Reliable klutz

Beat and Liehann, trying not to look cold because it was about 40 degrees, drizzling and windy at the ridge.

After a mountain bike crash last August left a quarter-sized crater in my elbow, I started demoing different elbow pads. After all, it took a full painful month of wet-dry bandaging to extract all (or at least most) of the gravel from that thing, and I really didn't want to have to go through that again. I briefly tried a roller blade pad — stiff and inflexible — and moved onto mountain bike armor — hot and uncomfortable. Just before a 25-hour bike race in November, I discovered lightweight pads for basketball players — basically a thin piece of foam on a sleeve. It seemed better than nothing, so I wore them a few times, but it didn't take long before I went back to arms au naturel.

Just as the pain of dragging a sled a hundred miles through frozen Alaska fades all to quickly from memory, I had conveniently forgotten all the ways in which I was kinda miserable for most of the month of August. Laying in bed with my arm propped above my head, unable to sleep ... jogging slowly with my hand in a sling ... not biking at all. All of these memories are still fairly fresh. They should be reminders of why I should wear body armor and maybe just not go outside at all, but memory is a funny thing. It manages to gloss over weeks of teeth-clenching soreness and yet acutely remembers a single moment of getting back on a bike after six weeks off, and how incredibly liberating that felt. Padded arm sleeves, on the other hand, do not feel similarly liberating.

Good thing my friend Martina remembers that I'm a klutz. Before we set out for our planned 18-mile run on Saturday, she pointed to my scar, which was covered with a blood blister I incurred after I smacked my elbow on a bathroom drawer a week ago. "Are you still wearing elbow pads?" she asked. "Uh, yeah," I said, and pulled them on for the first time since November.

It was a hot day for January, nearly 70 degrees, and that's before we hit the oven of Rogue Valley. I rolled the sleeves over the pads but didn't take them off, although I really wanted to, and this is perhaps the first thing that went through my mind at mile 9.5, when, while running uphill along a narrow piece of singletrack cut into a steep slope, I caught my foot on a rock and started going down. My face was headed toward a veritable abyss and all I could think was "good thing I'm wearing elbow pads." Instinct directed me to grasp for the trail before I tumbled down the mountain. My right elbow smashed directly into the rock, scraping along the rough surface as my body slid a couple of inches horizontally down the sideslope.

I pulled myself up quickly and continued running, too filled with klutz's remorse to even stop and assess my pain, which was relatively immense. Martina caught up to me about the time the adrenaline wore off. I couldn't really muster more than a staggering shuffle anymore, so I had to admit I had clumsily tripped and landed directly on my bad elbow. It hurt a lot more than I thought it should. I noticed blood dripping beneath my sleeve. I pulled the pad off and sure enough, my scar looked like rotten hamburger — a mess of torn gray tissue and blood. The joint itself was cut and swollen, and turning a pale shade of purple. "Well," I said with a resigned sort of gratitude, "it could be worse. There's no gravel in there. At least I won't have to go to the hospital for a scrubbing this time."

The wound continued to throb with pain as we tried to catch up to Beat and Harry, who were a ways ahead of us. Beat finally came back down to see what was wrong, and agreed to continue downhill and get our car at home while Martina and I climbed to Black Mountain and walked a shorter route to the road. I was angry with myself. All of those easily forgotten bad memories about August trickled back into my consciousness, and I wondered how much I had set myself back. Would I not be able to ride a bike for a while? Would I have to run with my arm in a sling? Would it hurt too much to run at all? What exactly happens when you rip up scar tissue? Does it ever heal?

For most of Saturday, I was genuinely worried that I had singlehandedly undone five months of careful healing in one clumsy blow. Luckily, it does seem to just be a simple arm bashing rather than a deep wound. The swelling went down and I was feeling better this morning, so I decided to pop a few Advil and join Beat and his friend Liehann for the first paved miles of a long mountain bike ride we had been planning. Even with the full-squish bike on pavement, every tiny jolt caused enough pain that I rode most of the miles slowly with my right arm dangling. I have enough diagnosed nerve damage from the original injury that I'm not exactly sure how the healing will progress this time around. I admit not even the slightest hint of a scab has formed. The new wound isn't deep but it is still bleeding. Still, I remain optimistic that it's just a small setback, hardly worth mentioning, really. Except for this blog post ... because it's kind of a funny story, don't you think?

