Mont Chetif is regarded an easy "ferrata" route, but it still features stunningly exposed sections that are protected with a few cables and bars (and some of the cables are broken!) Its difficulty rating is "EE," which is defined as "a marked path over treacherous ground ... with open stretches that call for sure footing and no dizziness." 

Sure footing and no dizziness. Two qualities I do not possess. But I've been up Mont Chetif before, in 2016, as part of an ongoing campaign to overcome my mountain fearfulness. Still, with each passing year I only gain more reasons to distrust myself, not fewer, and in many ways experience makes me more fearful, not less. After spending much of Friday steeped in uncertainty followed by the horror of Col Chavannes, I was in no mood for pushing my limits. And that was before I woke up on Saturday morning with a rigid Achilles tendon. 

Before Saturday, my Achilles gave no indication that it was about to blow up. Still, I suppose these things happen when you've got the thing stretched to maximum capacity for most of a week ... 45,000 feet of climbing and 123 miles in just seven days ... when you haven't really trained for 40 hours of straining on your toes (unless you count that equally big climbing week in Chamonix two weeks earlier, and then running up the Thousand Stägli (actually closer to 1,150 stairs) every chance you got in Switzerland, driving your PR from 12 minutes down to 11 minutes and being quite proud of that.)

In a way I was sort of tickled at the prospect of a real overuse injury. Do you know how long it's been? For years now I've either been wracked with breathing problems that slowed me down enough to avoid straining anything ... or I've just hit the deck and torn something. Achilles tendonitis? That's something real athletes get! Then again, you do kind of need your Achilles for many activities. Climbing Mont Chetif is near the top of that list.

In addition to being a route that requires sure footing and no dizziness, Mont Chetif gains 4,200 feet in 2.5 miles ... and not in a nice, even way, but in a sort of staircase comprised of flat traverses above sheer ledges, followed by pitches so steep that calves will cry ... and I really mean cry. As I hobbled with Beat down Courmayeur's main street to have one last amazing espresso at Caffe Della Posta, I was highly tempted to chicken out. But I'd been playing in mountains all week while Beat dutifully worked and visited family and nursed his injury, so I felt I should rally for this one small hike with him.

There was a nice one-mile warm-up from Caffe Della Posta to the trailhead, and my Achilles started to flex enough that hobbling was no longer required. But as soon as we started up the first pitch, the tendon complained loudly. Then we did an airy section with cables and bars, and I was so frightened that I didn't think about pain. Then came the rebar "staircase" where my calf muscle on the same leg (right) suddenly cramped so bad that I yelped, which of course caused Beat to whip around because I was screaming in a section where falling would have been costly. Then my calf was pulsing, actually pulsing, like a phone set to vibrate mode. The Achilles gave up complaining during the extended calf cramp episode until we stopped for a snack break, and then I was back to hobbling before yet another airy cable section. I was a genuine mess, accompanied by whimpering. And yet I was in a great mood — the sun was out, it was somehow warm even as flurries of snow drifted from clusters of dark clouds, the mountains were singularly stunning, and I was alive. It is incredible, how we manage to survive each day to see another. Although I may come across as an occasional risk-taker, I never take life for granted.

At the summit, Beat enjoyed one last Rivella (a Swiss soda made from milk whey, which I — a hopeless soda enthusiast — think is awful. I also think most nationalities agree with me, because Rivella is only sold in Switzerland.) It was a wonderful moment, just the wind and snow flurries and the statue of Mary, holding her vigil over Courmayeur.

Beat's shin bothered him during the long descent (there's a wrap-around trail that features a horrendously steep chunder gully, but no cables), while I loped happy-go-lucky because my Achilles and calves didn't have to do anything ... and for once I was actually able to keep up with Beat on a descent. We had gelato with friends who finished or nearly finished TDG (Roger did 310 of 330 kilometers before he timed out.) And then it was time to head through the tunnel one last time. No matter how many times we come to Courmayeur or how long we spend in the region, I'm always sad to leave.

It's good timing for my Achilles, though. I'm back to weight training and bicycles and haven't felt any pain since Monday. I may even attempt a jog this weekend, although I ran so little while I was in Europe that I expect a return to actual running will hurt in new and exciting ways.

And, of course, autumn in Colorado is always nice. Unless it's 92 degrees like it was on Wednesday. Snow on Monday? I can't wait! 

