Mount Olds

I seem to wake up these days with single-minded purpose. The cell-phone alarm rings out. I groan and nuzzle deeper into my down comforter. My cat wanders over and plops down my my chest. I exhale involuntarily, grab her, and sit up, blinking vacantly toward the window until I remember my name, my location, the year, and finally, the fact that the weather is supposed to be good today!

I carry my cat over to the door and throw it open. Outside, a thick blanket of fog hovers over Auke Bay, shrouding everything beyond the driveway. "What do you think, Cady?" I ask my cat. (Oh, yes, I talk to my cat, because she is the vocal type who always answers back.) "Do you think it'll clear up?"

"Meow."

"Yeah, I don't know either. But it is Sunday, so I don't have to go into work until later. I have five hours, maybe six. But what to do?"

"Meow."

"Maybe, Cady. You think I should go for it?"

The final indifferent glare from my cat as she struggles to free herself and dart outside is my answer. I dress quickly, grab my pre-packed Camelbak - pretty much just hoping there's enough water and food left after Friday's Camping Cove cabin trip - and go.

I used my newly remodeled Road Monkey to shuttle myself up the Perseverance Trail, stashed the skinny-tire bike and started up Granite Creek with a single-minded focus on Mount Olds. The fog was lifting quickly, but the peak was still shrouded in clouds. But Granite Creek Basin, always a smorgasbord of color, did not disappoint. Streaks of crimson and gold swept over the basin like brush strokes.

I crested the upper basin and started scaling a rocky drainage the became progressively steeper until I was climbing with my hands more than my legs, finding plenty of good holds but willing my head not to turn around and look down. I gained the ridge, vowing NOT to return on that same route, and yet I was a little uncertain how exactly I would get down (I knew Olds had been summitted before, by lots of people, so I figured there was a way it could be done without down-climbing a virtual cliff.) Still, I had a little bit of that anxiety that hits me when I realize my skills don't exactly live up to my alpine dreams.

That anxiety swirled around as I made my way up the face of Olds. The week-old snow had melted and refrozen and melted and refrozen to a solid sheen. The final 100 feet of the mountain looked steep - as steep as the drainage I had just climbed up - and was glazed in the same icy snow that was barely making an imprint below my feet. I stood on that final saddle, just a couple hundred feet from the summit, with a frown stretched across my face. I remembered how much I struggled on Sheep Mountain last week, and the scrambling up Olds looked even worse. I still have yet to obtain a pair of crampons (not for lack of trying. I really need to figure out when Foggy Mountain is open.) But I was weaponless, facing a ladder of rock and ice with bare fingers and rubber-soled hiking boots.

I knew before I set out this morning that snow conditions might turn me around, but it wasn't easy to let that happen when I was so close to the top. Summit fever gripped me and I paced back and forth, dropping a few dozen feet and then returning, double-back-tracking and stewing, squinting at the mountain and wondering if it was really so bad or if I was just being a chicken. A fierce wind drove up from the valley and cold-slapped some reality into me.

"It's OK," I told myself. "I'm a lover, not a fighter. I don't need to slay this peak."

I admit mountaineer aspirations have slipped into my dreams, but such things take practice and also take time, and not taking chances until I have more of both is probably wise.

I down-climbed a narrow notch filled with loose shale and found my way back to the ridge. I figured at worst, I would have to climb the next peak and regain the regular Juneau Ridge route on the other side. I found a less-steep drainage into the basin and started down, only to discover it confluenced with a waterfall halfway down. Undeterred, I worked my way down the wet rocks, soaking up large quantities of frigid water through my clothing as a below-freezing windchill whipped by. The scrambling was never too sketchy, but now I'm really curious where the "normal" route up Olds is. In hindsight, I probably should have just stayed on the Juneau Ridge and looped back down.

As always, I learned a lot. These solo mountain adventures have been great at forcing me outside my comfort zone, learning to breathe and trust and love in the grip of the indifferent unknown.

And then I went for a bike ride

The weather forecast for the next week is jaw-droppingly unbelievable. I keep re-checking it, scarcely letting myself believe that "mostly cloudy" and "partly cloudy" days could really carry into mid-October. But even if the predictions hold partly true, there may still be more opportunities to run up mountains, and maybe I'm not in such a hurry after all. I got a lot of stuff done this weekend that I've been putting off. And I finally rode out to Echo Cove for the first time ... well, probably the first time in 2009.

