Snowmobiling, sans motor

My friend Abby and I were planning to go for a hike/run today. Because of recent snow, wind, avalanche concerns, her lack of snowshoes, etc., we planned to head up the well-traveled Dan Moller Trail. She called this morning with a sore throat and cancelled, but since I already had my head set on that trail, I decided to head up there anyway, with my bike.

Juneau has but two areas where people can ride snowmobiles, and one of them is the Dan Moller Trail. As a purely human-powered winter enthusiast, I am actually pro-snowmobile, within the realm of responsible use. Modern-day machines aren't the gas hogs they used to be. And yes they're loud and yes they smell, but only when they're fairly close to you, which they don't tend to be for very long. And snowmobiles pack down great bike trails. Great, fun, swoopy, powdery bike trails. Trails that don't leave a permanent imprint on the backcountry, unlike summer bike trails (which I also support, of course, within the realm of responsible use.) But, yes, I think snowmobilers get a bad rap from other human-powered types. And it's really the place of only a few of us to criticize. Yes, their sport - and mine - is dependent on motorized use. So is Nordic skiing, which requires machines to set trails. So is lift-served skiing; resorts are an enormous energy drain not to mention a blight on the land. Even backcountry skiers generally drive, sometimes for hours, to their favorite powder stashes. If you walk out your back door, strap on a pair of skis, and skin up the mountain and ski back down, then you may criticize me and my support of snowmobiles.

That said, my own snowmobile is fairly low-impact. It presses gently into the snow and emits only tiny amounts of carbon dioxide and salt through the breath I exhale and the sweat I release. Powered by oranges, Chex cereal and copious amounts of coffee, it carries me slow but true up the long climb to the ridge. Sometimes I have to push it along. Often, I have to push it along. But I know once I reach the top, I will be rewarded with wind-scoured crust riding, steep rolling trails and views that never fail to make my jaw drop.

I rode as far as the bottom of a couple of crazy-steep high-marking lines, dropped the bike and followed the ridgeline on foot up Mount Troy. These are some of the hoodoos of Mount Troy; finding the route around them is a maze of puzzles, trying to climb while not post-holing up to my neck.

The summit of Mount Troy. On my way back down, I ran into a couple of high-markers who had both rolled their machines. A thin trail of oil marked their tumble down the hill, and I picked up a couple small broken bits of plastic as I approached them. They were huddled beside one of the machines with the hood open, and when they saw me they burst into an endorphin-charged story about their narrow escape from death as they summersaulted downhill in front of several hundred pounds of metal and plastic. I could hardly understand their burst of words, but I surmised that the driver of the broken machine panicked and bailed, downhill of his machine, near the top of the curve, and his friend went to his assistance only to panic as the out-of-control first machine tumbled toward him. I tried not to project a disapproving grimmace as I asked them if they wanted me to hike back up to the peak, where I could get a thin cell phone signal. They told me they thought they could fix the machine themselves, and I continued down, hoping I could manage to ride off the ridge before they caught up to me.

As I said, I only advocate responsible snowmobile use. Idiots should stay home. :-)

But my human-powered snowmobile use turns slightly less responsible as I start down the steep stuff myself. The trail loses 2,500 feet of elevation in something less than five miles, down a dramatically rippled, sandy-powder-coated, narrow line in the snow. All I can do is hold on tight, throttle the sometimes useless brakes, occasionally throw my right foot down as a ski, launch off the whoop-dee-dos and hope the rubber side stays down. Whee- (bump) eee- (bump) eee- (bump) eee- (bump) eee! It's a wild ride, tear-jerking and breathtaking, and can strip away three and a half hours of climbing/ridge riding in less than 30 minutes.

On a different note, and sorry I never posted this earlier, but I still have yet to receive my order of books. I am very sorry about the inconvenience. Basically, I can't believe Fed Ex screwed me again. My publisher used to ship USPS priority, and I wasn't even aware they had made the change to their basic shipping service until after I received my tracking number, and by then it was too late. Otherwise, I would have never bothered to order the books, or at least looked into the viability of an expedited service. The contractor that deals with Fed Ex Ground in Juneau is super sketchy. The last time I used them, my snow bike disappeared into the Fed Ex void for two weeks ahead of my first Iditarod race. Days before the race, I had no idea where it had gone. Luckily, at the time I had a regular interview spot on an NPR program called the Bryant Park Project, so I had the whole angry power of public radio and a fair number of helpful blog readers behind me, and at the 11th hour my bike was hand-delivered from the back seat of a small car to its destination. This time, I have no such power, and the company has completely written me off. As I said before, if you were depending on these books for Christmas, just e-mail me for refunds. Otherwise, I will send them off as soon as I possibly can.