Afternoon spin class

Back in late 2004, I had twenty-five extra pounds I wanted to lose and not a lot of enthusiasm for my bicycles (I know, I know. Life was very different for me back then.) I was also an extremely dedicated non-runner. A co-worker listened to my woes and invited me to join her for lunchtime spin class at the Apple Fitness in Idaho Falls. "Her class is hella-hard," she said of the noon class's instructor (this is circa-2004 when people still said 'hella.') "But for seventy minutes a session it will get you in the best shape of your life, I promise."

The instructor was drill sergeant. Her classes were filled with creepy death-metal-electronica fusion music alongside the Gwen Stefani. She screamed in our faces and turned up the resistance knobs repeatedly without asking us if this was okay, and then nodded in stern approval as our knees made horrible crunching noises and our faces locked in a twisted grimace. It was so not my style. But my co-worker was right. Afternoon spin class set me on a road to physical fitness that I haven't turned back from since.

I haven't belonged to a proper gym in years, but that doesn't stop me from occasionally returning to afternoon spin class. These days, I pull out the road bike, tune into motivating pop music like The Naked and Famous, and set on a steady beat toward Monte Bello Road. After a 3.5-mile warm-up, I charge full-bore into the climb as my heart rate shoots to 180. I have five miles to ascend to 2,500 feet. I hit the steep pitches hard, relax on the short descents, and try to tap a little spin class magic by setting my iPod on repeat (I just stand still but it keeps on coming, and I just stop moving but it keeps on coming, it keeps on coming so I start running) The goal is to get to the top before minute 55. My all-time best is 50:21. Someday I'll cut it below 50. I just keep on chipping away at it, still reaching for that ever-elusive best shape of my life.

But the best part about afternoon spin class: The 2,500-foot cool-down. It's a long way down. 

2012 goals

Recently, Beat posted his adventure goals for 2012. It got me thinking about what I want to do in 2012. Below is a list of the events I'm thinking about for the coming year. Most of these are tentative, and I'm sure others that I haven't even thought of yet will become reality. But for now, these are the dreams that get me out the door most every day. My adventure dreams. This post is merely "part one." I'll post about other goals for 2012 soon.

Susitna 100
Foot race, February 18-20
This year will be my fourth showing at the illustrious Susitna 100. I finished the 100-mile "Race Across Frozen Alaska" twice on bikes (a full-suspension Gary Fisher Sugar in 2006 and an old Raleigh with Snowcat rims in 2007. It is possible to ride snow trails without a fat bike. Not well.) Even though I had much better bikes by 2011, I still decided to leave them at home and try my chances on foot. I surprised everybody and myself by finishing, and now I want to go back and try it again. Why do I want to drag a heavy sled 100 miles across the Susitna Valley, yet again? For me, these long winter slogs are very much a mental landscape sort of challenge; one might even call it intense meditation for lack of a better term. Almost regardless of the outcome, I always emerge from my Alaska sabbaticals with a renewed sense of clarity. But I do want to improve on my 2011 finish of 41 hours and 16 minutes, and my main strategy is to avoid the two-hour breaks at Luce's and Flathorn lodges.

White Mountains 100
Snow bike race, March 25
The White Mountains 100 is easily my favorite race, ever. This 100-mile race in the mountains north of Fairbanks, Alaska, takes all of my favorite things about snowbiking: Rolling terrain, winter "singletrack," sweeping vistas, a huge climb up a mountain pass, a white-knuckle descent, cozy checkpoints, tasty hot food, awesome volunteers, potential aurora gazing ... and just enough extreme cold, terrifying overflow, and of course the 800-foot-climb-in-less-than-a-mile-Wickersham-%*$!-Wall to keep it real. I finished in 22:23 in 2010 and 17:55 in 2011. Since I won't be particularly well-trained for snow biking, and since snow conditions always dictate how these things go down anyway, my main strategy for 2012 is to minimize the weight I'm carrying in extra gear, and probably also try to cut down my checkpoint times. However, the overwhelming goal in this race is to have fun.

Stagecoach 400
Self-supported bikepacking race, April 27
I haven't taken on a multi-day mountain biking challenge since I finished the Tour Divide in 2009. Although I've enjoyed my foray into ultrarunning, I admit I miss the independence, freedom and flow that I feel on my bike. So I was excited to learn that Mary Collier, who also previously finished the Tour Divide (in 2008; she is one of the stars of the movie "Ride the Divide") and her husband, Brendan, put together a 400-mile dirt route across Southern California. The loop incorporates historic routes such as the Juan Bautista DeAnza trail and the Great Southern Overland Stage Route of 1849. Since I am now a resident of California, and since the Stagecoach 400 Web site features stunning photographs, I felt compelled to enter. My main concern for participating in this event is the likelihood of extreme heat, given that it swings around the Salton Sea, which is often hotter than Phoenix. But I figure after returning from Fairbanks, some dedicated sauna training will hopefully get me in shape for what will likely be a grand and difficult tour of the state I now call home.

