Happy Pioneer Day

Date: July 24
Mileage: 35.4
July mileage: 678.4
Temperature upon departure: 58
Inches of rain today: 0.02"

That's right. Pioneer Day. In most states, people couldn't even tell you the specific dates on which their respective state holidays fall (isn't Alaska Day in October sometime?) But in Utah, July 24 is second only to Christmas.

Everyone comes out of the woodwork to celebrate the day, 160 years ago today, that Brigham Young and his motley band of American dissidents trudged over a mountain pass, looked out across the cracked-mud valley surrounding a giant dead lake, and said, "Well, I'm sure no one's going to kick us out of this place." (A quote later aesthetically revised to "This is the place," which looked better on T-shirts.) Thus, Salt Lake City was born.

Among that crew were my great-great-and-so-forth-grandparents. I've always been proud of my Mormon pioneer heritage. I like to believe that the same adventuring spirit and irrational zeal that would drive someone to schlep a handcart across the Great Plains lives on in me. So I thought about them today as I was churning the pedals up to Eaglecrest ... about how painful it would be to ride on wooden wheels ... about the insane audacity of carrying things like furniture and pianos across the wilderness ... about how the pioneer children sang as they walked ... and walked ... and walked.

I like that no matter how artificially hard I make my life, I will never live up to their standard. They shredded everything they had in their lives to hit a dusty trail to nowhere. There, in an America before pavement, they experienced a world of extreme suffering and extreme beauty that I will never know. But I like to think that they passed the torch on to me, and that here, on the relatively-well-traveled Alaska frontier, I can blaze my own path to the future.

Is there enough?

Date: July 22
Mileage: 43.3
July mileage: 643.0
Temperature upon departure: 61
Inches of rain today: .87"

I had a good session at the gym today - some heavy lifting and hard maximum-heart-rate intervals on the elliptical machine. Just 90 minutes and I feel sore. Always a good sign.

I am trying to weigh some knee fears against a desire to "peak" this week. What am a trying to peak for? Nothing, really. A long weekend. A vacation. A road ride in August. It will probably be the hardest single ride I've attempted to date.

I want to be in good shape for this thing because I don't think I'll be able to fake it. I want to ride the broken loop between Haines and Skagway in a 48-hour "overnight" ride. It's about 360 miles of rough pavement and stretches of gravel, mostly in northern Canada. I believe that the sketchy road conditions, remoteness of the area and climbing will make it more akin to a smooth mountain bike ride - sorta like parts of the Great Divide route.

Bicycle tourists usually take the better part of seven days to ride this route. What makes me think I can ride it in 48 hours, including an overnight bivy? I have no idea. I don't even have a convincing explaination. But I do know that my entry in multiday endurance riding is going to require a quick and painful baptism by fire. And I can't think of a better place to dive in. The route is close enough that I can travel there fairly inexpensively, remote enough that I can get a small taste of that extreme, helpless solitude, but traveled enough that I will be able to find help should I have a catastrophic mechanical issue or injury.

Meanwhile, the nature of the broken loop means I have no choice but to pedal myself to point B. There won't be any easy bailouts, and it's always good to beat temptation before it strikes. I will have a chance to test out some of my overnight gear - although I'm not planning on carrying anything too wintry - and I'll also experience finding my own water often in an effort to go as light as possible. I'll experience sleeping in a bivy sack. I'll experience trying to live on Power Bars and gas station food. I think it's going to be fun in that relentless boot camp sense of fun. As Geoff calls it, "teaching yourself things through suffering."

Which doesn't make any sense, when you think about it. What do I possibly have to gain from a recreational hobby that is more difficult and stressful than my "real" life? It's a good question. And I could go into a long spiel about the modern state of humans living in the industrialized world, how the layers of comfort we have added to our life have slowly shielded us from natural joy ... but that's not the real reason. The real reason is that I am always on the lookout for reasons to believe in myself. And after a while, lounging away a weekend in a hot tub stopped doing it for me.

So I scheme and train for this ride that is little more than a "dry run" for the real stuff. Pscychological training. For what? I'm almost frightened to find out.

The fireweed blooms are really starting to come out in full force now. I love fireweed and can't help but stop at nearly every large patch I see to take pictures. Longtime Alaskans say that when the last bloom opens up at the very top of the stock, the end of summer has arrived. I can't help but wonder if that's one of the reasons I'm so enamoured with the flower.

BIG Wheels!

From left to right are my oldest set of wheels to my newest. Notice the progression of girth over time. I am now about as fat as you can get. And I gotta say, it's a lot more fun to gain fat than it is to lose it.

Date: July 21
Mileage: 25.1
July mileage: 599.7
Temperature upon departure: 56
Inches of rain today: .17"

Shortly after I hung up the phone upon learning that Geoff had won his big race this morning, I hauled my touring bike up the stairs only to see a big cardboard box waiting at the top. It had my name on it! I tossed my bike aside and raced down the steps with the package, tearing the tape to shreds with the first knife I found. When I looked inside, I squealed. Out loud. Like a 4-year-old girl at a princess party.

