On blogging

All screenshots are from the Wayback Machine — such a fun rabbit hole to dive into.

It’s odd to acknowledge that I’ve been blogging for nearly half of my life. I launched my first blog in late 2002 at the naive age of 23. Blogs themselves were still in their relative infancy. I’d recently latched onto bike touring as a large part of my identity and decided since my new hobby had changed my life, I wanted to help others discover it as well. 

I initially started “Bike to Shine” — a play on lyrics from Ben Harper’s “Burn to Shine” — on Blogger. At the time, the platform didn’t offer a lot — no photos, for example. So I continued to update journal entries from Blogger (which was possible to do from rural county libraries.) But I also taught myself a rudimentary amount of HTML and launched a digital "magazine" at biketoshine.com. 

BiketoShine.com was an expensive endeavor for me — I believe at the time I was paying something like $30 a month for hosting. Since I didn’t have personal access to the Internet at home (I lived in a house with eight roommates and only one desktop computer and dial-up phone line among us), I usually worked on my blog after-hours at my desk at the Tooele Transcript-Bulletin. I wrote wordy posts about the wisdom I’d gained on the single bike tour I’d completed thus far. I also tried to pass myself off as an expert in whitewater rafting (a sport I was already terrified of) and backpacking. I promoted my site everywhere I could — Ken Kifer’s bike forum, crazyguyonabike.com, plastering a printout of the Web address on the back of my friend’s truck shell. I hoped to gain thousands — or at least tens — of readers and leverage my great new Web site into a lucrative carrier in outdoor magazine writing. 

Comic Sans! The horror! Also note: "I'm not athletic. I don't particularly like challenging myself physically."

Obviously, it didn’t work out that way. I did gain at least tens of readers, but eventually, I began to resent the thankless after-hours work and hosting fees. When I announced I was shutting my site down, another blogger offered to mirror the poorly designed pages on his site. To this day, I can still access remnants of my first blog at http://bonius.com/biketoshine.com — a fun (if embarrassing) time capsule of my youth. 

Ausilia and I pose with Dave in Anchorage in 2014.

Going online also revealed the cyclical nature of life. After a few months of writing, I added a PayPal link urging readers to “Get involved in the adventure!” I still remember the thrill of my first donation from a man named Dave Cushwa. Here was a complete stranger who took me seriously as a writer and adventurer! The Internet seemed so young and innocent back then — these types of distant connections were still a novelty. 

Eleven years later, we connected again in Anchorage, Alaska, before the 2014 Iditarod Trail Invitational. I don’t remember the reason Dave was there — I think he was helping out Italian competitors Ausilia and Sebastiano in some way. But I remembered him. He greeted me and I reminded him of the $10 and the subsequent confident boost he gifted me when I was a baby adventurer. 

“You’re basically the reason I’m here,” I joked. Dave flashed a knowing grin. 

Bike to Shine went dark in 2004. I too went dark, moving to Idaho to work late nights on a newspaper copy desk followed by later nights of bars and parties and days of sleeping and hangovers. My relationship with my boyfriend was in tatters. My bike sat dormant on an unused trainer. My more adventurous endeavors lapsed as well. This was the “quarter-life crisis” that led me to make a last-ditch effort to revive both my relationship and adventure dreams by moving to Alaska. 

 Within a month of moving to the 49th State, I was a full convert to all things Last Frontier and wanted to reveal my discoveries to everyone I knew. I started what one might now call a newsletter, but at the time was simply, “the annoying reply-all mass e-mail.” An acquaintance sent me an unnecessarily mean “unsubscribe” sort of response, and that’s when I slinked back to my origins and discovered that Blogger.com was not only free, it was way better than it used to be. 

I launched “Up in Alaska” and published my first post on November 3, 2005. “So this is my new online journal about moving to Homer, Alaska — a place where it snows in October, where moose traipse through my backyard, and where everyone can spell my last name but if you can’t spell “Xtratuf,” well, so help you God.” 

 At the time, I had no conception of where this blog would take me within a matter of weeks. I couldn’t foresee the connections I’d make with Alaskans in the blogosphere, how they’d introduce me to this crazy thing called “snow biking” and the then-inconceivable goal of a 100-mile wilderness race on the Iditarod Trail in the dead of winter. I couldn’t imagine that complete strangers would cheerlead my audacious race goal and offer crucial gear and training tips when I had no idea what I was doing. It was this whole thing. I’ve already written an entire book about how this blog changed my life. 

It’s strange to realize that this fateful step took place nearly 18 years ago — that if my blog were a baby, it would have grown into adulthood this year. What growing up have I done in that time? It’s difficult to quantify. I’m still riding bikes. I’m still hopelessly dedicated to adventure. I'm still making editorial and design choices I'll likely regret later. I’m still a newspaper copy editor who’s actually okay with the fact I’ve moved laterally through a low-end career. I figured out early that I don’t find value in work just because people pay me to do it. Money and some measure of success are necessary in life, but they’re not interesting in and of themselves. What feeds my fire, and what gives my life meaning, are stories. I value moving through the world, accumulating experiences, observing all the details I can take in, learning what I can, and telling stories as a way to connect with others. 

The blog was the simplest way to accomplish this goal. This is the reason I stuck with it even after social media caused a sea change in the landscape, and even after the community that brought me up through my baby years abandoned their own blogs and disappeared into the void. Although I remained, I realized that the community is what I missed the most. I again began to resent the time and energy I was spending on an endeavor that was feeling more and more like whispering into the void. 

It wasn't just the comments that faded away. It was any kind of reciprocal reader engagement. The intimate stories that people used to share on their blogs became snarky memes, generic photo captions, and hashtags. In turn, I felt over-exposed and self-conscious in this space. I considered pulling away — I even tried going dark a couple of times. But it never stuck. I still don't care about viral content or influencer culture or any other measure of Internet success. All I want, still, is a space to be vulnerable, to scratch my name into the proverbial cave wall, and to continue to learn and grow. 