The Zion 50
Foot race, May 11
This race fits in the "maybe" category, and hinges on actually feeling ready for such a thing so soon after the Stagecoach 400, and also on whether Beat decides he wants to run the Zion 100. But the course looks fantastic, through one of my favorite regions, just outside Zion National Park. This would be my first attempt at the 50-mile distance, and I'm guessing a pretty tough one for me. The elevation gain in the 50-mile course is only 3,500 feet, which puts it solidly into the "runnable" category, and the cutoff times reflect that. But it would be a beautiful challenge, and it would give me an excuse to visit my family in Utah.

The Colorado Trail
Bikepacking, July
This one also falls squarely into the "maybe" pile, and actually just popped into my head as a possibility the other day. Beat is planning to spend some time in Colorado in mid-July to acclimate for the Hardrock 100, which begins on July 13. I thought if I went to Colorado with him, and acclimated, I could potentially give the Colorado Trail a shot starting the following week (mid-July.) My plan would be a self-supported fast-tour of the bike route set in place by the Colorado Trail Race, which covers 470 miles and 65,000 feet of climbing. This wouldn't necessarily be an ITT, as I don't really believe I have a shot at Eszter Horanyi's incredible time. But my plan would be to abide by all the self-support rules, carry a Spot, and basically just give myself good excuses to keep the pace cranking when things are going well, and take a breather when they're not. I like the challenge of a determined pace, even if I'm ultimately just out for a scenic bike tour. I've long promised myself I wouldn't try to ride the Colorado Trail, which is known as much for its rugged singletrack as I am known for being a poor technical rider. But I figure if I ever want to see the Colorado Trail, I'll either have to walk all of it or some of it. I might as well ride my bike where I can, and try to enjoy the hike-a-biking as though I were simply hiking. I do enjoy occasionally taking my bikes for long walks. Since this ride would be in conjunction with Hardrock, I imagine I'd start in Durango, which is opposite of the race this year. The Colorado Trail Race begins in Denver on July 30.

Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc
Foot race, August 31
This is a HUGE maybe, given — among the many reasons why I should not attempt this even if I do get in — that there's a lottery with a little worse than two-to-one odds (to be held later this month.) But the truth is, I threw my name in the hat for what is widely considered one of the most competitive and most difficult ~100-mile foot races in the world. The 166-kilometer run around Mont Blanc crosses into three countries (France, Italy and Switzerland) on steep Alps trails with nearly 31,000 feet of climbing. Entering this thing when I have never even successfully completed a much easier trail 100-miler probably comes across as an extreme case of hubris, and it is. I blame curiosity. I was only even on the Web site to check out the much crazier race that Beat signed up for, the La Petite Trotte à Léon (290 kilometers with 22,000 meters of "positive height gain.") The adjacent site for the UTMB offered registration for qualified participants, and I thought, "there's no way I qualify." To qualify, a participant needs five points in two races. I discovered that my finishes in the Susitna 100 (4 points), Racing the Planet Nepal (3 points) and Ohlone Wilderness 50K (1 point) were more than enough to get me through the first cut. Out of sheer bemusement about the idea that a snow slog, a stage race with a heavy pack, and a 50K could qualify me for one of the toughest mountain races in the world, I signed up.

Let me just continue that I do think, with a little luck, I could finish. I would approach it from a speed-hiking standpoint and would aim to move consistently at a conservative but determined pace to stay ahead of the 46-hour cutoff. And believe me, I've done enough hiking in the Alps to understand how incredibly hard this will be. Hopefully all the hike-a-biking I do in Colorado will whip me into shape for the task, but if not, no biggie. Honestly, if I don't get into UTMB, I won't cry about it. I'll just hike the Mont Blanc loop over a much more luxurious four or five days while Beat is racing the PTL.

The Bear 100
Foot race, September 28-29
If I don't get into the UTMB, I'd still like to aim for a 100-mile trail race in 2012. The Bear 100 is ideal for me. It's tough and "climby" enough to be a good fit for a hiker like me, covers a scenic point-to-point route in my home state of Utah, and has the awesome nostalgia factor of being the race where Beat and I had our first "date." I've already run the last fifty miles of the course, so I think the hundred-miler is doable for me, although I would have to practice my running plenty over the summer in order to finish under the cut-off. Plus, my friend Danni is planning on running this race. It should be a lot of fun.