The box held the wheels that I impulse-bought on eBay on the Fourth of July. On July 3, I received an unexpected federal tax return in the mail. The next day, I won the bid for wheels that I had been drooling over for seven days. The final price - exactly 63 cents less than the amount of that check. Large Marge rims with Endomorph tires - the kind they put on Surly Pugsleys and other fat bikes. New snow bike project! Yeah!

They're so cute. Look how small they make Geoff's new 29" rims seem.

Afterward, I took my woefully anorexic road bike out for the planned ride. I was having such a good morning, I pedaled the 25 miles out to North Douglas and back with an average speed of 18.7 miles per hour. By far my best ... and I didn't even have to enter the pain cave once. It was probably the fact that there was almost no wind ... but I like to think it was the big big wheels waiting for me at home.

Now I just need a frame ... a bottom bracket ... a new seat and stem ... Hmmm. I have things to buy, money to make. To eBay!

Geoff won Crow Pass!

Geoff just called me from Eagle River, letting me know that he took first in the Crow Pass Crossing (26-mile wilderness marathon with sketchy technical trail, a climb over a 3,800-foot pass, and a glacier river crossing) with a time of three hours and seven minutes. This is Geoff's demon race, the one he wanted the most, so his winning it is very exciting. He said he lost several minutes during the race when he crossed the path of a mother bear and cub. The cub scurried away while the mother stood just off the trail huffing and grunting. He couldn't pass so he said he took advantage of the situation to "take a quick break and eat a Gu." I think eating a Gu is the last thing I'd do if an angry mama bear was huffing at me, but it's a good illustration of just how focused Geoff gets in these races.

He's taking a quick break and the Eagle River visitor's center, and then he's going to drive back to Hope with Pete and hang out and ride with other mountain bikers from Anchorage during the Bon Ton Roulet. It sounds like a lot of fun. I'm filled with jealousy that I need to channel. I've been waiting around all morning for news. Time to go for a ride.

All to myself

Date: July 20
Mileage: 13.5
July mileage: 574.6
Temperature upon departure: 51
Inches of rain today: .63"

Geoff is out of town for the weekend, which means I get to watch trashy movies like "Smokin' Aces" and eat cereal right out of the box - as a meal! It also means that after a few hours, I am going to feel like a brain-dead blob in need of some sort of nourishment.

But I definitely picked the right day of the weekend for a long ride. It rained pretty much nonstop today and the temperature I think dropped into the 40s at one point. Brrr. But then I got to thinking - if I don't really want to be out in that, probably nobody wants to be out in that.

So I set out for an evening recovery ride on the most popular trail in town - the Perseverance Trail. The trail can be a mob scene on sunny days and lined with iPod-wearing oblivious joggers even on wet days. But for some reason, it was completely deserted this evening. I guess it's because, even though I think of Friday as "Sunday," most people still think it's Friday. Good. More room for me.

A picture of me and Sugar before the hose-down, looking like we've earned it. I was thinking today about what a great mud bike Sugar has become. The tires grip in like crampons and the moving parts have held up pretty well against water and rust. What's interesting to me is that this bike is the same as it's always been. It's the same bike that I hoped would make me less timid on desert slickrock back when I was an Idahoan and a very different mountain biker than I am today. It's the same bike that I decided would make a great snowbike when I was a new Alaskan and a little more naive than I am today. Now I use it to go muddin' in Juneau. I change, but Sugar keeps soldiering on - stock tires, stock drivetrain, stock almost everything.

I guess that's my confession today. I am not a bike snob. I will probably never be a bike snob, although I have no problem with those who choose that lifestyle. The fact that I think Sugar is a great mudbike doesn't mean he is. There are probably a million little things I could do to make him better. There are probably a million other bikes out there more suited to the job. But I know Sugar. I trust Sugar. I love him just the way he is.

Sometimes, when I am tempted to upgrade, I think of a photograph I saw in a newspaper once. It showed a grocery-store type shelf stocked top to bottom, dozens of feet wide, with colorful cans. The caption said, simply, "Cat Food." And I think ... do we really need all these choices? Do we really?

And I ask myself ... why would I want to upgrade Sugar? Because it would make me faster? I'm not fast to begin with; what kind of miracle bike would change that? Because it would be more comfortable? I've already ridden Sugar for 24 hours straight in a cold sleetstorm. Where am I going to find a better test of comfort than that? Because it would make me cooler? I ride a full-suspension, 26"-wheeled, fully-geared aluminum bicycle with stock parts. In the eyes of most of the endurance biking world, I might as well put some Barbie stickers on a Schwinn, that's how cool I am.

No, Sugar and I share something that no one can ever take away. Complacency.

Fire it up

Date: July 19
Mileage: 108.7
July mileage: 561.1
Temperature upon departure: 68
Inches of rain today: .11"

The weather started out beautiful today and tiptoed toward crappy - so slowly that I didn't even notice until the headwind I was plowing into finally reached that breath-stealing threshold and the rain drops arched into horizontal daggers. But, surprisingly, my long ride today followed nearly the opposite progression.