My blog as written by ChatGPT

These are interesting times to be a creative person who has essentially grown up online but also remembers what the landscape was like before the Internet was ubiquitous. Beat has been dabbling in AI development at work. Last month, he sent me an example of an essay that ChatGPT-4 would pen when instructed to: "Write a vivid and introspective blog post in the style of Jill Homer, author of the Jilloutside.com blog, detailing a challenging yet transformative endurance adventure in the wild." 

The result provided an unsettling mirror that I did not like gazing into. Through its generic scope, ChatGPT did capture me. But it seemed to capture the worst of me — the flowery language, the overwritten descriptions, the navel-gazing. I don't claim to have fixed any of these issues in my writing — this, in many ways, is who I am. Still, it's uncomfortable to acknowledge that yes, this is my digital footprint. When our AI Overlords take over, this is how I will be replaced. 

"You should have ChatGPT write your blog for you," Beat teases me, and I won't admit to him how much this suggestion hurts my feelings. If there is no longer value in connecting with other humans through the power of the written word, what even am I doing with my life?

I feel as though I've reached another crossroads with blogging. In Spring 2022, I launched a Substack newsletter as motivation to continue working on a personal archiving project I'd started. I figured a few family members and friends would sign up — or maybe not even them, because most didn't seem to check in with my blog anymore. What I found was a surprising amount of interest. And not only that — new engagement. Other writers who I'd followed on Twitter for years were writing on Substack. Authors on road trips. Runners grappling with past eating disorders. Mountaineers addressing trauma recovery. Feminism and journalism and essays about what it means to be an "Oldster." The more I dug in, the more I realized, "Here it is! Here is the blogging community I've lost. It's back!"

This realization came just as I'd grown weary of the Substack corner I'd boxed myself into, which was essentially writing only about artifacts from my more distant past. I too wanted to expand my writing to any and all of the issues I'm exploring in the present — including mental health, grappling with climate change, the challenges of middle age, grief and loss, existential philosophy, and of course, outdoor adventure and travel. 

I decided to shift gears. After doing so, the only pieces I've written are a day-by-day account of a recent bikpacking trip through the Scottish Highlands. It's the same sort of thing I've been writing on this site since the start. It's not exactly my wider goal with my Substack blog. Still, the response has been satisfying. I nearly doubled my subscriber list within a month, including 23 paid subscribers. Paid subscriptions are a thing with Substack. They're voluntary, and in my case still more of a donation or tip than an exclusive subscription. I haven't yet published subscriber-only posts, although I likely will in the near future. I like that there's a place where I can be particularly vulnerable and honest in my writing and still connect with readers without having to blast the entire Internet with my deepest feelings. 

Thank you to those who opted to "support the adventure." It's certainly not a requirement, but it means a lot and motivates me to stay committed to the craft. Perhaps, like Dave, our paths will cross someday and we'll be able to muse about the good ol' days before ChatGPT took over the world. 

While I dip my toes in the Substack ocean, I'm not exactly sure what to do with this space. It's been around for so long that it remains a great way to connect with people from my past. I still sell a few books each week directly from the links here. I certainly have no intention of taking down its vast archive, which I sadly nearly did when I was in the midst of mental turmoil last November. But will I continue to update this blog? It's difficult to say. 

If you are still around and still reading, I'd encourage you to check out my Substack page and sign up for the e-mail list. You don't even need to sign up, though; you can simply bookmark the page and read posts online, similar to any other blog. If I truly make a full migration, I'll post a much shorter update and link at the top of the page. But it's been fun to take this trip down blogging memory lane. Thank you. 

Waking up every day just a little bit changed

Something about March 15 seems to flip a switch in Alaska, and suddenly it's spring. Daylight Savings Time stretched the evening twilight to nearly 9 p.m. Overnight, temperatures swung from consistently below zero to considerably above zero. When I bought a last-minute plane ticket out of Colorado, I scheduled my return flight for a week after my sled trip ... because if you're going to fly all the way to Alaska, you might as well make it count. I also hoped to invite myself on Corrine and Eric's weekend trip to Tolovana Hot Springs, a magical land I haven't had an opportunity to visit in six years. 

I worked all week, which meant my day-to-day in Fairbanks wasn't all that different from my boring routine at home. Only when I went outside, the air was sharp and clear, and it would hit me that I'm in Alaska — a thought that still evokes warm feelings after all these years. I had been enjoying the subzero weather and was openly disappointed when weather forecasts showed spikes into the 20s, much to the bewilderment of Alaska friends who have been languishing in the cold darkness since September. In a way, I had been languishing in the darkness since then, too. And I was only beginning to emerge amid this fierce Alaska version of spring, with its dense subzero air that brought peace and comfort. In the cold's echoing silence, I could hear all of the little sounds that remind me of the complexities in this world, the countless stories that are so easy to tune out. And in the cold's grasp, I could feel my life force surging through my body, battling to retain hard-won warmth — a reminder of the power it takes just to participate in this life.  

And I did snag that invite to Tolovana Hot Springs. Beat and I used to visit Tolovana every Christmas. After 2017, the area exploded in popularity and price, so it became too difficult to reserve one of the three cabins. My experiences through the first half of the last decade convinced me that the trail over Tolovana Hot Springs Dome is in fact the worst place on Earth. The 10.1-mile track is buffeted by continuous 40 mph winds that feel like death fire in the continuous 25-below cold. There is an old water tank with a small hole cut on the leeward side, placed as a meager wind shelter on a particularly exposed part of the ridge. In the past, Beat and I have hidden in there out of genuine concern for our survival. I didn't know what to expect from Tolovana now that spring had turned on the overhead lights, but I figured anything even marginally better than the Worst Weather on Earth would feel like summer.

