Last days of innocence — day four

Photo by Amber Bethe

March 5, 2020. Finger Lake, Alaska. 18 below and breezy. 

A seemingly silent awareness of 4 a.m. arrived, and the many inhabitants of the ice-bound Finger Lake tent began to emerge from their down cocoons. I had set an alarm for 2 a.m. but ignored it. In a way, this felt a little like I was already giving up — "Jill, you can’t sleep eight hours a night if you’re going to Nome." Evening Jill, who is alert and ambitious and has spent entirely too much time crunching numbers and making plans — she’s the one who sets the alarm. Morning Jill, who must battle her way bleary consciousness beneath a crush of full-body muscle soreness and unassuaged fatigue — she’s the one who lacks willpower. Even at 4 a.m., I could barely sit up through the sheer gravity of my grogginess. This morning inertia always leaves me wondering why I even bother with the sleep thing. Perhaps if I just stayed awake and kept walking …

The air inside the tent was frosty, but I wasn’t prepared for the icy punch to the face when I opened the canvas flaps and stepped outside. I briefly convinced myself it was 40 or 50 below zero, but my thermometer would reveal an ambient temperature of 18 below. That wind, though. The wall tent had a wood-platform porch where someone had placed a couch. A person was curled up in a sleeping bag there, which I found delightfully odd. Lovely place for a nap, this random couch on a frozen lake that’s fully exposed to the brunt of wind and subzero cold.

I returned to the volunteers’ cabin to heat up a bag of dehydrated scrambled eggs that I’d found in the bin of discarded drop bag food. Many of the same folks with whom I’d shared dinner the previous night were also doing breakfast at the same time. There were at least six more people in the tent who I managed to never even see, but the Kiwis, Beth, Amber and I enjoyed one more respite together before the next leg of our journey.

The section between Finger Lake and Puntilla Lake is often regarded as one of the toughest on the route to McGrath. “The Push,” a veteran cyclist had called it during my first ITI in 2008. The name stuck with me. For thirty miles the trail climbs into the Alaska Range over a series of steep rolling hills. There’s the infamous Happy River Steps that feature 40-percent grades both down and up. And there are equally steep grades higher on the route, as the trail dips in and out of precipitous drainages along a side slope above the Happy River gorge. The final five miles into Rainy Pass Lodge are a relentless and plodding climb with one short descent in the middle, just enough to undo all of the hard-won altitude.

I started out at 5:11 a.m., after spending more than fifteen minutes hunched over in the 18-below darkness: repairing the hole in my backpack with tape, and attempting to secure my wrist brace with leuko tape. I’d started out the race with an overuse injury that inflamed a disc in my left wrist. The injury had unsurprisingly deteriorated, and my left hand had become swollen and often prone to electric shocks of pain — although, truthfully, I'd feared worse.

Still, this day would involve lots of aggressive poling to boost body and sled up 40-percent grades, so I needed to support the wrist as much as possible. My “wrist widget” brace worked best, but it was impossible to keep in place beneath several jacket and coat sleeves. My hard brace was a good for sleeping, but I couldn’t use it when temperatures were below zero. Poling irritated my wrist, but it hurt the most when I had to do anything else — eating, grabbing things out of my backpack, zipping and unzipping, unpacking and packing.

Hand pain is so frustrating, because it seeps into every action and impacts the quieter moments where I can usually find respite. If my tired legs were the lion that roared throughout the day, my wrist was the kitten that whined all night.


The long rest and two protein-rich meals in Finger Lake had done me some good, though, and I descended from the breakfast cabin feeling better than I had the previous two mornings. This was also the first morning that began in the dark. I took the opportunity to stare at the sky as I crossed scoured ice on Red Lake. Biting wind stung the small strip of exposed skin across my eyebrows, but I was determined to catch of a glimpse of Northern Lights. Alas, there was only the black sky, the splatter of stars, and vague blue light on the horizon that was either dawn or the setting moon.

Within minutes I was already across the lake and slumped over on the first climb, gaining 300 feet of altitude in a half mile and wallowing in a mire of loose snow punched with knee-deep postholes. Commence “The Push.” I must not have been the only one disheveled by morning, because I found a particularly large concentration of what Amber called “trail treasures” along this climb. A ski skin. A single glove. A hat. An unopened package of Gu. These were not useful to me and thus unexciting, just more things to carry for thirty miles and then dump on a table at the next checkpoint, likely never to be claimed. Later, eventual 350-ski winner Mathieu would express gratitude for the return of his skin, so that was worth hauling.
 

The sun slowly rose to a cold but stunningly bluebird day. These are the best days, and I was stoked to find myself surrounded by far-reaching views of the snowy mountains. Stoke, along with a fresh supply of trail mix and other snacks from my drop bag, fueled better energy. I felt like I was finally moving relatively well. Daylight eased my moose-a-noia, and I listened to the audio book of “A Stranger in the Woods,” about a man who lived alone and undetected in a makeshift camp close to a community of vacation homes in northern Maine for 27 years.

My takeaway from this book was that his master thievery was much more interesting than his social distancing … which, as someone who flees to Alaska each year in search of solitude, was more relatable than strange. Of course, the author’s research into the psychology of such an extreme hermit existence would return as prescient lessons for the weeks that followed. For now, still ignorant of the future, I became most emotional during the chapter that described how "the North Woods hermit" struggled to survive winters at 20 below, holed up in his camp and unwilling to start a fire for fear the smoke would reveal his location. As his sleeping bags slowly succumbed to ice buildup, he would remain awake, pacing his camp during the long nights. I could feel the pain of this: the creep of cold and the primal understanding that one must not stop walking. This was a prescient lesson for the future in itself … as the cold creeps in, one must not stop walking.

Even in the present moment, taken literally, this lesson was a hard pill to swallow. Although I was feeling better this morning, my crisis of confidence was deepening. Why did I still feel so weak? It’s been four years since I was first beset with health issues that I’d largely overcome. My thyroid levels and asthma are in check. Past struggles with breathing hadn’t once become an issue this year, even when I was pulling as hard as I could and my heart rate was pegged for long hours. Winter training had gone well, possibly about as well as it could without sacrificing too many other facets of my life to be worth it. My race management was also about as conservative as it could be; I was eating well and prioritizing rest. But I still did not feel up to the task. Possibly, this meant I’d never feel up to the task. I tried to push these unhelpful thoughts out of my head, but the image of the North Woods hermit — badly weakened by the hardships of survival, pacing his camp just to stay alive — haunted me.

As I neared the Happy River Steps, the forest closed in, the trail was stomped with deep hoof prints, and moose-a-noia returned. It was enough to turn off my audio book, and I emerged from my shadowy imagination world to the immediacy of the present — sharp beams of sunlight drawing patterns on the snow, pillowy mounds that looked like fantastic spots for a nap. Trail conditions were better in these protected sections, and eventually Beth passed while pedaling. We chatted for a few minutes, mostly about moose, and I was glad I wasn’t the only one feeling so spooked. I also was silently glad that she was now in front of me, scaring off potential attackers.

 The pillowy snow provided a nice cushion for the Happy River Steps, and descending proved to be a non-issue. I didn’t even need to remove my harness — I just walked down 40-percent grades with the sled behind me, barely nudged by gravity … such was the resistance on the trail this year. The crossing where the Happy River pours into the Skwentna River is a stunning spot, and this year was no exception. The two rivers slice through deep gorges rimmed with spruce forest, but the confluence is a wide-open area with expansive views. Overhead is a skyline of jagged peaks, drenched in snow and stretching out in all directions. It’s one of my favorite spots on the route, and all of my other visits here have happened amid overcast skies, snowstorms, or in the middle of the night. It was particularly startling to experience this place in brilliant sunlit clarity.