Trying to find these perfect places

Thursday's weather promised to be awful — steady rain progressing to heavy rain in the afternoon, temperatures in the 40s, and wind. I'd already racked up 26,000 feet of climbing in the four hikes since Sunday, plus 65 miles on my feet. It seemed prudent to take an easy day, but why would it matter? I only had a week in Italy, with no transportation to visit friends at TDG life bases, so covering as much ground as possible (and eating a pizza or two) were the only things I wanted to do. 

I consulted Wunderground, which is a Web-based weather service that my European friends told me not to trust over local sources. But Wunderground isn't afraid to be specific, and I like that. The hourly forecast showed light rain, heavy rain, and finally sleet every hour through 4 p.m. But after 4 p.m., sudden clearing. Full sunshine, as indicated by a bright yellow circle graphic. It seemed so unlikely, but maybe? If I slogged through rain for enough hours, I could be rewarded with sweeping views in a spectacular, far-away spot. 

I set out genuinely believing in the possibility. For my far-away spot I picked Grand Col Ferret, a 2,500-meter pass on the Swiss border. I'd hiked from Courmayuer to France on Monday, so rounding out the week with a trek to Switzerland seemed apt. I knew it would be at least 15 miles one way. Usually I average 30-minute miles on the steep and rocky routes of the Aosta Valley. But I planned to follow the Tour du Mont Blanc trail, the "easy" route, so I ambitiously guessed 20-minute miles, with some leeway for the occasional 1,800-foot rise in one mile. If I left at 11:30 a.m., I could be standing on the pass when the weather cleared! 

Cold rain pelted me in the face all the way up to Rifugio Bertone, where I stopped to cheer for a few Thursday Tor des Geants finishers who were making their way into Courmayeur. I took this one photo just before fog dropped into the valley. The rain picked up intensity. Having picked the TMB for its friendliness, I'd forgotten that this makes it the most trafficked route in the region, and there are a lot of cows as well. The mud was gruesome. Slimy, sticky, ankle-deep, and shoe-swallowing, the mud forced foot-skiing down the short descents (and some of the climbs, unintentionally.) To top it off, a herder was directing his cattle uphill, so there were cows and dung and puddles of piss everywhere. I passed a group of Japanese backpackers slipping down a hill where cows were climbing up. One backpacker fell on his butt, and this set off an impressive chorus of yelling and ranting from the whole group, possibly directed at the herder. I couldn't understand what they were saying, but you can bet I felt it.

By the time I passed Rifugio Bonatti, I was coated in cow-piss mud and soaked to the skin in both my rain pants and shell, shivering as the rain turned to thick sheets of sleet. The descent into Arnuva is one I'd rather not recall. Since I was already soaked and covered in mud, I did some of it on my butt. I dipped wet mittens into a creek just to clean them off, then slipped the clammy things back over numb fingers. In my pack I still had one pair of dry mittens, a dry hat and a down coat, which I frequently thought about with fierce longing. But it seemed purposeless to put them on when precipitation was still coming down hard.

I finally reached the tiny village of Arnuva, ready to head directly down the road through Val Ferret and forget any part of this hike ever occurred. And then the strangest, yet most expected thing happened. The sleet stopped. Seconds later, almost an instant, beams of sunlight cut through the fog. I looked at my watch. It was 4:30 p.m.

It was late in the day. I'd definitely get back after dark if I climbed another 2,500 feet to the pass. But the scenario couldn't have been better if I planned it, which I pretty much did. So I continued up the TMB trail, still slipping on mud, shedding layers as the sky cleared and the sun burned and steam wafted from my coat.

I'd been over this pass once before, during the 2015 Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc. Col Grand Ferret was where I really shut down after a hundred kilometers of wheezy climbing and battling cutoffs. I'd take a few steps and lose my breath, as though I was climbing an 8,000-meter summit in the Himalaya. The number of breaks I need to take just to catch my breath as I slogged up pass resulted in finally timing out at kilometer 110 in La Fouly. At the time I was in the beginnings of uncontrolled asthma and hyperthyroidism that I didn't yet understand, but I knew that my body was broken somehow. And I remember well what it felt like to look up at these impossible slopes, wondering if I'd find the strength to reach the summit, or any summit, ever again.

It's difficult to describe how amazing it felt to stand at Grand Col Ferret, looking out over the snow-dusted slopes and clouds streaming through the La Fouly valley, feeling strong. My heart pumped warm blood and my nerves tingled with exhilaration.

And the views! In 2015 the weather had been hot, but the mountains were shrouded in clouds. So I didn't even realize the spectacle surrounding this pass. There may have been a tear or two as I stood facing the Pré de Bar glacier with the cold wind streaming around me.

