School is in session

I have been saying since July that this year, instead of training for a crazy difficult Iditarod cycling race, I wanted to spend the winter learning more about the ins and outs of winter backcountry travel - that is, beyond the established snowmobile and ski routes where I've ridden my bicycle and hiked in years past. It's not that I've all of the sudden become crazy about skiing - if anything, it's just the opposite. I'm starting to realize more and more that sliding down mountains (yes, even through sweet powder stashes) doesn't really thrill me all that much. I'm perfectly happy to put aside my mediocre snowboard skills to clomp into tougher, less accessible terrain with snowshoes and crampons, with which I have more control and maneuverability. Just like I am at my core as a cyclist, I am an unapologetic tourist. I am all about the traveling aspect of outdoor recreation. My turn-ons are exploration, distance, and mule-like physical labor. In other words, I'm an endorphin junkie; I have little use for adrenaline.

But I recognize that skiing is still the most efficient way to travel through the backcountry, both up and down, so I'm willing to give it a try. I'm horrible at being a beginner. I want to do things NOW and I want to go where I want to go, so I've avoided learning how to ski. But that's partly what my Banff trip is about. Learning new things.

Today, my first day in Banff, was not a ski day. I have two good friends here who are patient and understanding and willing to teach me the way I want to be taught. So instead of dragging me up bunny slopes at the ski hill (there will be some of that this week, but only some), they are taking me to more enjoyable, nontechnical places in the backcountry. And before we do any backcountry skiing, I have to learn backcountry safety. So today (which was a spectacular, beautiful, minus-10-Celsius day), my friend Keith and I went snowshoeing and he taught me the basics about scoping out avalanche danger.

We hiked up Observation Mountain, and I was thrilled that my sea-level lungs felt fine at 8,000 feet elevation. We made a quick trip up to the ridge, and because it was so comfortable out, spent a while up high gazing across the valley and picking out different avalanche scenarios and safety zones. Keith even gave me pop quizzes. I think I passed. Keith happens to be an avid skier and continued to emphasize that he must "really love" me, because the skiing conditions were ideal and he was stuck on snowshoes.

We stopped and dug a snow pit, conducting different tests so he could help me see the difference between weak and strong layers. Avalanche danger today was quite low for this region. Banff hasn't had a recent big snow or wind event, and many of the area's typical "death zones" were littered with ski tracks.

The bottom 30" (out of about 38" total) was completely solid. Keith said, "You never see this in the Rockies, never."

But you can't beat just being out on a day like today in a place like Banff. That's what I'm about. Keith said he could tell I was in my "happy place."

We took advantage of that nearly full moon to go for a night hike up Telephone Mountain just outside town. I know this isn't a great picture, but keep in mind all I have for a camera is a point-and-shoot - this is how clear and bright it was outside. Great first day on vacation.

Off to paradise

It's that time of year again, the late January lull. This is the time when most Alaskans have grown weary of several months of cold and darkness and book plane tickets to somewhere else, for a week or two of respite. We consider it our right as Alaskans. I think it might even be written into the state constitution.

I think the idea of the winter respite is to go to somewhere warm like Hawaii, and this is the track most Alaskans take. I did this last January - flew to Oahu, walked in my bare feet on the beach, rode a road bike, hiked a volcano. This year, I decided to travel to a place a little closer to my heart - albeit colder, more wintry and hopefully snowier than Juneau. I'm sitting in the Sea-Tac airport right now, waiting for a flight to Calgary. Then, it's on to Banff.

It's a completely frivolous trip. No, I'm not going there for a race. No, I'm not even going to be doing any biking (well, maybe a little). It's a ski trip (yeah, really wish I had practiced that), with a little snowboarding thrown in, and if the skiing doesn't kill me, possibly some good long runs. This trip is all about being outside in the mountains It comes at a bad time for my employer. I feel guilt about that. But right now, I need this winter respite into the wintry paradise of the Canadian Rockies. I really do.

Both of my previous visits to Banff came at anxious, angst-ridden times in 2009. The first was prior to the Tour Divide in June, when I was nervous and extremely uncertain about the prospect of undertaking that race. The second was during my drive north following my completion of the race in July, when I was feeling a lot of uncertainty about returning to Juneau. And both times, just being in Banff was a soothing, healing experience for me. I found clarity and a level of peace during my frivolous, small excursions around that mountain town. I fell in love with Banff. And the whole time, my friends told me, "If you think Banff is great in the summer, you should see it in the winter."

