Sugar and I are going to Sitka

Date: Sept. 4
Mileage: 23.5
September mileage: 64.2
Temperature upon departure: 47
Rainfall: .62"

The weather took a dramatic swing toward crappy today. So dramatic, in fact, that it took a while to really sink in. I climbed to road to Eaglecrest. The climbing was the easy part. The rest of the ride was spent either squinting in the driving rain, being tossed around by crosswinds on a perilously soggy descent, or plowing into headwinds gusting to 40 mph. Listening to all of my coworkers comment about the "crazy" weather later affirmed by fears that the season of crappy riding is about to take hold.

Tomorrow begins my three-day "Labor Day weekend." I wish I had the real weekend. The weather forecast calls for more horrors; Geoff is out of town; my friends are all busy with their traditional jobs. I had no idea what to do with myself. I was feeling lost, drifting. So what did I do? I randomly bought a ticket to ride on the Alaska Marine Highway ... just now ... like 20 minutes ago ... completely compulsive. My ferry heads south tomorrow morning, bound for Sitka. I have never been to Sitka before (well, OK, a plane I was riding on stopped there once.) But I thought, for about $100, I could go see this piece of Alaska that I have never seen before. Why not?

I secured a berth on the boat for myself and my mountain bike. I am packing all of the cold weather rain gear and camping supplies I can stuff into my backpack, and I am going to just go. The weather will not be any better there. If anything, it will be worse. But it will be OK. I'll be in Sitka! No one there knows me, so it won't matter if I stumble into coffee shops dripping stale rain water and reeking of Southeast mud and moss. I will check out all the waterlogged trails I can find, and when the chill finally sets in, I will hole up in my tent and finally get around to reading that new Harry Potter book. It's gonna be sweeeeet.

Have a great weekend ... er ... Wednesday.

Blackerby Ridge

Click here for 360-degree panoramic goodness

Date: Sept. 3
Mileage: 9.1
September mileage: 40.7
Temperature upon departure: 55
Rainfall: 0"

Another day, another hike. It's a little rough to do two of these two work days in a row. But in Juneau, you have to take the nice weather when it comes.

I think Blackerby Ridge may be my favorite of all of the Juneau hikes I've tried so far. The trail isn't so much built as it is eroded into the steep, heavily forested mountainside. All of the exposed roots create a natural staircase that's as punishing as a walkable climbs can be. But it's to my advantage - I get all of that boring forested hiking out of the way in just over a mile (a really sweaty mile.) After that, it's all high mountain meadows and beautifully bald ridgeline.

The best aspect of Blackerby Ridge is the devious way it coaxes me forward. Once above treeline, I had an incredible view of all the surrounding ridgelines and their topography - which, from my vantage point - looked hikeable all the way to places I have dreamed of going ... the 5,000-foot Observation Peak, the Juneau Icefield, and beyond that ... Canada. Could I reach it if I tried? I don't know. I intend to try someday.

But not today. I stopped just short of the final ascent to Cairn Peak ... and that was too far for the time I had as it was. I was already running nearly an hour late, and that was assuming it would take me the same amount of time to hike down as it had to hike up (so far, descents have always taken longer.) But it was so hard to stop. I wanted to go onward into the unknown.

After I turned back to familiar territory, I notched up the volume on the iPod and let the swirl of sound engulf the landscape. Even though I stayed up until 2 a.m. last night downloading and sorting tons of new music for my tired old iPod, I spent most of the hike cycling through The New Pornographer's latest album, "Challengers." So great. Just as Sufjan Stevens always evokes images of the frozen Susitna valley, I think "Challengers" will always be Blackerby music to me:

On the walls of the day

In the shade of the sun

We wrote down ...

Another vision of us
We were the challengers of
The unknown ...

"Be safe" you say
Whatever the mess you are you mind okay
That is the custom
On down.

Timing Juneau

(Click for panoramic goodness)

Date: Sept. 1 and 2
Mileage: 23.4 and 8.2
September mileage: 31.6
Temperature upon departure: 49 and 54
Rainfall: .48"

Some workouts are all about numbers. After all, how can I gauge improvement without marking increments of progress? Since hiking is a simplistic act of putting one foot in front of another, the only way to improve at it is to hike faster. So on the way out the door to hike Mount Juneau, I stuffed my seldom-used watch with the broken band into my pocket.

The mountain bike ride to the trailhead is 4.1 miles; much of it gut-busting climbing if I ride it at all. This leg usually takes about 30 minutes, but I figured it may be the best area to shave time. I cranked in the middle ring until my lungs began to sear, my back wheel spun out and I could scarcely muster the energy to lift the front tire over logs. Head spinning and hands shaking, I fumbled with my bike lock until I managed to wrap it around a tree trunk. I looked at my watch. 25 minutes.

The trail to Mount Juneau climbs 3,000 feet in a short two miles. The early hike required active recovery to regain some semblance of consciousness. After 10 minutes, I knew I was not on pace, so I stepped it up. My heart rate climbed to that blood-toasting range of 80-90 percent of maximum. I intended to keep it there all the way to the top. When it comes to high-intensity workouts, hiking will always beat out biking for me. I could not sustain that level of effort on a bike and still maintain my ability to operate said bike in any kind of functional manner. But the simplicity of hiking allows my brain to flail around in the darkness of the pain cave while my body blindly marches upward.

But I did not actually reach the pain cave until the final half mile. The trail becomes so steep that, at any given point, my nose almost touches the same dirt that will hold my feet in four more steps. Millions of years of evolution to achieve bipedalism were thrown out the window as my hands spent more time on the ground than my feet, gaining elevation like an awkward ape on a death march. My mind began to scream sputtering pleas to stop, but the watch in my pocket had a different opinion. "You've done this hike in less than an hour before and you can do it again," it said. "March!"

After that, there was little else but a tunnel, silent and ever-shrinking, and the presence of the watch as it ticked upward. I knew I had reached the peak only when the sharp line of the trail petered out. I looked at my watch. 56 minutes. Sunlight began to creep back into my field of vision. As the tunnel faded away I noticed puffs of morning fog still lingering over the city. The distant mountains loomed in deep shades of blue and the channel shimmered, actually shimmered, like a sequined gown twirling beneath a disco ball. Even the peak was splashed in crimson - the first hints of fall color on the alpine tundra. I didn't notice any of it before, but I hadn't really been looking.

I put the watch away, and didn't look at it again.