Jill+Canada=Luv

I was dreading making the solo drive from Salt Lake City to Alaska, but I have to admit that for the most part I have really been enjoying it. There have been times when I have "bonked" and had to stop and walk around for a while to gear back into driver mode. I've had to make quite a few of these stops. I've been overly cautious because I am terrified of falling asleep at the wheel, and the constant pressure on the gas pedal just sears my already tender Achilles tendon (that's right, 2,700 miles with no cruise control, no air conditioning and no power steering. No stereo either! Ha! Thank goodness for iPod.) But the little old beater of a car and this battered body made it all the way to Whitehorse! Just 108 more driving miles left! Hooray!

The drive turned out to be a positive thing because it meant I made two great stops in Banff and Whitehorse, two of my favorite places in the world. I've enjoyed relaxing meals and rides with friends, and I think these activities will help me bridge the gap between the single-minded focus of the Great Divide and the vague void that is my real life ahead.

And even though it's not the same from the seat of a car, the highway is incredibly scenic. My memories of the AlCan were filled wide pavement cutting through rolling black spruce forests. I forgot that after you meander along the high prairie, you still have to cut through the northern Rockies. That part of the drive is winding, slow and mired in summer construction, but spectacular nonetheless. And I hate having to rush through it, but life doesn't always move as slow as you'd like it to.

And Canada has been good to me. I pulled my Karate Monkey off my car rack this morning, brushed the flattened mosquitoes off her fork, chipped large chunks of New Mexico mud off her frame, pumped up her cigarette-paper-thin tires, adjusted the creaky brakes, lubed the dusty chain, and went out for my first ride(s) since I left the Mexican border. Whitehorse singletrack, like the Banff mountains, is good for the soul. My friends and I did two rides - one before lunch and one before dinner - for about three and a half hours of mountain biking. I struggled more than I thought I would - I couldn't power up the steep stuff, and I felt pretty wiped out by hour three despite a week off the bike. But when I finally hit my downhill stride, I could almost feel myself physically connecting with the flow of past to future. Part of me thought I would leave the Divide and hate my bike forever, or at least for more than a week. Churning up northern dust again proved that this relationship is consuming and difficult, but I might as well enjoy it because it's definitely long-term.

Now if I could only figure out a way to make my relationship with Canada last. Are there any rich, single Canadian men out there looking for a prospective partner? Must like cats and winter. Please inquire within. :-)

P.S. I will start posting more Tour Divide pictures soon.

The drive so far

Wow. Alaska is far away. And endurance driving is hard. But Canada is kinda pretty. Thus the urge to come on my blog and post pictures.

I'm actually online right now because both my debit and credit cards were put on hold today. Impeccable timing. I love the way credit card companies freeze your accounts only at the times it's most inconvenient for you. I guess purchases in Silver City, New Mexico, one day and Jasper, Alberta, just a few short days later may look a little suspicious. I don't know. I do know I was throwing around the last of my cash today on $4/gallon gas while stressing that I was going to be completely broke before I made it to the Yukon. Yeah, driving is way harder than biking. At least cyclists can beg for food.

I drove 800 miles today in 16 nearly nonstop hours (narrow, winding roads and a gutless car make a 50 mph average the best I can do). I did take the time to do a tiny little hike near the icecap this morning. This is near the crux of the Continental Divide, where droplets of water bound for the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic oceans go their separate ways. The Continental Triangle.

Thunderstorms moved in during the afternoon as I made my way into northern British Columbia, where gray daylight lingered until 11 p.m. I drove right through to dark. I was completely stressed about the storms all afternoon, even as I tried to remind myself that I was inside a car on pavement and they weren't going to hurt me. I'm having a hard time removing myself from "Divide" mode. I still pretty much only think about road conditions and weather, and I respond to fatigue with junk food. I was nearly wiped out in Dawson Creek, so I ate a huge bag of M&Ms and washed it down with coffee. I felt better until Fort Saint John, and then I started craving giant brownie. Luckily, I was mired in credit card problems at that point, so I missed out on the 600 sugar calories that I no longer need.

I listened to every single Tour Divide call-in via old MTBcast episodes today and Friday to pass the long drive. That's probably not helping me reintegrate back into civilization, but many of them were good for laughs (and groans of painful understanding.) Those many hours of variations of "I hurt my (fill in crucial body part)" and "it rained all day" (to which I contributed fully) is probably the reason why my brain isn't working. I forgot my social security number when I was on the phone with my bank today, and had to call my parents to get it. The misadventures in driving continue. I'm hoping to reach Whitehorse tomorrow. After that, it's just a quick jog and a ferry ride south to a place I haven't seen in three months - my home town.