I planned this trip several months ago. But it just happens to come at a similarly angsty time. Only this time, instead of having a big, scary goal or a return to a difficult situation in front of me, I have all of those things behind me and only uncertainty in front of me. You could say I need some time in Banff now more than ever. And I am really looking forward to it.

I hurt

Do you ever have one of those days where you wake up in the morning and try to roll out of bed, only to be stopped by a tightly wound rope of pain? You know, those times when most of the muscles in your body contract like frightened turtles and bind you to the bed, and only a burst of willpower will release you from the sheets? Maybe you had a really hard workout the day before; or maybe you, I don't know, unintentionally did a cannonball off a small cliff, and instead of splashing down in a pool, you landed on a hard rock. That kind of pain.

But as you get up and stumble around your room, you notice that the dang addicting sun is still out. And you think that maybe what you're experiencing is just a little muscle soreness, the kind of thing you can push out with a few hard strokes on your bicycle. After all, it was just full-body contact with a rock from from five feet up. No need to be a baby about it.

And then, in a further stroke of brilliance, you decide to spin out the soreness on six miles of Mendenhall Loop road and then hit up the Lake Creek trail for a little "fun" snowbiking. You know, because the Lake Creek trail is usually a sheet of ice, and it's not like it rained a lot and then froze or anything.

Oh wait, yes it did.

But you forget about this small detail as you pedal gingerly along the pavement, thinking that this doesn't feel so bad. Those muscle pains aren't too hard to pound into submission. Then you hit the trail, and it quickly becomes obvious that it's a solid sheet of ice, so you put your foot down to turn around, and even though your tires were getting decent traction on the ice, that dang foot that slipped off the cliff yesterday just can't hold it together, and it skids backward and you and your bicycle tip over sideways.

And as you lay on the ground, with all of those sore muscles shrieking in a dissonant chorus of old and new pain, you start to wonder if your body really hates you, or maybe it's the other way around, because, really, what the hell were you thinking?

Meek effort

This morning dawned partly cloudy with temps in the mid-20s — absolutely beautiful. I dragged myself out of bed at 8:15 a.m. (so early). I felt a bit downtrodden from going out for a long snow bike ride on Saturday, after a fairly brutal Thursday and Friday in the mountains, but I packed up my trekking gear anyway. Even though we've had a fair number of sunny days this year (for Juneau), I'm still essentially incapable of wasting even a single available second of good weather. I drag myself out of bed around sunrise even though I don't tend to go to sleep until 2 or sometimes even 3 a.m., then I drag myself outside until the very last minutes before I absolutely have to be at work. If the nice weather streak goes particularly long, I can find myself at the tail end of a 25-hour training week, sleep-deprived and sore. My house is an absolute wreck, my closet is empty, my boss is annoyed with me, my bills are stacked up on the table, my cat acts neglected and my fridge holds only string cheese and mustard. But I feel happy, so I keep at it.

Today I was all set to hike up Blackerby Ridge. But as I was driving down Egan Drive, I noticed a near-solid wall of snow tearing off the ridge in the Taku Winds. When the weather at 3,500 feet looks bad from sea level, you have to assume it's going to feel downright apocalyptic up high. But we also have a saying here in Juneau: "If you don't like the weather, drive 10 more miles."

So I looped around Douglas Island and headed to the base of Mount Meek. Because Taku Winds blow from the northeast Interior, the coastal range blocks the wind from all but the alpine regions of Douglas Island. So while Blackerby was being sand-blasted with face-freezing ice shards, Mount Meek was cool and calm. Plus, a friend already told me he had been up there on Saturday, so I knew I'd have a fresh trail to follow up what is usually a somewhat difficult route to navigate.