Indeed, March weather allowed an easy trek over the Dome. My friends with bikes would probably disagree, as the trail was predictably drifted and very rough in spots. Some drifts were waist-high and uneven, requiring dance-like maneuvers to keep my sled from flipping over. But temperatures were warm-ish and the current wind was blowing at barely a whisper, although it was still breezy enough to necessitate a face covering on the Dome. 

The sled-dragging was much easier than it had been through the cold powder of the White Mountains one week earlier. I listened to "The Sweet Spot," a book about the psychology behind why humans purposefully seek out emotional turmoil and physical pain. I had mixed feelings about this book, mainly because parts of it held out a mirror I wasn't quite ready to gaze into. But it was well-researched and interesting. 

After four hours I arrived at the cute little Frame Cabin, apparently not far behind my friends who had to do a lot of bike pushing over the rough trails. 

We enjoyed a leisurely dinner and went to soak in the spring when it was still light out. Such abundance! Such luxury! I do love this place, but I will admit, much of its mystique lies in the foreboding approach and also the dim but magical light cast by the low-angle sun around Winter Solstice. I hope we can make it back next Christmas. 

Eric captured this photo of me leaving the following morning. I had a fairly rough night in the cute little cabin, which was quite small, necessitating me squeezing onto a narrow top bunk (since I did invite myself, I'm grateful to Corrine and Eric for squeezing themselves into the lower bunk so I could join.) Even though we only left the stove burning for a few hours, it felt like it was 100 degrees inside for much of the night. I was lying in a puddle of sweat on top of my sleeping bag. (As an aside, for the folks who are curious about my experience with Lexapro, this is one of the side effects. Night sweats. It happens even in my cool bedroom, so I am dreading this coming summer. This isn't a deal-breaker, nor is the nausea I still experience after taking the medication, but it's good to be aware of these lesser annoying details.)

Anyway, I eventually wandered outside in just a bra, underwear, and down booties. At that point, the wind was howling (a reason why I opted out of moving my sleeping bag outside) and it was 25 degrees. The windchill itself probably registered in that near-zero range, and it was exhilerating to skip through the snow, feeling free of the clutches of oppressive heat and yet impervious to the cold. This lasted maybe 10 minutes, and then finally my core temperature dipped low enough to sprint back inside and grab a few hours of sleep. 

The hike out was warm and lovely and felt even more comfortable despite the two big hills that rack up something near 3,000 feet of climbing. It didn't take much longer than the hike in, about 4:20, and I'd left an hour before Corrine and Eric to try to coordinate the finish. But there was still a lot of hike-a-bike on the way out, and Eric was dealing with a missing bolt in his rear axle that meant every hard pedal stroke risked dropping his back wheel. I'm sure he still bombed down these hills because he's crazy like that. (I'm too much of a coward to even try riding my sled. But I did do some jogging. I felt great.) 

Waiting for Corrine and Eric to arrive afforded an extra hour to hike along the nearly abandoned road and take in big views. I could have spent the whole day out here! 

I had planned to fly home to Colorado late that night. But even before Tolovana, I felt reluctant to leave this place where life felt so light and joy overflowed after such a long drought. Corrine invited me to stay one more week and join them on their three-night cabin trip in the Whites. I pointed out that their itinerary was even more ridiculous for a person on foot than the one I'd already attempted and failed. Corrine said it would be no problem, they already had a solution from local speedster and nice guy Tyson, whose wife had a fat bike I could borrow. Such luxury! Such abundance! I've already forgotten the model, but it was a light and comfortable rig with the perfect setup for my gear — as long as I left the luxuries at home. (For the most part, I did, but I still brought my puffy suit.) 

I had a lot of fun test the bike on local trails before my workdays. I had to pull a few strings to extend the stay, but ended up saving money by changing my plane ticket. Corrine and Eric were so generous to let me crash at their place for the better part of three weeks. I recognize how intrusive house guests can be and tried to stay out of their hair. I was so grateful for the opportunity. 

Another perk of staying so long was the many opportunities to view the Northern Lights. The sun has entered a particularly active period, so light displays have been more frequent and far-reaching. Fairbanks is one of the best places in the world to see the lights, due to its location under the "Aurora Oval," as well as its frequently clear skies and long, dark nights. In spite of this, sightings are still rare and take a degree of dedication, as the lights are rarely out for more than a few minutes at a time and can only be loosely predicted based on solar activity. 

On this particular night, March 21 — the first full day of spring — the geomagnetic field was expected to be quiet (level 2), and yet, just as I was settling in for another try at sleeping around 12:30 a.m., I caught this streak of light outside my window. 

I wish I brought better photo equipment, or at least tried to utilize my point-and-shoot, which requires finicky manual settings and a steady surface to set up for low-light images. But when the sky is dancing like this, photography feels particularly intrusive. A few blurry phone photos to remember the occasion are good enough. 

For nearly an hour, I walked up and down the street, marveling. The aurora borealis is, by far, the most intensely beautiful phenomenon I've experienced. No photograph or video can recreate the experience of standing as an infinitesimal being in an insignificant world and witnessing the universe come alive. The lights shimmer and dance and flow across the horizon, although all words are inadequate to describe how the Aurora Borealis moves. I feel like I've been given a glimpse into the beginning of time, the young universe expanding with unimaginable force. 

The following day was Corrine's birthday. Our friend Betsy arrived from Colorado for the cabin trip that they had been planning for months. We were all busy during the day but found time for a lovely sunset ride out Corrine's backyard trail. 

Happiness is ... friends and bikes and sunsets. 

If that wasn't enough, the night of March 23 brought an unanticipated and brilliant geomagnetic storm. Shortly after dinner, I caught social media posts from friends in Minnesota and Michigan, even Wyoming and Colorado, who were able to see the lights. It was still at least two hours from being fully dark in Alaska, but I tried to keep an eye on the sky. I had just about given up when Corrine texted me because she and Betsy had caught hints of the waning light show and were walking outside. 

By the time I geared up to join them, the lights were winding down, but it was still a nice display. They had just about faded entirely when Betsy and Corrine decided to go back inside. I decided to continue walking up the road, just in case. 