Victory tour

Life has been hectic since I left the Divide. I'm currently in the middle of making the long commute between Salt Lake City and Juneau, Alaska. I had hoped to take the ferry, but I couldn't really plan my trip before I finished the ride, and the next boat was booked. I don't have the time to wait another week. So I have to make the 2,700-mile trip by myself in a 1996 Geo Prism. There's something about it that's very Divide-esque. It's even the same distance. Endurance driving.

I'm even visiting many of the same places I passed through on the Great Divide. So far, this trip hasn't flowed nearly as well as a typical day on the bike. I left my grandparents' house in Roy, Utah, on Friday just before noon and did a bit of a killer day to Lethbridge, Alberta, to give myself time to visit my friends and enjoy one semi-day of rest in Banff. I stopped in Idaho Falls to visit former coworkers, but no one was around at the office. Then I made my first gas stop in Lima, Montana, and the little store where I once bought cheese curds (those were such a rare find on the Divide and so delicious) was all out of fountain Diet Pepsi. I took a wrong turn in Butte and ended up driving 10 miles on I-90, which is actually quite funny because the Great Divide route comes right down I-15. You think I would have wondered why nothing looked familiar. I blew through Basin and Helena. The sun was still up when I passed through Great Falls, so I decided to continue north, only to discover that the only hotel before the border (a casino) was all booked up. My car was searched at the border - the first time I've been searched in several dozen Canadian border crossings. I arrived in Lethbridge after midnight, completely hammered, only to see huge crowds of people lining the street like they were waiting for some kind of parade, and every hotel in town had their "No Vacancy" signs lit. It was so foreign to me. I never had trouble finding beds on the Divide. I continued to the next town - I think it was Macleod - and crashed out in my car in the parking lot of a gas station. I slept only a couple hours before continuing on to Banff, wondering why life off the bike was so hard.

It's been good, too. On Thursday I was able to get in one last hike with my dad to Lake Blanche - about 2,700 feet of elevation gain and seven miles - not bad for three days off the Divide. I'm still noticing that I have no high throttle when I need to power up something steep, even on foot. I compare it to my Geo, who on every hill just doesn't have enough oomph to keep the speed steady and begins slowing to a put-put-put. The Divide has turned me into an old car, but I still feel healthy and seem to have all the ability I need to power myself where I need to go. I hope my Geo can do the same.

I'm sad to be leaving Utah. It's such a beautiful state and most of my friends and family live there. But Alaska beckons, as does my need to start bringing in income after three months of hemorrhaging my savings.

One nice thing about my failure to find a hotel room last night is that I made it to Banff really early today. I enjoyed a leisurely walk and an ice cream cone among the throngs of tourists that visit Banff on a Saturday in July. I went to see the Spray River trailhead (beginning of the GDMBR). It's strange to be back here. It feels like no time at all has passed since I rolled out on June 12, but in many ways it feels like eons have passed.

Keith and Leslie, who declared their place my "home" for the time being since I am currently homeless, led me on my victory tour through Banff - on a tandem cruiser, of course, through a current of tourists.

We rolled by the Ski Stop, a bike shop in Banff that threw a barbecue for the Tour Divide the night before the race. I guess as a TD finisher, I get to enjoy partial celebrity status. The owner, Jason, gave me a jersey, and supposedly this picture is going to end up hanging somewhere in the store.

I'm heading out tomorrow for more endurance driving. Keith is going to accompany for about 60 miles before I drop him off for a road bike ride, and then it's back to listening to every single Tour Divide call-in on my iPod. North to the future!

Idaho

The state of Idaho is short and sweet on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route - 72 miles and no major climbs. The fast guys probably pound it out before breakfast. The first stop I made in the state was at an RV park just below Red Rock Pass. A photographer flagged me down and offered me a root beer. I asked him if I could borrow the hose at the little camp store. The mud of southern Montana had become so caked on my derailleurs and cables that my shifters had become useless. My "singlespeed" gear that I was stuck with was pretty low and I was spun out on the downhill stretch. The 20 minutes I spent cleaning my bike at the RV park revealed how heinous that mud really was. Even a high-pressure hose wouldn't remove it. I had to use rocks to chip away at the adobe bricks coating my drivetrain.

We spent the night at the Sawtell Mountain Resort, and the next day I headed out in steady rain alone to hit the rail trail. John, who was in full-on tour mode, didn't feel like greeting the cold, wet morning with a slow grind on a soft railbed. He hinted that he'd probably meet up with me later, but maybe not. I thought that was it - I was on my own again, the way I had been in Canada. But a week later, the solitude felt different. This time, I had enough experience behind me to understand the magnitude of the remote, lengthy time alone that I faced.