Mount Meek is an interesting climb, because all the tough, technical stuff is below snow line, but up top it's a straightforward hike through the powder. Before you can reach the buttery soft snowshoe stroll, though, you have to surmount a steep and icy cliff beside a gushing waterfall, using exposed tree roots for handholds as you scale glare-ice-coated notches in the near-vertical slope. It's not horrible on the way up but it's a nightmare to downclimb. I considered putting on my crampons but thought better of it, only to take a pretty bad fall near the bottom. My boot slid out on the ice step as I was groping for a branch and I fell a full five vertical feet down a small cliff, landing right on my butt. Luckily, I have a lot of cushioning in that region, and I don't think I sustained anything worse than a large bruise. One of my cheeks is almost entirely purple and I'm having a difficult time sitting in my office chair, but the bruise is high enough that it shouldn't affect bike riding too adversely, so I feel lucky to be otherwise unscathed.

It was fun to at least get one January summit, and I realized I can see my house from the top of Mount Meek! Well, not exactly, but I can see the area where my house is located, on the shore of Auke Bay in a little nook called Fritz Cove. I drew a little red dot in the general vicinity, so you can get a sense of where Juneau residents such as myself can live on the cheap. We have another saying here in Juneau: "There's no such thing as a bad location, unless you live in the Behrends avalanche run-out."

Baby steps

I had a rather unsuccessful weekend of beginner mountaineering - mainly unsuccessful in that I didn't meet my objectives, didn't really push myself too hard, and don't feel like I learned much of anything. Such is the drawback of being your own teacher. But life circumstances have left me without a viable partner who has similar hours to mine. I was just going to give it up, but I better liked a friend's recommendation to "Slay peaks anyway."

So on Thursday I got a fairly early start (cough, cough, 9 a.m.) on the Grandchild approach. I was hoping to summit the first Grandchild peak. I think her name is Jennifer. I forget who is who. Anyway, in the summer, this hike involves a 1.5 mile approach along Montana Creek followed by a ~4,000-foot climb in about three miles up the ridge. It's strenuous, but it can easily be done in an afternoon. I thought the seven-odd hours of daylight I had would be plenty.

But the weather was not conducive to fast movement. The temperature - at sea level, nearly 40 degrees - was so warm that even on the relatively flat trail along the river, I was in full-on slog mode, slopping through shin-deep snow that had the consistency of wet cement. My heart was pounding, and I hadn't even started climbing yet. As I started to gain elevation, I was sweating so profusely that I stripped down to my short-sleeved T-shirt - in January!

The heat was not doing me any favors. Because it was so warm, the snow remained heavy and soft even at the higher elevations. I had become so accustomed to cold crust that I couldn't believe how hard I was working for what felt like a snail pace. The cement snow caught my snowshoes and threatened to hold me in place with every step. My calves and thighs were burning, so I leaned hard on my trekking poles until my biceps were burning as well. In the distance I could see the Chilkat Mountains. Such a beautiful range. If and when I am ever good enough for this remote and rugged span of mountains, I would love to explore them.

Finally on the summit ridge, the wind-scoured slope became easier to navigate but much more daunting. I took off my snowshoes so I could walk on the frozen tussocks and gravel. The snow to the right is little more than a huge cornice. I don't think I took a very good picture from the bottom, but it overhung by several feet and I was terrified to touch any snow for fear the whole thing would break off.

This is the part where I struggled mightily with what I acknowledge is a fairly straightforward scramble. But the windblown snow wouldn't consolidate under my feet, and once I ran out of gravel to scramble up, I became very nervous about my footing on the loose snow.

Here is the crux point I couldn't surpass. This picture is taken from a ways back, so it doesn't look nearly as daunting as it did standing right underneath it. On the bottom left you can see my footprints where I first got spooked by the unconsolidated layer of snow on a steeper slope and turned around. I did this on several aspects, often backtracking two or three times before I reanalyzed the situation and worked up the courage to continue. (The angle was about 45 degrees. Funny how straight-up that looks when you are standing right on top of it.) Anyway, I finally got over that obstacle only to be shaken up by that next pitch. On the right is crumbling rock that I wouldn't scramble around even if it was completely ice-free. But on the left is that overhanging lip. No way around it but to punch right through. I hemmed and hawed on the prospect for nearly a half hour (it was warm enough that I could stand around.) I don't have the experience to accurately read snow, and all I could imagine was the whole cornice breaking clean off that knife ridge and plummeting to the bowl far below. Whether or not that was a realistic scenario, it's very difficult for me to take risks when I am all alone. I finally psyched myself out. It was 2:30 p.m. already and sunset was in an hour and a half. In defeat, I turned around.