Photo by Amber Bethe

The climb out of the Happy River gorge is a mere 0.2 miles, but painful. The deep snow this year actually assisted in making it easier to ascend. I was able to kick steps and anchor in for the hard pull up a near-vertical embankment. Amber had been close behind the entire morning, but I didn’t notice her presence until I stopped near the top of the climb to eat a snack. I’ll admit that I was beginning to feel a bit of competitive spark with Amber, because we did so much leapfrogging. She was clearly stronger than me on the move, but I guessed she stopped more often than I did, which allowed me to hold a similar pace.
 

The thousand-mile and the 350 are distinctly two different races these days, and it’s pointless to try to compete with anyone in the others. Faye, the leading woman on foot, was already nearly a day ahead of us, and if even if I got to McGrath before Amber, she’d still be second in the short race. But it is funny, this racing thing. I don’t think of myself as a competitive person, but obviously I am. As we chatted, I felt this strange urge to hold my position. So as she settled in with a bag of homemade cookies — cue jealousy — I hurried to finish my handfuls of trail mix and keep walking.

Of course Amber passed again, less than a mile later. For the rest of the day I was alone, admonishing my heavy legs, running hot and cold beneath a blazing sun and shocking chill, occasionally trying to hold a conversation with my stuffed Siberian husky, Bernadette (I'll admit the imaginary friend magic that carried me through 2018 didn't quite happen this year), and pondering the baffling, or perhaps not-so-baffling, existence of the North Woods hermit. Frequently my strength flagged to the point where I'd stop to sit down on my sled, but I never let myself languish for long. I reminded my temperamental brain how incredibly lucky we were to be experiencing this place on this day, of all places and days.

 “This is the Alaska Range. The Alaska Range! It’s right over there!”

Day faded into a shadowy late afternoon. My cognitive function faded to a simple wave of climbs and descents, punctuated with flashes of determination, winces of sharp pain, sparks of awe, and occasional hopelessness. About three miles before Rainy Pass Lodge, I heard a swishing sound and turned around to see a skier. I was near the top of a punchy rise, and he was gliding toward me as though gravity somehow worked in reverse for him. It was Asbjorn, the practically professional Danish skier who was aiming to become the first person to ski the thousand miles to Nome within the 30-day limit imposed by this particular race. As far as anybody knew, this would be the first official ski of the full Northern or Southern Route of the Iditarod Trail since 2000, when a duo of skiers made the trip in 33 days.

Most other human-powered Iditarod benchmarks have been achieved, but the ski to Nome remains elusive. Why? As best as I can tell — and speaking as a particularly poor skier — skiing is the most demanding discipline. The rough, icy, often snowless terrain takes skill to navigate, and one must achieve a high level of skill before skis become more helpful than hindering. This year of abundantly deep snow was no doubt *the* year to attempt this route on skis. And Asbjorn was clearly the person to do it — even brief observation of his technique was humbling. He was skiing, parallel skiing, without a hint of struggle, up some of the steepest grades. He seemed to have no problem holding 4 or 5 mph indefinitely, moving with what looked like a lot less effort than I was expending at 2 mph. For a few days it was unclear to me why he was positioned back here with the likes of myself, but he was a smart racer who was pacing himself for success on the long haul to Nome — moving fast during the day, and resting long at night.

Asbjorn moved to pass me like I was standing still, but he did pause to mention that he was intentionally hurrying to make it to Rainy Pass Lodge by dinner time.

"I missed it last year. I'm not going to miss it this year!" he proclaimed.

I'd forgotten about dinner, and Asbjorn's mention of it caused me to bristle. Rainy Pass Lodge is one of the more luxurious destinations along the route, catering to fly-in tourists. Each night they serve a home-cooked dinner, and even the smelly racers are invited to partake if they like. The meal is $50 but incredible: Grilled steak, baked potatoes, vegetables, bread, lemonade, and dessert — all you can eat, of course, with bottomless glasses of wine. If you miss or don't want to pay for dinner, you get what the race provides in the separate mushers' cabin: Unopened cans of soup, floating in a vat of water on the wood stove. If you're lucky, there's still some pilot bread left over on the table, and maybe hot water if someone remembered to refill the electric kettle. It was getting late and I had already accepted that I was having a lukewarm can of soup for dinner. Then, here comes Asbjorn, moving as though propelled by a motor, brimming with optimism.

Just when I feel physically shattered and believe I've lost all control of my mental game, there's often a spark of inspiration that surprises me. After Asbjorn passed, I shored up my aching quads, shoved a handful of gummy candy in my mouth, and checked my GPS. "Three miles an hour. Three miles an hour and I can do it." Then I marched, mostly staring at the screen, occasionally looking up to appreciate the intense beauty that still surrounded me. The sun was setting now, and glimmers of pink and lavender light bathed the distant slopes. I could have plopped down on my sled and languished happily as darkness descended and the possibility of Northern Lights returned. But I'll admit, I was more motivated by food. Fixating on my GPS screen to ensure three miles an hour was the only way food would happen.

As sunlight faded the temperature plummeted precipitously — 8 below, then 14 below, then 19 below, in a matter of minutes. I was lightly dressed and shivering, but I couldn't stop to add layers. It would take too much time. Maybe the cold will motivate me to march faster, I thought, but no ... my shoulders were quaking and my core temperature was definitely dropping. But I was close, so close. Steak will make it all better! I lifted my knees and launched into a motion that until that moment I firmly believed I no longer had in me — running.

It was 6:38 when I dropped onto the lake, past a cozy-looking Arctic Oven tent pitched on the ice next to a small plane, and continued shuffling toward the lodge. I briefly entered the mushers' cabin to unpack a few things, then jogged to the main lodge, entering just a few minutes before 7. Dinner was just starting to be served. It took some time to peel off my deeply ice-crusted clothing and stop shivering enough to feel presentable, but eventually I joined the table with the people that had become my group: George and Graham (the Kiwi cyclists), Mathieu and Asbjorn (the European skiers), Beth and Amber.

The steak was abundant and the wine flowed freely. Pain was forgotten and happiness brimmed as we enjoyed the spoils of our small victory: We'd made it to Rainy Pass Lodge, the halfway point on the route to McGrath! Of course, for me, it was less than one sixth of the distance to Nome. But for all of us, Rainy Pass Lodge was the last respite before a critical point of no return. One we crossed over the Alaska Range, retreat would become almost unworkably difficult. And the veterans among us knew ... all of the hardest days were yet to come. 

Last days of innocence — day two

March 3, 2020. Yentna River, Alaska. 12 below zero and clear. 

It was a harsh awakening. A cloud of frosted breath obstructed the dimly lit room as my breath quickened. I tried to sit up, but my back was pressed in a notch between two couch cushions. The muscles had tightened so much that I felt immobilized. In a brief panic I rolled onto the hard floor; my sore knees hit first with a painful thud. My body felt clammy. I unzipped my parka and pulled down the hood, focusing on deep breaths. As my heart rate slowed I pressed my hand under my shirt to confirm a film of cold sweat pooled around my chest.

The temperature in this large, closed-off and unheated room couldn’t have been much above freezing, but the body’s internal thermostat was malfunctioning. I tend to get these night sweats when I’m deep in a recovery hole and my body seems to be desperately expelling whatever toxins build up during damaging efforts. In recent years the night sweats have become increasingly rare thanks to muscle memory and better management of my body’s needs. I’d never experienced them so early in an endurance effort.

Every joint in my body, from the balls of my feet to my lower neck, seemed to creak and groan as I stood. I removed my puffy layers and hung them on a chair to dry. Luckily these hadn’t taken on much moisture, but my base layer was soaked. I probably shouldn’t have slept in the down coat, I thought, but this room was genuinely frigid. Without the puffy layers, I started shivering profusely. Vapors of breath continued to swirl around my face.

 “I need to get a handle on this,” I thought, without any real idea how I would do so.