John had warned me that the railbed was was a mixture of sand and soft volcanic ash, and that it would be washboarded and *really* slow. He told me to prepare for 30 miles of grinding away at 4-5 mph. So I approached the trail in "snowbike" mode, mentally bracing myself for the kind of deep slog that only snow and sand can deliver. It's a Zen place where life moves in slow motion and the mind slips into a white state of nothingness to cope with what otherwise can be infuriating monotony. Because I approached the rail trail with this mindset, I was startled to discover that this section of the route even looked like the Susitna Valley of Alaska - with a narrow trail cutting a perfectly straight line across swamps and through stands of evergreens beneath a slate gray sky. A fatigued imagination sparks faster than a fresh one, and it wasn't long before I was deep into an Iditarod fantasy, crunching my way over a vast expanse of white wilderness.

The reality of the rail trail, however, was that the buckets of rain that had fallen over the past few days had actually nicely packed down the ash and sand, and I was able to move as fast over the railbed as I could any gravel road, but with less effort, because it was perfectly flat. I finally woke up enough to snap myself out of my slog mindset and start pushing the big gears toward the Warm River. Pretty soon I was winding down a beautiful canyon in a setting that was definitely Idaho.

Above the Warm River Campground, I reached the familiar territory of eastern Idaho - rolling farmland set against the snow-capped Tetons. It made me smile because this part of the route was my closest point to home. I lived in Idaho Falls for a year, and still consider Salt Lake City my "home," even if I do live in Alaska for the long term. But being this close to "home" also triggered the thought that this spot would be the best place to quit the race - a mere four-hour drive for my parents to come rescue me from a strenuous life of solitude under the harsh elements. I shook that thought off quickly. I was having a good day, and decisions are always easier to make on good days.

John caught up to me near the Ashton-Flagg Ranch Road. He had decided to hammer the rail trail and put in one more day of Tour Divide fun. We were greeted by a sign that read "Impassable to Vehicles." The deepening fear of mud pumped cold blood through my veins.

Montana

Montana is a big state on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route - 695 miles. Very few of those miles are flat. Montana is one climb after the other, and it quickly feeds you a salty dose of reality. Gunning for an average of 100 miles a day really is going to mean 10-16 hours of solid riding, day after day after day. And what that means for your body and mind, you're still very unsure.

I was chowing down a huge sandwich and several cookies at the Eureka Subway when John Nobile walked up to me looking rather dejected. I didn't recognize him at first because I had only met him briefly at the race start, and, knowing he was aiming to break his own course record, really didn't expect to ever see him again. Plus, cyclists put on their helmets and shorts and they pretty much all look the same. Anyway, after several minutes of awkward questions that revealed that I didn't know who he was when I really should have, he told me he was feeling sick and had blown his knee in Canada and his race was over.

As I finished my lunch, we talked about the route and he decided to put in one more day. I told him I was aiming for Whitefish and he said I could at least make it to Columbia Falls. We decided to ride together to town, and over the course of the day he discovered that the world of the mid-pack Tour Divider, with its leisurely lunch stops, friendly chats with locals and remote blogging over coffee, was actually pretty enjoyable. He decided to stick around a little longer at "tour" pace (i.e. my race pace) and see if he could recover his knee enough to start hammering toward the front.

It worked out pretty well for me - like having a Great Divide coach, along with the added benefit of company during the hard times and friendship during the good. We made a somewhat strange team - him with his "go go go into the night" mentality, me with my "let's stop and stare at this pretty waterfall even if the rain is bearing down on us" mentality. But it worked oddly well. Balance and flow.

We hit our first stretch of snow at Red Meadow Lake. Snow and bears are fairly prevalent in Montana and widely feared by Divide racers, but in my opinion the mud and dogs of New Mexico are much more scary.

And, anyway, those snowy passes take you to misty clear lakes high in the mountains. How could you be grumpy about that?

But I had the advantage of having a great wardrobe for what turned out to be a cold and rainy year throughout. I had my vapor barrier socks to keep my feet warm and dry, two extra pairs of wool socks, full rain gear, a fleece jacket, hat and gloves. I managed to stay warm and relatively happy through the cold rain, while John, who in typical fast-guy fashion traveled light, had to rely on his fast-twitch muscles to get him out of some of the race's chillier situations. (Then I'd stumble into a town two hours later, dripping muddy water, to find him already showered and sipping tea.)