The day just got better. As evening light descended over Val Ferret, I slipped and slid down the mountain and started running when I hit the pavement. Both ankles were sore from the day's weird footing and my quads were unnaturally heavy, but it still felt wonderful to run. Miles disappeared behind me at a speed I could scarcely comprehend after weeks of 30-minute miles. Twilight turned the sky a rich violet, drenching Grand Jorasses and Monte Bianco in stunning silver light. Moonlight took over and the forest was an abstract maze of shapes and shadows. The faint roar of whitewater in Dora di Ferret was the only sound. I'd run out of trail snacks two hours earlier and my stomach churned, but there was genuinely no place I'd rather be.

On Friday, temperatures remained low enough that snow stuck around, along with the wind. The sky was a thin overcast film. Days earlier I'd decided if the weather was workable at all, I wanted to repeat the route I walked on Monday when my camera wasn't working. Although it was all decent trail, parts of it were very narrow and exposed, and there were landslides that required short stints of exposed scrambling. I felt nervous about the prospect of traversing those slopes under snow and icy conditions, especially if there was a gale like the one that knocked me around on Monday. Still, these opportunities don't come every day. I figured I could turn around if conditions were iffy.

Col d'Arp is just a little 4,000-foot climb first thing in the morning. I was feeling all of the week's efforts in small ways — tightness in my calves, sore shoulders, general leg fatigue — but in other ways the grind becomes easier after days of grinds. Above 2,500 meters, there were several inches of snow that had been blown around. So the ground was bare in spots, and there were shin-deep drifts in others. Although I don't enjoy skittering on rocks in microspikes, I strapped them on for good measure.

Glancing over the edge of one ledge I was traversing, I looked toward future ledges. This practice had been much more intimidating on Monday, when I had no idea what was around the next saddle. But experience hadn't made these views as agreeable as I'd hoped. That segment in the upper lefthand corner of the photo still looks like a narrow notch above sheer cliffs, which it is.

Before the narrow trail traverse are a few airy scrambles to skirt around a knife ridge. I found good purchase on the snow with the microspikes, but rocks were coated in verglass. I decided that I really didn't want to come back down this way, and hoped the loop worked out.

On Monday, when I hiked around a pass called Colle Berrio Blanc, I was hit with a moment of déjà vu that caused me to openly gasp. I pondered the origin of this disquieting but forgotten association as I made my way though yet more vaguely familiar territory. It took me a while to figure it out. Suspicions simmered, but it took digging up my Strava track from the 2013 Petite Trotte à Léon to be certain. Colle Berrio Blanc. This spot. This was the spot. The place where I finally cracked. My teammates and I came around this corner, and the GPS track led me to believe that the route would take us over that horrifying ridgeline to the peak called Berrio Blanc. Actually, what it did was drop down the talus slopes directly off the pass, which wasn't much better (remember those intimidating cliffs mentioned earlier. Yeah.) In the past 10 hours of incredibly difficult trekking, I'd eaten all of a granola bar and a packet of peanut butter, and that was after starting out the "day" (before midnight) quite hungry. I remember doubling over on this pass and vomiting. The vomiting didn't stop until hours later, when there was truly nothing left. But that was only the beginning of my unravelling.

If these blog posts make it seem like I spent much of my time in Chamonix and Courmayeur reconciling past failures in the Alps — well, that was the case. TDG and UTMB are one thing, but PTL is very much another. I've been grasping to find closure from this experience for four years. I acknowledge that it was an optional, recreational activity and the decisions were mine alone. But the trauma was real, and it lingers. It haunts me in dreams. It haunts me when I'm curled up in a sleeping bag along the Poorman River deep in Interior Alaska, feeling subzero air slowly warm around my body, and remembering the times I've truly feared for my life.


What's the shortest way to tell my PTL story? Well, in 2013, I was still fairly new to "running." I had a lot of hubris but no mountain experience. I thought I had mountain experience from youthful excursions in Utah, and difficult off-trail hikes in Juneau and Montana. But no. I knew nothing. Beat raced PTL in 2012 and his pictures were beautiful. The race sounded just like TDG with a bit more spiciness, and I was enthralled. I found a team with two people I barely knew, a Spanish woman and an Italian man, and signed up.

