Elevation's good

Ever since I learned the reality of fog in this area, I can't wake up to a view of blurry cloud cover and not feel the instant urge to head up. The fog here starts thick, and with temperatures in the 40s, could stick around all day. But I'm greedy and when I know the sun is up there, somewhere, I can't just let it hang out alone. So Geoff and I headed up Mount Jumbo, right here on Douglas Island and towering over our house every day. We rode to the trailhead and pounded out a quick "Pre-Mets-Game" hike. This is my Juneau-peak-bagging photo essay #2.

We finally started to see sunlight emerge from the fog at about 1,000 feet ... just about the time I was starting to get worried.

First view

I think this shot is interesting because I'm accustomed to hiking peaks in Utah, where everything is 11,000 feet high. So today, after we began to emerge from treeline, I saw this exact view and told Geoff it was going to take me all day to get up there. But this became a good example of how much my perspective has changed to accommodate the smaller open spaces of southeast Alaska. From here, it was less than 35 lumbering minutes to the top.

Mount Jumbo is still 3,500 feet high. For starting at sea level ... and walking up a trail only 2.5 miles long ... that's not too shabby.

Coming down was much harder and actually took longer than going up. I fell five times. Steep and slippery are not my allies.

This is the view looking across the channel to downtown Juneau just as the fog finally began to move on. The mountain directly behind it is Mount Juneau, which I climbed to the top of just Sunday.

It's funny to talk about all this sunny madness because, as far as I can tell, Juneau is about the only place in the country where the weather is nice right now. Southcentral Alaska is swimming in floodwater. The Northeastern United States is being deluged by rain. A major cold snap in the Lower 48 has been sending snow to the Midwest. It's all relative, really. I'm writing about a "perfect weather" day that featured temperatures in the low 40s and thick gray fog below 1,000 feet. But I've learned to appreciate it for what it's not.

When the sun comes out in Juneau

I have 25 minutes left to burn off before work, ticking away on an elliptical trainer display. Streams of sunlight seep in from a narrow windows of my gym. Strange new shadows on the floor tell their own story, not of frumpy people engaged in pointless frenzy, but of kinetic energy breaking through illuminated dust. The woman who shows up every day at noon sharp, who has lost 10 pounds and made a point to record it for the "Juneau's Biggest Loser" registry, sighs loudly from the machine next to mine. "Ever feel like you're wasting your time in here?" she asks, not taking her eyes off the three ceiling-level TVs that have blasted plane crash news nonstop for the past 30 minutes. "Every time," I say.

I leave the gym at the height of lunch period, with high schoolers packed in the parking lot like spawning salmon. They dart in and out of the street and throw unidentifiable objects toward the sky, enjoying rare freedom from their narrow awnings and dripping huddles. I notice for the first time in weeks I can see teenage faces sans hoodies.

I pass the hatchery where a little girl runs barefoot in the grass. A man, her father, puts his fishing pole down and chases her down the thin corridor. They kick up swirls of leaves that seem to vaporize midair. Their smiles are so contagious that I start laughing.

Across the wetlands, the sunlight burns streaks of orange in the tide. There are more people walking out on the mudflats, and I wonder how they got there and whether they'll sink. And I wonder if they're looking at those mountains, way, way out in the distance - mountains so buried by the distance that they're almost never there. But when they emerge from the clouds, they remind us that we don't live in boxes. We live in a world that stretches toward eternity, a world with contours built for a million lifetimes. And we want to strive to live them all.

Sorry, Sugar

Open letter to my battle-scarred mountain bike:

Dear Old and Busted Sugar,

It seems you haven't been very happy with me lately. Seems like you're mad at the world. I guess I would be too, hunched against a damp corner with swamp water seeping out of my frame. We've been together, oh, about 18 months now - maybe you expected something better of your life. I just wanted you to know that this hasn't been easy for me, either.

I remember the day the UPS guy dropped you off. They called you a used bike, recently dumped by an anonymous eBay stranger, but you looked brand new to me. I still remember the first time we went out, joyriding the foothills outside Idaho Falls. We were both so young then, and inexperienced, and you seemed so fragile. I was terrified to get too close for fear you (we) would break.

Maybe that's how this all started. The early neglect. I had commitment issues. You were an inanimate object. Everything changed the day we up and moved to Alaska, with the winter setting in, I suddenly began to realize how much I needed you. I've had other bicycles, but they no longer mattered the day the snow started to fly. I only had studs for you.