What happened next was astonishing — an explosion of light and color filled the sky. Scientists will tell you that the Aurora Borealis makes no sound, that it's impossible, but most viewers hear some sort of melody. To me, the Northern Lights sound like chanting Gregorian monks, a low-pitched rumble that increases in volume until I'm fully overwhelmed, ready to drop to my knees and repent for my insignificant human weakness in the presence of such grandeur. 

This is the low-quality phone video I shot for a few seconds before my fingers froze. It shows the way the lights dance. (You can hear a bit of sound as well, but I'm pretty sure that's the wind.) 

The expansive awe allowed me to fully step outside of myself, moving without a headlamp through the night until I ran out of road on which to walk. The dead end jolted me back to human awareness and I fell back into my body, which was already beginning to shiver in the cold. Searching for the links in the mind-body connection is such an interesting experiment. The intrigue is what drew me to endurance racing all those years ago. It's also what pushed me away when those mind-body connections seemed to sever and my brain turned on itself. I couldn't breach the barrier no matter what I tried. My brain tortured me with irrational fears and nonexistent terrors. It shoved me underwater. I couldn't fight back. I couldn't escape. 

But then I found something to lift my head above the water. With renewed clarity of thought, I was able to regain some control, to re-link a few of those broken connections. That something was medication, yes, but also — Alaska. Those expansive landscapes of the Far North, windswept and snowbound, wich always come to me in my best dreams. It's the darkness that reveals the most astonishing light. 

In this trembling moment

“In this trembling moment ... is it still possible to face the gathering darkness and say to the physical earth, and to all its creatures, including ourselves, fiercely and without embarrassment, I love you, and to embrace fearlessly the burning world?”

— Barry Lopez

I'm still not sure what I want to do with this old blog, but I still feel compelled to check in from time to time if only to record my slow descent into madness. Friends have asked me if I'm doing better, and the truth is, I'm not. Insomnia and anxiety have been a major battle, and don't know which one leads to the other or whether it even matters. Each morning arrives after a fair to poor night of sleep, and I immediately feel overwhelmed with irrational but powerful negative emotions that I must wrestle with to get through each day. I believe I'm still succeeding on a functional level. But I am so very tired, and it's becoming harder not to, say, burst into tears during Saturday morning yoga class. 

A physical comparison I could make is that it feels like I am at mile 10 of a difficult 100-mile ultramarathon and my legs are already screaming at me. I am still able to effectively say "shut up legs," but it's almost impossible to conceive how I'm going to push through this pain all the way to the end. Similarly, it's difficult to conceive how I'm going to remain fully functional through the end of this year unless I can turn things around. I don't want to be overdramatic, but this is genuinely how I feel, and I want to convey as well as I can that no, I'm not okay. 

I have been working on myself. The beginning of 2023 spurred changes to my wellness routine including twice-weekly weight training and once-weekly restorative yoga (I love yoga. I'm about 6% competent but I love it and wish I could make room for more in-person classes.) I've been meeting online with a therapist who prompted me to cut my caffeine intake to one cup of coffee per day (about a third to a quarter of what I was taking in before) and do a nightly muscle relaxation exercise, which generally works better for me than sedentary meditation. 

She also encouraged me to start wearing my Garmin watch all of the time to better track my body metrics. I've only been doing this for a week, and while many metrics are not surprising (yes, I believe I'm starting each day with my body battery at 30% and yes, I would rate that sleep as "poor"), it did show a sharp drop in my oxygen saturation while I'm sleeping — sometimes as low as 83%. While I don't know how accurate this is, now I have sleep apnea or another form of sleep hypoxemia as another concern. It's another question I intend to bring to my doctor when I finally see her for all of the 15 minutes I'll probably get after waiting for an appointment for three weeks. Also on that list of questions are perimenopause, subclinical hypothyroidism, and antidepressants. 

I'm dreading this conversation more than I can convey and almost wish I could just ask for a medically induced coma to get me through my 40s. This daydream leads to admonishing myself for wishing away my one wild and precious life. But when you can't sleep, when you really can't sleep ... there's nothing in the world you wish for more. 

I have been leaning a little hard on exercise; physical activity is still the one state in which I feel mostly "normal." I'm not spending more time exercising than I was back when I was training for things, but I am already so very tired and admit that I am not fully listening to my body when it tells me I should dial back the intensity of my efforts. 

A couple of weeks ago, there were rumors of stellar trail conditions in the local mountains, so I excitedly packed up my fat bike and set an early alarm. My total amount of sleep was about two hours when the alarm went off, so I turned it off and instead snoozed several hours of morning daylight away. Waking up, I was filled with loathing and dread and couldn't bear the thought of driving into the mountains. But I also needed something to cope, so I used the excuse of a hard-to-get Zwift "badge" to spend the entire day riding my bike trainer. 

I logged 110 "miles" of mindless spinning. It was great. I felt a lot better. But does this sort of thing come with a price? Undoubtedly it does. But don't worry about me just yet; there aren't many days that I can find the time and energy for such exhaustive efforts. My watch still records my training status as "productive." But when another sleepless night passes into a depleted-battery morning, I'm right back where I started. 

One week later, I successfully boosted myself out the door for an excursion in Rocky Mountain National Park. Morning sunlight saturated the mountain skyline as I drove through Estes Park. Just past the park boundary, I caught a glimpse of a bald white slope speckled with blackened stumps — remnants of the 2020 East Troublesome Fire. Seeing this burn scar sent a shudder of sadness down my spine. I was deeply affected by that fire even though it didn't touch me at all. But I was paying attention on the October night when a wind-driven flare scorched 100,000 acres in fewer than 12 hours and jumped two miles of treeless tundra across the Continental Divide. Countless people assure me that wildfire is natural, but these late-fall megafires are anything but natural. There is growing evidence that Colorado's warming climate will not allow burned forests to return to their previous state — at least at mid-range altitudes. I live in the midst of hillsides that burned in 2000 — 23 years ago — where the trees haven't even begun to grow back. I'm just not a person who can cling to hope without evidence. The evidence points to a landscape that is rapidly and permanently changing. 

