Hardrock from the sidelines

After two hours of sleep I was back on the circuitous crew course, bouncing a Ford Fusion up a boulder-choked jeep road. The narrow road hugged a rock wall on one side and a yawning black abyss on the other. When there wasn't a good line down the middle, I just gunned the gas and drove the tires directly over the larger boulders rather than risk severing the car's exhaust system. I was glad Beat wasn't around to see me driving the rental car this way — although I wondered if he'd even care at this point. Say what you will about the complete irrationality of a hundred-mile mountain traverse, but there's real merit to the simple yet profound realizations that emerge when you reduce yourself to survival mode. For example, one might realize just how silly it can be to fret about car rental insurance fees, and just how powerful of a gift it can be convert a lukewarm cup of soup into the energy to run up mountains. When you've lost the ability to do the latter, the former seems like a monumentally small price in contrast.

Grouse Gulch had the feel of a refugee camp, with mud-and-blood-stained runners slumped over chairs and huddled in blankets while well-meaning volunteers rushed about in mostly futile efforts to be helpful. It was the kind of atmosphere I would expect at 4 a.m., hour 23 and mile 61 of the Hardrock 100. A large majority of the U.S. population has never heard of this hundred-mile endurance run in Colorado's San Juan Mountains, and yet it's a legend among a few. The run — emphatically not a "race" according to organizers — was conceived as a tribute to the hard men (and a few women) who beat their way through these rugged mountains in search of silver and gold.  The paths these miners blazed a hundred years ago linger today as abandoned, half-eroded roads and steep trails, sometimes literally blasted into the side of granite cliffs. The Hardrock 100 course climbs 13,000-foot passes and plummets into valleys thousands of feet below, thirteen times. The 33,000 feet of accumulated climbing might seem like a cakewalk if it was all on nice trail, but much of this course traverses cross-country, on steep talus, or along treacherously exposed cliffs. Few people travel most of these routes anymore, save for a few hikers, and, once a year, the 140 "lucky" winners of a lottery for what seems to have become North America's most notorious ultramarathon. 

Beat and his pacer, Daniel, stumbled into Grouse Gulch at 4:42 a.m. Daniel, a four-time Hardrock finisher who had been traveling with Beat since Ouray, fifteen miles ago, promptly collapsed in a chair and fell asleep with his head between his knees. Beat seemed too shattered to sleep. "My stomach is fucked," he lamented. I dug through his Camelpak and found what I was pretty sure was all of the food I had stuffed in the pockets back in Ouray, uneaten. I watched him vomit up the meager food he'd eaten in Ouray, so as far as I knew he hadn't successfully digested a single calorie since Telluride, twelve hours earlier. I asked him what he wanted to eat. "Give me a minute," he said, his own head lolling dangerously close to his knees. "You need to eat something," I said sternly, but I felt helpless.

It was late, and the aid station was running low on everything. Beat already told me he wasn't going to touch any of the snack stuff. I found a stack of half-petrified, cold quesadillas and soup with coagulated fat floating on top, a light yellow broth, and an unidentifiable starch that had solidified at the bottom. I wasn't even nauseated — in fact I was almost desperately hungry myself — but I didn't want to eat that food. Predictably, Beat wouldn't touch it, either. He did sip a few cups of ginger ale and ate a bite of Power Bar. Beat admitted he had been reduced to dry heaving for several hours, something with a strange taste that he assumed was phlegm that he coughed up and swallowed again, and consequently was the only substance in his stomach. Beyond the obvious misery he was subjecting himself too, his condition was beginning to seem dangerous. When a person is that depleted, they're more likely to make bad decisions, and their motor functions begin to falter — which, on terrain with so much exposure, can lead to deadly mistakes. Beat is experienced and he hates to quit anything, no matter how miserable he is. As for me, I was a little scared. I wished he would quit. I didn't say this to him.

I stuffed a couple more packets of Gu Chomps into Beat's pack, knowing full well they were basically dead weight. After rousing Daniel from his comatose state, I asked Beat if he wanted me to meet him at Sherman, an aid station that was fourteen miles away by trail and more than three hours away by two-wheel-drive rental car. "No," he said. "I have a drop bag at Sherman. You should hike up Handies. Go enjoy yourself. I'll be fine."