We were not a good team. They're great people, but we didn't mesh at all in this scenario. Our common language was English and they weren't fluent, so communication issues dogged us from the start. I was the sole navigator and it turned out to be a huge responsibility, tracing a rough GPS track over miles of incomprehensible off-trail terrain. Sometimes the track would connect two far-away points straight up a wall, and I had to route-find around it, managing Class 3 and sometimes Class 4 scrambling with almost no experience in route-finding. Ana frequently refused to trust my directions, even when I showed her the GPS, so we had team mutinies that cost us time we did not have. We were pressed against cut-offs from the very start. We never had time to spare, so we didn't sleep. Every kilometer took us much longer than any of us anticipated possible, so we were always low on supplies, food and water. I got water by scraping slush off the tops of snow fields, dirt, bugs and all. I went hungry, until my urine smelled like ammonia from muscle breakdown. The stress of navigation, tricky scrambling, and sleep-deprivation strained my eyes to the point I couldn't focus on anything. I had to wear reading glasses for six months afterward. We trekked through surprisingly remote areas, staying well above treeline for 12 hours at a time. When we finally arrived at the few support stations offered by PTL, they'd kick us out immediately because we were out of time, or they were out of food because earlier teams had cleaned them out. When we left for the 6,000-foot climb crossing from France into Italy, we'd eaten just a few crumbs of bread and finger-scraped jam from empty jars. We had almost no food left in our backpacks. In four days, we'd only laid down for 90 minutes total. For me, only a small fraction of that had been sleep.

Okay, I guess I can't tell a short story about PTL, but I had to set up the background to why I was so far gone at Colle Berrio Blanc. After the vomiting started, my body seemed to shut down in spurts. I couldn't even stand or lean on my trekking poles during these episodes. I had to sit or I'd become so dizzy that I'd lose my balance ... and we were not traversing places where I could afford to lose my balance. I begged my teammates to go on without me, so they could try to make the next cut-off that we were sure to miss if I continued in this manner. They didn't argue ... as I said, they're good people, but we were not a good team. Then I was alone, shivering for no discernible reason as I picked my down down the tundra.  I knew it was over, but it was still far from over.

The memories become more blurry. I was deeply bonked, confused. At one point I looked down at my GPS, and I was no longer on the pre-designated PTL track. I was lost. "I'm lost!" A primal scream pierced through me, and I panicked. My legs started tearing through the woods, a full sprint through spiky brush, and there was nothing my brain could do to stop them. I remember actually speaking, out loud, to myself: "Please stop running. Please, please stop. Please just stop." I don't know how long it took to regain control. For a time I was sleep-walking through grass, and then I dropped onto a paved road, and then I was sprinting full speed through dark road tunnels with no shoulder and seemingly no end. Running through the tunnels was probably my worst decision of all, but I was so addled that the risk hardly registered. Eventually the sun had set and I was sitting on a bus bench in Pré-Saint-Didier, my shoulders limp and shoes tossed angrily into the street. For long minutes or perhaps hours I stared blankly into nothing. My mind, my body, everything was absolutely done. Who knows how long I would have sat there? All night, at least, if PTL volunteers didn't set out in a van, looking for me.


So I suppose the only short way to tell it is that once, back in 2013, I attempted a long mountain traverse that I had absolutely no business attempting, and it was so scary and difficult and stressful that I lost my mind. The losing my mind part is what sticks with me — the understanding that there's a capacity in me to make such poor decisions, to relinquish so much control. I vowed to never go back to PTL. But the truth is I go back there all the time, when I'm frightened or angry. And here, on this high traverse above Val Veny, I went back there for real — unintentionally at first, and then on Friday, a little more intentionally. At times the wind was still and the air was intensely quiet. I knew there was no one around for miles. I stopped frequently to look around: There's the pass where we crossed between two glaciers and slid down 200 feet of ice at dawn. There's the boulder field with the amazing view of Mont Blanc. There's the cliffy traverse with the cables — the place where Beat spent hours huddled in a couloir waiting for daylight so he could find the way.

When I came to the spot where I planned to drop into Val Veny — Mont Fortin — all of these unsettling PTL memories still dominated my thoughts. Mont Fortin holds the ruins of a military fortress from Roman times. The face of the mountain was cast in shadow and covered in a lot more snow than I expected to see. It's a scrambling route with yellow dots to mark the best way through steep rubble and cliffs, but there was too much snow to find any of the markings. Exposed rocks were clearly coated in ice. I've climbed down Mont Fortin before and remember it being a little tricky when dry, so there was no way I was going to attempt it in these conditions. 

My backup plan was to continue down into the valley and up to Col Chavannes, which I hadn't travelled before, but knew it to be part of the Alta Via 2 trekking route, so it would have a trail. On Monday I traversed a boulder field to go all the way to Col de la Seigne, but this detour was already likely to add two hours to my day, and I hoped to be back in Courmayeur before Beat returned from Switzerland (or at least before dark.)