Stung with unexpected sadness, I continued toward Bear Lake. The gravelly voice of my anxiety whispered that this was too much and I should just turn around and go home. My stormy mind was deep in rumination when a dog darted out of the snow bank and galloped beside my car. As I slowed, the animal veered in front of me and I realized it was a coyote. What was it doing? I slowed some more to allow it to veer back into the woods, but it also slowed its pace and looked back. As I sped up again to capture this photo with my phone, it also picked up the pace but held steady on the double yellow line. We continued in this push and pull for more than a mile before the coyote veered off to the left and I was able to safely pass. Was it playing chase with my car? I'll never know, but the interaction did bring my head back to center. 

"Existential loneliness and a sense that one's life is inconsequential, both of which are hallmarks of modern civilizations, seem to me to derive in part from our abandoning a belief in the therapeutic dimensions of a relationship with place."

— Barry Lopez

Sometimes I feel ashamed over the depth of sadness I feel when I see a wildfire scar or images of Juneau's Mendenhall Glacier, shockingly diminished from photos I captured myself in the recent-seeming year of 2007. After all, this is the nature of things. All is impermanent, and grief only arises from our unwillingness to accept change. Still, I feel these losses as though I've lost a piece of myself. I feel it in the way I feel my own time slipping away. 

Acceptance, I know, is the only path to peace, and yet it's so hard to find. But in searching for acceptance, I have come to better understand how my difficulties with my mental health are anchored in grief — for the people in my life who I have loved and lost, for myself, and for the land. 

I stepped out of my car into the hard wind that nearly always rakes these canyons on the sharp edge of the Continental Divide. The wind is such a constant that even lake ice freezes in a rippled pattern. It's such a constant that if you spent all of your time here, you'd eventually stop noticing the wind. It would become its own comfort, and calm would feel eerie and strange. I sometimes wonder — if I had to choose a single, small place to spend the rest of my life, where that might be. I fall in love with nearly every place I visit, so it seems impossible to choose, but Rocky Mountain National Park might be near the top of the list. It — like any place really — could offer a lifetime of exploring and still yield countless discoveries. The weather is fearsome year-round, the terrain steep and frightening, and it's difficult to imagine ever feeling fully comfortable here. And yet if all I had was time, I can imagine becoming burned into this land. 

I strapped on snowshoes and started an audiobook. I had just finished "Arctic Dreams" by Barry Lopez, which I first read as a college freshman and remembered loving. The landscape, culture, and history of the Arctic were so alien to me at the time. Lopez's observations were enthralling. I wondered how I'd feel about the book as a jaded adult who had forged my own impressions of the Far North. I still loved the lyrical prose, but the book did leave me feeling more sad than enthralled. Perhaps it's just my current mental state, but there's also an element of "Arctic Dreams" — published in 1986 — that reads as a eulogy to a time and place already gone. 

Still, I enjoyed listening to "Arctic Dreams," so I purchased another book of essays by Lopez, published posthumously last year — "Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World." The title alone told me exactly what I wanted to hear, so I looked forward to diving in. 

"Evidence of the failure to love is everywhere around us. To contemplate what it is to love today brings us up against reefs of darkness and walls of despair. If we are to manage the havoc — ocean acidification, corporate malfeasance and government corruption, endless war — we have to reimagine what it means to live lives that matter, or we will only continue to push on with the unwarranted hope that things will work out."

— Barry Lopez

Life is easy when I am walking. Even when a cold wind sweeps down the mountainside, even when my snowshoe-laden feet bog down in stiff powder, even when hours pass and I run low on water and need to sprawl atop a precarious snowbank to dip my bottle beneath the ice of a swirling creek. All I had to do on this Friday was walk, listen to Lopez's soothing words, and believe they were written for me — a person who is trembling beneath the weight of life's uncertainties, who already feels crushed by grief while knowing so much more lies ahead, who can't take comfort in unwarranted hope. Lopez knew he was dying from prostate cancer when he wrote several of the essays in this book. The Covid-19 pandemic was already underway and the landscapes he explored in "Arctic Dreams" already drastically altered by climate change. His words read as those of a wisened elder exiting a breaking world — but also an optimist who is straining with all of his remaining energy to find the light shining through the cracks. 

While punching a trail toward a hanging lake called Sky Pond, I ventured too far up a steep slope and realized later than ideal that this was not a good idea. I had resolved not to hike into potential avalanche terrain or any slope that would require crampons and an ice ax. This was just such a slope. Normally my fear response would alert me sooner, but I am not receiving my usual signals right now. Feeling afraid of everything also means, in a way, I am afraid of nothing. Dangers and non-dangers alike fire the same synapses. Suddenly aware and humbled, I carefully picked my way back down the slope.  

"To survive what's headed our way — global climate disruption, a new pandemic, additional authoritarian governments — and to endure, we will have to stretch our imaginations. We will need to trust each other, because today, it's as if every safe place has melted into the sameness of water. We are searching for the boats we forgot to build."

— Barry Lopez

As real fatigue set in, my ability to concentrate flagged so I switched off the audiobook player. The roar of the wind returned — at first jarring, but soon it too faded to white noise.

"We can become accustomed to anything," I thought. "I need to keep that in mind." 

I descended the gorge below Loch Vale and veered up Glacier Gorge proper to tag Mills Lake and Black Lake. His Majesty, Longs Peak, loomed overhead. I find great comfort in mountains — visible reminders of what will remain long after our human machinations have flared and faded. But mountains are not eternal; even they are constantly changing. In a paradoxical way, I take comfort in this too. Everything is impermanent, forever in flux. This is the way of things, and that's okay.

“The central project of my adult life as a writer is to know and love what we have been given, and to urge others to do the same.”