Beat was far from fine, but I felt better knowing Daniel was with him. Still, I actually did not want to climb Handies Peak. I didn't tell Beat this, but I was deep in the cranky cave. For starters, it was 5 a.m., and I hate 5 a.m. pretty much no matter what. I didn't prepare well for the amount of driving and waiting and the sheer time it took to simply crew the Hardrock 100, and I wasn't adequately supplied myself. The only thing I had eaten since the pre-race breakfast at 5 a.m. the day before was two granola bars during a fifteen-mile hike/run, a small packet of tuna and two ounces of Pringles at 4 p.m., an espresso-laced chai tea at 7 p.m., and a brownie that I rescued from Beat's pile of rejected food in Ouray at 10 p.m. I had already inventoried my hiking food and knew I was down to two granola bars and a one-ounce bag of Goldfish crackers, which was all I had for both breakfast and the hike to Handies — about fourteen miles round trip and probably a lot of climbing, because this was, after all, the Hardrock course. What I really wanted to do was return to Silverton for a big breakfast, but the bloodshot look in Beat's eyes punctured my internal whining. Say what you will about the irrationality of feeling inspired by others' suffering, but I knew as long as Beat was out there stomping out these near-impossible miles, I could at least make a small effort. 

I ate one of my granola bars and left about a half hour after Beat and Daniel, just as the first rays of sunlight graced the tops of the canyon walls. The climb up Grouse Basin was scenic and pleasantly cool. My mood steadily improved until I crested the Continental Divide at 13,000 feet, only to see another deep basin between me and the massive mountain that was most certainly Handies. "Beat didn't tell me there was a thousand-foot drop in the way," I whined to myself, until I realized how silly this sounded. I resisted the urge to devour my second granola bar right away and — because it's good UTMB training anyway — started running down the steep descent. 

The climb to Handies is actually quite easy if you're not entrenched in a hundred-mile endurance run. As a fourteener — elevation 14,088 — it has a well-traveled trail and solid footing all the way to the top. And when I saw the view from the top — not a sign of civilization in all directions and rippling mountains as far as I could see — I felt even sillier about being so reluctant to go there. While savoring my last granola bar, I remained on the peak for fifteen more minutes to cheer on passing Hardrock racers. Handies is the highest point on the Hardrock course, so I greeted them by saying "Congratulations, you made it!" Every one of them regarded me with a resigned smile and a variation of, "There's still a long way to go." 

On the descent from Handies, I encountered the last remaining runners — the back of the pack, the survivors. Their demeanours were telling — ashen faced, limping, hunched over hiking poles, a few almost entirely unresponsive. Others would laugh and make jokes as I stepped off the trail to cheer them on, but their march was unmistakable. The journalist in me wanted to photograph this harsh progression, but I kept my camera stowed out of respect. I felt a rush of emotion for these men and women, a combination of awe and empathy that was amplified by my own sleep- and calorie-deprivation. This is actually one of the reasons I enjoy endurance efforts myself — because physical depletion opens the gates for powerful emotions.

On this morning, I was tired, hungry, and trying to speed-hike my way through fourteen miles and 5,500 feet of elevation gain to an altitude of 14,000 feet — and that was nothing, nothing compared to the efforts of the Hardrockers. The emotions I felt were similar to listening to a meaningful song or viewing a moving piece of artwork. On the surface the Hardrockers were simply marching, for no rational reason. But to this observer, their movements were a kind of dance, a tribute to the human condition — one of determination and perseverance, beautiful and inspiring.

I greeted the second to last women I passed with my usual, "Way to go. You're doing awesome." She looked up at me with a pained look on her face and said, "You have no idea how hard this is."

Her eyes were terrible, almost frightening, and in them I saw a reflection of Beat's suffering that I had been trying to put out of my mind. I couldn't help it. The tear ducts opened and I looked down to hide the moisture in my own eyes. "You're right," I said with a slight stammer. "I can only imagine."