It's only 62 miles round trip from my new place in Fritz Cove. It took me a little less than four hours with a snack break, so my pace wasn't totally slacking, but the time just flew by. It was one of those rides where I reached the end of the road, slowed to a stop, and stared at the boat ramp that marks the absolute dead end, wondering how I could possibly be there already. I was totally zoned in, or maybe zoned out is a better word - in heavy bike therapy mode, spinning pedals and letting my mind wander all over the landscape of my life. By the time I returned to Auke Bay, I had drawn three strong conclusions that I said out loud to myself, which felt great. Honestly, I don't know why people pay others to help them work through therapy when bikes are so good at that sort of thing, and free.

Today I woke up late and had more errands to do, so I only got in a fairly quick run (oh yes, I went running) up the Dan Moller trail. I made it to the cabin in about 40 minutes and decided to continue up to the ridge for good measure ... which turned out to be surprisingly treacherous. It's a quick jaunt in the winter, so I didn't think twice about stomping up the same steep drainage sans snow. But I slipped on the wet, rotten grass, fell to the ground hard on my hip and started sliding down the mountain. I clawed at the slimy slope as I gained momentum, laughing even as I was falling because it seemed ridiculous that I was going to slip-and-slide my way all the way back down to the bowl. Finally I reached out and grabbed onto a spruce branch, suspending my downward slide, and used that line of trees as ropes to pull myself up to the ridge. It was pretty humorous ... Here I've been, all worried about impending snowfall, when what I really need an ice ax and crampons for is autumn groundcover.

I'm headed back out the road tonight, this time to go camping at a cabin for a friend's birthday. It was a great, mellow weekend, but if that unreal weather forecast holds up, I'll probably have no choice but to ramp it up again next week.

Modern romance

"Don't hold on.
Go, get strong.
Well don't you know,
there is no modern romance."
— "Modern Romance," Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Tuesday morning rose misty and warm, with flecks of sunlight burning through the cracks in a disintegrating ceiling of clouds. I packed up my Camelbak the way I did back in July, with just a light shell and gloves, extra socks, my GPS, and water. I held my camera in my hands, wavering on whether or not I should stuff it in the outer pocket. Maybe, maybe just this once, I thought, I should leave it behind. Maybe this one will be a quiet trek. I won't tell anyone, and I won't have any evidence I was there. It will be a secret.

I stuffed my camera in the pack, just in case, and set out into the promising morning with the same sense of irresistible anticipation and cautious reserve I have been feeling recently in other areas of my life. I thought again about leaving the camera behind. Already, some of my friends have been hinting that I have a problem. That I spend too much time in the mountains. That I have only just emerged from a very long, committed thing (a-hem ... the Tour Divide), and in my drive to get back out there, and the overzealous way I am going about it, I may be setting myself up for a long fall.

"It's not so much about being tired," my friend said as I told her about my Sheep Mountain trek and how I've been feeling a little under the weather ever since, but can't seem to stop as long as the actual weather is nice. "What do you even think about when you're out there alone, just out in the woods with the bears and wolves, for like seven hours all the time? Aren't you scared? Don't you go crazy?"

And all I could think of the answer is, "I don't know. I think about everything, I guess. That's really the only time I have to think." But why has it been so hard for me to decipher what "everything" actually is? All of the time I've spent stomping through the mountains lately, I've had a lot of time to sift through the pieces of my life, to look for ways I can fit them together in a puzzle that makes the most sense and makes me the most happy. And all I seem to have found is a flight of ideas surrounded by exhilaration in the high country, transforming flawlessly to fear when I am back in the low country. The ideas feel something like love up high, something like insanity down low, and the pieces stay scattered. As I come down, I cling to appreciation for the "regular" life I have, and the new friendships I've found, and mountains.

"Time, time is gone.
It stops stops who it wants.
Well i was wrong ...
it never lasts ...
there is no ...
this is no modern romance."

So I thought about keeping it a secret that I was heading up Thunder Mountain on a tranquil Tuesday morning. After all, I can hardly complain about achy muscles if I am the one who keeps pounding them into the ground. It could just be me and the mountain, a quiet October morning, where instead of gathering and analyzing the pieces of my life, I could just scatter them in the gentle breeze. But as I worked my way up the mountainside, hands clasped around the exposed roots of 100-foot-tall Sitka spruce trees that filtered flecks of sunlight down their moss-coated trunks, exhilaration started to take over again. Confidence swelled, and in those perfect photogenic moments, I believe I could do it, all of it: living the dream, the cabin, the writing, the trips to Nigeria and Banff, the skiing, the winter bike touring, the freedom, the unhindered freedom. There are so many chances out there waiting to be taken, so many feelings ready to be exposed.