 I sat on the couch to pull on my pants. My calves were red and swollen, already in that phase where my legs become two uniform bulging tubes from knees to toes. When I scratched my skin it was hot to the touch, unlike my chest and shoulders, which felt like ice. My feet were still in good shape, but I had developed a few heat blisters around the base of my cankles. Heat blisters are also normal for me, a result of the vapor barrier socks I wear to protect my feet. Snowshoeing through powder means my shoes are constantly caked in snow. Even shoes with a water-resistant Gore-Tex outer layer aren’t impermeable, and eventually “breathable” fabric draws the moisture inside. Experience has taught me that a little bit of excess heat and sweat inside a non-breathable sock layer is a small tradeoff to avoid full-blown trenchfoot.

Outside the closed double doors I could hear laughter and the clinking of dishes. It was breakfast time for the many racers who spent the night at McDougall’s Lodge. My phone said it was 5 a.m., which meant I’d slept solidly for six hours. This was my intention. My race plan from the start was to move with purpose during the day and then rest as long as possible at night, while sticking to my daily mileage goals. Overall things were going to plan. So why did I already feel like I was falling apart? 

Of course, I’d dragged my overladen sled through heavy snow for a back-breaking 66 miles in 32 hours with scarcely a 90-minute lunch break at Yentna Station. One six-hour night of sleep wasn’t going to recover all of that, but it was satisfying enough. I felt energized if creaky. As I stood and moved around the room, my joints loosened and the shivering stopped.

Having put myself together as well as I could, I opened the double doors of the rec room and emerged in the brightly-lit, well-heated dining room. Racers crowded around the table, and the two women proprietors were scooping up heaping plates of eggs, biscuits and gravy. On the table they’d placed jugs of orange juice and water, and I poured large glasses of both, feeling desperately thirsty despite my body's obvious water retention and leg edema. The morning conversation was lively, even among the cyclists who had been pushing their bikes for two days. Abundant food, warmth and hospitality are the highest currency on the trail, and we felt rich beyond belief. For all of this luxury — two meals, bottomless coffee and orange juice, a bed, and a warm shower if we wanted — the proprietors of McDougall’s only charged $45 per person.
 

As I packed my sled outside, I noted the temperature had dropped to 12 below. It would be as low as minus 16 on the river before the sun rose, but the wind had calmed, and the air felt surprisingly pleasant. Something about breakfast wasn’t sitting right — or, more likely, my digestive system was adjusting to imbalances — but before I’d even hiked a mile, nausea swept over me. Every hundred steps or so I stopped to gather my bearings. Deep breaths stifled the urge to vomit and I held onto my breakfast, but for a few hours I was in an unhappy place.

After sunrise Janice and her brother, Matt, pedaled up behind me. I moved over to let them pass. They seemed to be in great moods, noting that trail conditions had improved substantially. They’d been able to hold speeds over five miles an hour, Janice told me, smiling wide as she spoke. I simultaneously felt sympathy that a cyclist as strong as Janice was happy with five miles an hour, while feeling a surge of jealousy because I was never going to see a similar twelve-minute-mile … probably ever, for the rest of my life. If my GPS recorded anything above 2.5 mph for even a few steps, I hadn’t seen it yet. This was the fastest speed I could achieve, a veritable sprint. My legs felt leaden, as though I was wading through waist-deep water. I was still wearing snowshoes, and I wasn’t so enamored with them anymore.

The sun rose higher, the clear sky brightened to a brilliant shade of blue, and my body slowly warmed up. The ache in my muscles abated, and my stomach began to settle. The last wisps of clouds faded and I enjoyed the big views that travel on the wide-open river affords. Denali still loomed to the northwest, but now I could see the jagged definition of closer peaks in the Alaska Range, and in front of those, the Shell Hills. The wide slopes looked like pillows of snow glittering in the sunlight.

I love traveling the frozen rivers. I appreciate the simple navigation, the sweeping views, the lack of hills. Most people in this sport think river travel is boring, but I find it pleasantly meditative … albeit still dangerous. Frozen rivers also feature open water and hidden overflow, and I’d encountered patches of slush here and there. But this year, after a winter of consistently low temperatures and heavy snow cover, the river ice seemed about as stable as it could be.

Ten miles and perhaps five hours into the morning, Missy and Beth pedaled past. They’d left McDougall’s before me, so I was surprised to see them. As it turned out Beth had the horrifying setback of two flat tires, and was now riding on her single spare tube and a prayer that the repair on her other tubeless tire would hold. Mechanicals, even simple ones, can be such a big setback out here. I’ll be honest. This is the part I will never miss about cycling the Iditarod Trail — the part where you have to depend on a bicycle.

 The day warmed and wind increased in velocity as I turned toward the Skwentna River confluence. I was still engaged in strenuous effort near the edge of what I could even sustain, and warding off sweat became a tricky proposition. I was constantly stopping to remove my hat, buff, and jacket, then replacing them once again when a chill clamped down after a few minutes. I couldn’t find a balance. My body's internal thermostat was still confused.

Skwentna Roadhouse was bustling as a dozen or so racers mowed through lunch in the big dining hall. I ordered chili but forgot to ask for no onions. Between an explosion of raw onions and the dregs of some burnt beans from the bottom of the pan, I couldn’t force myself to eat much of it, but I did appreciate a banana muffin and lukewarm Dr. Pepper.

I hung out longer than I should have, drinking at least four cups of coffee and laughing with Missy and Beth. Missy let me tether Internet from her phone and I did my only Trackleaders status check of the race, confirming that Beat was already closing in on Shell Lake and the lead bikers had only made it as far as Finger Lake, just forty miles farther up the trail. The lead runners were still with them.

“Everyone’s still held up at Finger Lake,” I said to Missy. “Must be horrible beyond there.”

 Missy grumbled something under her breath and ordered another plate of lasagna.

Outside Skwentna are several trails leading in all directions. I made several loops while looking for the outhouse (relishing a chance to use toilet paper where it was available), then started down a narrow track with chest-high snow berms on both sides. After a mile I was sure something wasn't right, finally consulted my GPS, and swore out loud. I’d ventured onto the alternate trail that leads to Skwentna, and was heading back toward the Yentna River. Turning my sled around in this tunnel of snow proved more difficult than anticipated, and eventually required removing the poles and lifting the 50-pound mass over the snow berm to point it in the right direction. Between this and two bonus miles, I lost an hour of daylight.

Back on route, I enjoyed respite from the wind where Skwentna’s single road cuts through the birch forest. Overhead, gusts howled and barren branches swayed. I knew it was going to be bad once I hit the open swamps before the Shell Hills. It would be a crosswind from the north. It was always a crosswind from the north. At the edge of the swamp, I stopped in the last remaining strip of wind shelter to strap on my snowshoes and adjust my buff. As I stood, I saw my friend Cheryl and her traveling partner Nina pushing their bikes back toward Skwentna.

 “We’re going to rest and try again in the morning,” Nina told me as she passed. “We still have time so no use burning all of our reserves tonight.”

“Good idea, going back,” I said to Cheryl as she passed, and she nodded. Her face was mostly covered but her eyes looked somewhat stricken. “Tough year,” I thought.

The trail was in terrible condition. Thigh-deep drifts swept across the path. There was only a narrow strip left unburied, and it had been punched out by others. It was difficult to hold the line, and I kept tripping over my own snowshoes. My sled jerked and threatened to tip over on the off-camber surface. Blasting gusts of wind threatened to tip me over.

These were perhaps the most annoying trail conditions yet, but I was in an inexplicably fantastic mood. Evening had arrived, my favorite time of day. The sun drifted low on the horizon, illuminating the blowing snow in such a way that it appeared to be fluid — a mesmerizing current in a golden stream. The wind carried a fearsome bite; the ambient temperature had fallen to 6 below, which meant windchills were likely 25 below. I’d layered up well but didn’t put on goggles, so facing directly into the wind incited rapid eyelid blinking, a sharp pain in my eyebrows and ice-cream headache near the bridge of my nose. But Denali was over there, glowing pink in the evening light, and I couldn’t help but glance north, again and again.