Say what you will about the irrationality of it all, but that is the experience of being alive.


... to be continued

Evening on Peak One

From the spare bedroom where Beat and I are staying, the window frames an unobstructed view of a pyramid-shaped peak that captured our attention. When we asked Daniel about it, he said "Oh, that's Peak One. There's a trail you can access from here. It's steep, though." 

 Peak One, elevation 12,805, is the unimaginatively named first peak in Colorado's Tenmile Range. Beat and I liked the idea of climbing a mountain straight from Daniel's house, so we made it the objective for our casual Tuesday evening after-work jaunt — which turned out to be a rather strenuous affair. It was beautiful, though. I took a lot of photos I liked, so I'm indulging in another picture post. 

We left the house at 6:15 p.m., and by 7:15 we had gained more than 2,000 feet elevation.  

 There were a few storm clouds that we managed to dodge.

Late evening shadows over the valley.

 At 7:30, the scramble is about to begin.

The boys kept a solid pace that I struggled to maintain, and consequently fell into oxygen deprivation mode again. By the time the real scrambling began, I had a serious case of the wobbly legs. In all honesty, I felt like I was under the influence of heavy painkillers, or drunk. Beat caught me staggering around and said, "If you fall off this mountain, I'm going to break up with you." Luckily there was no stark exposure, but in hindsight, it would have been smarter for me to slow down or turn around. My already questionable coordination was seriously compromised.

 Finally nearing the peak, looking back over Dillon Reservoir.

 The boys on top.

 Sunset from the peak.

 Starting down the scramble, with I-70 far below.

 Better hurry if we want to get off this ridge before dark.

Savoring the last hints of daylight. It was a great evening on the mountain.

First run in weeks ... started as a ride

I managed an okay morning of work, but by early afternoon I was back to glancing out the window every few minutes. Bright sunshine, white puffy clouds, and the sky was a piercing shade of blue that one only sees at these clarifying altitudes. It was really too perfect of a day not to go exploring by bike, so I set out from our friends' house with a borrowed Trek 4500.

Trek 4500 was an okay steed; she reminded me of my first mountain bike, which was a Trek 6500. But she was also a strong reminder of why I used so many resources to continue to trade up over the past decade — heavy, not well fitted, and the drivetrain had some issues. These issues probably went unnoticed in her regular role as a commuter, but as soon as I started up the Peaks Trail, the sluggish shifting, missed gears, and manic chain dropping became a liability. Any time I applied even the slightest increase of pressure on the pedals, the chain either locked up or went flying, and a pedal reliably ended up embedded in the back of my leg. I swore at this bike more times than I'd like to admit, and finally relented to stepping off and walking over any obstacle larger than a small pebble.

I'd planned to ride the fun Peaks Trail to Breckenridge, but the climbing rapport between me and the Trek 4500 was so poor that after five miles I was looking for good places to abandon the bike and continue on foot. I came to the Miner's Creek Trail and decided to veer off the planned route, knowing that while the Peaks Trail had the key properties for a fun ride (gentle grades key among them), it would likely make for a boring hike. I rode Trek 4500 about three quarters of a mile up the trail until I came to a creek crossing, and shortly after that, a trail marker for the Colorado Trail. "This is the Colorado Trail?" I thought. "I definitely don't want to try to ride a rickety bike up this."

The trail was chunky and steep, but not so much so that I couldn't try to push the pace a little. I'm adjusting to the altitude, somewhat, and thought I could handle some running. Because of my shin splints, it's the first time in three weeks that I've attempted a running stride. It almost seems like the thin air is aiding in healing as well, because despite the hard hikes over the weekend and rather abrupt return to jogging, I experienced minimal soreness today.

The trail crested a saddle and launched into a long traverse at 12,000 feet — scenic, warm, blissfully runnable. My lungs were on fire at times, but the motion of free running felt so good that I chose to ignore painful breathing and just fly. Of course I wasn't actually flying — I wasn't even running fast. But the simple freedom from pain can feel liberating, as can releasing myself from the annoying complications of a machine ... even one I love, like a bike.

