Monday, September 10, 2007

Becoming an Alaskan


Date: Sept. 9
Mileage: 15.4
September mileage: 209.6
Temperature upon departure: 56
Rainfall: .23"

I'm coming up on the second anniversary of the day I moved to Alaska. In most states, two years is probably ample time to establish residency. However, Alaska seems to hold its citizens to a much higher standard. It takes time and effort for Outsiders such as myself to wedge into this culture. Bureaucratically speaking, I belong to this state - I have the driver's license, the license plates, the rental lease. But culturally, I still have work to do.

Top 10 reasons why I'm not yet an Alaskan:

10. I don't own a pair of XtraTuf boots or anything made by Carhartt.
9. I don't have a dog named Kenai.
8. I have yet to go "polar bear swimming."
7. I think pink salmon is delicious.
6. I've never received free money from the state, although that Surly Pugsley I bought on "PFD credit" would beg to differ.
5. I've never eaten anything made of ground-up moose or reindeer, and probably never will.
4. I still think a "snowmachine" is a mechanism that ski resorts use to manufacture artificial snow. Those recreational vehicles that blaze nice trails through the powder are called "snowmobiles."
3. I have yet to buy a boat.
2. I don't believe the federal government "owes me."
1. I live in Juneau.
Sunday, September 09, 2007

Always learning

Date: Sept. 8
Mileage: 25.1
September mileage: 194.2
Temperature upon departure: 50
Rainfall: 1.01"

Heavy rain today. I am not complaining about it again. I even went out in it. Nearly every piece of rain gear I own was in the dryer after Sitka, so I wore several layers of cotton. I survived. Biking outside is easy. Living outside is hard.

My last post probably made it sound like I had an overall terrible time in Sitka. I did not. It's always more fun to write about the bad stuff, and I definitely had my fair share of mishaps. I didn't even write about the disproportionate number of traffic run-ins I had. I had heard somewhere that Sitka is trying to receive a "Bicycle Friendly Community" designation. Apparently, nobody has told the good citizens of Sitka that news, because in my short time there I heard more people lay on their horns, experienced more near-sideswipes, and had more things thrown at me in two days than I have in a year in Juneau. But, I concur. Sitka also has cold-water surfers, and big waves, and a cool cathedral, and harbor seals, and so many places where, after many minutes of pedaling with my head down and squinting against the rain, I could look up to tiny islands silhouetted against a sun spot and think, "wow, is that real?" Would I go back? I would most definitely go back. Maybe next time I will reserve a room at the Super 8.

My hardship this weekend was the fact that I was wet, and everything I had with me was wet, and with temperatures hovering around 50, my only options for staying warm was to stay on the move or stay huddled in my sleeping bag. I logged over 100 mountain bike miles in a 48-hour period. I also read an entire book. I really didn't do much else, although I would have liked to. But I felt a bit trapped by my situation ... always lingering on the edge of being too cold, sometimes I could only stop long enough to unwrap a Clif Bar before shivers set in. So I'd pedal harder, and fly past an overlook, and fly through town, and think "I'd like to stop there" ... but believed it wasn't an option.

I felt demoralized, but I broke through. In the end, it turned out to be a good experience. Although I didn't intend it to be a "training" weekend, those are the kind of situations I need to prepare for if I'm going to attempt to ride on the Iditarod Trail next February ... staying on the move when I don't want to, heading out into unpleasantness when I don't have to, improvising, and doing whatever it takes to stay hydrated and well-fed (I didn't do enough of either in Sitka, and definitely suffered psychologically for it.)

In the end, I think Sitka turned out even better for my early training than the 371-mile weekend was. I'm realizing more that when cycling reaches the level I'm hoping to take it to, the pedaling is the easiest part. Surviving ... that's the challenge.
Saturday, September 08, 2007

Sitka, all silver and gray

Date: Sept. 5-7
Mileage: 104.9
September mileage: 169.1

Wow. What a miserable weekend. I can't believe I signed up for that.

Ok. Ok. It wasn't that bad. It was really only miserable in a comedy-of-errors type of way, and I'm already laughing about it. Sitka is a beautiful place ... beautiful in many of the ways Juneau is beautiful: lined with towering, tree-choked mountains; draped in billowing curtains of satin clouds; glimmers of sunlight perpetually trying to break through. Sitka, like Juneau, is probably the kind of place you need to spend a month or a year exploring to truly appreciate, let it all soak in, all of the moss and mold and endless rainfall, until it becomes a part of you. But in two days, when you are just getting your feet wet and still remember what it's like to be dry, all it does is grow grumpy resentment.

Perhaps, though, Sitka is just not the place to go camping in September. I don't do much camping these days; it is not as pleasent as I remember it being. I walked off the boat with as many belongings as I could carry on my back - likely more than 60 pounds of stuff ... much, much more than I carried for my three-day exursion around the Golden Circle. It teetered and threw off my balance so drastically that it was hard to stay upright on the bike. I knew I wasn't going to lug that pack far, so I set up the tent at a campground about a mile from the ferry terminal ... about eight miles outside of town. I figured it was as good a base camp as any.