The drop off of Col Chavannes appeared just as steep as Mont Fortin. In fact, it looked like a headwall, almost vertical for the first 50 meters. There was a trail notched into the face, but it had collected at least a foot of windblown snow, pressed against the rock face until it formed a thin cornice blocking the only route down. Because of snow cover, the trail was difficult to discern from the cliff. "This is worse than Mont Fortin," I whimpered, but now I was basically committed. I could go back the way I came, but that would take hours more. Some of the terrain I had climbed wouldn't be much better than this going down.

The wind blew fiercely over the narrow saddle. I put my trekking poles away because they were more harm than good. Carefully I established a mittened grip on an icy handhold and punched a leg into the snow. It sank up to my knees, and the microspikes caught purchase on solid ground. I placed another foot, which hit a small rock, causing me to skitter and quickly throw down another hand to catch my balance. If I slipped sideways, I was going to fall, and then bounce a few times before my body stopped somewhere far below. It was so scary. Scarier than PTL, I thought. "Why do I keep doing this to myself? Why do I keep doing this to myself?"

But after three steps I felt committed, so I continued. Every step took considerable time, minutes even, as I secured my precarious handholds as well as I could, and slowly placed each foot so there weren't any sudden surprises underneath all that snow. The wind blew hard and the temperature was below freezing, judging by the powder quality of the snow. I'd put on my down coat at the pass, and was glad I had. Still, I was frightened and cold. My shoulders quaked. I took a deep breath, and took another step.

After a half hour of horror I'd gotten through the worst of it, but wasn't out of danger quite yet. I pulled out my trekking poles to improve my balance on the still-steep, but less exposed ribbon of talus. As I made my way down tight switchbacks, I came across a plastic baggie full of medicine bottles. I picked it up and considered packing it out. Then again, this was probably important to someone. Better to leave it here in case they came back to look for it later. But who'd been up here? I hadn't seen a soul all day, or any tracks to indicate someone had crossed this pass since the storm.

Below the hairpin, in a similar spot to the medicine bottles, was a pair of track shorts. Odd. Then a Kit Kat bar and scattered bus tickets and receipts. Below that, a tub of hair gel and a spoon. On a fourth switchback, I found a pair of jeans. They'd been wet and now they were frozen stiff, backward and curved up as though someone had crawled out of them here. Really, really odd. The trail made a long traverse and then switchbacked again a hundred meters lower. From this lower vantage point, I looked up and saw a backpack. In a straight line it was at least a hundred meters off the trail. I felt compelled to scramble closer. It was overturned on a steep, boulder-strewn slope where no one would ever take a break. It would make sense, if someone fell on those switchbacks, that they'd bounce a few times over lower switchbacks and come to rest somewhere near here. I half expected to find an unconscious person or a body. But the backpack was abandoned, along with all of its contents.

I continued into Val Veny feeling deeply unsettled. If there had been an incident, at least the person was already rescued. But were they okay? Maybe it was just scattered gear from a fed-up backpacker, possibly caught in the storm when it was really bad yesterday. Maybe they jettisoned stuff to get out fast.

Back in town, reunited with Beat and finally sitting down to the pizza I'd been craving all week, I scrolled through my phone for answers. The search led to news reports of a 25-year-old hiker from Indonesia who'd been plucked off Col Chavannes the previous day. He had severe hypothermia, a body temperature of 24 degrees Celsius (75F!) His temperature had been brought back up to 34C at a hospital, but he remained in a controlled coma. The extent of damage or survivability was unknown.

The news reports said he had a heart attack. The scattered belongings told a somewhat different story, and there were earlier reports that spoke of a fall. It appears to me he either fell down the switchbacks, or stumbled in distress for a short time, spilling things from his backpack before stopping off the trail. He possibly crawled back up the slope and removed his clothing as hypothermia advanced. It's a sad and distressing scenario.

His name is Syahrie Anggara. I look for updates every day, hoping to find news about his recovery. The image of his stuff strewn along the talus is pressed into my memory, the frozen jeans most of all. There is something unsettling about the abandoned belongings of a person — the debris we leave behind.

The things we leave behind aren't unlike the memories that stay with us, holding a meaning that only we understand. I went to this place to seek closure from ghosts, and found the ghosts of a man who'd been through something truly terrible. All we can do is is continue forward, hauling our ever-expanding cache of hopes and fears.