I will concede that this singletrack traverse would make for a blissful ride as well, but the 2,000 vertical feet of steep chunk to reach it ... not so much. This basically supports the opinion I'd formed about the Colorado Trail before I even saw an inch of it. Riding the whole trail would likely be a fine blend of Heaven and Hell, with very little in between. Honestly, I need that in between to sustain my sanity during a good tour. I need the ability to zone out. I'm not a strong technical rider (understatement), and even if I continue working on that (I am), I don't think I would enjoy sustaining the focus required for hours and hours, every single day.

I had *a lot* of fun descending Peaks Trail, even on the Trek 4500. But that's mountain biking. As a tourist, I suspect I would love the Colorado Trail in pieces, and resent it as a whole. I've long wanted to tour the Colorado Trail, but I'm reaching the conclusion that if I ever do try, it's going to be on foot. Backpacking. Or fastpacking, really. Because it could be a lot of fun to occasionally run, from what I've seen. 

The fourteener circuit

Photogenic mountain goat. Photo by Beat

We didn't come to Colorado to bag a bunch of 14er's. Personally, I waver between thinking the whole concept to be a little silly, and wanting to see the tops of all 53 Colorado high points myself. I thought the weather would chase us lower today, but we awoke to partly sunny skies and a diminishing chance of afternoon thunderstorms. Daniel was interested in doing some "speed work" and invited Beat and I to saunter along at hiking pace somewhere well behind him. Only later did we find out that Daniel was after an unofficial speed record — on the circuit that connects Mount Democrat, Mount Lincoln, and Mount Bross. 

 After my hypoxic episode yesterday, I committed to not exerting myself as hard today. I love steep climbs on foot, and it's mentally difficult to feel like my legs aren't even getting a workout while my lungs threaten to explode. But as much as I kinda enjoyed the short-lived glimpse into the rapture, I did not want to actually black out, nor did I love the reality of killing a bunch of brain cells or the remote possibility of stroke. So I didn't push my pace ... too much. Because of this, we had a decidedly less eventful hike than Quandary, so this is mainly a photo post.

 View from Mount Democrat, elevation 14,148

 View from Mount Cameron, elevation 14,239. Mount Cameron doesn't have enough topographic prominence to be considered a real peak.

 Beat at the top of Mount Lincoln, elevation 14,286. As I staggered toward the top, still gasping for air, Beat said "A Democrat and a Republican in the same day. Who says you can't be bipartisan?"

 To prove we were there? Because no one made a nice laminated sign with the date for any of these peaks.

 We were caught in a few short rain squalls, but the weather was substantially better on Sunday than Saturday. After spending a couple of hours near or above 14,000 feet, I came down with much less fun mountain sickness in the form of nausea. Even though I know better by now, I couldn't force myself to eat anything the entire time, and only managed a few sips of water. I think acclimation is coming along, although we did force it the hard way. For his part, Beat is doing much better with the altitude. He has been using a breathing device for the past several weeks, as well as taking Diamox to help with acclimation. But of course altitude tolerance is highly individual. Even when I was living at higher elevations, I usually felt okay until I topped my personal ceiling, which seems to be around 12,000 feet. I've always struggled beyond that.

We rolled over Mount Bross, elevation 14,172, after two hours and 45 minutes. I was at that point deeply nauseated and didn't want to aggravate my shin, so I inched down the talus slope. Here, the route loses 2,000 feet elevation in just over a mile. It was brutal. We met Daniel hiking back up the trail. He told us he succeeded in "tumbling" down Mount Bross in 16 minutes (two thousand vertical feet!), wrapping up the circuit in 1:49 — which, according to a Web site that tracks such things, bested the fastest known time by six minutes. Wow, Daniel. As for me, it took damn near an hour to stumble down the whole descent, and we finished at a comfortable 3:39. I wouldn't mind descents like that if I could at least climb well. Ah, well. In good time. All in good time.

My sore shin doesn't like descending. But the condition hasn't deteriorated at all in the past two days. Now we're entering our work week, in which Beat is going to taper for Hardrock and we're all going to try to be productive even with these mountains taunting us from every angle (Frisco is a scenic town.) I think I may find a bike to borrow and take at least a day off my feet, but I'm more optimistic about injury recovery.  