25 Hours of Frog Hollow
Mountain bike race, November 3-4
This is just a fun mountain bike party in the desert near Hurricane, Utah. It's too far in the future to really know whether I could fit it into my schedule, but I like to tentatively plan on being there all the same. I'd love to return as a solo racer and avenge my early-morning meltdown of 2011. However, I'd be thrilled if I could place as high as second, because this race becomes more popular every year. I wouldn't be surprised if a pro or two showed up in 2012. It's still a fantastic way to spend a day with some great people. 

Indulgence

I should know myself better than this by now. I have two very nice bike lights that take all of thirty seconds to mount on the handlebars. However, I often leave these lights at home, on purpose, as though neglecting to bring lights will force me to return at a decent hour. So I leave the bike lights behind, but I do bring a small headlamp and red blinkies, because, you know, safety first.

I was little bit lost in my project today, and failed to noticed the quickly passing hours until it was already 3:04 p.m. Oh, I need to go. Slap on a long-sleeved T-shirt and tights. My running pack from last weekend's trail race and its leftover water, hat, jacket and mittens should suffice for supplies. The responsible side of me just wants to stay at home and keep writing; don't break the flow. But louder voices lodge a compelling protest.  You promised we were going mountain biking today. You've been home in warm, sunny California for a week. No more excuses.

Okay, okay. What  kind of ride do I even have time for now that it's what, 3:17 p.m.? Sun sets at 5:10. Useable daylight lasts until 5:30. That should at least give me time to tag Black Mountain. I pedal away from my apartment building, mind still crowded with chapter outlines and dialogue. Not that any of that stuff is really all that important, but I admit I sometimes wonder exactly why I feel so compelled to ride my bike. Daily exercise has been such a part of my routine for so many years, through so many major life changes, that I have a difficult time imagining my self identity without it. Exercise serves as both my anchor and my escape, but sometimes I wonder if it's too much of a priority. What is it exactly that drives me to cut the line to my creative juices and redirect all of my energy to simple pedaling? What does mountain biking accomplish for me that words can not?

I pedal up the steep road as guilt about stifled creativity and slow work progress gives way to the blissful mindlessness of hard effort. It's easy to ignore the more oppressive thoughts in my head when so much oxygen is directed to my muscles — one of the side effects of exercise that I cherish. With guilt and worry out of the way, I launch into the trail with renewed enthusiasm, the kind that never grows stale no matter how many times I venture outside for a simple ride. After cresting the mountain top, I briefly remember I was supposed to do something here, but can't remember what that something might be. Warm January air and rich afternoon light prompts me onward to a smooth ribbon of singletrack. The blast of chilled air and swirls of dust put a smile on my face, which is as good a reason as any to tuck in and coast all the way to the canyon.

It's there — twelve miles, 2,700 feet of climbing, and 600 feet of descending later — that I remember what it was I set out to do on this ride: Get home by dark. Wisps of pink light stretching across the sky tell me this is not a likely scenario. But I engage the high gear anyway, and get all the workout I need in twenty red-lining minutes. With my grimace factor on high, the air temperature turns from chilled to raw, and there's only enough oxygen flowing to my brain to register gasps and moans. But the rewards are unmistakable. I reach the top of Black Mountain just in time to watch the vermillion sun slip beneath a sheet of haze over the Pacific. Steeped in pink light and endorphin euphoria, I steal a few minutes of fading daylight to catch my breath.

I pull on all the warm layers in my pack, sip some leftover race water, and switch on my headlamp and blinkies now for good measure, because I'm going to need them soon. I'm not going to make it home before dark, and by the time I shower and eat dinner I'm probably going to be too tired to get any more work done today. And yet, the ride is completely worth it. I should know myself better than this by now. 

Recovery run: Crystal Springs 50K

At the start of the Crystal Springs 50K

I felt weak and a little off-kilter, not unlike the way I felt a month ago after I returned from Nepal. I went for a couple short bike rides, and on Thursday decided it was time to return to running. Since nothing I did in the deep snow and intense cold of Alaska can really be counted as running, it had actually be a while. I ran my standard eight-mile loop. It felt weird. I returned home with my usual attitude that forms after a hiatus of any length — "running is too hard." But it was too late; Beat had already signed us up for the Crystal Springs 50K.