As darkness descended I began the climb into the Shell Hills, gaining 600 feet in a scant 1.5 miles. Surrounded by thick forest, the trail was well protected here. Climbing even these steep grades on packed trail felt easier than the powder-choked river and swamp slogging earlier in the day. The trail cut deep into the snowpack, with berms sometimes rising to shoulder level, high enough that I couldn’t see my most immediate surroundings unless I strained my neck. I developed a terrible paranoia, and muted my already low-volume audio book so I could fret about every crack and moan of wind whistling through branches.

This fear of darkness emerged from prior warnings about especially high levels of moose activity along the trail this year. Snowpacks neared record depths, and moose were having difficulty moving around. This left them hungrier than usual and susceptible to predator attacks. In turn, they became agitated and reactive, a threat to anyone who encounters them on these trails that they like to use. People who don’t know better think of moose as dopey forest cows, but they are so much meaner and incredibly dangerous. If a moose is grumpy and you so much as look at it wrong, it will rear up and stomp you into a bloody pulp. We’d been warned this year’s moose were exceptionally grumpy.

All the way through the Shell Hills, my headlamp would catch the gleam of a reflective marker and I’d startle, convinced I was looking an angry moose in the eye. The moose-a-noia was unnerving but effective in warding off the sleep monster. I marched with purpose through the tunnel of snow. I wondered what I’d do if I encountered a moose here. Of course I’d back off, but I’d had such difficulty turning my sled around after Skwentna that I knew I was pretty much a sitting duck as long as I was strapped to it. I’d have to drop my harness, dart behind the sled, and if a moose started coming at me, I would pick up the duffle and hold the whole thing over my body like a shield as I dove into a snowbank. Yes, that was my plan for angry moose. I unhooked the waist-strap of my harness and moved mittens and a balaclava to an outside pocket, in anticipation of frantic retreat.

For all of my vigilance and dozens of false alarms, I didn’t catch even a glimpse of what I could be certain was a real moose. Eventually I dropped onto Shell Lake and battled howling north wind and breathtaking windchill toward a friendly light in the distance. This I knew was Shell Lake Lodge. Although not an official checkpoint, the race directors had rented cabins this year, and I looked forward to another warm spot to dry out my frosty face mask and snow-caked footwear.

It was after midnight when I walked inside, so I was surprised to find two people waiting up in the main lodge. I hadn’t expected there to be volunteers here. One was Kari’s mother, a cheerful midwesterner who served soup and homemade soda bread with butter. I find it terribly difficult to socialize at the end of these long, hard days on the trail, so I remember nothing about our conversation, but the food was transcendently delicious.

 Like McDougall’s, the cabins at Shell Lake Lodge were crowded — probably with the same group of people — and I was one of the last to arrive for the night. But one walker was getting ready to leave, and I was able to score his spot, a double bed in room shared with two others in a bunk bed. I added a log to the wood stove, but suspected none of us would be motivated to wake up and stoke the fire when it burned out in an hour or two. I unrolled my sleeping bag in anticipation of plummeting subzero temperatures that wouldn’t take long to permeate everything.

Last days of innocence — day one

March 1, 2020. Knik Lake, Alaska. 22 degrees and cloudy. 

It felt like an ordinary scene on an ordinary day. This, I suppose, is an indictment of the lengths one’s perception can skew over time, because for most people it would be a scene of strange choices bordering on madness: Seventy-some people from all over the world, standing at the edge of a frozen lake in Alaska, strapping survival gear to sleds and bikes and raring to go for a week or a month of sleep-deprived solo trekking across the frigid wilderness. This felt normal to me though — the starting line of a 350- and thousand-mile human-powered race across Alaska.

When I first lined up here in 2008, it felt like a monumental undertaking that would forever change my life. What I didn’t yet understand was that I’d return ten more times in the next twelve years — to take on this once-in-a-lifetime adventure again the following year ... to watch a man I hadn’t yet met but would grow to love embrace the thing I loved, again and again ... to join him for an attempt on foot ... to hurtle myself into the thousand-mile ride to Nome ... and then another 350 foot race to bolster more experience for a thousand-mile attempt on foot in 2020. The month-long, solo walk to Nome seemed, for me, to be the ultimate endurance challenge: An endeavor that felt far beyond my physical and emotional limits, but for which I’d amassed just enough knowledge and experience that I might succeed in overcoming these personal hurtles.

I’ve recently written an entire book about my whys for walking the Iditarod Trail, so I won’t rehash them here, but it was a simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying prospect. For most of February I became difficult to live with, a scatterbrained bundle of nerves and irritability. The notion that I … Jill, age 40, mediocre athlete and truly not tough or brave except by sheer force of will … would in a few weeks’ time once again strain all of my strength against a heavy sled and lay down in the snow at 40 below … all of it was surreal.

Now, with all of that a few weeks behind me, it’s unsettling to realize which memories now seem surreal: The Knik Bar, bustling with patrons, shoulder-to-shoulder with other racers, sharing trail tips, laughing, hugging, nervously nibbling on cheeseburgers without a second thought about washing our hands first. We had days or weeks of harrowing weather and merciless wilderness in front of us. But in hindsight, it feels like we didn’t have a care in the world.

The starting roster included 24 people aiming for Nome and 53 people on their way to McGrath. The Nome roster included four women — myself and Loreen, who holds the current women’s record on foot, and two cyclists, Missy and Jill (I joked with her that we’d confuse our drop bags, but then she made hers much prettier than mine.) Among the thousand-mile men were thirteen cyclists, six walkers and one skier.

It’s interesting to note that the roster featured at least 80 participants as of the previous day’s pre-race meeting, but several had dropped out right before the start, citing the demoralizing weather forecast. After three feet of snow fell over the Susitna River Valley in the past two days, the latest weather predictions called for temperatures rising to near freezing and two more feet of wet and heavy snow, starting Sunday afternoon. Beyond the snow dump, forecasts called for high winds and then a subzero cold snap by mid-week. Longtime Alaskans know well that one can’t trust a weather forecast — unless it’s bad. Then it’s probably true.

Most of my recent winter foot races — the 2018 ITI 350, the 2019 White Mountains 100, and the 2020 Fat Pursuit — were marked by warm temperatures and a barrage of heavy snow. I feel well-acquainted with the difficulties of these conditions, the sloggiest of slogs. I also know what they mean for my chances of finishing. With a wealth of personal data to draw from, I envisioned a number of scenarios and formed my own models, of sorts, for schedules and paces I would need to maintain in the thousand-mile race. After the Fat Pursuit, where Beat and I endured a constant inundation of snow over the course of the race and rarely exceeded two miles per hour at near maximum effort, I concluded: “During the ITI I can endure two, maybe three days that are as hard and slow as that. Then maybe seven to ten mediocre days with high winds or cold. But if I’m going to make it to Nome in thirty days, I’m going to need a few fast-coasting sections like we had in 2014 and 2016. I’m going to need a lot of luck.”

Given the record amounts of snow that already covered vast swaths of Alaska, I knew the hard-packed and resistance-free trails of those low-snow years were never going to materialize. But a lot of luck … that could maybe still happen.

Flurries were already wafting from the slate gray sky when the race launched at its usual strange time of 2 p.m. Sunday afternoon. The field of skiers and walkers trundled through messy tracks across Knik Lake and climbed into the rolling hills. Although I’m not certain, I think this year had one of the largest non-bike fields yet, with 18 walkers and three skiers in the 350 division, and eight walkers and one skier in the 1,000-mile division. I hoped to be in the mix and not off the back like I was for much of the first half of 2018, but I also wasn’t going to push my pace early.

The group streamed past and I enjoyed relative solitude through the birch forest, soaking up the happy nostalgia I always feel when I make my way through this particular place. Fat snowflakes gained velocity as I crossed into the open swamps and reached the shoreline of Sevenmile Lake. Visibility was near zero, but I still paused to take a deep breath and look around. Flakes stung my nostrils like ground pepper; I sneezed and smiled.