Straight up to 14

When our friend Daniel asked us what we wanted to do with our first day in Colorado, we said "something easy." Beat is still trying to figure out his lower back injury, I'm still trying to figure out my shin splints, and we were both sleeping at sea level until last night. Daniel said, "I know a good 14'er. It's an easy 14'er." 

We started hiking toward Quandary Peak around 11:15 a.m. Not your typical Colorado 14'er early start, but widespread rain showers had already trumped the usual chance of afternoon thunderstorms. We decided to gauge the weather on the fly, and move fast when we could.

Similar to my experience on Mount Whitney two weeks ago, above 12,500 feet I began to feel like I was breathing through a straw. Beat tried to show me pressure breathing, but the action left me light-headed, so I decided I would just increase my air intake by breathing hard and fast. To the dozens of hikers who passed me descending the mountain, I must have sounded like I was in labor.

Less than two hundred yards from the summit, my vision went black. Without deciding to, I could feel myself dropping to a squatting position and lulling my head around. My vision came back in flickers as I stood up, staggering drunkenly while Beat waved his arms from the summit. "Give ... me ... a ... minute," I called out. The words emptied my lungs and I took a deep breath to retaliate. As oxygen returned to my head, a sudden, intense sensation of euphoria washed over me. For a few short seconds the whole mountain was vibrating, the sky was singing, and I stood frozen in astonishment at the incredible power of all things. And then it faded. I have to say, there's no high like that of cerebral hypoxia. Not that I would promote such things but ... wow ... And strangely, I felt quite a bit better after that short episode. My lungs felt less constricted, my brain less panicked. It did help that I didn't have anything left to climb.

We could see dark clouds on the next ridge over and began the descent just five minutes later. From there, the sky rapidly grew darker. In less than fifteen minutes, no thunder turned to distant thunder, then turned to flashes of lightning and thunder right on top of us. Rain fell in sheets, followed by stinging hail. I jogged as quickly as I could muster down the wet, slippery rocks while shielding my face with my arms. We passed several groups still descending, including a huddle of boy scouts. Lightning flashed as I passed and they counted one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three ... BOOM!, followed by the curdling screams of six ten-year-old boys. I was scared, too. Hail fell harder, hurting my back and stinging my hands. Directly behind me came a bright burst of light followed by no Mississippis, not even a one. Flash and BOOM, deafening and instant. There were no boulders large enough to cower behind. "Just keep going down," I chanted to myself. "Keep going down."

When we finally descended to tree line, I was so relieved that I could feel another Rocky Mountain high coursing through my veins. I didn't have a moment to think about my shin splints, but I wore my new brace and they're not bothering me much tonight, so that's encouraging. In all, we spent three hours and ten minutes on Quandary mountain. It was one of my more eventful seven-mile hikes, ever.

Into July

It is unfathomable to me how it became mid-summer (yes, in my opinion, the Bay area summer begins in April and trickles to an noncommittal type of close in October. We have summer the way Alaska has winter.) It's a cliche thing for adults to say, but it's already July, really? Where does the time go? Leah and I got out for a mountain bike ride on July 4 at Skeggs, the local favorite singletrack maze. We relished in the relative ease and freedom of unloaded bikes. I even pulled my full-suspension Element off the wall for the first time in weeks. Despite it being a near-perfect seventy degrees on the fourth of July, we only saw four other mountain bikers, two who were Leah's friends (every time we go riding it seems Leah runs into people she knows, which would seem less weird to me if this wasn't a population center of 7 million people. I guess the bike community is tight-knit no matter where you go.)

