2013 dreams, spring and early summer

Daylight is beginning to creep back into Leah's and my evening bike rides in the Marin Headlands. On Thursday we got out for our favorite loop from the bridge, watched a beautifully hazy sunset, listened to coyotes howl as burrow owls swooped through our headlight beams, and remarked how warm it was because 45 degrees and moonlight sure beat the pouring rain that was happening at my home only forty miles south. It was a typically beautiful ride, and we topped it off with some fantastic Chinese food from this unique fusion place in the Mission.

As we buzzed with endorphins and chili sauce, we schemed possible bike tours for the spring or summer. The adventure planning reminded me that I'm still making my wish list for 2013. Spring and the first part of summer are bound to be the time for a bike tour and micro-adventures, but there are a few endurance challenges that I hope to include as well:

May 11: Quicksilver 50-miler. Fifty miles is the one major ultra distance I haven't tried, and honestly, it's the distance I'm least likely to enjoy. Fifty kilometers is just short enough that I can savor a challenging run without it degrading into a slog. A hundred miles is so hard that I can embrace the slog and let it take me to all of the magical places that it will. A hard hundred kilometers or seventy miles offers some of the flighty fun of a hundred miles with less of the pain. But fifty miles — that's a tricky distance. Much longer than a "fun run" 50K, but not quite long enough to venture into ultraendurance mindgame territory. So there it is. I'm going to give fifty miles my best shot at the Quicksilver 50 in San Jose. The course has 8,500 feet of climbing, promises to be an inferno of oppressive heat, and enforces the trails' consistent runnability with a twelve-hour cut-off. Can you tell I'm looking forward to this? But I need a long training run for:

May 31: The Bryce 100. A hundred miles of high desert alpine and otherworldly redrock formations on the outskirts of Bryce Canyon National Park. May 31 is Beat's birthday, and this is how he wanted to celebrate. The course rings the rolling hills of the Paunsaugunt Plateau, ranging between 7,800 and 9,400 feet. The altitude is harsh for a sea-level dweller, and judging by some of the breathing problems I had in the Bear 100, Bryce promises to be a hypoxic struggle amid some of Utah's most breathtaking scenery. The total elevation gain is something over 14,000 feet. My goal for this race is to not pass out, be gifted with great photo-taking weather, and finish before the cut-off. My sights for the summer are set on multiday adventures, so I don't want to run myself into an injury by trying to push my speed limit. (Last month I wrote an article previewing the race.)

June or early July: Sierras fastpacking adventure. This is something I've been dreaming about since I moved to California. I hope I have a chance to pull it off this year. The grand out-there dream would be to hike/run the 220 miles of the John Muir Trail in seven or eight days. Whether I can leverage the time and planning to pull this off is the question. Eight days is lot of time in itself, and the effort will require significant recovery after a full week of going as strong as I can for twelve to sixteen hours a day. I've also received conflicting advice about how to apply for permits, so I have to spend more time looking into this. Also, I need to figue out how to actually *become* an ultralight backpacker rather than just covet their cool gear from afar while I imagine them shivering in space blankets and gnawing on twigs and moss. The John Muir Trail is realistically too much to bite off for a first-time fastpacking adventure. But I still want to plan some kind of multiday endurance challenge on foot. A three- or four-night loop in Yosemite National Park or part of the Pacific Crest Trail would be great possibilities as well.

I'll get to the rest of summer in the next post. I will say that it won't include the Tour Divide or any big bikepacking race, this year at least. As I mentioned earlier, 2013 is the year I want to test my limits on foot, because there are so many incredible places in this world that I can't access on wheels. But the wheels still hold the first spot in my heart, and I'm sure after this year's for-fun bike adventures, I'll be looking for something more challenging once again.

Backpack or sled?

Group shot at the start of our Glacier Point run. Martina skied and laughed at our poor mode of snow travel as she glided past.

Our training trip to Yosemite gave me a chance to test out a system to use in the Homer Epic 100K, a race that I haven't really started training for yet (still doing more biking than running) and that seems like a long time off but in reality is less than eight weeks from now. I have almost as much fun mulling the strategy of these types of races as I do running them (mainly because winter races are so dependent on weather and quickly changing trail conditions, that any rigid strategy is bound to fail. Creating multifaceted strategies based on a large number of possible outcomes is a fun challenge.) But I'm still undecided on one fundamental aspect of the Homer Epic — how to carry my gear.