It was handy to have John around for Montana bear country. I think our total count was five bears - two grizzlies and three black bears. Whenever I saw one, I'd slam on the brakes while my heart raced. His reaction was to charge toward them while yelling. Lucky for him, they always ran away.

My favorite climb in Montana turned out to be Richmond Peak - steep gravel up, snowy slog down.

Actually, the real reason it was my favorite climb is because it was peppered by a gorgeous sunset. Moments like these, quiet moments of euphoria amid the labored breaths and sweat-soaked haze of a hard day's effort, are what make ultraendurance rides all worth it.

Then the next day, you wake up and do it all again. And suddenly you find yourself over the next pass, across the next valley, 100 miles down the route, breathing in new climates and soaking in new sunsets.

But there are always more clouds on the horizon.

Looking out from one pass to our next - the much-feared Lava Mountain trail where crazy hillbillies roam and Divide racers get hopelessly lost.

This was a particularly cool pass - Fleecer Ridge. You start up on your choice of eight steep singletrack cuts ...

Grind toward the summit of a high plateau ...

Roll over a faint track lined with wildflowers ...

And then nosedive off the boulder-studded face of a veritable cliff.

People with my technical skills call this "downhill hike-a-bike."

Montana is an easy state in some ways - there are a fair number of service stops at useful intervals, and lots of water. John and I tended to eat almost exclusively from gas stations during this stretch, and my diet soon consisted of four food groups: Snickers Bars, Sour Patch Kids, M&Ms and cheese. I was putting down 4,000-5,000 calories a day of mostly this stuff. You'd think I'd just drop dead of toxic shock, but for some reason I didn't.

Climbing the paved pass out of Wise River. I'll never claim to be a mountain bike snob. I'm really more of a bicycle tourist, and I always enjoyed the paved stretches of the route for their easy speed, smooth rolling and scenery that I actually had the handling freedom to stare at.

But I like touring dirt because of the places it can take me. Plus, the climbs are usually more challenging, the descents more fun, and the days more rewarding.

So many times when I was mired in mud, I'd promise myself I would never ride anything but pavement ever again. But I never actually believed it, even as I stood ankle deep in peanut butter sludge.

Cabin Creek Road. Many of these places in Montana felt so wild and remote, although even more extreme wildness and remoteness had yet to come.

The drop into Lima was a really fun descent. I accidentally riled up a group of four cows and continued to coast behind them as they sprinted wildly down the road for a quarter mile before finally veering off. I felt like I was driving a stampede.

The next day out of Lima was gray skies and solid rain. Our maps said "roads may be mucky when wet."

Mucky seems an unforgivably tame term. Impassable is a better one. There was one half-mile stretch of that horrible road where I couldn't even push my bike through the shallow canal off to the side. I simply had to hoist it as I trampled through the brush - because my feet stuck to the road as badly as my mud-cemented wheels did. Meanwhile, mosquitoes swarmed me as I pumped through the last remaining droplets of bug spray. Miserable, frustrating, temper-tantrum-inducing - these, also, are too-tame terms for such a situation.

The mud can quickly remind us that we have friends in high places.

This last day out of Montana was also the day I was pummeled by a violent thunderstorm. It caught me completely by surprise - ink-black clouds rolled over the mountain and showered me with lightning. One bolt hit so close that I heard no delay between the light and thunder - just a blinding flash of white in my peripheral vision surrounded by a deafening boom. I convinced myself I was within feet of being hit by lightning in this open valley with no shelter. My only solution was to lay into the pedals and sprint with everything I had, mud and all. With hot adrenaline coursing through my veins, I believe I hit some of my high speeds for the trip on that flat, muddy stretch of road.

We crossed into Idaho with nearly 1,000 miles of Great Divide riding behind us - wet, cold, muddy, sore and tired - but for some strange reason, still raring to go.

Canada

I'm not really sure how I can begin to write about such a long and sweeping experience like the Tour Divide. The fact is, right now, I can't. I'm fresh off the route and dealing with the swift realities of the expensive brake work my car needs, how to get myself and that silly car back to Juneau as quickly as possible, the fact that I'm returning to Alaska homeless, single and back to a job that will be much different and likely even harder and more all-encompassing than it was when I left it. And I have to do all of this having been "Great-Divided." I don't think it matters who you are, or why or how you rode this route - it changes you. And in the short term, quite drastically. I've lost about 10 pounds - even my skinny jeans slip down my backside. I still greedily eye the gummy candy sections at gas stations. I can't think beyond eat, sleep, ride, and I have a whole life to move on with. Right now, I admit I feel a little amused when people tell me they're impressed with what I've accomplished. I want to tell them that life on a bike is so much easier than real life.