Sevenmile is one of my “soul places,” the kind of spot where I might ask a friend to spread some of my ashes after I die. It was here that I watched the sunrise after a night-long sleet storm during the 2006 Susitna 100, my first endurance race of any kind. The sky finally began to clear as I pushed my wildly under-equipped mountain bike through fresh powder. At the edge of the lake, a golden beam of light prompted me to look up. As I watched sunlight slash through silver clouds, I felt an incredible exhilaration, unlike any I’d experienced before. Not only did I survive the night, but I was going to survive this whole experience. I was going to finish this race, this impossible thing I set out to do! I’ve been chasing similarly defining moments ever since, with every endurance race I embark on. I consider it both good and bad that human nature dictates a larger dose of adventure for each new high. That I now need to traverse a thousand miles of frozen Alaska without mechanical aid to meet the same impossible challenge is … well … good and bad.

Snow continued to pile up at an astonishing rate. Past Sevenmile I was hiking in a trail-breaking conga line with Donald and Jason when an approaching snowmobiler stopped to warn us that there wasn’t much of a trail ahead. He told us he was the only one who had been through since 18 inches of snow fell the previous day, and he’d only made it to within a few miles of the Susitna River before drifts forced him to turn around.

 “Take the Junior Iditarod Trail, that’s the only way to go,” he advised. “It’s about, oh, 23 miles to the river from here. You’ll want to get there fast before the trail blows all the way in. If you don’t get there tonight … I don’t know.” I curled my lips in a bemused smile and thanked him. I wondered if he even understood just how slow we were moving. It would take us at least ten hours to reach the river.

After the man left, Jason indicated he hadn’t heard, so I clarified, “Almost certainly Trail 11, same route from last year.” And to Donald, who until this year's race had always been a biker and taken a different route across Flathorn Lake, I said, “It’s the way most walkers will go. Turn right at the Nome sign. Follow the footprints.” I felt chuffed at my trail knowledge. I sure hoped I was right.

At the Burma Road crossing I caught up to several of the ladies with sleds — Loreen, Kari and Amber — as they stopped to pull on extra jackets and headlamps. The fact that it was headlamp time at Burma Road was a little disheartening. Burma Road was around mile 10. In 2018 I’d traveled most of the way to the Nome sign, which is mile 18, before I needed a headlamp. This year’s trail was already much slower, and 2018 had been hard enough. Well … sigh.

Sure enough, by the time we reached the Nome sign the night had become chaotic with swirling snow. The trail was a mess. Clearly more tracks went to the left, which is the official trail toward Flathorn Lake — longer, and a lot more exposed to wind and blowing snow than Trail 11. Trail 11 is hillier, but I felt strongly that the shorter distance and forest protection was more than worth it in this deep snow. Kari was examining her GPS as the intersection. I told her my plan. She and a group of three or four others formed a train of headlamps across the swamp. The track was narrow, already largely blown in and broken only by footprints. I stopped to put on my snowshoes and caught up with Amber, who was doing the same.

 “Snowshoes suck but they are always worth it,” I observed. “It’s just like biking … always worse when tire pressure is too high.” Amber lives in Anchorage, and has been a steady presence in the Alaska fat bike racing scene. She’s fast, and often wins. One of my proud moments during the 2014 White Mountains 100 was when I caught up to Amber at the first checkpoint, and then of course I never saw her again. But she’s brand new to ultrarunning … her previous longest-distance foot effort was the Iditasport 100K just a few weeks earlier, and she’d never raced anything as long as the ITI350, even by bike. She told me she was curious to try out a new sport and take on a challenge where she had no idea what might happen. I admired her audacity. 

We trundled onward in our snowshoes and soon caught up to the conga line of three racers, led by an Italian man, postholing through the deep powder. The berms on either side were hip-high, impossible to pass, so we settled into their rhythm, which was terribly slow. It was so slow that Amber and I both and time to pull out our respective sandwiches, nibbling and chatting amicably as we marched along. Soon I started to feel cold. At an open swamp, where the berm was only knee-high, I plunged into the deep powder and turned the effort level to 11 to pass the group. As Amber and I punched past, the Italian man said, “impressive.”

“Snowshoes,” I replied. “They’re always worth it.”

The night deepened with the accumulating snow. I was grateful for the tracks of others in front of me, as the trail was often barely discernible except for foot traffic. Amber, who drifted ahead some hours ago, had stopped near the river bank to bivy. Bivying by the Big Su is usually my plan as well, but I have enough experience with these conditions to know how horrible it is to set up a bivy site in wet, rapidly accumulating snow. Anyway, I rarely manage to catch any sleep on the first night of an endurance race, so I’d probably only succeed in getting all of my stuff wet while I thrashed around for an hour or two.

I dropped onto the river and followed the only track I could see now — a ski track — toward the confluence with the Yentna River. To my left I could see headlamps in the mist — probably bikers making their way upriver from the Dismal Swamp. That I was still ahead of bikers at mile 31 wasn’t a big surprise … the fresh powder often piled high against my shins. These were definitely bike-pushing conditions. Still, although I had snowshoes, my sled dragged through this heavy powder like an anvil covered in sandpaper. Dragging a sled or pushing a bike … I’ve done my fair share of both, and I still can’t decide what I truly believe is physically more difficult. Basically, it’s whatever I’m doing at the time. So no, I didn’t believe I had it much easier than the bikers. They were just lazier. ;-) (That’s a nod to Beat, by the way. I am in my heart and will always be a lazy biker.)

Despite the arduous conditions, I moved well through the night. I’m also a night owl at heart, and I tend to fare better than most with the wee morning hours. My down times often happen when others catch their second winds — sunrise, and again in the late afternoon. Morning light revealed a clearing sky and gorgeous views of Denali drenched in pink light beneath a dark strip of clouds. And indeed, this is when my fatigue clamped down. I’d spent the entire night listening to an audio book of Bill Bryson’s “A Walk In the Woods,” but now just had to switch things off because story time is sleepy time. The trail began to firm up and a few bikers finally passed while pedaling.

I reached Yentna Station around 1 p.m., which was a disappointing stat. That was two hours later than my arrival in 2018, even though I rested for several hours that year, and this year I just marched straight through the night. But Beat was still at the checkpoint — he was getting ready to leave — and was impressed to see me. “You’re the second Nome foot racer!” he exclaimed. I smiled weakly.

Inside, I learned about some of the night’s carnage. Bikers who had sustained injuries from extended pushing were arranging rides out. Others told tales of getting lost amid the maze of valley trails, taking all manner of alternate routes before finding their way to the river. Still others turned around in the storm, never even reaching this first checkpoint. Those who marched through the night like me were talking about sleeping, but it was the middle of the day, and the lodge was crowded and loud. I ordered a quick 1 p.m. breakfast — admittedly a smaller portion than I would have liked, and featuring Spam — and boosted myself out of there within an hour.

Back on the wide-open Yentna River, the afternoon was white and hot and I was grumpy. I spent all of a mile out of my snowshoes before deciding trail conditions were still too punchy, and strapped the painful and awkward devices back on my feet. Snowshoes are always worth it, yes, but there’s still a price to pay.

At this point I was listening to “Becoming” by Michelle Obama, a 19-hour audio book that would take me well into the following day. I especially enjoyed the segments about her hardscrabble childhood, and lost myself in the world of 1960s working-class Chicago as the afternoon sun blazed and an unnerving number of moose regarded me warily from points along the river.

The wind picked up and the late-afternoon sleepies arrived. I was determined to reach a wilderness lodge about 16 miles from Yentna Station, McDougall’s, before they potentially closed for the night. So I marched as hard as my aching legs would muster. Speeds still barely topped 2 mph. It would have to do.