Beat on the freshly groomed ski trail. Conditions would have been perfect if it wasn't 50 degrees out, turning the snow to slush.

One thing I knew was that I don't love pulling a sled. In the past, pulling sleds in the range of 30 to 40 pounds absolutely prevented me from running in all but the best trail conditions or fairly steep descents. I'm just not strong enough; the anchor clamps down and I end up expending double the energy for perhaps 25 percent more speed. It's not sustainable at all. I'm effectively locked in at 3 to 3.5 mph, with an energy expenditure and muscle strain that feels more like 6 mph would on dirt trails.

I looked out over this vista and all I could think of was summer ... and miles and miles of wilderness trails.

I just assumed I'd want to carry a pack in the Homer Epic, so on Saturday I loaded up a Salomon pack with the gear I'd likely carry in the race. The rules require a few common-sense pieces of clothing that I'd carry either way — a big down coat and windproof pants to keep me warm in case I am injured on the trail and have to stop or slow way down. And of course I'll need several changeable trail layers — hats, gloves, mittens, extra socks, etc. The race support includes water only, and even then there are only three checkpoints in a hundred kilometers, so I packed two liters of water and 2,500 calories, although for the race I will probably carry 3,000 or even 3,500. (And honestly believe even this is on the hungry side. I'm a big eater in the cold and bonk quickly when I slow the consumption.) Then there was my safety gear, GPS and camera, foot-fix stuff, headlamps and batteries, knife and duct tape, and med kit. And to top it off, trekking poles and snowshoes strapped to the outside. The final weight was startling. I couldn't weigh it at the start, but my guess would be 17 to 20 pounds. Which makes sense, because it was all of my Susitna gear, minus the emergency calories and sleeping bag bundle.

Yosemite Valley doesn't see much direct sunlight in January

I did not like running with a 20-pound pack. It rubbed on my shoulders to the point that my collarbone felt bruised, and felt more awkward and tedious than my heavier sled ever did in Fairbanks. I ran a fair percentage of the first 11 miles out to Glacier Point, but lost my steam after that. The stats from my GPS were 22.5 miles, 3,245 feet of climbing, 5:43 trail time. The Homer Epic is 62 miles with 6,470 feet of climbing, and has a 24 hour cut-off. Last year's two finishers on foot, who are both faster snow runners than me (and much faster than me off the snow), finished in 21:30 and 23:10 respectively. Finishing the Homer Epic is far from a given; it's going to be tight and it's going to be tough.

Group leaving Glacier Point.

Obviously I will need to do more training with that pack if I am going to carry it. And of course I can look for ways to lighten the load, but most of this gear has been mulled extensively over multiple excursions. Even if the warm gear weren't required, I'd still carry it. I'd rather stay alive in the event I can't move, than move slightly faster when I can. The snowshoes are the most expendable item, but even those I'm quite attached to. If I don't wear them the entire race because of marginal conditions, I'll probably still wear them for half of the race just to ease the strain on my undertrained ankles and knees (because I can't train by running on snow.) Beat has suggested he might make a small sled with the same design as his large Nome sled. I'd still carry my water on my back, so presumably I could get my total sled weight below 15 pounds. This might be the best option.

Ditched the pack as soon as we stopped. Photo by Beat.

Either way, it's been fun to scheme for my only winter race this year. I really do wish I had a full 100-miler to look forward to, but the simultaneous newness and nostalgia of the Homer Epic is motivation enough. Now to get to more consistent training. Ah, training. The best snow race training I can do here in the Bay area is hard jogs up steep, sustained climbs. I have all those snow bike tours I want to do in Alaska, so I should keep riding my bikes, too. 

Right place, right time

As early morning's shadow crept like a curtain down the granite cliffs across the valley, I walked across the ice-crusted snow and found a rock outcropping to claim as my exclusive seat for the show. 