And today, July 6, I'm in Frisco, Colorado. Beat snagged a rare spot the near-impossible lottery for the Hardrock 100, so we are staying here with a friend for a week while he attempts to acclimate for that grueling race. I tagged along in hopes of getting some solid UTMB training, but I admit I'm still worried about my shin. Ah, at least I don't have to run the Hardrock in any capacity. That's a load off my shoulders. (Poor Beat. He is also still struggling with a lower back injury and isn't thrilled about his odds, but the impossibility of the lottery means he couldn't pass up this chance by backing out.) We arrived just in time for what I've heard is the first major rainstorm in weeks, with liquid sheets pummeling I-70 as we drove out of Denver beside rocky slopes shrouded in clouds. I had great nostalgic moments while traveling through this small section of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, pointing out the reservoir bike path where I became nearly hopelessly turned around and riding in circles, and the Silverthorne Wendy's where the late-night drive-through employees refused to serve me because I didn't have a car, until I pulled my best puppy dog face ever and said, "Please? Please? I'm so hungry."

I'm so excited to be in Colorado. The air is so thin here at 9,000 feet that even climbing a few flights of stairs leaves me winded. And yet I want to tell my shin to just harden up buttercup for a week so I can run free through these mountains. If that's not to be, then I'll rent a mountain bike. I know it's a charmed life, I know, which is why time is unravelling so quickly right now. 

Riding among giants

We knew we could easily wrap up the rest of our route in a day. After all, it was only about 75 miles, practically flat compared to the first 162, and all paved. But the whole reason we came to Humboldt County was to pedal beneath ancient trees, and we weren't about to rush through Humboldt Redwoods State Park. That's it — we're taking back the leisure tour. We devised a plan to return home a day later and ride two half-days to Ferndale, with either hiking or unloaded mountain biking in the state park, depending on where we could find camping. 

We made a not-so-quick resupply stop in Garberville, going all out on the luxury items. Leah purchased little bottles of wine and cherries. I bought a half pound of smoked ahi tuna and a croissant. We still bought instant noodles for dinner because we didn't have that much fuel, but I chose two courses — spicy Japanese noodles for an appetizer followed by an entree of chicken (MSG)-flavored Cup Noodles, which had somehow become my favorite food ever.

As we loaded up our bags, I overhead two cops lecturing a teenager who I assumed had been nabbed for shoplifting. "Consider yourself lucky," the cop said. "Anywhere else you'd be in jail, but this is Humboldt County. You could probably murder someone and only get probation."

"But remember that you can't step foot into Ray's for a year," the other cop said. "You look like a kid that likes to get out, go down to the river. Pretty much all the stores around here are Ray's affiliated, so life's probably going to be harder for you for a while. Don't even think about going inside, either. They have cameras; they'll catch you."

For whatever reason, this lecture struck me as funny. It sounded like two cops who were frustrated with their liberal county's justice system were trying to play up a grocery store ban as some kind of horrible sentence.

From Garberville we connected with the Avenue of the Giants, a truly awe-inspiring route. The highway cuts through the heart of one of the only old-growth Coast Redwood forests left in the state, thanks to a forward-thinking conservation group that bought the land from a logging corporation back in 1917. Humboldt Redwoods remains home to most of the 300-foot trees left in the world, and it's intriguing to glimpse what this region used to look like before settlers arrived (Coast Redwoods once reigned the Pacific Coast from southern Oregon all the way down to Santa Cruz, including the largely deforested Marin Headlands.) There's a timeless silence in those dark groves, a reverence that is difficult to describe.


We made our best effort to be leisurely — long lunch break, stops at nearly every roadside pull-out so we could stand with our heads pressed against the back of our necks, mouths agape at the sheer abundance of biomass. Still, we covered the 35 miles to the visitor's center in what felt like no time. Even Leah was surprised we rode those miles so fast. "It actually feels nice to go a normal speed for once," she said. "I was starting to think it was just us."

"No, it's all about the terrain," I agreed. While we were riding through the park that day, several people stopped to ask how far we'd traveled. Every single one of them looked disappointed when we told them we were riding a loop that started at a town only forty miles away. And they didn't ask us any further questions. That's not surprising, I guess. I think a lot of people tend to focus on speed and distance at the expense of substance. I know I'm guilty of that myself. We're all guilty of looking for the easiest or fastest way between point A and B, or to a goal we want to reach, without considering what exactly we hope to discover along the way. On our Humboldt tour, we had no destination, no plan for a certain number of miles, no speed ambitions. We just rode our bikes. And while I do enjoy the challenge of setting tangible goals, sometimes my most satisfying moments come unexpectedly, while standing in the moist shade of tree that's been alive for 1,000 years, thinking, "I rode my bike here."