I arrived at the lodge around 10 p.m. Two women were standing in an otherwise empty dining area, and beckoned me to come inside. Before I could hang my shoes on their boot drier (such luxury), they’d whipped up a bowl of chili and a plate of cheesecake. All beds were taken by other racers, but they told me I could sleep on a couch in an adjacent rec room. This room turned out to be unheated, and outdoor temperatures had dropped to four below zero. But I was too lazy to unroll my sleeping bag, so I donned my puffy clothing and drifted into a fitful sleep interrupted by strange night sweats — but it was rest, glorious rest.

The snow is piling up — Fat Pursuit 2020

They say getting to the starting line is the hardest part. That's never true for the Fat Pursuit — although this race can be so ridiculously difficult that it surprises me just a little when anyone gets themselves to the start more than once. I've had three prior starts here, and each once curled into its own disaster. One finish and two DNFs — the last in 2017, when it was 40 below and I stumbled along in a daze, convinced I was slowly asphyxiating. Trust me, believing you're about to pass out when it's 40 below is extremely unfun. At the time I still had no idea that my health was objectively quite poor, but 2017 cemented my exit from this pursuit of suffering. DNFs be damned.

Then, in late 2019, the race's evil genius ... er, director ... Jay Petervary, contacted us with an opportunity. He was interested in opening the event to skiers and runners, similar to other popular winter races (Fat Pursuit had been a fat bike-only race, thus the name "Fat" Pursuit.) It was a little late to get the official ball rolling for the longer distances, but he was looking for a few beta testers to run and ski the course and provide feedback for future years. The timing was right for one more big shakedown ahead of the Iditarod. Beat jumped on board immediately, and invited our friend Daniel to join. I was fairly certain I couldn't finish the 200K course in the loose time limit set by the event — 60 hours — so I proposed taking on a modified loop that would come in at 100 miles. "That will be a much more popular distance with runners," I reasoned to JayP.


Just a measly hundred miles through the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, where volatile weather pummels the mountains with upwards of 400 inches of snow a year, temperatures frequently plummet below zero, and the course traverses two remote and wind-blasted ridges along the Continental Divide. All I needed to do was get myself to the start.

This proved surprisingly difficult. T-minus 42 hours, I was sitting at the Seattle airport listening to Alaska Airlines announce that the Denver airport was in "full stoppage" due to high winds, no one was being allowed to land, and the whole airport had been closed. Well, crap. I searched around for flights that would take me directly to Idaho Falls or Jackson, but there was nothing available within a reasonable time limit. I did some math, then texted a gear list to Beat. He'd already shopped for my requested snacks, but now I needed him to gather everything else I would need in the race. "If I make it home before tomorrow morning," I wrote, "maybe I can still go with you."

Ultimately my flight did take off and land in Denver, and I was home before midnight, but only just. T-minus 36 hours. I pawed through the pile Beat had compiled and deemed it good enough. I had no idea whether everything I needed was actually in there, but I trust Beat. I washed the clothing I wore in Anchorage and wanted to re-wear in Idaho, and collapsed for five hours of sleep.

T-minus 28 hours. We were on the road west, battling high winds and black ice across Wyoming. We met up with Daniel and then Beat switched cars, so I drove alone up the mountainous and snow-covered Highway 189 as snow started to fall. We waited ten minutes for a few elk among a massive herd to amble across a designated crossing. We turned toward Jackson and learned that Teton Pass was closed by not one, but two avalanches that buried the road. We detoured south with heavy traffic that slowly trickled elsewhere as we entered Idaho and the Swan Valley. Beat was now driving and Daniel followed closely as we picked our way west and north. The empty potato fields of Eastern Idaho were a blitzkrieg of violent winds and blowing snow. Drifts overtook the road, some as deep as the bumper of our Subaru Outback. Every time we punched into a drift I braced for impact, certain the car would stop and we'd be hopelessly stuck in this wind-blasted wasteland, where we would have to crawl into our race-required 0-degree sleeping bags to stave off death.

Hours of high stress muted my short-term memory, but we eventually made it to Island Park sometime after 10 p.m. T-minus 14 hours.

When we awoke on Friday morning, skies were clear and it was 18 below zero. We joked with our friends Eric and Corrine, who had been so excited to leave frigid Fairbanks for tropical Idaho, because the forecast predicted temperatures in the 20s. "Never trust the forecast for this region," we had warned them earlier, and now felt justified in our gloating. But only for a second. The rest of the forecast I fully believed, because it called for the one thing I really didn't want — a massive winter storm arriving Friday afternoon and continuing through Tuesday. "Expect up to FOUR FEET of snow at high altitudes," the National Weather Service warned, emphasis theirs.

Thankfully, Beat did a great job packing and I had most of the gear I'd hoped to bring. I tore through the load and extracted what I could. I wanted a reasonably light but realistic load, as I still expected to be out in a blizzard for most of 60 hours. Beat had been battling an upper respiratory infection and hinted that he might stick with me for the "short" loop, which he'd decide by the first checkpoint.

We started at noon with the 200-mile bikers, who turned south into the best part of that course (Herriman State Park singletrack) while we proceeded east on freshly groomed corduroy. The conditions were sublime — firm footing and plenty of glide for the sleds. We waltzed along effortlessly, chatting with Corrine and Eric on skies as well as several 200K bikers who were previewing the course (their race started the following morning.) Daniel and Beat quickly put some distance on me, but I was still keeping a 3.5-4 mph pace, according to my GPS.

Photo by Eric Troyer

Briefly running for the camera. Had I truly understood what was coming, I probably would have done a little more of this while I still could.

Beat was waiting for me at checkpoint one, which volunteers were only beginning to set up, so there wasn't yet any food or water available. According to my GPS we were nine miles into the course, and had taken only two and a half hours to get there. We were on fire! But Beat wasn't feeling great, and said he'd stick with me. I admit to being a little disappointed about this ... both because I was still strongly questioning whether he should be out here at all since he was sick and might be risking pneumonia, and also because I value the ability to make all of my own decisions in a race. However, it's considerably less daunting and more entertaining to have a partner, so ultimately I was glad to team up. After all, we weren't exactly "racing" anyone. Might as well enjoy it.

My gratitude for Beat ratcheted up a couple hours later when, quite suddenly, my sled detached from the harness. Both elastic attachments had broken — one probably fell apart a while ago, and the other finally snapped. This is the kind of thing I'd typically check before a race, but I hadn't even had enough time to pack my own supplies. And since it was "only" a hundred miles, I only had one spare rope in my repair bag. I don't handle mechanicals well in the best of scenarios, and went into panic mode. I quickly grabbed the metal pole with one hand and sprinted toward Beat, screaming at the top of my lungs so he'd hear me over his headphones. Had I been alone, I probably would have sat down and had a little cry before composing myself and figuring out what to do ... and I would have figured it out; I had several means to fix this problem. But it sure was nice to have Beat take charge of the repair, tie knots into two spare ropes, and guide me through motions I'd partly forgotten. I won't forget again.


Clouds moved in and snow started to fall. The trail pitched steeply upward as a wall of mountains loomed in front of us. By the time the sun set, snow was falling heavily and accumulating on a soft, churned surface of the trail. At mile 16, Beat and I reached the intersection where the 200K course continued straight for a bonus loop of 22 miles, and my modified course turned right. A headlamp approached us. It was Daniel, who continued about a half mile down the 200K route before deciding that he didn't want to break his own trail through rapidly accumulating snow for more than a hundred miles. He'd stick with us, so we could work together.


Through the night we mostly held a line, with Beat pushing a surprisingly hard pace out front, me trying to match him but fading in the middle, and Daniel staying behind me, probably out of courtesy to make sure I didn't fall off the back of the team. We crossed through a burn area where a fierce crosswind blew unobstructed, and for several miles the trail was buried in drifts. Daniel took the lead and punched through waist-deep piles of snow. I had flashbacks of our Subaru in the potato fields. A whiteout swirled around us, coming down so hard that if I faded more than a hundred yards back, by the time I reached Daniel's tracks through the drifts, they had mostly filled with snow.