Until then, bah humbug to Fed Ex!

Book update

I wanted to thank everyone who bought my book recently. I wanted to update you all on the status of shipping, which is unfortunantly not working in my favor right now. My bulk order shipped out on Dec. 6 via FedEx (I deeply dislike FedEx. I believe my bike Pugsley, which once spent two weeks wedged in a corner of the Juneau depot, would vouch for that company's uselessness in this region). The package arrived in Anchorage on Dec. 10, and I have yet to receive it five days later. I've been trying to track it down, to no avail yet. I'm optimistic that if I receive it by Friday, I can still get packages out to people in 2-3 days via the much more trustworthy U.S. Postal Service. Canada should be pre-Christmas as well. Anyone outside of there is pretty unlikely at this point. I'm very sorry about the delay. I will post again if I don't get the package by Friday. I can issue refunds to anyone for whom this might be a problem. Just e-mail me at jillhomer66@hotmail.com. Yeah, I'm bummed about it, too. But I do appreciate all the orders.

In better news, http://www.bikeblogs.com/ named "Up in Alaska" the "Best Cycling Blog of 2009." Much thanks! For those who worry that this blog hasn't been "bikey" enough as of late, here's what I have in store for 2010: Snow bike training, winter overnight bikepacking trips (possible in the Yukon), the White Mountains 100 in Fairbanks, hopeful long summer bike tour, TransRockies mountain bike stage race on a mixed team with a wild Canadian, and more! Remember, It's Not About The Bike ... and yet, it really is.

As for my new book project, I have not made much progress on it. It feels like there are a lot of reasons I've stalled out on it, and writer's block isn't one of them. Every time I sit down at my computer, my head is flooded with images, but I'll just stare at it for a while, close the screen, and start reading one of the many bike touring and mountaineering adventure books I've picked up at the local library. I've found more inspiration in my daily life than I could ever hope for, and yet I can't write it down. I feel like I'm in a deep rut right now, personally, professionally and creatively. The only thing I haven't been disappointed in lately is my photography, and as I've said before, I never set out to be a photographer. I have a hard time taking personal satisfaction in the images I take because they don't feel like mine - they feel like the world's. The world makes the images and I merely observe them. But I guess the same could be said about words.

Digging back through this story I'm trying to write, I noticed a passage in my chapter about my frostbite experience in this past year's Iditarod race. In some ways, it echoes the way I'm feeling right now - not about my toes, but about the parts of myself that are holding me back:

"I pressed my forehead against the cold glass, hoping to numb the pain-seared blood that still coursed through my veins. Every capillary tingled with the reverberations of rewarming. The only parts of my body that I couldn’t feel were my toes. I looked down at the alien digits, nearly consumed by black and purple botches and puss-colored blisters. I tried to wiggle them and they only quivered, like a moldy slab of meat that had been left out of the freezer too long. They no longer felt like part of me. Imposters. Parasites. If I could only work up the courage to hobble into the kitchen, I could carve them off with a butcher’s knife and free the parts of me that still ached to continue the journey. But pain kept me pressed against the window in a cramped building, consumed with a helpless sort of yearning."

Support this blog by buying my book! Signed copies only $11.95 plus shipping.

The bender ender

(Note: A bookend morning of sunlight gave me one last day to bask in the mountains before a forecast storm dumps several inches of heavy snow on a really rotten surface layer, thus creating avalanche conditions that I'm not equipped to deal with. I snowshoed up the Grandchild Ridge with Sean. It was a fun, beautiful day, but this point, it's probably best left to short photo captions. So I'm including the first draft of my Empire Outdoors column with the photos. Now, time to sharpen up the snowboard and finally get down to bicycle training for the White Mountains 100. Who wants to go to Eaglecrest on Saturday?

Sean follows wolf tracks up to the Sun Bowl.

SAD? Winter joy just a matter of perspective

By Jill Homer
Juneau Empire

The extended week of Dec. 4 to Dec. 12 was perhaps one of the sunniest I have ever experienced in Juneau.

It didn’t matter that it was out only for six hours a day, hovering low on the horizon and casting long blue shadows between intermittent flecks of gold light. It didn’t matter that temperatures were in the 20s, sometimes in the teens, and bulbs of frozen sweat clung to my air. It didn’t matter that thick fog hugged the shoreline, forcing me to gasp and claw my way to new winter heights. I spent a week-plus basking in sunlight. During these short days when many Alaskans are perched in front of full-spectrum florescent bulbs, that really matters.