But weren't those great times, Sugar? We were like a couple of newlyweds - spending every day together, rolling the frozen roads and trails, just you and me and the stunning quiet of those long winter nights. You weren't accustomed to the lifestyle, but everything was so bright and new that it didn't seem to matter. I didn't even notice the shadows beginning to creep in beneath your hubs, the resentment that started to build as ice caked your moving parts. I guess that's my fault. I was so excited about us, I never stopped to think about what you needed.

But it all started to come down when summer arrived, and our world changed from silence and snow to motion and mud. You could hardly comprehend the transition, and I wasn't much help - still so new to mountain biking, bouncing off rocks and somersaulting down hillsides. Those daylong races didn't help, and the strain started to show - broken spokes, bent fenders, chipped frame, and endless coats of grime, so thick that it no longer washes off. I thought you could take it. After all, you were my Sugar. But then came the rain rides ... then the slimy root roller derbies ... then, finally, swamp biking. I can see now the rust covering your once-bright bolts. I can hear the slight creak in your pedals. Your crank is so worn that the middle ring no longer holds tight to the chain, and I worry that I may have cut you down before your time, that you may not be long for this world. And yes, it's my fault.

There must be a way I can make it up to you. I know our relationship hasn't been a conventional one, but I wish there was a way I could make you understand that I always have, and still do, care about you. You may feel scarred by life, like the world has beaten down on you, but you have to know that. Can't you see? I hurt you because I love you. And love does hurt. It can be almost be no other way between a novice rider and her mountain bike. I know promising to take better care of you won't make up for 18 months of neglect and abuse. But I still need you, Sugar, and I'd really like to try.

Will you ever forgive me?

Sincerely,
Jill

Did Juneau

Date: Oct. 7
Total mileage: 22.5
October mileage: 145.5
Temperature upon departure: 45

I finally got around to hiking Mount Juneau today. It almost didn't happen. I woke up - late again, of course - to a blanket of thick fog smothering the valley.


"What's the point?" I asked Geoff. "We won't be able to see anything up there." I thought I wouldn't have time before work anyway. I told him I would just go for a quick bike ride instead. He talked me into it.


Before we hit the trailhead, we were already climbing out of the clouds and into the bald blaze of a rare clear day. And then we just hiked - up, not out. The mountainside was so steep that we could peek over the edge at a nearly direct vertical drop into town. If I owned a base-jumping parachute, I think I could have landed on top of the capitol building.


As we watched the cloud cover slowly thin and drift away from the channel, all I could think about was how amazing it was that I could be standing there, on a mountaintop,


less than two miles from my house, on a warm and sunny Sunday morning, two hours before I had be at work for my regular shift,


and I thought, this,


this is why I'm a happy person.

BikeSwim

Date: Oct. 6
Total mileage: 11.5
October mileage: 123
Temperature upon departure: 46

I went mountain biking today. I didn't take my camera because I worried it would be swamped with water. I made a good choice.

We tried out the Dredge Lake trail system today. This area is actually a winter ski trail system, but where there's ski trails in the winter, there's bike trails in the summer, right? It was raining lightly and I expected standing water from heavy showers earlier this week, so I dressed to the nines - neoprene socks, neoprene booties, neoprene gloves, waterproof snow pants, waterproof (read: industrial plastic) shell. Also good choices.

What we found on the web of trails snaking across the rolling moraine beneath the Mendenhall Glacier was mountain biking unlike any I have experienced before. Both comfortable in its ease and confounding in its complexity, I don't know how to reconcile it into a comprehensive description. But I do know this: I like it. Love it. I'm drooling to go back.

We started on a narrow strip of sand separating the flood-level Mendenhall River from a thick wall of trees. The trail quickly disappeared beneath long puddles - nothing unusual, but there was something ominous surrounding these benign mudholes. "I feel like we're in the bayou, and water's just about to come rushing toward us," Geoff said. I laughed. I had no idea.

Less than half a mile from the trailhead, we rounded Dredge Lake and dropped into what appeared to be a small pond. But since we were such a short way into our ride, and since the rain was already finding its way through the armor anyway, we had nothing to lose. We took the plunge.