Upon arriving at the start in Woodside, I learned I was currently the female course record holder for the Coastal Trail Runs race. I did not know this, nor did I feel pressured to defend my title (Crystal Springs was a smaller affair in 2010 and 2011, but this year there were 60 people starting the 50K, at least a dozen of whom were women.) But as the "defending champion" I did feel some responsibility to at least show up and give this running race my best running effort. But not too much running, because running is too hard.

The antithesis to my frosty face photos from Alaska — this is what winter running looks like in coastal California. 

I hit a few snags early on in the race. I learned why leg warmers aren't more popular with runners after I had to stop several times to pull up my leg warmers after they'd fallen down, then finally just took them off. There were also a couple trips into the woods when something from that morning didn't agree with me — I convinced myself that something was running. But eventually I hit my stride and found myself surprisingly able to hold a solid pace without excessive effort. I'd already decided I was just going to run Crystal Springs "easy" because right now, maintaining my endurance motor is about the only thing I can do to improve my chances in the Susitna 100. Speed will accomplish exactly nothing toward that particular goal.

Everything motored along swimmingly until I passed the last checkpoint, 4.6 miles from the finish. I looked at my watch and realized if I could somehow log sub-nine-minute miles for the rest of the race, I might just reach something that has been a longer-term goal of mine — to finish a trail 50K in less than six hours. The remainder of the course was predominantly downhill, but in my world, that's a bad thing. I think you have to be a similarly flailing and awkward runner as I am to really understand what I mean. Even on flat pavement, seven miles per hour is about my speed threshold before I begin to feel uncomfortable, like my feet are stumbling over themselves and painful things are about to happen, and sometimes they do. Even if they're physically achievable, fast speeds frighten me enough that I'm psychologically incapable of letting off the brakes.

I crested a small hill with my GPS registering a 13-minute-mile, which just wasn't going to cut it. Just then, a song came on my iPod that reminded me of my trek in Alaska, and momentarily moved my thoughts from the vibrant sunlight filtering through the redwood forest, back to the frigid air and frozen swamps of the Susitna Valley — "The Cave" by Mumford and Sons:

It's empty in the valley of your heart
The sun, it rises slowly as you walk
Away from all the fears
And all the faults you've left behind


For a moment I could feel all of it — a hundred miles of snowshoe trekking, a reluctant sled tugging at my hips, lips cracked with windburn, swollen fingertips, a painful patch of dry skin that formed on my nose after I dozed off with my face sticking out of my bivy bag, the cold headaches, the fatigue after my long flight home, the lead weights in my legs during my difficult training run, the 27 miles of consistent running I had already logged that day. And then, in the next moment, I let it all go. And I ran. 

But I will hold on hope
And I won't let you choke
On the noose around your neck

I locked in to the frenetic banjo harmony and matched my own cadence, feeling a rush of wind and adrenaline as I accelerated down the narrow, winding trail. A towering redwood canopy filtered the sunlight into a hypnotic strobe, dry leaves erupted at my feet, and I could almost taste the moist aroma of soil and green moss. Even the endless hairpin turns couldn't disrupt the exhilarating sensation of simply running without fear. Who cares if I fall?

And I'll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways
I'll know my name as it's called again

I passed several runners — a guy, another guy, a woman, two guys. One of them called out to me, "Nice pace!" "Thanks!" I shouted back. The trail disappeared beneath my feet like a conveyor belt. I felt like I could run faster, but I had a hunch I was running fast enough. That was good enough for me.

I crossed the finish line at 5:51, a personal record by 20 minutes. (Garmin stats here) I didn't win. Not even in my age group. The woman who did win shattered my course record and beat me by an hour. But it felt like a big victory, all the same. 

Symphony of cold IV

Movement IV, sonata

A wind gust swept shards of snow over the trench as I struggled halfway inside my sleeping bag, trying to kick my pad into place. Loud pops followed small bursts of yellow light on the Shell Lake, about a mile and a half away and a few hundred feet below our bivy spot. I was impressed by the stamina of the children, who for most of the evening had been launching an impressive arsenal of fireworks in shifts — each one lasted about as long as they could stand in the harsh wind and 15 below zero temperatures. But now it was nearly midnight and they were really letting loose.

"Three more minutes," Beat said, his voice muffled inside his own bag.

"This bag is not cooperating tonight," I growled, squinting against another stinging blast of micro-ice.

"Are you going to freeze?" Beat asked.

"Hope not. I'll let you know."

I was nearly inside my bag when I heard Beat say, "It's midnight. Happy New Year."

"Happy New Year, sweetie." I poked my head out of the bivy, sat up, and threw my torso over the wall of my trench like a beached seal. Beat heard me do this, nuzzled his own face out of his down cocoon and strained his body toward mine. With a few more lunges I successfully touched my lips to his. "Happy New Year," I repeated. "Isn't this romantic?"