A fairly large slab avalanche slides off the ridge.

It’s that time of year again in Alaska. And no, with the exception of the most holiday-crazed among us, it’s not the most wonderful time of the year. It’s dark. It’s cold. Winter solstice offers but a small glimmer of hope, and it’s not even here yet. Time to flick on the SAD lights.

I’m no stranger to Seasonal Affective Disorder. I’ve had my fair share of bouts. I remember one particularly strong flare-up in 2008, when I climbed up Mount Jumbo in a summer gray-out only to be hit with the full fury of a snain storm (for those new to Juneau, that means a chilling swirl of snow and rain.) It was July. I don’t think I’ve felt so SAD about anything weather-related in all my life.

This is the kind of photo we take because it says, "Dear Mom, Alaska is great! Merry Christmas." As I backed up to get the full profile of Mount Stroller White, I broke through the deep fracture of a separated cornice that hung over a very precarious, avalanched slope (see previous photo.) That's the part we don't tell moms about. (Sorry, Mom.)

But in December, there’s something wholly joyful about pulling on layers of fleece and wool, wedging oneself into a winter coat and pushing out into the wind and ice and yes, sometimes snain. Beyond the initial “yuck” factor of cold weather and sometimes difficult-to-navigate trail conditions, the best-known cure for SAD is out there, just waiting to be discovered.

Take this past week for example. A high-pressure system moved in, bringing lots of sun, light winds and only mildly cold temperatures. I wanted to take full advantage of what for me is ideal winter weather with an outdoor binge:

Sean chips his way up the steep ridge. Later, these slopes would provide humbling lessons in the art of self-arrest.

On Dec. 4, a friend and I trekked up Mount Jumbo, punching thigh-deep snowshoe tracks in the seemingly bottomless fluff. In four years of endurance cycling training, I have yet to experience a more endlessly strenuous workout. But as we stood on the saddle with endorphins pulsing through our blood and basking in full sunlight, I doubted if I’d ever experienced a more satisfying one.

On Dec. 6, I rode my snow bike up the Lake Creek Trail to Spaulding Meadows. I followed the narrow tracks of cross-country skiers as they weaved across a frost-feathered blanket of clean snow. It’s still too early for snowmobiles; the meadows were soulfully quiet and reflective on a Sunday morning.

On Dec. 7, I cycled out the road, studded tires crackling like sizzling bacon on the cold pavement, and frosty wind chill amplifying the thrill of movement in warm muscles.

On Dec. 8, I mountain biked around Dredge Lake, where frozen beaver ponds provided easy passage and hoarfrost-coated alder branches sparkled.

On Dec. 9, I climbed Thunder Mountain, tracing the tracks of a mountain goat along the sun-drenched ridge.

On Dec. 11, I hiked Blackerby Ridge, which rose like a breathtakingly scenic bridge over the thick inversion that kept most of the city in fog.

And on Dec. 12, another friend and I returned to Mount Jumbo. We followed those well-earned snowshoe tracks from Dec. 4, nicely hardened into a express “stairway to heaven,” and continued on to the ice-glazed peak.

Looking toward the majestic Chilkats.

All in all, it was one of my best outdoor weeks in three and a half years of living in Juneau. I wouldn't have traded it for a dozen 60-degree days in July. I’m not saying every Juneau resident should immerse themselves in the same activities. After all, not everyone has a job that doesn’t require them to be at the office until the sun has nearly set. And some winter enthusiasts prefer regular storms and fluffy powder stashes to the hardpack crust and sun that winter bikers and hikers thrive on. And, really, after a week of playing hard for three, four, and sometimes eight-hour stretches in the freezer of December, I’m pretty much exhausted. But I also have enough quality stoke in the bank to stave off Seasonal Affective Disorder, at least through Christmas.

Goodbye to the Sun Bowl, goodbye to the sun ... at least for a little while.

And that’s my point. Whether you’re a cross-country skier, a downhill skier, a snowboarder, a snowshoer, an ice skater, a bundled-up beach walker, an ax-wielding ridge trekker or a studded-tire-clad cyclist, the rewards of venturing outdoors in December far outweigh the discomforts. Analyze the risks. Choose some good equipment. Don’t push past your abilities. Dress warm. And just get out there!

It can’t be worse than snain in July.