We had hoped to camp up on Mattole Road, but it was a Friday night in the height of tourism season, and even the hiker-biker sites throughout the park were filled by mid-afternoon. We snagged a site at the large campground next to the visitor center, wedged between RVs and the main road. It wasn't our first choice by far, and it meant the mountain bike trails were too far away to ride and return before dark. But we were close to a bridge across the Eel River, where we could access River Trail. We debated just laying around in the sun on the shoreline of the river for the rest of the day, but decided to go for an evening hike.

It was a pleasant walk. Ambitiously I wanted to aim for Grasshopper Peak, neglecting to take into account the three miles of River Trail we had to walk to access the five-mile climb to the peak. I'm not sure either of us had a sixteen-mile hike in mind for our leisure day, but I ended up being the one to cut it short 4.5 miles from the bridge. Even after 200 miles of pedaling with no problems, that was all it took to aggravate my shin splints to the point of frustration. Ah, well. I grabbed a walking stick off the ground and hobbled down, then spent a half hour soaking my legs in the river.

On the fifth day we just had to wrap up the loop, finishing up the Avenue of the Giants and wending back toward Ferndale on quiet farm roads. We caught our first rainstorm less than five miles from town, and even without an early start, made it back to the car by noon. Our final stats for the trip:

Miles: 235
Elevation gain: 26,640
Average moving speed: 9.3 mph
Max speed: 39.5 mph

On the drive home, "Yellow Light" by Monsters and Men started playing on the stereo and I gave myself a few quiet moments to feel sad about losing the distinction as the women's record holder in the Tour Divide. Actually, several people have asked me about that, so I thought I might as well address it here. I knew that Eszter wrapped up her ride on Thursday in 19 days and change (Leah looked this up on her phone as we drove. It was our first real connection to the outside world in five days.) Eszter's ride was brilliant and inspiring, but admittedly, the result was both expected and discouraging.

I tried not to put any emotional attachment on "the record." First of all, it was never my goal. I knew it wasn't the best on the course (Trish Stevenson's 2005 ride was the border-to-border record until this year.) I knew that 24 days wasn't even the best I could do. Actually, while I was writing "Be Brave, Be Strong," I mapped out my ideal way to ride the course in 21 days. I was convinced it wouldn't be any more difficult, even with similar set-backs — all it took was less diddling around and a few different decisions about eating and camping. But 19 days? Realistically, probably not. It's a matter of horsepower. My average moving speed during the 2009 event was just a hair over nine miles per hour, if I recall correctly. In order to ride the route in 19 days, one needs to average 144 miles per day, which amounts to 16 hours of moving time at that speed. Which means that sleeping, eating, shopping, repairs, emotional crises, quick breaks, peeing, stumbling, and general diddling around (unavoidable) has to be wedged into the eight remaining hours. All things considered, even with better training and nutrition, I doubt I could bump my actual moving speed up all that much. Realistically, I just don't have the appropriate athleticism. And when I thought about our long day on the Humboldt tour — just under nine hours of moving time — could I really double that, every day, for 19 strung-out days? Most people, even the event's small clan of fans, don't really understand what it really takes to put in that kind of effort on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, for almost no reward. Eszter is incredible. And she's posting a well-written, compelling report on her blog, too.

So I had to let that go. It was harder than I expected it to be, although actually still not that hard. "Yellow Light" wrapped up and I was smiling again, already dreaming about incredible summer adventures still in front of me. (Please heal, shin. I took a bunch of rest days after the tour. I hope that helps.) I did come home and ask Beat if he still likes me even though I'm not the Tour Divide record-holder anymore. (Honestly, I think it was a selling point early in our relationship.) He said yes, and that's what matters to me.

Because the theme of this trip report seems to be the fact I'm reading Annie Dillard books right now, I thought I'd end with a final quote:

"There are no events but thoughts and the heart's hard turning — the heart's slow learning where to love and whom. The rest is merely gossip, and tales for other times.”