But at least the sunset was nice. I finally stumbled out at 6 p.m., after nine hours on the Grandchild, completely spent. A similar hike during the summer would take me four hours, tops, at about half the level of effort. I'm beginning to appreciate more and more just how many challenges winter can dole out.

Today I decided to do something "easy" like Gastineau Peak. However, I don't have Internet access at home and neglected to check the weather before I left. Turns out it was a windy day. Northeasterly winds. And on days like that, there's pretty much no worse place to be in Juneau than the Roberts ridge.

It was crazy windy. I think it was blowing steady at 50 mph and gusting to 75 mph. I bundled up every square inch of skin so the windchill didn't bother me, but I had a difficult time staying on my feet. A gust would kick up, and I'd drop to my knees and plant my ice ax. The whole time, I scolded myself for being overly cautious. "Real mountaineers deal with wind so much worse, on actual steep and exposed terrain," I thought. But the lecture rang hollow when I could stand up and lean into the wind at a 45-degree angle without falling over. Snow pummeled my coat and if I turned to face it, even through my balaclava, I could feel the blast of ice shrapnel.

I kept at it for about an hour, until I was sufficiently mentally worn down, and those little voices that say "what the hell are you doing?" started to win out. Someday, I'm going to figure this out. But I suspect that I may not be able to do it on my own.

Road biking in January

The only bike shop in all of Juneau, Glacier Cycles, shuttered its doors on Christmas Eve. Before I left town for my Christmas trip to Whitehorse, I stopped in one last time to clean them out of all of their lube and 29” tubes, and say goodbye to the great guys at my soon-to-be-former LBS. I felt a mixture of guilt — for all of the bike parts and gear I had purchased on the Internet — and low-level panic, because without access to a commercial bike mechanic in town, mechanically incompetent cyclists such as myself are pretty much screwed.

I knew the time would come, sooner or later, when one of my bikes would be rendered inoperable by a mechanical I could not fix. I was hoping that time would come later rather than sooner, but sure enough, yesterday I discovered a broken spoke in the rear wheel of my mountain bike (on the cassette side.) In addition to this broken spoke are several loose spokes, and a severe wobble that tells me this wheel is not far from total collapse. I’m a bit frustrated with my options. I can’t replace the spoke because I don’t have a tool to remove the cassette, and even if I did, the wheel is so out of true that I shouldn’t ride it anyway. I could go online and buy a new wheel, which is probably what I will do. But how do I install a new cassette? Is this something I’m going to have to figure out how to do myself? Am I going to have to buy tools? I am not happy. Not happy at all.

In the meantime, I can’t ride my mountain bike. I don’t like to ride Pugsley on wet roads — the result is not unlike taking a shower in a fountain of grit. Which leaves me with my road bike. I never ride my road bike in the winter. Juneau’s heavy precipitation and continuous freeze-thaw cycle guarantee a constant mess of ice, slush, gravel and mud all over the pavement. A bike with skinny tires and no studs - though considerably faster - just isn’t worth the risk. But today I wavered on my “No Road Bike In The Winter” rule. Although it still drops below freezing at night, we’re at the tail end of nearly a week of temperatures in the 30s and rain. I thought maybe, just maybe, the rain had scoured enough of the slush to make skinny tires viable.

For a couple miles, I felt almost unbelievably light and fast, like I was riding on a cushion of air. But then I came to the end of Fritz Cove Road and the beginning of the slush and gravel surface of the highway shoulder. I cut a narrow groove at least an inch deep, but the tires seemed to hold decent traction beneath the goo, so I continued.

Farther out the road, conditions deteriorated. The slush became deeper, and soon it was coated in a thin veneer of crunchy ice. As I was coasting down the long hill toward the Shrine of St. Therese, I inadvertently rolled onto a solid layer of wet pack ice. When I realized this, my heart jumped into my throat. I knew braking would be suicide — pressing the brake pads against the rims all but guaranteed the wheels would slip out. So I did the only rational thing I could do: I screamed. Then I death-gripped the handlebars and straight-lined it all the way down the hill. Eeeeeeeee!