Not that the ride wasn't chock full of suffering. There was plenty of that. I felt like I spent the entire day perpetually on the front end of a bonk. It reminded me of the month I continued to drive my '89 Tercel after one of its cylinders burned out. The car began to guzzle gas at the rate of a monster truck, but no matter how much I floored it, I could barely coax it up the babiest of baby hills. That was me today. I was the three-cylinder Toyota.

Twice today I was determined to quit. And each time I would stop, take a long break, and stuff food down my throat. I cleaned out my Camelbak. I was banking on that old cliche about never quitting until you've had some pie (And I didn't have any pie, so I had to settle for mushed up Power Bars.) Then I'd lay on the gas again, giving everything I had to my three remaining cylinders. But there just wasn't enough in there to power up.

But I think what made the ride incrementally more enjoyable - before I even noticed that I was enjoying myself - was that I did have enough in there to power through. I started the morning knowing I was worn out. I had a tough week of intensity workouts I don't normally do ... followed by a four-hour hike just yesterday that really laid into my joints. I woke up with muscle fatigue, and that is never a good sign. But I know enough about my limits to realize that I wasn't completely spent.

All of this "training" I'm doing right now - amping up for an August crescendo that is purely psychological training for a race that is seven months away - is about understanding my limits. And I didn't meet them today. In fact, my performance and mood improved noticeably when I came to terms with the idea that I was required to stay on that bike until it came time to meet Geoff at the airport. And I did meet him there. I actually beat him there, but just barely - meaning that I met my goal of spending a full eight hours fighting my demons. And despite my two 25-minute breaks, a flat tire, and several bathroom/photo breaks, I still worked my way over 108 miles. Eight hours total time; about 6:30 saddle time.

Now Geoff is on his way to Anchorage to race in the Crow Pass Crossing. I thought I was going to come home and die for a while, but that didn't happen. In fact, I feel pretty good right now. I especially feel good about the part where that bike ride is over.

Gastineau Peak

Date: July 18
Mileage: 5.1
July mileage: 452.4
Temperature upon departure: 65
Inches of rain today: o"

Today I hiked to Gastineau Peak, elevation 3,666 feet. I was gunning for Mount Roberts, but I had no idea that the trek to Gastineau and back was a 9-mile endeavour in itself. The extra two miles to Roberts was a little too much to ask of my Wednesday-morning window.

I would like to make it to both peaks one of these days, but it may be a while before I attempt this trail again. It was a beautiful day with stunning views, but I was just not feeling the Mount Roberts trail love. The lower stretch of the Basin Road access trail was lined with sketchy homeless camps - syringes, used condoms, everything. I had to sidestep a sleeping body when I accidentally wandered off trail on one of the footpaths, and that is never fun.

After that unpleasant stretch, all was quiet until mid-mountain, which was mobbed with all manner of tourists fresh off the tram. Huge, denim-clad groups clogged up the trails with their numbered flora and fauna guides and posed group photos as their children trammeled the alpine tundra in their Crocs. I became less polite about shouldering my way through them until some began to stop me with all manner of requests and time-consuming questions (I guess with my sweat-streaked face and backpack, I looked like some sort of expert.)

One man asked me to describe a ptarmigan in detail. (Um ... sort of looks like a speckled brown chicken.)

Another asked if he could reach Mount Roberts in a half hour. (Um, as your guide says, it's three miles and more than 2,000 feet of climbing from here. Walk fast!)

Another pointed across the canyon and asked me the name of the mountain and how he could access it. I began to explain that it was Mount Juneau, that he could reach it by driving from the base of the tram to Basin Road and parking at the Perseverance trailhead. "Oh?" he said. "You mean you can't get there from this trail?"

"Um ... not anytime soon," I said. (But what I was thinking was, by what ridiculous stretch of logic can you imagine this trail crossing a ravine that's 3,000 feet deep and magically appearing on a completely different ridgeline?)

I understand that most cruise ship tourists are probably intelligent people. (I also understand there are some former cruise ship tourists who read this blog.) But still, I am starting to understand why longtime residents avoid them like the plague.

Still ... all bad hikes have their silver lining:

Baby steps across the precarious snowfield. Baby steps across the precarious snowfield.

Hiking in Juneau has been a nostalgic experience for me. Above treeline, nearly everything about the trails and mountains resembles the Wasatch peaks I summitted in my youth ... the scrubby groundcover, the wildflowers, the heart-dropping knife ridges. As I hoist myself over another boulder field, I almost feel like I should be gasping in the thin air - until I remember that I'm only at 3,500 feet. Alaska definitely makes you earn your elevation.

Another reminder that I am not in Utah anymore ... all of that intense green.

This hike really took a lot out of me. I forget that four hours on your feet is much more punishing than four hours on a bike. It makes me appreciate that much more what Geoff does to stay in shape - running up mountains like this on a regular basis. Makes my biking look pretty tame. But we all have our weaknesses. And there is no shame in wearing yourself out on a little walk.