Daniel soon ran out of gas. He started talking about bivying. It wasn't yet 11 p.m. I was incredulous, because I always believed Daniel to be impervious to the sleep monster — after all, he's Beat's PTL partner, and PTL is a race that requires staying awake while tackling monstrous mountains for five days straight. But the strobe light of a headlamp beam on swirling snow and the rapid motion of eyelids blinking against snowflakes has a hypnotic and sleep-inducing effect — I've been convinced of this ever since the 2018 ITI, which is why I made my own effort to pull up my hood and look down rather than directly into the storm. Just after midnight Daniel gave in, pulled off the trail, and started stomping out a spot to lay out his bivy.

Beat and I continued for another four or five miles before he ran out of water, so we had to take a longer stop as well. I admit that I dislike taking breaks on the trail. It just takes so much effort to set up and break down any kind of stop. It's easier for me to just keep moving, and then do all of my eating and water-making and sock-changing and occasional bivying when I'm about to collapse. So I started with enough drinking water to last until West Yellowstone, but reasoned that boiling water amid this heavy snowfall would be good practice for Alaska. We put on our big coats and down pants, sat on our sled bags and fired up the stove. Beat noted that it was 9 degrees — a fairly pleasant temperature for a stop — but the heavy snowfall complicated tasks and snow seemed to get into everything. I boiled enough water for a hot chocolate-coffee drink and shared with Beat, who was still melting snow.

Shortly before dawn, clouds briefly cleared and the moon came out. This was my favorite part of the night, when I could turn off my headlamp and walk beneath the snow-drenched spruce, rendered in silver and obsidian hues. All things considered, I was still feeling pretty good. However, when the snow started up again I neglected to follow my own rule, continued trying to look at the scenery, blinked too many times against snowflakes and succumbed to the sleep monster. Beat and I took turns leading — not because it was harder to break trail, but because it was easier to mimic the movements of a person in front. In the lead, with no frame of reference, I slumped and stumbled. Occasionally I thought, "I can close my eyes for a second. I'll wake up before I hit the ground." Then I'd let my neck go slack, drifting into a brief but blissful oblivion that even seemed to provide real rest — just enough to snap to alertness when Beat's voice barked out, "Are you falling asleep?"

We reached the edge of West Yellowstone, mile 45, just after 7 a.m. A blue dawn had taken over the snow-covered streets. We stopped in front of a large hotel to remove our snowshoes, which we had been wearing continuously since we connected with Daniel almost 30 miles earlier. It's hard enough to walk on a soft surface while pulling a heavy anchor, without adding bulky and awkward footwear that compresses each foot, reduces circulation and completely changes one's gait. Still, they're necessary to avoid ankle-rolling and tendon-straining, not to mention the exhaustion of postholing in deep snow. I appreciate the support snowshoes provide, but it sure is tedious to snowshoe for 30 miles. And, we both knew, we were likely facing 55 more miles of the same.

The West Yellowstone checkpoint was a welcome respite. A rental house on the edge of town, it was warm if small with limited space to hang up wet clothing. Since we were the first to arrive, we were doted on by the four volunteers, who included Jeffrey — years ago, he read my Tour Divide book and created a painting of a Nanoraptor tire track through the mud, then mailed it to me. The painting still hangs in my front room. I love it, and I had yet to meet him. We enjoyed coffee and raved about the delicious soup ("It's Campbell's," one volunteer admitted, pointing to a stack of cans.) We intended to get in and out, but we got sucked in as one does. Eventually we could see on the tracker that Daniel was getting close, and Beat wanted to wait. This burned up way more time that I wanted to spend not doing much of anything else — not even sleeping (The checkpoints are not set up for sleeping and checkpoint naps are highly discouraged in JayP's races — you're required to carry bivy gear, and you're expected to use it.) But I did look forward to reconnecting with Daniel.

He arrived around 10 a.m., having slept minimally in his bivy — it was windy, and the closure wasn't working properly so snow was blowing in his face. But he was perky again. He wolfed down some soup, raved about it, sorted through his drop bag, and tumble-dried his wet gear. We were all back on the trail by 10:30.

Daytime trail was the worst trail. It was Saturday morning in West Yellowstone, arguably the snowmobile capital of the West, and the route was inundated with machines. Many of them ran paddle tracks, which are designed to provide traction through deep powder but also do a great job of ripping up trails. And since there was already about a foot of new snow on top of the groomed surface, the trail had become a mess of chunks and gray chowder. Meanwhile, machines were buzzing past us every few minutes. I wanted to wade into the woods and just disappear, but figured there was only, oh, about six hours until dark. I could probably endure for that long.

The trail again pitched steeply upward. This was the beginning of the infamous "Two Top" climb, an ascent that is deceptive in its length, contains multiple false summits, and is often treeless and exposed to fierce winds and whiteouts as it traces the Continental Divide for more than five miles.

We had a brief respite from the snow for several afternoon hours, but it picked up in force to match the wind as we crested our first "top" at 7,600 feet. The mean thing about Two Top is that there are actually closer to seven summits before you begin the final descent. Along the first wind-blasted section we saw our last snowmobile for the day. Within an hour trails were so blown in that there was little evidence that any had passed through at all.

The sun set and night returned, again. We dragged ourselves up disconcertingly steep hills and then dragged ourselves down through piles of drifted snow. In open areas the trail had been obliterated. We navigated by GPS, and by tripods that were almost impossible to pick out in the chaotic darkness. I was a little underdressed for the windchill; I could tell because my knees and shoulders ached from the cold. But it seemed unwise to ask the whole team to stop so I could put on more layers. And anyway, we had to be nearing the descent, I thought.

The open plateau continued. This place felt like a winter night in Antarctica, or perhaps the sea ice crossing of the Iditarod Trail. A few times Beat became anxious when we veered away from what I thought was an inaccurate GPS track; I begged to stick with the tripods. We stomped through knee-deep snow until even I was sure we'd left the trail, but then another trail sign would appear.

I got the sense that even ever-calm-and-collected Daniel was on edge. I'd point out a ghost tree, encrusted in such thick ice that it looked like a white monster lurking in the turbulent shadows. He'd reply with a pinched and nervous-sounding, "Hey, look at that."

My core temperature began to drop. I could tell, because now my hands were cold. I had lots of layers in my sled. I knew they'd take effect quickly once I put them on, and it didn't seem urgent enough to stop the whole team just yet. But the cold and windchill put me on edge.

The final top seemed eternal, but eventually clusters of trees formed around us, and then we crossed into the shelter of thicker forest. The churned trail plummeted steeply down the slope, and it was difficult to stay in control. I jogged to try to push blood into my feet, but they were becoming increasingly painful. Beat again talked about taking a break.

"What, already?" My body was wracked with cold and stopping was the last thing I wanted to have to deal with in that moment. "I won't be able to keep my feet warm. I'll have to crawl into my sleeping bag," I protested. Quietly, I was ready to ditch the team. They'd eventually catch up to me; I was the weak link anyway. Beat berated me for my refusal to take breaks, arguing that this was the reason I was so broken by my Iditarod race in 2018. "Losing toes is not going to help me finish the ITI," I grumbled.

Finally we decided that Beat and Daniel would make a brief stop and I'd continue slowly. By then I'd determined that a large part of my inability to make heat was because I was terribly bonked. I pulled out a sleeve of Ritz crackers and munched on them miserably while I slogged through the chowder. I told myself I couldn't stop eating until the sleeve was half empty, and surprised myself by getting through it. I did feel quite a bit better afterward, and it wasn't long before the guys caught up to me. But Daniel was still talking about bivying for a few hours.

"There's a shelter cabin around here," I said. "I remember it, vaguely, from 2015. I don't know where it is and I can't even say for sure that it exists, but I remember there being a cabin."