"Something like that," Beat said, but I saw him smile.

As we nestled in our snug down bags in a shallow snow hole cut into the side of the Shell Hills, 2011 transitioned seamlessly to 2012. The camping trip was really just a bedtime experiment. We had actually spent New Year's Eve in a much more traditional fashion, consuming large quantities of ham and smoked salmon at the Shell Lake Lodge. We played dice with men and women wearing bulky snowmachine overalls, laughed at the children running back inside the cabin with bright red cheeks and blue lips after lighting their fireworks, and listening to a survivalist explain to us in detail the importance of knowing how to build a snow cave, finishing his lecture with the matter-of-fact assertion, "When it's 70 below, and you don't build a cave, you will die. It's not a question. You will die." (That very night, it hit 60 below in McGrath, where the race Beat will be participating in next month ends.)

The huge dinner in the crowded, overheated lodge, followed by doomsday warnings about 70 below, did take the sting off camping at -15 in a -30 windchill just a couple of miles away. I felt downright cozy, and exhausted from our ongoing snowshoe adventures, enough so that when Beat woke up several hours later and proclaimed the experiment a success, I refused to leave. "I like it here," I said. "It's nice. I think I'll stay til morning."

Our weekend in the Shell Hills was idyllic, with subtle reminders of the hardships of winter in backcountry Alaska. We stayed with Anne and her husband, Mike, in a cabin on property they've owned for many years. The cabin was basic by most standards but luxurious by Alaska standards: A single room with a loft and a wood stove in the center, a diesel heater as backup, an outhouse, gas-powered stove and refrigerator (mostly used to "warm" food after a deep freeze), and even a shower in the Arctic entry that utilized a plastic solar shower bag and lake water warmed in a big pot on the stove. Anne and Mike were very kind to let us share their space, and Anne even cooked several delicious meals. During one breakfast that featured eggs, biscuits and reindeer sausage, Beat held up the sausage and said, "So this is what happens to reindeer after Christmas."

On New Year's Eve we trekked up the Shell Hills, aiming to reach a high ridge for a better view of the Alaska Range and Denali. It was mid-day, although you'd never know it by looking at the sky. The wind blew hard, and despite the hard work in deep unbroken snow, I felt more chilled than I had yet during our trip. Before we gained the ridge, we found ourselves neck-deep in a struggle with hidden alder wells, sometimes literally. Anne eventually punched through so deep that she couldn't extract herself. She pulled her gloves off and started clawing at her snowshoes, which were difficult to reach and tangled in branches. Beat and I inched closer, trying to avoid the trap ourselves and establish a good hold for our own weight so we could help her. After four or five minutes we finally had her by the arms, leveraging both of our weight to pull her out. But not before her fingers became painfully cold, and her face was a little white — no doubt processing what she might have done and what would have happened if she had been alone. We turned around.

On New Year's Day, we decided to stick to the established route and hike toward Finger Lake on the Iditarod Trail. We went about five or six miles across wide open swamps with brilliant views of the mountains, then turned around. Despite the sugary trail and ambitious pace, it felt like an easy stroll without the sleds in tow.

We did catch a glimpse of Mount Foraker and Denali in the distance. This was actually the only bluebird day we experienced the entire two weeks we were in Alaska.

We also tried a bit of snowshoe running. Although this was mostly a shakedown training expedition for Beat's ITI bid, I learned a few things that I think will help me during next month's Susitna 100. I've already thought through a few adjustments to my kit and know exactly what I'm going to minimize (this of course will be based on the forecasted weather the night before the race.) I'm also strongly considering using snowshoes in the race. I'm definitely going to at least carry them on my sled, and will likely use them for a better percentage of the run depending on trail conditions.

Snowshoes serve as a great equalizer for many different kinds of trail conditions, and worked well to stabilize my stride and provide a flat platform to kick my feet off, avoiding the muscle fatigue and mental frustration of uneven, punchy snow (and almost all snow trails have this quality to some degree. I could see evidence of the kind of footing that bothers me in Anne's deep and often off-camber footprints, compared to my shallow and even snowshoe prints.) Snowshoes are not popular with winter runners, possibly because they're heavy and somewhat awkward, but I still think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks for me. I used mine for the entire trek, and it got to the point where I was so comfortable with them that I forgot I was wearing them.