— Barry Lopez

I put Lopez's book away for another week of busyness and anxiety, but Friday rolled around and I again craved his gentle urging to pay attention and respect the places I love, which are all of the places. The forecast also called for a clear day with mild temperatures and light winds, which inspired me to finally take my fat bike for that ride I couldn't get out of bed for two weeks earlier. 

While gorgeous and fun, riding a fat bike around the trails at Brainard Lake and Peaceful Valley is an endeavor I can muster the mental energy for only once or twice a year. Nothing comes for free here, absolutely nothing. The trails are ungroomed, ski-packed, narrow, and technical. Roots and rocks will catch you unaware in wind-scoured open areas. In the woods, a shimmy of the handlebars might leave you neck-deep in a tree well. I accepted long ago that I'm not a "mountain biker." I far prefer grinding the pedals on a mindless gravel climb over wrestling with my bike along a technical descent. Still, I do enjoy this activity in small doses. 

Brainard was a somewhat odd choice to make when I am battling so much brain fog and desperate to avoid stress. Still, I took advantage of the relative fearlessness of flatlined anxiety to rally for the twisting descent of South St. Vrain. A jolt of electricity buzzed in my veins. Is this adrenaline? Joy? It feels like it has been so long. I was beginning to worry I'd lost the capacity for such highs. 

The exhilerating descent and unfathomably blue day inspired another long climb to the edge of the wilderness boundary at Coney Flats. Really, it's only 1,500 feet of climbing in five miles, which my Zwift-addled brain tells me should take about 30 minutes. The reality of riding atop barely consolidated, narrow snow with < 3 psi in each tire was more than two hours, and I was expending far more calories than I realized. Despite temperatures near freezing with an afternoon breeze spiking to 20 mph, I had stripped to my base layer and was still dripping sweat onto my pogies. I loved losing myself in this demanding climb, but all things have their price. 

“Perhaps the first rule of everything we endeavor to do is to pay attention.”

— Barry Lopez

The fat bike made fast work of the descent, and then it was time to climb back to Brainard on the Sourdough Trail. A mere 1,000 feet of climbing in seven miles. Easy peasy. So imagine my confusion when, after a brief descent about two miles into the climb, I began to feel disoriented, dizzy, and nauseated. I stopped pedaling and took a few sips of water, but the woods continued spinning. What ... is happening? Is this a bonk? An actual bonk? It's been so long since this happened. Admittedly my base of endurance runs so deep that I didn't even think it was possible for me to truly bonk anymore — my central governor is very reliable and my body knows where to find the energy. But here I was, five miles from my car, utterly out of gas. 

I was too nauseated to eat much, but I did have energy chews in my frame bag and I was able to get most of them down. Still, the damage was done. I stumbled along dizzily, pressed against my bike as though this reasonably graded trail was a sheer wall. I took long breaks to gasp for air. I drank the rest of my water. Nothing was working. After several hours that my GPS told me was in reality just one mile, I threw both body and bike into the snow like the overtired toddler I had become and indulged in an absolute meltdown.

Yelling, swearing, crying. The works. But I got it all out and afterward, I felt an odd, peaceful sort of clarity. The day's light had grown rich, the shadows long. Was it already late afternoon? Was this 24-mile ride really going to take seven hours? Yes, yes it was. And I still had a long way to go. Four miles. An eternity. But that's okay. As in all things, we keep pushing forward because there's no other choice. 

I had long since turned off my audiobook when it became apparent that I needed all of my bandwidth to focus on the trail. But now that I was walking at a very slow pace, I took Lopez's advice to pay attention. I looked for tracks in the snow — rabbit and what appeared to be a fox or perhaps a bobcat. I listened to gusts of wind, rippling through the forest like sharp exhalations. I studied needles still holding onto flecks of snow despite days of wind and sun. This place is so very beautiful, and I was so lucky to be there, right there, experiencing this burst of life between dust and fire.

Just months before his death, Lopez watched as 170,000 acres of the land where he lived for half a century burned in The McKenzie Fire in Oregon.

"The land around us as far as we can see looks flayed," he wrote in a Facebook post on Nov. 5, 2020. "For 10 miles in both directions along the river from us, all that stands where a whole community once lived are bare chimneys. The devastation for some is catastrophic and irreparable."

It was the last post to appear on his public page.

 "It is more important to live for the possibilities that lie ahead than to die in despair over what has been lost."

— Barry Lopez, 1945-2020

When we cease to have nice things

Winter Solstice dealt a hard moment of self-awareness: I have a stunning lack of resilience. 

For two decades I’ve cultivated toughness, but toughness and resilience are not the same. In the past, I would have defined their differences as subtle, but now I see that they are stark. What helped me realize this was losing the tough thing I’d planned to do over the holidays and falling apart because I lacked the resilience to let go. 

Winter Solstice was the day we were set to leave for Alaska. Amid my mental health struggles in October and November, I clung to comforting daydreams about dragging my sled through the frozen stillness, with a silence so clear and deep that one can hear the faint wing beats of nearby chickadees. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of these tiny birds foraging through the snow — the only animal moving when it’s 40 below. When I see a chickadee, I’m always struck with reverence … and envy. What a life, to remain in constant motion just to survive. They forage all day and shiver all night. In the face of slim odds, they thrive. 

As the trip drew closer and the forecast called for colder and windier conditions, I only grew more excited. There was a good chance it was going to be 30 below with 25 mph winds. In such weather, the most any animal can achieve is to survive. Out there, all of my midlife crisis bullshit wouldn’t matter. I wouldn't have to endure my regular life of slogging through day after tedious day with a growing base of self-loathing and fading convictions about passions and purpose. Out in the roaring white silence, I would simply be a warm animal, one whose only job was to stay warm. I would wrap my body in a shield of its own heat and work hard to keep the furnace burning. I wouldn’t do this because I am tough; I would do it because I am soft and frightened. I am too tired for the life of a human being; I would like to be a black-capped chickadee. 