This was not a convincing case to hold out for a cabin. The guys continued to look for bivy spots as the wind whipped and I whined, "let's find somewhere a little more sheltered." We encountered a young man driving a piston-bully groomer, who knew nothing of a shelter cabin nearby. But he did lay down a smooth track for us to follow — soft, so we still needed to wear our snowshoes, but at least we weren't mired in chowder or powder for a few miles. So we continued while the going was good. Then, about 13 miles from checkpoint three, we came upon a small cabin. Inside the 8-by-8 foot building were two benches and a propane heater. The heater was running! It was warm inside!

Excitedly, we pulled our sleds up to the entrance and rolled out our sleeping bags on the floor. Just before we settled in, we were finally passed by our first biker — Kurt Refsnider, leading the 200K race. I had expected to be passed before West Yellowstone, nearly 24 hours earlier, by the fastest 200-miler riders. But conditions were so difficult that almost no one was getting through.

Beat wanted to set an alarm for 90 minutes. "Who are you racing?" I quipped, and Daniel talked him into two hours. Those two hours between 10 p.m. and midnight were pure bliss. I usually don't sleep for the first two days of an endurance event, but I was so exhausted already. I slept like the dead.

Beat was the only one to hear his midnight alarm. He had already walked outside and returned when he woke me up with a "hey, look, some kind of animal or wolves got into our sleds." I sat up, blinking rapidly, and looked around. The dark interior of the building struck me as familiar, and I thought I was in a cabin in Alaska's White Mountains — Caribou Bluff — and we were on one of our Christmas trips. Of course there were wolves. I stepped outside and blinked some more, as the exterior did not look how I expected it to look. Where were we? What year is it? Both Beat's and my sleds were stretched across the wide trail, and there were bits of wrappers scattered around them. Wait a minute. This is not Alaska. This is Idaho. But where are the wolves?

I put on my shoes and went down to survey the damage. Beat had already picked up his harness and some of the debris. All around the sled were many dozens of small canine tracks — too small to be wolves, but still quite large. They had been dusted with fresh snow, masking the claws, and Beat kept insisting they were cat tracks. But the size would indicate lynx or bobcat, which don't travel in packs. I was fairly certain — and still am — that this was the work of a pack of coyotes. They'd grabbed our harnesses, ripped out the front buckle attachments and tore through the side pockets, rifling out the snacks we'd left inside — because in our fatigue we just didn't think about the possibility of food attracting wild animals. From me they'd stolen almost everything — as I walked around looking for trash, I couldn't even find most of the remnant wrappers or bags. Apparently coyotes don't like Mike and Ikes. The colorful candies were scattered all over the place, but everything else was gone.

"Those little bastards!" I cried out, because that was my food, almost all of it, and I was hungry and didn't want to bonk again. We still had 13 miles to travel to checkpoint three, which was likely to take six hours. They'd eaten a lot of Beat's food as well, and I knew Daniel wasn't carrying much because he hadn't expected this venture to take so long. So I decided to make due with what I had and only beg if I felt things were becoming dire, perhaps if my toes went numb again. Back in the cabin I put toe warmers in my shoes to try to prevent this, and took stock of what I had in my sled bag — two packs of beef jerky and one small package of hazelnut wafer cookies — 330 calories' worth. The jerky was something I brought because I thought it would be good but so far found it too repulsive to consider. But I could probably milk those cookies for a while.

We followed those bastards' tracks up the trail for nearly a mile — I'd guess there were four to six of them, trotting smugly with all of my snacks in their bellies. I felt briefly nervous that they were still lurking and would come back for more. In my addled mindset, I hoped this would happen. I was hungry, angry, and ready to open up a can of whoop-ass.

The miles to checkpoint three — known as "Man Cave" dragged on interminably. There were ups and downs, heavy falling snow, many inches of fresh powder over a track groomed only hours before, and I was deep in an energy deficit. I drifted far behind Beat in Daniel. We reached another open area where the wind raged, and I could no longer see any evidence of their tracks even though they were only a quarter mile in front of me. I took my last bite of cookie, which emitted a short burst of energy. I decided my only recourse now was to cue up something motivating on my iPod and help prolong it. I flipped through to find a song that I've made my anthem for several ultra races, from the 2018 ITI to the 2019 White Mountains 100 to the Bryce 100 — yes, even the Bryce 100, which is in Southern Utah in May, tormented me with falling snow. So now when I race ultras, I take refuge in "Lead, SD" by Manchester Orchestra. I sing along, literally screaming as loud as a voice ravaged by days of heavy breathing will allow:

The snow is piling up!
Our temporary grit!
IT WAS JUST LIKE THIS, THIS TIME LAST YEAR!

There's nothing in the wind!
Just white up to the trees!
AND IT'S BEEN THAT WAY FOR ETERNITY!

And you know what — I felt better and found the oomph to make it to Man Cave without toppling over. There we had drop bags — a special courtesy of JayP — which probably saved my race as I couldn't have gotten through 20 more miles on pancakes and bacon alone. But the breakfast was sublime and well-appreciated, the volunteers were cheerful, and the workshop setting of the Man Cave was downright cozy. I even stole a five-minute nap on a chair while Beat and Daniel packed up.

We left Man Cave just after dawn to a bleak and snowy new day. The snowmobile paddletrack chowder began anew. Beat was struggling a lot more with his congestion, and I noticed I had quite a bit myself — I was starting to cough up crud that left amusing globs of green and orange on the snow. But otherwise I did not feel that bad. I kept reminding myself of this. My feet were still in good condition despite all of the precipitation and snowshoeing. My quads were sore but still strong when I needed them to be. My back and shoulders weren't bothering me at all, a miracle. I'd come close to melting down about my broken harness, and arguably about my stolen food, but for the most part I'd held it together emotionally — and this is not an easy thing to do through 50-plus hours of strenuous and sometimes stressful effort. The Fat Pursuit had been slow — slower than I even anticipated — and again I can't help but remind myself that I can't finish the Iditarod spending this much energy on two miles an hour. But I took heart in the conviction that this was the absolute best I could do. This was everything I had to give. Come what may, this body can either do it, or it can't. As the Stoics say, "The willing are led by fate; the reluctant, dragged."

"If it's endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining." — Marcus Aurelius

We finished the 2020 Fat Pursuit in 54 hours and 28 minutes. It was, by a large margin, the most difficult 100-mile foot race I've attempted. In the aftermath, it's difficult not to feel a little bummed out about taking 54 and a half hours to cover 100 miles, but I know I executed a good effort for the long-term. I also watched Beat and Daniel over those long hours, and believe that even without me in tow, they probably wouldn't have finished that much sooner.

Out of about 15 starters of the 200-mile event, only one finished. Out of 45 starters there were 11 finishers in the 200K event — ten bikers and one skier. This wasn't even the lowest finisher rate this event has seen. "You need to start calling this Fat Disaster," Beat ribbed JayP at the finish. The local paper ran a story with the headline "Fat Pursuit wins again."

JayP presented us with whimsical handmade "guinea pig" awards, and we enjoyed dinner with several of the many friends who attended this event — it was fun to see so many come out, from all over the West and Alaska. It was an interesting view of just how much the winter endurance racing community has expanded in recent years, and how much my own circle of friends is intertwined with it. I think this sense of community, as much as anything else, is what keeps us coming back.

Alone in the parking lot, ours and Daniel's Subarus were buried in nearly three feet of snow. We'd parked in a clear lot on a sunny day, but a lot can change in 54 hours. The fact that we'd battled the ongoing accumulation of nearly three feet of snow also spoke to the difficulty of the conditions — although really, such absurdity is fairly typical for Fat Pursuit. Snow, slog and whiteout conditions. The Tetons are out there somewhere, but you're never going to see them. You're going to burn up all of your energy going almost nowhere, all for flashes of beauty and hiccups of clarity so fleeting that the wind will carry them away. It will never stop snowing. It will be this way for eternity. Just accept it. Embrace it. Learn to love it. Be it.

The impetus to pursue such a relentless, Sisyphean grind  — evil genius, really. JayP knows what matters. We'll probably be back.