On our final day at Shell Lake, we planned to fly out early, but a thick ice fog moved in and blanketed the entire region. Mike just barely got out in his small plane, and didn't think he'd be able to return to make the shuttles as planned. We called an air taxi service but they were also tied down by the fog. Because the oil heater had already been shut off and the wood stove only had enough oomph against the extreme cold to keep the cabin at 50 degrees or so, we retreated to Shell Lake Lodge. The lodge is maintained by Zoe, a woman in her late 60s who, with help from her son, Hank, keeps the lodge running all year long. As you can see from the mountain of firewood out front, that's not an easy task. Zoe was very sweet, served us up New Year's leftovers for lunch, and repeatedly called the air taxi pilot to relay weather reports and updates.

I went on an exploration safari, and spent quite a bit of time watching the chorus of birds out in front of the lodge. These Alaska Chickadees displayed an impressive activity level amid the frigid temperatures. It was 18 below zero when I shot this picture.

The fog lifted off of Shell Lake and temperatures continued to plummet. I watched the thermometer at Shell Lake Lodge drop to -22 and then -23. The pilot was in a rush to make several scheduled runs and said there was no way he could pick us up before dark, and would have to reschedule for morning. Beat and I were disappointed by this news, as we had a red-eye flight back to California that night. Of course, we had only ourselves to blame for cutting our schedule so close. In Alaska in the winter, you can't really count on anything working out the way you hope.

I thought the pilot saying there was no way he would come that day meant there was no way he would come that day, so Beat and I set out across the lake and into the hills to find some sun and frost.

Frost gives everything a delicate, almost ethereal beauty.

Then back across the lake as the sun went down, carrying the temperatures even farther down with it. When we returned to the lodge, Anne told us the pilot was going to make it after all and we better hurry and get ready to go or he was leaving without us. Whoops. This is another thing I learned this weekend about Alaska bush culture — nothing is certain until it's certain.

And just like that, we let go of a week of deep-cold adventure with a one-hour flight in the disappearing light. I have said goodbye to the Susitna Valley this way before, in this exact same plane, the day that I was evacuated from Yentna Station with frostbite in 2009. But instead of the cold finality of that goodbye, this one felt more like a warm hello. Thank you, Alaska. I will be back. 

South Pole on a bike

I will post my last Alaska symphony piece soon, but recently I've been participating in several social media discussions about a woman who is currently attempting to use a bicycle to reach the South Pole, and I wanted to distill these discussions on my blog.

Helen Skelton, a 28-year-old British television personality who I admittedly had never heard of before last month, is currently in the process of traveling 500 miles in Antarctica using an ice bike, skis, and a kite, toward the South Pole. In doing so, she's raising money for a charity called Sport Relief and also bringing the adventure and intrigue of Antarctica to thousands of young fans. It's a laudable goal with a few holes that immediately caused me to react with suspicion rather than the admiration she certainly deserves.

First of all, the media coverage surrounding this effort (at least initially) presented her expedition as an attempt to break "the world record for the longest ride on snow." This has since disappeared from most the coverage, almost certainly because too many North Americans called them out for conveniently ignoring the successful 1,000-mile rides to Nome, Alaska, on the Iditarod Trail. The southern route records are held by the husband-and-wife superteam Jay and Tracey Petervary, and the northern route records by Tracey Petervary and Mike Curiak. Curiak has also pioneered the only known self-supported snow bike expedition of that distance, successfully riding to Nome without a single resupply in 2010. Since the Iditarod Trail is entirely ice and snow (or, at its very worst, wind-scoured frozen tundra), any claims to the longest bike ride on snow, currently, would have to take place there.

Another aspect of Skelton's expedition that gave me pause is the fact that she has little to no cold-weather or snow-biking experience. She has a few crazy adventures on her resume, including a high-wire walk between the chimneys of Battersea Power Station, in London, and a solo kayak voyage down the length of the Amazon. The kayak voyage is especially impressive, but it does make one wonder what that has to do with managing a wide variation of equipment and survival techniques in the extreme environments of Antartica. True, she does have a large television crew and support team that presumably will come to her aid, as well as a guide who will be biking and kite skiing with her. But media coverage has practically praised her complete lack of preparation and experience, and her blog included descriptions of her first time winter camping, ever, just two months ago, and this gem about her bike: "I've tried it out on sand and it didn't work very well but the experts tell me it will definitely work better on ice and snow. It better!"

