Safety nets

It started with a quiet whisper into the thunderous void, which is usually what I feel like I'm doing when I randomly post a comment on Twitter: "To take a sleeping bag or not to take a sleeping bag in the White Mountains 100? That is the question."

I still find it hard to believe that anyone actually reads or responds to the incomprehensible babble feed that is Twitter, so I was surprised when my friend Bill fired back with a counter-question: "Well, what have you done in the past?"

The Susitna 100 forced me to carry a sleeping bag — it was part of the 15-pound gear requirement that included an emergency survival system and 3,000 extra calories of food. Unlike its sister race to the south, the White Mountains 100 has no required gear. I could show up to the frigid starting line in a jersey and shorts with a single water bottle and a couple of Gu packets, and no one is going to stop me from embarking on this remote 100-mile ride around an uninhabited, frozen swath of mountain passes and valleys north of Fairbanks, Alaska. Sure, I'd be strongly discouraged, maybe even asked to sign an extra liability release, but ultimately, these are my toes to lose. I like this about the White Mountains 100. Freedom of choice.

Last year, I didn't carry full survival gear in the race. Instead, I carried a bivy system comprised of a 32-degree summer sleeping bag, nylon bivy sack, closed-cell foam pad and fire-starter supplies, reasoning that this 2.5-pound system would probably keep me alive in an emergency situation, probably ... although I had no real knowledge because there was no testing. Last year's White Mountains 100 was cold, down to 25 below at night, and I did experience a couple hours of discomfort and deepening cold due to sweating out my base layer during the day. But ultimately, I didn't even need my lightweight bivy gear. Why bring it at all?

But Bill's counter-question also raised my defenses: What if I fall into overflow and soak out essential clothing? (as has happened to me before, with serious consequences.) What if I slip on frozen overflow and break my leg? (There were a few sections of side-sloping trails where thick ice cascaded over the slope like a waterfall. A fall in the wrong spot could have been fairly catastrophic.) What if there is a big storm I don't have the strength to push through, or that hinders my ability to navigate? In all of these admittedly unlikely situations, the ability to hunker down indefinitely could mean the difference between life and death. Not carrying my winter bivy gear will mean the difference of a less awkward packing system on the Fatback, and about six or seven pounds.

Bill's and my exchange moved to e-mail, where it promptly devolved into a philosophical discussion, probing at the existential angst of modern life and the very reasons why I might even bother to enter a race like the White Mountains 100, let alone schlep a bunch of mostly unnecessary gear across the otherwise useless, frozen distance.

"If you're teetering that much and it's pretty much a tie, just go with the bag. It's better to lose a place or two than your life," Bill wrote. "OR ... maybe without the bag you will be more in danger, which could translate to being alive and staying alive instead of just living. Did that make sense? Without the safety nets we have to struggle to live. With them ... well ... they are safety nets."

I don't always agree with Bill's methods but, to a certain extent, I do share his outlook — that modern culture and laws, population density and technology have forced us all into a comfortable corner where risk-taking in a natural setting is not only unnecessary but largely viewed as idiotic — and yet not taking risks makes for an existentially unfulfilling life. At the same time, everything in life ultimately is a risk — Bill pointed out that maybe I should consider bringing a parachute for the huge metal flying contraption that will take me to Fairbanks. What's acceptable risk, and what's not, is largely a personal and cultural decision.

"I admit the Susitna 100 scared me a bit," I wrote to Bill. "The points where it was 20 below and blowing 25 mph for a 48-below-zero windchill — those were a big confidence crusher. I was at the bottom edge of my comfort zone, and my means to control the situation were right at that edge as well. And of course the human body can endure a lot more than we believe it can — incredible survivor stories crop up every day, and prove this point. But I don't like that feeling. It's not exactly the feeling of being alive that I spend so much of my time seeking out — it's more like the feeling of being too fragile to function, of being precariously close to losing it all in a way the reminds us our lives don't amount to much. Kind of a grim outlook but that's why I try to avoid those situations as much as I can.

... That's actually also why I make a point of being so well prepared (over-prepared) for my larger outdoor activities. It's why I carry full backpacks in 50K races where there are aid stations every eight miles. I like to feel that I'm in control of my situations, of my destiny — that I don't need to depend on there being water at the next aid station, because what if there's not? Never mind that there always is."

Perhaps Bill makes a good point — that accepting risk only if it includes the security of safety nets nullifies the benefits of the journey along with the risks. Or perhaps — as has been my experience — safety nets are the greatest benefit of modern life. They enable me to explore the depths of my deeper primal urges while affording me not only comfort and longevity, but freedom — the freedom to choose, the freedom to experience my world, and the freedom to keep on living.

Finding a balance

Well, the honeymoon with California is beginning to wind down; I now have to deal with the both daunting and exciting reality of actually making a life here. I was both lucky and cursed this week when, in addition to Adventure Cycling assignments I had to wrap up, a couple editors of small publications that I've worked with in the past came out of the woodwork (one of the advantages of living a semi-public life) and said, "Want to write something for us?" Yeah, sure, why not? It has kept me reasonably busy, and helped set the base for the routine I'd really like to develop while living down here.