Held up by glacial gravel as smooth and hard as concrete, we splashed through the clear, cold water, pounded a few hard strokes up a large mound and rolled into the next pond - butts hanging over the rear wheel, lips and eyes pursed shut against the rush of water ... Splashdown. Pretty soon we were kicking against water up to our knees. And then our stems. A mile into the trail, the water level reached waist deep. With legs completely under water, we had to spin frantically against the deadly slowdown that that threatened to inundate us. I can only describe the sensation as kickboarding upstream, or bicycling in one of those dreams where you can't help but move in slow motion. If this kind of riding were its own sport, I would call it BikeSwim.

This ride has so much more going for it, too. We'd rise out of the swamp to hairpin singletrack carving through a canopy of trees so thick that the clearance on either side of my shoulders would have to be measured in centimeters. Then we'd drop back into the water, cross the swamped moraine, and hit the high, root-covered rollercoaster trail in a swirl of autumn leaves. At one point we were paddling (pedaling/paddling, what's the difference?) down the trail when a foot-long carp darted by. And any ride where you can bike through something the map calls Crystal Lake is a good ride.

I don't really mean to sound so giddy, but honestly, this is like discovering that somebody dropped Disneyland's Splash Mountain in my neighborhood, and I can go ride it anytime I want. Only this is even better, because unlike those creepy robots that play the banjo in the dark, this ride's bears are real (I know, I saw a pretty big black bear at close range today.) And you don't have to worry about being wet at the end because, well, that's the whole point.

Next time I go, I'll try to take one of those waterproof disposable cameras. I'd love to take pictures, because describing BikeSwim just doesn't do it justice.

The trouble with commuting

Date: Oct. 5
Total mileage: 45.3
October mileage: 111.5
Temperature upon departure: 47

I made a decision a couple of weeks ago that I was going to work toward reforming my habits to minimalize if not eliminate the use of my car. It makes sense on paper because I'm already accustomed to cold-weather cycling, I already own a nice headlight and set of bike panniers, and I live in an area where I couldn't travel more than 40 miles from my house if I wanted to. Of course, what's easy on paper is definitely not always easy in practice. Gas-guzzling habits run deep, and I'm beginning to realize just how tough continuous bike commuting would actually be.

For starters, I can't figure out how people in wet climates would get around the whole social stigma of showing up at their destination wet and covered in road grit. And I don't mean walking into a store wearing a damp waterproof shell. I mean showing up in a public place looking like a jeep that spent the past hour spinning donuts in a wet gravel pit. I stopped at a grocery store on the way home from a three-hour ride today just to buy a newspaper, and I spent five minutes outside brushing my dirt-covered clothing in a failed attempt to look"inside" presentable.

This also is a huge problem for biking to work. At three miles one way, I can coast there without breaking a sweat, but I can't stay dry. Sure, I can carry dry clothing with me to change into, but this doesn't remove the aforementioned grit-stuck-to-skin problem, not to mention the whole wet hair thing. How do bike commuters keep their hair dry? I know I can lift up my hood before putting on my helmet, but this in the past has not exactly preserved "dry" hair. My only idea was to begin storing a hair dryer at work. I'm not crazy about doing this, though, and I'd love to hear better ideas.

Being wet and/or sweaty in the fall/winter also ups the chance of mild hypothermia. What's comfortable for me to wear while pounding out 20 mph on pavement is definitely not good for stopping for any length of time in a marginally heated grocery store, bank or library. Stop for more than five minutes and my core temperature plummets to noticeably uncomfortable levels. Like today, my wet feet and hands felt fine before my newspaper run, but afterward became numb and stiff. It's fine when I can go straight home and take a warm shower. But what about all the times I can't?

Then there's groceries. Luckily, Geoff does most of the grocery shopping, because I hate it something fierce. So much so that I usually suck it up and spend an hour shopping for two weeks worth of food in one large load. A bicycle necessitates frequent small trips to stores that aren't Costco (A new favorite of mine.) And how will I haul home my 24-packs of Diet Coke? I need these.