The first night, I set out to exploring the roads and town. I found a few nice jeep trails at the other end of the paved road, some cut off from public motorized use, and visited a few lakes with original names ... Blue Lake, Green Lake, Heart Lake, Thimbleberry Lake (Ok, that last one isn't bad.) All the while, the rain came down in bursts and mists, but never truly stopped. I rolled through town right around dinner time. Unfortunantly, I had taken my sweet time on the last few miles, stopping to look for whales and explore a historic area. My body temperature was way down, so stopping in town and sitting for an hour in my wet clothes was not an option. It'll be OK, I thought, I brought food with me. I'll just go back to camp and change into something dry and have a sandwich for dinner.

(The black dots in this photo are all surfers, waiting for the next big wave. I really envied these guys. They looked so warm in their Neoprene wetsuits.)

Upon return to camp, I learned (the hard way) that "bearproof" does not mean "waterproof." The cylindrical canister that I had stored all my food in was filled with three inches of water, a sticky soup of bagel remnants, turkey jerky juice, disintegrated Special K cereal and globs of cream cheese. The only thing I could salvage was a ziplock bag that had not been punctured - six Clif bars and a few fruit snacks. I was after dark, and even through I had my lights with me, I opted not to ride the seven miles back to a grocery store. Since I had no way of keeping my food free from bears and also dry enough to be edible, I didn't see much point. Plus, I had pretty much lost my appetite.

After I tossed all of my food in the bearproof (and probably waterproof) trash can, I opened the rainfly to my tent and learned (the hard way) that it, too, was not waterproof. Four years ago, it was a really good tent. It once stood up to Juneau at its worse, but now it is old and weatherworn, and hardly up to the job. My one mercy was the bivy I had been smart enough to bring, keeping my sleeping gear warm and dry. But all of the changes of clothes I had so painstakingly packed and lugged along with me because I knew I was going to come home wet every night were sitting in puddles of water. As was my backpack, and two of my New Yorker magazines, now all but ruined. I burst out laughing, which I sometimes do when I want to cry about something caused by my own stupidity.

I crawled into my last refuge, my sleeping bag, and listened to rain pound the roof of the tent and drip onto my bivy all night long. I had grand plans for Thursday, but when I woke to more puddles and more pounding on the roof, I could not bring myself to crawl out of my sack. For priding myself as much as I do about being a survivor in the rain, I let it break me pretty quickly. I read and napped until about noon, when I started having a craving for some Clif Bars. I slithered out of my sack, pulled on some wet clothes, sloshed into my wet shoes, and stumbled out into the rain.

Just getting up, getting out and getting a few calories in me did a world of good. I felt ready to conquer Sitka again. So I packed up a delicious assortment of Clif Bars for a late lunch and headed to check out some nearby logging roads that I had seen on a map. They were pretty heavily potholed with deep puddles, rocky and rooty and wicked slippery in spots, but made for pretty good mountain biking. I finally headed into town around dinner time thinking that tonight I really wasn't going to have much of a choice. I took some time to bike slowly through town and check out all the sights, letting my body temperature drop, and finally stopped at a sushi place where I really wanted to eat. But as I was walking my bike along the storefronts, I caught sight of myself in the glass - completely covered in specks of mud from head to toe, with a face that looked like I had just spent the afternoon behind the spinning wheels of a bogged-down truck. I imagined draping my sopping coat across those clean chairs and letting it drip dirty water all over the floor. I couldn't bring myself to it. When I'm by myself, I'm far too self conscious.

But I had to eat. So I stopped at McDonalds. I hate McDonalds. But for some reason, I felt like it was the only place where I wouldn't be scrutinized for looking like I did (although I'm sure I was.) I choked down the grilled chicken sandwich and fries, thinking, "I hate this stuff. I should be eating sushi. I should be doing something more productive than sitting in a McDonalds in the middle of nowhere Alaska and dripping rainwater everywhere." But I was starting to get cold, so I ate faster.

Overnight, the tent really hit a breaking point - but on the bright side, I now have a lot of faith in my bivy sack. I rode a few quick, short spurs around camp this morning before packing up for good and showing up at the ferry terminal nearly two hours early. The boat was already in port and I was hoping they would let me on, which they did. The first thing I did was take a long, hot shower. Then I went down to the cafeteria and ate some really crappy soup, but it was warm. Then I sat back in the lounge and set to finishing that Harry Potter book. My friend Chris once told me that the second best thing about Juneau was the ferry ride there, and the best thing about Juneau was the ferry ride out. And I couldn't help but laugh, and wonder if I'd always feel the same way about Sitka.