 Just a couple of hours before we were set to leave, Beat called out that Alaska Air had canceled our flight. You may remember the Arctic Blast that hit most of the Lower 48 just before Christmas. Seattle was buried in several inches of snow. The cold air was barreling toward Denver. There wasn’t another flight available for three days. We’d have to cancel our first cabin trip, and did we really want to battle backed-up air travel on Christmas Eve? What if our return trip was equally affected? Conceding to the nightmare that travel has become in recent years, we canceled the entire trip. 

“Doesn’t it seem like, since 2020, we can no longer have nice things?” I lamented to a friend. 

And yes, I realize that I have many, many nice things in my life. This is what I mean about lacking resilience. A resilient person would say, okay, we’ll postpone the trip and make the most of this vacation time we already scheduled. It’s Christmas! Let’s spend time with family. I said all of these things out loud, but the unmanageable part of my brain that controls my emotions was despondent. The mental house of cards that I’d so carefully reconstructed in recent weeks collapsed. 

My reaction was so strange. It’s not as though what I’d lost was all that important or irreplaceable. Intellectually I knew this, but my still mind plunged into a pit of unfocused grief. The brain fog was pronounced. Time contracted and expanded. Little made sense. Where am I? What day is this? Why am I pushing a cart through Safeway? Oh yes, we now need provisions for our empty fridge. The grocery store was overcrowded with shoppers in a pre-Christmas, pre-Arctic Blast frenzy. As I reached for an apple, a lady who had been blocking the narrow produce aisle for seeming hours turned and screamed at me, full-on screamed, to wait my turn. Did I time-travel back to March 2020? What year is this? I rushed to the checkout line with only half of the items I’d planned to buy and then rushed to my car while gulping down sobs. What is wrong with me? Am I actually losing my mind? 

The next few days did little to temper my fear that, actually, I might be losing my mind. The Arctic Blast arrived early on Dec. 22. The temperature at our house plunged to 23 below zero — by far the coldest we’ve seen in seven years in Colorado. I pulled the Alaska layers out of my suitcase and trudged two miles to South Boulder Creek, to what I’ve come to think of as my “mental health bench." I go there when I need to just cope; it's a lovely place to sit and listen to water flow effortlessly by. Only the water doesn’t flow so effortlessly at 10 below. The trickle under a thick layer of ice wasn’t audible. It was too cold to sit on the bench for long. It wasn’t Alaska, and it wasn't the same, it just wasn’t the same. 

Early the following morning, I left to drive to Utah. It was still 10 below and roads were snow-packed and icy. In spite of this, I-70 flowed surprisingly well. Brain fog softened my usual driving anxiety. But in more ways, the stupor was upsetting. For example, I managed to leave home without my laptop, which I needed for work. But I did bring my mountain bike, which — for a trip to snowbound Salt Lake City in late December — wasn’t all that practical. Several times I wavered on the edge of awareness while admonishing myself to pay attention to the road. 

“Maybe I should not be driving.”

I needed a break. Since I had the mountain bike, I decided to pull off the highway into an empty expanse of desert just west of the state line. My plan was to ride whatever random road headed north toward the Book Cliffs. There wasn’t an obvious place to pull my car off the narrow dirt road, so I kept driving — back and forth, back and forth. Without even realizing it, a full 45 minutes passed. I looked down at the clock and thought, “Wait? It’s already 11:54? Wasn’t it 11:10 just five minutes ago?”

This realization was, honestly, terrifying. Where was my mind? I immediately veered into a random strip of sand parallel to the road and pulled the bike out of the car. Having not exactly planned the ride, I didn’t have the best provisions in my backpack — just a light jacket, some water, and a few other items. Temperatures were no longer in the Arctic Blast danger cold range, but they were in the 20s. A stiff breeze blew from the west. I began pedaling toward the “Harley Dome Road” I’d pinpointed on the car’s navigation map and was now looking for on my Garmin. I was surprised to discover the junction was a full three miles from the point where I’d parked my car. How did I end up so far away? Where was my mind? Am I safe? Should I really just be riding alone into this remote and icy desert? At least I’d turned on my tracker so Beat would know where to locate my frozen body if it came to that. 

The west wind needled through thin tights into the soft flesh of my thighs. I wished for shell pants and a warmer pair of mittens. Why didn’t I bring those? It is winter. Should I turn around? I felt weirdly terrified and yet incapable of making decisions. Similar to when I was driving aimlessly while searching for a “parking space,” my awareness of the present pulsed and flickered. Time contracted and expanded. I just kept pedaling north as emotions gurgled to the surface. Tears began to flow. I was so scared. Why was I so scared? The only thing I could think to do was send a plea to the universe — to my dad — for help. 

"Please, please, help me,” I whimpered to the wind. “I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

Elk!

As I cried, I heard a high-pitched whine, punctuated by wind gusts. The sound wasn’t unlike the “dee dee dee” song of a chickadee. I jerked my head around. There was nothing for miles but sand and sage. Confused, I looked up. Directly over me, not more than 100 feet off the ground, was a small red airplane that I hadn’t noticed before. It had approached from the east where headwinds masked the sound. As the plane passed overhead, the pilot tipped one wing toward me — that unmistakable friendly maneuver. I waved back in awe. Where did this airplane even come from? We weren’t all that far from airstrips in Fruita or Moab, but in my fragile mental state, I felt like a marooned astronaut on Mars interacting with a spacecraft from Earth. 

 “Dad loved flying over the desert in small planes,” I thought. This image filled me with intense relief and joy. It doesn’t really matter what I believe about spirits or an afterlife; just telling myself this story helped me feel immediately better. Buoyed away from my slow-rolling panic attack, I continued pedaling north with purpose. 