Clouds floated along the edges of the ridge, which looked more like a rolling, Midwestern prairie than a mountain top. I like this world because it is so close, but so different than mine. I love this world because it is mine. Every time I'm really tempted to mix things up, all I need to do is come up here and realize that I actually have it pretty good. Still, the empty spaces remain. Some of my married, parenting friends have expressed envy at my freewheeling, single-girl lifestyle, which on its margins must appear to be all fun and hottie potential, with no room for dull responsibility. And, of course, I look at the margins of their lives and I want what they have - partnership and love. Why would anyone want more? Why do people always think they want more?

But up in the mountains, above the confusion and contradiction, it's easy to condense what I know about life and love. I know life is short and hard. I know love is long and abstract. I know I want to experience both to the very edges, the very heights of my abilities, because I know, in the end, they're all I have. But I know fear is powerful and pain is unbearable, and those two things will battle life and love, always. And as the battle rages on, I know it will be difficult to fight when there is so much I do not know. If I am brutally honest with myself, I know that right now there are just two things about life and love that I actually do know:

I know I love mountains. And I know they do not love me back.

Overtrained for regular life

People only seem to call me when I am traipsing up and down mountains. Twenty hours a day, I am inside a building, surrounded by all kinds of social media, but the phone calls ... from my friends, from my boss, from my family ... only seem to come when I am clinging to Sitka spruce roots on a precarious ledge of some muddy slope that absolutely should not be located in cell-phone reception range ... but is, all the same. I guess maybe those calls come then because those hours, the morning hours, are the hours I'm supposed to be "around." But, lately, I haven't been "around." I've been everywhere else.

"Can't talk long," I told a friend from Utah who called Saturday morning. "I'm about to head down and the trail has turned really slimy. I'm going to need both hands."

My friend groaned. "Where are you?"

"Grandchild," I said.

"Again? Weren't you just there, like, last week?"

"Probably," I said. "But I have to get these in while I can. We had another nice day today. Can you believe it? That's like, two, at least, in October. More than we usually get in the whole month. I have to take advantage while I can, because you never know when the clouds are finally going to sink in for 36 days of rain. That's how many we had last October."

"There aren't 36 days in October," she said.

"I think the streak carried over into November," I said.

"Don't you have better things to do?" she asked.

"Oh, tons. I haven't gotten anything productive done, well, besides my job, since, well, probably since August."

But it's true - around here, I have to roll with the weather. I just have to. Every day, I track the forecasts and monitor the cloud ceiling and gauge the snow line - the combination of which threaten, every day, to shut me out of most of Juneau's high country until next summer. And every time a good weather window opens up, I think "this could be the last one." And I suit up, and set out.

And another window opened up Sunday - high overcast, a bit of wind, but no rain. "This could be my last chance to go up Ben Stuart," I thought. Ben Stuart is one of the few established trails in town that I had not yet set foot on. It was a horrible trail ... shin deep in mucky mud and decaying slippery grass. I'm usually not a rubber boot person, but my one of my running shoes pulled off my foot in sinkholes, twice, and I had to reach into the stinky swamp and dislodge it with a sickening slurp. By the time I hit the alpine, I was grumpy, grumpy, grumpy. I plopped down and stuck my feet in a stream, watching the clear water whisk away large chunks of mud. The vegetation on the ground, ravaged by too many killing frosts, was slimy and brown. Even though I had been walking across a level basin, my heart was racing. I had a headache and felt hungry, but the thought of eating the Power Bar I had in my pack was nauseating. And as I sat soaking my aching feet in the frigid water, the thought suddenly occurred to me ... "Holy cow, I'm totally overtrained!"

Overtrained for ... what? All I've been doing since I returned to Juneau is enjoying myself. And then I enjoyed myself some more. And then I enjoyed myself into a hiking habit that sometimes stretches to upwards of 20 or even 30 hours a week, or more, with exercise that is decidedly more strenuous than the biking I usually (used to?) do. And then there was that 30-hours-in-three-days bike tour in the Yukon ... was that just last weekend? It's all a blur. All I see is mountains, mountains, mountains.