Look at me, making pathetic excuses. I'd love to hear some suggestions, especially on the issue of staying as socially acceptably dry as possible. I really don't think those skinny little road fenders are going to do much. I already have fenders on my mountain bike, which I'll begin using exclusively as soon as it gets much colder, and I already know they're pretty close to useless in that regard. But I do have an honest desire to become a dedicated bicycle commuter. I was doing really well before I left Homer, but it was easy in Homer. I Homer, I had a.) an awesome commute route (as opposed to the current one, which in three miles covers all of the only truly awful stretch of bicycling in town.) b.) an employer that didn't mind if I showed up to work looking like a lumberjack who had been out on the job for six weeks. c.) less than a quarter of the rainfall. Bike commuting in Juneau takes true dedication. But I'm working at it. I really am.

Also, I wanted to thank Bone, The Blasphemous Bicycler, for archiving my orphaned Web site on his server. I had no idea it was so easy. I now feel embarrassed to think about all of the money I've thrown down over the past few years just to keep this thing from fading into cyberoblivion because it felt like trashing a cherished photo album. Oh well. In the same respect, I should probably feel the same way about all of the money I'm tossing to Big Oil.

But I need my car.

Well, actually, I don't.

Simplifying

In an effort to whittle down my expenses, I'm dissolving some old bills that are automatically charged to my credit card every month. In doing so, I just learned that at the end of this month, my old Web site will no longer exsist.

It's a sad day for me - not because I maintain this Web site anymore. In fact, there's a whole lot about it that annoys me. But it's a record of my past. It's my journal, my scrapbook, my photo album, my pre-blog blog, all in one. But because it's electronic, and because I was young and naive enough to register it with a fee-charging site, it's being ripped from exsistence without a tear or a prayer.

Maybe this will teach me to start using an old-fashioned pen and paper. But, for now, if you don't mind, I'm going to post a few of my entires - for nostalgia's sake, for posterity, etc. ... otherwise, I'll lose them forever. This one is titled "definition of bike touring," dated Sept. 14, 2002.

That annoying little voice inside my head tells me to crank it. My wheels are spinning, barely. Sweat drips through my helmet and streaks of red dust stick to my arms.You never realize it when you're driving, but the only way out of Moab, Utah is up, a nearly-continuous climb. As Geoff and I lumber up theshoulder of Highway 91, I fix my gaze on distant buildings scattered near towering vermillion cliffs. They take forever to reach me.

Before this trip, it's hard to remember what exactly I thought bike touring was. Lingering views, sprawling vistas, maybe a little work. Isure didn't imagine burnout on the first day. When daylight will allow us to go no further, we pull over and park a mere 50 yards from the road.

And thus ends the first day of my very first bike tour, Moab to Moab via the San Juan mountain range and 600 miles of the most remote highway the lower 48 has to offer. It was supposed to be a simple day - 30 miles from the Colorado River valley to the base of the La Salle mountains. In front of me now is an expanse of sagebrush-dotted range cut off only by the horizon, deep orange and shimmering in the September sunset.We kick cowpies from a small clearing and set up our tent just as the landscape descends deeper into shades of purple. As a lay in the spiny grass watching erratic bats chase bugs visible only to them, I regret not getting in shape before the trip. Every muscle, every bone in my body is melting into the warm soil and I doubt my ability to get up, even to go to bed.

The camp site, hidden behind a barb wire fence in a cluster of pinion pines, feels stark and uninviting private property, a grazing range. We should have made it at least 10 miles furthertonight, but night snuck up on us. The next 500 miles feel like an eternity away.Geoff, most likely just as worn out and tired, musters up the energy to lean toward me. "Isn't it amazing?" he says. "We just biked here."

While working as a reporter during the 2002 Winter Olympics, I only heard mirror responses from everyone I talked to - "the experience of a lifetime," "a once-in-a-lifetime experience," "a lifetime of experiences in one." The Olympics were a splash of snow and whirl of color.The world blinked, and they were gone.

Bicycle touring is anything and everything but a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It is tamarisk swaying on the layered shores of the San Juan river. It is a flapping tent standing against a lightning storm on an open plateau. It is a tiny roadside grocery store in a town that by car would be nothing more than a blur. It is wildlife in the form of flattened fur on a roadside and literature in the form of faded billboards. It is slow and lumbering, discarded bolts rusting on the highway. It is adrenaline-inducing at 35 mph and agony-inducing at 5. It is hills that will stop your heart and views that will quiet your soul. It is pinnacles and peaks and houses and streams and desert and forest and road, open road, endless road, but it is not, I am convinced, not a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

It, simply, is life.

One that I should keep on living.