The bike she chose is another curious part of the expedition. It's a custom-built Hanebrink all-terrain bike, with several modifications that take extreme cold in account. However, it appears the designers failed to take into account the fact she will actually have to ride it in Antarctic conditions, which involve uncompacted wind crust, bottomless sugar snow, sasturgi (wind-blown ridges of snow that are similar to sand dunes), chunks of ice, and other technical obstacles. The 40-pound bike features a frame made from aluminum aircraft tubing, the components are simple and purposely sturdy, but the wheels are what the designers say are the key — a small wheelbase with eight-inch tubeless tires. The tires are steel-belted to add sturdiness and presumably prevent flats, because there's almost no chance she'd successfully repair a tubeless flat in extreme low temperatures. The tires and wheels combined weigh upwards of nine pounds each. Presumably they're so small to avoid weighing much more, because small wheels are usually a handicap when negotiating technical terrain.

"They're a lot like the tires for golf carts," one of the designers, Kane Fortune, told the BBC. "They are designed to leave the smallest impression as possible, so the grass on the green isn't damaged."

The problem is, Skelton isn't trying to leave golf course grass undamaged. She's trying to steamroll over incredibly difficult terrain features and float atop dry, sugary snow — while dragging an 82-kilogram sledge. It seems strange to me that with all of the research now out there on larger wheel-base snow bikes, and the fact that they have been extensively tested in extreme conditions and are now commercially marketed, that Skelton and her team would choose to use what amounts to 1990s sand bike technology. Although I'm not the expert on the mechanics of bicycle riding, I have a hard time envisioning how Helen and her guide are even propelling those things forward. All I can see is those little wheels spinning deeper and deeper trenches into the brittle crust as the sledge holds them in place like an anchor.

There is also the matter of what happens to the components of a bicycle in the extreme cold that Skelton will almost certainly encounter in Antarctica. In 2004, Mike Curiak and his friend Pat Irwin set out to scout a remote route in the Yukon that resulting in them spending several days pushing through temperatures in the negative 50s. After their struggle to survive, the Anchorage Daily News ran a piece about their trip in which Mike explored their mechanical failures.

"At 40 below zero, we started to have tube failures," Curiak wrote. "We had WTB (Wilderness Trail Bikes), Kenda and Avenir tubes with us, and they all pulled apart at their seams. The flats were so prevalent that we no longer had to look at our thermometers to know when the temp had hit minus 40. After the race, a product manager explained to me that 40 below zero falls a bit outside of the design parameters for bicycle inner tubes."

Skelton's bike has tubeless tires, which will mitigate the problem of exploding tubes. But the fact remains that rubber rendered inflexible in the cold can crack. Any air it is holding can escape. Even steel belting can't necessarily prevent this. And the fact is, no one has really extensively tested bike performance in extreme cold. Curiak noted all sorts of mechanical problems that the Anchorage Daily News reported:

• At 25 degrees below, the suspension seat post on his bike froze solid.

• At 30 degrees below, the headsets on the bikes started to freeze, making it hard to turn the handlebars.

• At 40 degrees below, the tube failures started.

• At 47 degrees below, the plastic head on his tire pump shattered.

• At 52 degrees below, the headsets on the bikes became so stiff that the handlebars wouldn't turn more than 10 degrees.

• At 55 degrees below and colder, it was time to forget riding and start pushing, because tubes wouldn't hold up at these temperatures and patching them was impossible.

• And at 60 degrees below, the only thing that mattered were the words of Hudson Stuck: "One must keep going."

Curiak has, in my opinion, already pioneered the current best possible system for a long self-supported snow bike expedition during his 2010 ride to Nome. He rode a titanium Moots frame with standard 26" 100-mm rims and used no trailer or sledge, instead adopting a more minimalist approach and piling up everything he needed on his bike using a rack and pannier system. With this system he successfully rode 1,000 miles to Nome without resupply, carrying all of his food, fuel and survival gear from the start.

Admittedly, Nome in the winter is a less extreme situation than an expedition to the South Pole at any time of year. Weather is almost certainly milder, a trail is generally set in place, and there are evacuation options if things go wrong. But Curiak's 2010 ride is currently the most ambitious winter bicycle expedition ever undertaken, and no one has yet successfully piloted a bicycle self-supported all the way from the Antarctic coast to the South Pole (which, in my opinion, must be the parameters for the first official bike ride to the South Pole.)

It would be wonderful if a woman were the first person to do it. However, I don't think that woman will be Helen Skelton. I do wish her the best, hope she raises a lot of money, inspires a lot of kids, and has an amazing life experience. I admire her adventurous spirit, and the fact that despite all of the obstacles, she is still charging forward all the same.

I just threw this photo in for fun. A blog friend, Claire, sent this to me from "Down at South Pole" back in 2008.