 The bike ride didn’t cure me, though. Not by a long shot. I continued to make inexplicable choices. In a fluster of frustration after learning I’d forgotten my laptop, I didn’t end up buying anything for breakfast in Colorado and neglected to eat during my 32-mile ride in eastern Utah. Suddenly it was 5 p.m. and I felt alarmingly dizzy while driving down Spanish Fork Canyon. Just a half hour from my mom’s house, I pulled into an overwhelmingly crowded shopping center to buy a Subway sandwich. After ordering, I tried to ask for a napkin but forgot the word for napkin. It didn’t come to me in time. I finally just mumbled “never mind” and walked out the door in a fluster of shame. 

What I wouldn't give for this sort of focus.

Christmas with my family was good but hard. Holidays are hard. My mom wasn’t in a great place to celebrate, and I don’t blame her. My sister whipped up a fantastic fondue dinner. It was fun to be around the excitement of four children on Christmas Eve. We stayed up past midnight completing a puzzle; I mostly just stared off into space while my mom and sister furiously worked. My sister put me up in my 4-year-old nephew’s room, a warm and dark space with a miniature bed and a Jesus night light. There I collapsed into my best sleep in weeks, before or since. I slept through Christmas morning, which I regret, but also … I needed that sleep. 

My sister and I did hike to the top of Grandeur Peak on Dec. 26, which was really nice.

The sleep didn’t cure me, though. Not by a long shot. I realize weeks have passed since Christmas and I am still struggling. I have been taking steps to address my tenuous mental state. I reached out to a telehealth counselor and scheduled my first sessions (I had been holding out for a local therapist that I could visit in person, but it has become clear that no one is available now or anytime soon.) I joined a gym so I can work on my mind-body connection through strength training and yoga. I make time for at least some meditation and stretching during the day. I’m open to trying new things. I need to try new things.

Specifically, I need to work on building my resilience. I need better ways to weather life’s disappointments and losses. I need to let go of my reliance on novelty and excitement. I need to move away from using physical exhaustion as my best coping mechanism, and embrace more sustainable practices — gratitude, presence, and acceptance. I can’t bear to exist in a universe that has no purpose or meaning; the only way to muffle the siren call of nihilism is to create purpose and meaning for myself. 

 I don’t know what that is. If it were easy it would be … endurance racing. But this is life. There’s no straightforward beginning or end, no immutable achievements or consequence-free failures. It’s challenging and bewildering and painful and there’s no reward in the end … just an end. It’s accepting that the little joys are enough. It’s realizing that life is incredible and life is enough. I still have a long way to go to get there. 

I see why I imagine myself as a tiny bird, my dad as a tiny plane, bound to everything and nothing, soaring through the sky. It’s something beyond life to take comfort in. Sometimes it feels like the comforting things I once took for granted have gone away. I can imagine the perfect silence in Alaska but I can no longer rely on an airline to take me there. I can visit my family in Utah but can’t avoid an anxiety meltdown when I-70 closures trap me in standstill traffic. I can cultivate gratitude for the present but can't muster faith in a better future. I can resolve to fix my life but no longer trust my brain. I can’t even trust my brain to remember the word for napkin. I can ask my dad for help, but …

My dad’s birthday was Friday the 13th. He would have turned 70 years old. I was having a really hard day. I barely slept. My anxiety had spiked to the point that morning dread made it almost impossible to get out of bed. But I needed to get my monthly allergy shot. I hate allergy shot day. The shots make me feel lousy on my best days. I usually try to self-soothe with something. On this day, a hike seemed appropriate. 

 I pulled up to the tiny Cragmoor trailhead and stepped into a blaze of sunshine. It had been overcast for much of the morning, but the sun emerged nearly in line with the strike of noon. It was 54 degrees. Despite days of melting heat, the trail was still a friendly mixture of dry dirt along the mesa and packed snow in Fern Canyon. The type of conditions where one can strap microspikes to their shoes and fly. But I felt too heavy and sad to fly. I tried to focus on my favorite memories but found myself mostly just missing my dad. 

For a while my brain shut down as I trudged upward through the woods — slogging is my best coping mechanism. Suddenly I emerged in the sunlight on top of Bear Peak. There wasn’t a breath of wind. It was so warm. Dad would have loved this January day. The sound of his laugh came to me: A visceral memory from the evening Beat and I were married on Bear Peak in September 2020. Dad was dealing with a painful back injury for which he had surgery just two weeks later. I didn’t know the extent of his pain because I hadn’t seen him in nearly a year. He could barely walk. But he pulled himself all the way up this mountain just for me, so I could have the mountaintop wedding I’d dreamed of. He never showed a hint of pain … just an abundance of happiness. The memory of his smile evoked a sense of peace I hadn’t felt since that little plane over Harley Dome.

Two hours later, a nurse injected my arms with poisons I have been intentionally taking for more than six years. I sat in the waiting room for the mandatory half-hour it takes to ensure I wasn’t going to lapse into anaphylactic shock. While dizzying serum coursed through my blood, I wrote up a stilted Facebook caption on my phone so I could share my photo of Bear Peak with loved ones. I still can’t do a better job to describe the experience, so I’ll record it here: 

You would have turned 70 today. 

I carried your memory up Bear Peak. 

That heaviness on my chest, a weight so familiar now. 

50 degrees and sunny. 

You would have loved this day. 

Just like that day in September 2020. 

We were together again after so many months of resolve to stay apart. It was my wedding day. 

You were hurt; you were in so much pain. 

You didn't tell me. 

You wouldn't let us change our plans. 

You dragged yourself up this mountain. 

Sunset that night was stunning. The clearest evening in weeks. 

You looked so happy, so proud, your smile shining through the fading light, through all of your pain. 

I fear with each passing day I forget something else, but I will never forget that moment. 

We were together and full of hope. 

Now on your birthday I'm here alone. 

With all of life in front of me.  

Niwot Ridge — like Alaska, a place so harsh that it becomes comforting in its simplicity.

Maybe I’m past my charmed years, when nice things seemed to come more easily, and my greatest source of comfort was alive and climbing mountains for me. But it’s not over. There's still life in front of me.