A big fall storm moved in today ... 25 mph winds, 45 degrees, 1.25 inches of rainfall. I was grateful. I did my laundry. I typed e-mails. I talked to my sister. I pet my cat. I called my friends.

I felt a little more human. A little more grounded. I put bandaids on my blisters. And checked Tuesday's weather ...

Which calls for decreasing clouds. Again.

Into October

OK, I've already done the post where I talk about how amazing and un-fall-like the weather has been. And I've already done the post where I talk about how much I love walking around areas that are a little higher than the place where I live. And I've done the post where I publish an obnoxious number of pictures with cursory captions to justify their exsistence. I've done them all, a lot. And here I go again. Be annoyed if you want to. This is my blog.

Today I set out to slay some peaks. How many, I didn't know. I was feeling ambitious, but I knew I was heading into snow, and the possibility of a large chunk of terrain that was unknown, and I was alone. So I expected, even early in the day, that restraint would trump ambition.

I headed up the Mount Roberts trail, later in the day than I really should have. I had this crazy idea about looping around the Clark Ridge and connecting up with Granite Creek Basin. If it was early still, I even had grand illusions about hitting up Mount Olds. The whole thing would have involved six peaks and more than 10,000 feet of climbing. I didn't even begin to anticipate how much the new snow would bog me down while subsequently freaking me out. In hindsight, my original goal seems ridiculous.

But that didn't even seem to matter while it was beautiful and bright and I had all day to bask in the sun.

Gastineau Peak. 12:11 p.m. Elevation 3,666 feet.

Here's the part where I have to admit that I still don't own an ice ax and crampons. I didn't anticipate needing them - it was only 1-6 inches of soft snow, with a few deep drifts in spots. The gear wouldn't even have completely helped with the obstacles I met later, but they would have been nice to have, for sure.

Mount Roberts. 12:42 p.m. Elevation: 3,819 feet.

The stress started when I made my attempt on Sheep Mountain. I've only been up here once before. I'd forgotten how steep and exposed it can be in places. Much of the route up would be class 3 or 4 scrambling when dry, and today the rocks were covered in all manner of rotten rime, wet glare ice and crusty snow.

I didn't take any big chances, alone as I was, but I did spend more than an an hour working my way up to an unmanageable spot, inching back down, and then wandering around the perimeter of the face looking for the "easy" way up. I wasn't stoked on heading back the way I came, and still had the grand illusion of making it all the way around the loop, which wasn't possible if I couldn't summit Sheep.

I was less than 100 feet from the top when I was inching my way along a not technical but exposed spot and made the mistake of looking down. It dawned on me that if I slipped, at all, I was going to plunge 15 feet and break my legs or worse. The thought hit me like a brick, and I froze with the kind of focused fear that is aboslutely debilitating. I was paralyzed. I clung to the rocks for a few mintues, head spinning, eyesight dark, before I finally relaxed enough to slowly back off the ledge and regain my senses. All that time, I had good footing and a four inches of soft snow to hold me in place, but the fear of falling was amazingly acute. I didn't want to go through any more of that, so I made the decision right there to go back the way I came. But as I started working my way down, I spoted a fairly straightforward, deeply drifted ramp to the peak.

Sheep Mountain. 2:56 p.m. Elevation: 4,065 feet. I dropped the camera in the snow, so there's water all over the lens.

I'm bummed I didn't make the Clarks Loop this year, but it wasn't meant to be. Even with the right equipment and a partner, it still probably wouldn't have been a good idea. As soon as the sun started to sink enough that parts of the mountain fell into shadow, the wet snow froze solid almost immediately. I was lucky to have my own deep tracks to follow.

As always, I learned a lot. I'll be better prepared next time, or at least more cautious.

The day slipped away just the same. I was back at the tram just before sunset. It's closed for the season, which was disappointing. I was exhausted from stress and a day full of stomping through the snow. I could have really used a ride down.

Three summits. About 14 miles round trip. Total elevation gain according to GPS: 7,062 feet. Total time: 7.5 hours.

September I'm in love, still

Frost-crusted silt crunched under our boots as we walked along the Mendenhall Lake shoreline. It was nearly midnight; the sky was washed in stars; the orange tint of the setting moon cast a warm glow over the water, sparkling with the night. Mountains cut massive silhouettes through the encompassing shimmer. I glanced upward in wonder, startled by the simple vastness of the moment, sandwiched as it was between two mundane workdays.