By providence or sheer luck, enough gravel was embedded in the hard ice to keep my tires upright. As soon as I reached a more level section of road, gravity generously slowed my death plunge and I was able to veer into a narrow track scraped bare by traffic. Scary! It was perhaps the scariest thing I have done on a bicycle all winter — certainly more frightening than any of my Pugsley ridge descents so far.

Then, on the way home, I got a flat tire after running over a particularly sharp chunk of road salt. I only had a patch kit with me; my hands went completely numb while I waited for the glue to dry at glacial pace in the cold air. I began to rethink my rethinking of the "No Road Bike In The Winter" rule. Which means I'm down to one bike.

I miss you, Glacier Cycles.

Fun with cameras

I am a big advocate of cyclists, runners and hikers carrying cameras during their outdoor activities. In my opinion, anytime one doesn't bring a camera along, it's just an opportunity lost. Yeah, yeah, I know, fitness, health, fresh air - these are all perfectly good reasons for outdoor activities that don't require photographic documentation. But the main reason I go outside is to experience the world, and being the natural-born journalist that I am, images only serve to enhance these experiences.

People are always asking me what kind of camera I carry. I use only one camera, a little point-and-shoot called the Olympus Stylus Tough. (Full disclosure. I received this camera as part of an Olympus sponsorship ahead of the 2009 Iditarod Trail Invitational. The only thing they really got out of that failed race from me is this Web page.) I love this little waterproof and shockproof camera, and it goes everywhere with me. It doesn't matter what the world doles out - rain, sleet, snow, blowing sand, 20 below, falling off high ledges during self portraits, bearing the brunt of the force in a mountain bike crash, smacking pavement after falling from a moving bicycle - the Stylus Tough can take it. It has seen a lot of loving abuse over the past year - hundreds of small adventures, thousands of miles and thousands of photographs.

Friends often urge me to break down and buy a "real camera." While I'm not opposed to owning a nicer camera, the fact is I would never take it on any of my bike rides. I've watched many of my avid shooter friends pull huge dry bags out of their packs, painstakingly remove their awkwardly large camera, spend five minutes screwing on attachments and adjusting settings, and shoot 40 images of the same ptarmigan, only to put it away and have it stay in their packs for the rest of the outing. I'm sure they get great images this way. But it really isn't my style. I like to stay on the move and document as many moments of my rides and hikes as I feel compelled to, without thinking about it.

That's why it's important to me to carry a camera I essentially cannot break, no matter how hard I try. I once read a review of the Stylus that sums it up as thus: "This camera is like a dancing bear - the appeal isn't in how well it dances, but the astonishing fact that it can dance at all." I disagree. Sure, like any point-and-shoot, the Stylus has its limitations. Some are more limiting than others. But at 12 megapixels, it can capture decent images. Beyond this, I haven't really bothered to play with very many of the camera's features, writing them off as probably worthless given the tiny, relatively cheap, indestructible nature of this camera. But today I experimented with the "digital zoom" feature for the first time.

Here's a naked-eye image of a bald eagle perched on branch overlooking the Lynn Canal and Chilkat Mountains. Nice setting, but the bird is pretty much lost in it.

Here's the same bird using the optical zoom. This is as far as I've ever gone with my camera, because digital zooms on tiny lenses generally suck - pixilated, grainy, unfocused, yuck, yuck, yuck. I'm perfectly willing to accept these lens limitations in exchange for the ease of carrying a camera everywhere I go. After all, I'm out there all the time. I'm bound to see some good stuff at close range eventually. I can let a few of those Kodak moments pass me by.

But that bald eagle was perched in such a perfect spot, I decided to experiment with the "yuck, yuck, yuck" digital zoom today. I'm not disappointed. Sure, the pixilation is there, a lot of the finer features are blurred out and the color is slightly muted. I'm never going to win any wildlife photography awards for it. But this image serves my main purpose, which is solidifying a memory of this great bicycle ride I did on Jan. 19, 2010, when I pedaled through a long and murky film of fog only to emerge in the first direct sunlight I've felt in two weeks, and to share this spectacular view of the Chilkats with a patient eagle. That's all I need.