In the coming weeks, I do plan to write in depth about my experiences on the Tour Divide, because that's what I do, and that's how I process things. But in this short term, with so much else going on, I might just have to settle for posting my favorite pictures and a few short captions. Eventually, I'll upload all my hundreds of pictures to a site like Picassa and probably unload thousands of words of Tour Divide blabbage on this computer. But for now, I'll start with my two days in Canada.

John Nobile and I at the race start in Banff, the Spray River trailhead. So innocent, so full of hope ... so clean. :-)

I was talking with my friends Keith and Leslie with the race suddenly "started," and the whole field just launched forward before I knew what happened. I quickly fired up the Spot unit and turned on my GPS, but I began the race at the very back of the pack. That was probably a good thing. I missed the crazy hammering of the first few miles, and just hung back and enjoyed the scenery with the other Tour Divide tourists.

Even still, with 42 racers still relatively close together, there was lots of company that first day. It's almost strange to look back on. It was one of my most relaxed days, and the only day that to me had any appearance of a race. But then again, I was never up front. ;-)

I'll admit that at first I was a little irked about having to ride the Canadian "prologue." It wasn't part of my plan until very close to the actual race, but I did make the decision to ride the Tour Divide and Canada is part of the Tour Divide. Even though I came very close to the Great Divide Race (border-to-border) female record and, despite all, in the end could have broken it with a little determination and an all-night ride across the desert - I don't regret my decision. I had great company both before and during the race, and the Canada stretch really is as beautiful as they say it is. But they're all beautiful. Even the Great Divide Basin is beautiful.

But Banff National Park is stunning.

And the first day - long before trail weariness sets in - is the perfect time to enjoy scenery. I took lots of pictures on day one.

Even the powerline access trails are stunning.

The first day brought hours of scattered rain showers, which turned out to be a constant for most of the trip. I didn't keep solid track of my "Days of Rain" on the Tour Divide, but it was at least 20 out of 24. Of course, I'm from Juneau, and the rain didn't really bother me at all until the mud caught up with me.

Some kind of industrial plant outside of Elkford, where I spent my first night about 100 miles from the start. I became pretty lost finding my way out of Elkford, and burned up about 45 minutes to an hour looking for the right road out of town. That was actually the most lost I ever was in the course of the entire trip. And for that, I'd like to thank my Garmin Vista HCX GPS unit, and Scott Morris for creating a most excellent track of the border-to-border route. Seriously. With my sense of direction and attention span, it was a godsend. My GPS became my most valued possession - almost more so than my bike. I practically slept with it at night.

Those first two days were mostly smiles, gratitude and curiosity about how much longer it was going to last. At that point, I had no concept of really riding my bike all the way to Mexico and didn't really believe I could do it in the time frame I had set for myself. I thought my body would shut down, or my mind would, or both. The task I had set to, in all honesty, looked impossible.

Maybe those thoughts were my own way of taking the pressure off myself. The race already took so much time, money, planning and preparation that I don't think I was ready to deal with the disappointment of failure. So I told myself that just in being out there, it was already a success.

But by the afternoon of day two, the race was starting to look ridiculous. The night before the race, the organizers threw in the curve ball of a new "test" section that added something like 45 miles, three big passes, a lot of rough roads and a nearly nonexistent animal trail that was supposed to pass for "singletrack." Plus, we had to follow it all with only a rather vague and sometimes outright wrong cue sheet - no maps, no elevation profiles, no GPS. Luckily, I had the bike tracks of the many people in front of me to follow. I ended up going through the singletrack stretch in the dark. The end quarter mile gained nearly 300 feet on a very slippery, muddy trail that cut straight up the steep slope. The cue sheet called it a pusher but it wasn't even that. A couple of times I had my bike practically over my head, slipping backward down the slimy trail as I struggled to find my balance. I didn't think I was going to muster the strength from my puny arms to push the bike up that slope. I thought I was going to have to break my bike down to several pieces and literally shuttle it up. But after lots of grunting and sweating, I did make it up only to reach a clear-cut area with lots of downed trees and no distinct trail across it. I groped around in the dark for a half hour, knowing the road was mere yards away but unable to find it. By the time I stumbled onto the gravel, I was so tired and frustrated that I only rode another mile before just plopping down to camp in some pretty serious bearitory. I didn't care. It's funny now to look back and think about how frustrated I was about the whole thing. That was nothing. :-)

The next day, I woke up to more fun obstacles.

I crossed the border at 9:45 a.m. Sunday, June 14. I was feeling pretty tired, and the race had only just begun.