Behind me, the rising sun projected a stream of golden light, creeping down the high peaks of Yosemite and illuminating the backside of Half Dome. I watched previews of color form on sparkling ice and distant snowfields, waiting patiently for the main attraction — the moment the angled light of sunrise touched the frozen mist of Yosemite Falls. 

A faint crimson was the first color to emerge, followed by a hints of yellow and green. As the sun climbed higher into the crystal blue sky, the falls burst into a full spectrum rainbow, with colorful mist floating through the air before freezing into snow and settling gently onto the slope below. Nature's version of Hawaiian shaved ice, striped with every flavor on the shelf. I smiled at the memory of eating a multi-color snow cone in the January heat of Honolulu on top of Diamond Head, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day no less, and ricocheted back to the awe that the present moment brought me to the top of an 8,000-foot granite mountain, and this colorful ice swirled around a waterfall that was 2,425 feet high. The world is continuously doling out beautiful gifts, but the most spectacular go to those who find themselves in the right place at the right time.

Not many people would consider the wind-exposed summit of Sentinel Dome in the predawn cold to be a right place, and even fewer would view the snowbound month of January to be the right time. We would likely have never found ourselves in this spot either if Beat and Steve hadn't been training for the Idiatrod, and looking for tough conditions to trek with heavy sleds and camp for a night. We headed to Yosemite National Park for the long weekend, mainly because the park is our closest access to snow. On Saturday, we ran the 22.5 miles out to Glacier Point and back as a training run, and hoped to find another packed trail to stage our camping trip the following night. But on the way back, we encountered a group of skiers who informed us they were planning to stay on Sentinel Dome that night, and recalling a wonderful hike last May, I said to Beat, "You know, spending a night on Sentinel Dome would probably be amazing."

The following day, we learned our options for sled-draggable trails were actually quite limited, and decided to return to the Glacier Point ski trail for the ten-mile trek to Sentinel Dome, elevation 8,127 feet. Steve and Beat seemed not totally stoked about making virtually the same trip twice, but I stuck to my conviction that a Sentinel Dome camp would indeed be amazing, and possibly, on this warm holiday weekend, even windy and cold.

Our mid-afternoon start put us at the top right at sunset, and we broke camp just as a wash of pink light spread over the mountains.

Photo by Beat Jegerlehner

The Sentinel Dome is the tallest landmass for many miles, offering a full panorama of a large cross-section of Yosemite, from the higher peaks to the east, to the sheer granite walls of the Yosemite Valley, to the flat expanse of California's central valley to the west, to (I'm convinced, although my friends disagree) the far-away Bay area landmark of Mount Diablo. It's nothing but views, and a whole night up high gave us nothing but time to look at them.

Photo by Beat. The landform I thought was Mount Diablo is directly to the left of my head, behind the city lights.

We fiddled with Steve's new stove as Beat melted snow for hot drinks and three revolting freeze-dried meals (honestly, I never find any of these that I like. I'm just about to give up on hot dinners when camping, which is something I've been saying for 15 years.) Despite the relatively warm temperature (around 30 degrees), the wind picked up after the sunset, and I had a difficult time staying warm without running in circles around the dome at frequent intervals.

It gave us an excuse to dance around in the snow and play with the settings on Beat's camera — also important training for his Iditarod race next month.


The wind howled through the night, but I got great sleep while curled up in my -40 sleeping bag. We woke up a half hour before sunrise to melt snow for coffee and drinking water, as well as a freeze-dried raspberry crumble dessert that I bought, because I know better than to mess with freeze-dried breakfast foods. (Or oatmeal. Not a fan. I'm usually a breakfast Clif Bar eater.)

Photo by Beat

 But I do think stoves are useful for more than just winter drinking water. True happiness is hot coffee at the top of a mountain.

The sunrise views were every bit as startling as they were at sunset, in lighter hues of red and blue.

And the Yosemite Falls light show — truly an incredible work of art.

After the show was over, there was nothing left to do but pack up the sleds and trek back to the valley with full bellies and hearts.

This isn't to say the trek back was easy. But positioning oneself in the right place and the right time rarely is. There's a good chance we'll return someday for an encore. Training makes the best excuse. 

Beat shot a short video of the waterfall rainbow, linked here.