We lingered late by the fire and set up camp atop a thickening layer of frost. I own but one truly warm sleeping bag. It's rated to 40 below zero - my favorite piece of gear. I curled up in my own private mountain of 800-fill down, billowing heat and perfect comfort, lulled to sleep by the vast simplicity of life.

We were up at sunrise, a direct consequence of the mundane demands of a Tuesday, but the world stayed still for a moment, frozen in ice.

First snow, first frost - the drum beat toward winter. It makes me feel excited and anxious, content and alive.

I still had several hours to kill before I had to be at my own job as the morning brightened into the kind of day that touches on the sublime. Some northern municipalities have "powder days." In Juneau, we have "sun days" - those days where all of your co-workers call in sick; people wave as they pass you on the street; commuters grin from their cars. Everyone wants - no, needs - to get outside, even if they have laundry to do, even if their leg muscles feel slightly shredded and they have to eat Twix Bars for breakfast because they haven't been grocery shopping since August. It doesn't matter. Sun days trump all.

I hiked up Mount Jumbo because it's convenient, fast, and I've climbed it so many times that I understand the obstacles well enough to jog on the way down. Plus, it's west-facing and washed in sunlight.

Temperatures rose quickly, into the mid-50s, but the ice of the morning still clung to the trail. I moved with speed and purpose and didn't slip once - one of my smoothest mountain traverses by far.

An awesome way to wrap up an awesome month.

September I'm in love

As a general rule, Juneau has "two months that just suck," also known as the rainy season - September and October. One of my largest apprehensions about returning here a couple months ago was that my fourth fall in Southeast Alaska was quickly approaching, and I faced the reality of enduring a swath of changes beneath a mood-dampening ceiling of liquid gray.

Then September came in a rush of mountains, flickering windows of sunlight and brilliant color. I feel like nearly every day offered something exciting and new, familiar and reflective. All the right moments came at all the right times. I'm a bit blissed out on the whole month right now, exhausted and just about ready for the crushing rain of October to force me to take a break - but not quite.

I woke up early Monday morning to take John to the airport, leg muscles still tender, nursing a large cup of the "high octane" tar water from the Breeze-In. But the day was nice ... the cloud ceiling was high ... there was clearing to the east ... and I had a lot of time to kill before work.

I headed up Heinzleman Ridge. It was really, really hard to get going at first. My "hiking" muscles didn't hurt at all, and the effort helped mask the soreness in my recently overworked biking muscles - but mostly, I just wanted to sleep. Still, there was a genuine frost to the air that prompted me skyward. First snow - even the mere prospect of first snow, somewhere up there, up high - always ignites my "kid on Christmas Eve" sleep-busting synapses.

Then I found it above the 3,500-foot level. Climbing a few thousand feet doesn't feel as difficult as it used to - do it three to seven times a week, and you get a lot better at it.

I came across a fresh wolf kill near the second "summit" of Heinzleman. Clean bones and a frenzy of fresh tracks in the crusted snow.

Those sure are some big puppies.

I think it used to be a mountain goat. I circled the area, examining their tracks, trying to determine the size of the pack and which direction they went. I couldn't discern either. I guess I should have been somewhat afraid, loitering as I was around a fresh carcass, but I had a hunch those wolves were long gone.

Quickly, the high peaks are being enveloped. I'm still trying to figure out how to shape my winter here in Juneau. Sadly, it can't involve a glut of mountain trekking I've enjoyed this fall. I still lack the required skill set and gear. But I do plan to start at the ground level of learning. I am a perpetual enthusiastic beginner.

I'm starting with working through my fear factor by coping with knife ridges. I inherited a natural dose of vertigo from my mother, but if I can push instinct aside and focus solely on the intellectual challenge of negotiating the route, I've found that mountain puzzles can actually be a lot of fun ... after you're down, of course.

Down just in time for work, body only a little bit worse for the wear, with my soul soaring through the clearing skies. I can't even keep track of how many "mountain highs" I've experienced this month. I don't get sick of them, not in the slightest. I am slightly worried that I'm becoming addicted to them, but I'll deal with that amid what will almost certainly be a long October withdrawal. After all, Juneau's rainy season has to pay out eventually.

Meanwhile - Thank you, September.