At the same time, if I'm not careful, I can too easily become driven by my own distraction. On Monday, I was curled up on the couch with my cat, Cady, happily typing away an article about self-supported mountain bike touring on the Kokopelli Trail in Utah, when, out of the corner of my eye, I began to steal glimpses of my Element. For inspiration, of course. Patches of peanut-butter-colored mud clinging to the bright red frame morphed into subtle but taunting messages: "Why are you wasting daylight hours indoors when you could be out there? Outside? With me?" I took a break and stepped out onto the porch. It was a dismal sort of day, for California at least, obscured in dark gray mist with howling wind and sideways rain ricocheting off the pavement. Not exactly enticing. Right? Right?

OK, maybe just a short ride, just for inspiration. I'll just climb the Monte Bello Road and ride back down, I told myself. It's mostly pavement; maybe it will even clean up this bike a bit, I reasoned. I took to daydreaming and didn't pedal up the road with the all-out effort I'd hoped to achieve, so I reached the top of Black Mountain feeling fresh and renewed. On the exposed ridge, the weather had gone from grim to borderline dangerous, with plummeting temperatures, a fierce headwind and daggers of hard rain pummeling my face with such force it was nearly impossible to keep my eyes open. I of course was only wearing a thin rain coat and tights because I was only out for a "short" ride, not exactly well prepared. It would have been all too easy and practical to turn my back on it, as I had planned to do, and retreat down the mountain. But the intensity of the weather brought with it a strange and overarching desire, to seize this moment because summer is approaching and it might not come again, to take on this fierce new world and see what I could wring out of it. And anyway, I wanted to see what it was like to ride Stevens Creek Canyon downhill.

I love Stevens Creek Canyon in the rain. It's misty, dense, carpeted in bright green moss and absolutely beautiful. I love it so much that when I was approaching the end of the trail, I saw a side trail called Grizzly Flats and thought, "Can't hurt to extend it just a bit." Grizzly Flats was not flat. In fact, the trail climbed steeply and continuously all the way to Skyline Ridge, the next ridge over. Once at the top, I gleefully skimmed the highway scoping out the new-to-me trails to the west. Unfortunately (luckily?) for me, they're all closed to bikes for the winter.

Four hours after I left on my "short" inspiration ride, I arrived at home with a whole new layer of mud, 30 miles, 4,500 feet of climbing, and a fair amount of guilt for burning up the better part of an afternoon riding my bike. Out of the corner of my eye, saw my cat and my laptop both regarding me with disapproval. "There goes another whole day."

Somewhere, at the center of all this distraction, there has to be a balance ...

I will find it.

Here's the map and elevation profile for my Monday ride.

Grant Park Growler

For most of the week, Beat's friends had been urging us to join them for their 20-mile run on Sunday. After our 18-mile Saturday run, we were both harboring a bit of late-week fatigue, and agreed it would be better to do something "mellow," like a bike ride, and then meet up with the group later in the afternoon. Beat and I decided to head up to Joseph Grant County Park, which is located on the edge of what is actually a large swath of open space on the east side of the SF Bay.

We meandered along a reservoir for about a mile, and then the doubletrack trail suddenly and discouragingly shot straight for the sky. Super-steep-granny-gear-if-you're-lucky climbs were followed by awful-steep-locked-up-wheels-if-you're-lucky descents, and it never let up. Signs even warned us of the possibility of a wet chamois on some of the scarier downhills.

There was some flat ground, but it was generally covered in mud and/or water.

We often stopped to catch our breaths and consult the map again ... "Do we really have to go up there? Really?"

Finally we gained the ridge and the roller coaster became more reasonable, complete with great views of Mount Hamilton. But my legs were running on near-empty, and I had little to combat the continuous climbs.

To add injury to insult, the final descent was so steep it required a full commitment that I failed to make. I launched over a headwall, panicked, hit the brakes — probably both of them — and lurched forward and sideways, making blunt contact with the stem in a way that hurts girls too, I assure you. I was too wrapped up in a visual bombardment of colors and stars to warn Beat that he should walk this section of the trail, but he was already off the bike when he approached the drop-off. Just as well. I joined him, walking downhill, laughing about my poor execution of this fairly terrible ride that in its own way was actually pretty fun.

It only took us two hours and 45 minutes to complete a 14-mile ride — which, according to GPS, had 2,800 feet of climbing, most all of that in the first nine miles, and none of it rewarded with any kind of reasonable (i.e. brakeless) descent. Basically, it would have been easier to run.

Live and learn. At least Beat's friend Martina made us this truly spectacular igloo cake to celebrate Steve's, Beat's and my completion of the Susitna 100. She even included our race numbers in the decoration: 4 (Steve), 60 (me) and 62 (Beat.) Very sweet of her — good to know that while some irrational actions will reward you with a groin injury, others will earn you a cake!