Pursuit of experience

Between the high-pitched moan of the wind and the rasping of my lungs, I didn't hear all of the air burp out of the rear tire, again. It was sometime around midnight along the spine of the Continental Divide, amid blasting wind, dagger-like snow, and fog. The curtain was so thick and opaque that, when illuminated by a headlamp, it had the strange effect of making midnight look like a very gloomy, gray day. A dreadful place to have a flat. I didn't notice at first, either, while churning the pedals to propel my two-wheeled tank over a soft carpet of snow. The effort was always hard, and a completely flat tire made it only incrementally harder. Only when the dark spots appeared in my eyes did I think to stop, because I had to, because I couldn't breathe. When I checked the tire, as had become my habit over the day, I discovered that I had been rolling on the rim. 

Tubeless tires and snow bikes. It's an idea that could work, in theory, and that main reason I was here on the border of Montana and Idaho was to test that theory, among others. Problem is, the low tire pressures necessary to float on top of snow that had been softened by above-freezing temperatures, then churned up by snowmobile traffic, were too low to hold an air seal. Bouncing or mashing pedals would cause air to burp out of the rims until it was all gone. This had been an ongoing problem for much of the day, and I again chastised myself for holding onto optimism and not putting in a tube sooner. But now the weather was really inhospitable to a fifteen-minute chore like that.

"Bikes are so stupid," I grumbled as I knelt down with a pump that I had also grown to hate, because it screwed onto the valve and this was a difficult thing to do with cold fingers. This bike was a heartless taskmaster, making me work as hard as I was capable just to pedal at 3 mph up hills. Then, when I was no longer strong enough to keep pedaling uphill, the bike would push back on my shoulders and wrists until they ached. Sure, maybe I'm just not strong and that's my fault, but then then there are these mechanicals! My heart was still racing as I pulled on gloves and attached the pump. When am I going to learn to be better at these things, and why shouldn't I just take a sled and snowshoes to Unalakleet instead of this heavy bike, and where did all the air go, up here at 8,000 feet? When I faced the wind directly, it had a metallic taste, as though it was whisking all the oxygen from my mouth and injecting it with lead. 

My core temperature steadily dropped as I filled up the balloon tire with tiny gasps of deoxygenated air, then unscrewed the pump. To my dismay, the valve stem came out with it, releasing all the air in a loud sigh. I stood up, threw a small tantrum, and then screwed the valve stem back in after I calmed down. With fingers I could no longer feel, I tried to get it as tight as I could, then commenced pumping again. And again, I couldn't remove the pump without taking the valve stem with it. "This is impossible. I'm just going to walk to the highway from here. How far is it? Twenty miles? Bikes are so stupid." 

Obviously I wasn't thinking clearly, or I would have acknowledged that it would be simple enough to push the bike to the nearest wind-protected spot, put on all my warm clothing, and either put in a tube or try again with pliers to tighten the valve stem. But no, my head was reeling backward. My hands had gone numb and my core was shivering. "If I can't do this then I'll never survive the Norton Sound. This is easy stuff." Out of the fog, a headlight approached. I knew it had to be Beat, who left checkpoint two shortly after me. After an unsuccessful try with the pump himself, he suggested the obvious and chastised me for not even bothering to put on my down coat, let alone my poor choice to stop in worst spot of the whole race to pump up a tire. 

"But it was completely flat!" I protested. 

We pushed our bikes together along the ridge; I finally put my down coat on, and was struggling to get my core temperature back up. This pass was called Two Top Divide, because it crosses into Idaho and then back into Montana and then into Idaho again. I'd already lost track of whether we'd seen the first top yet, or not. The grade steepened, and I struggled more. Beat disappeared into the fog. I became irrationally terrified of losing him. I pushed harder, and my heart rate spiked, and then my airways closed up. No matter how many wheezing gasps of air I tried to push down my throat, my lungs stayed empty. Hyperventilating accelerated. "Asthma attack!" I panicked. I've never had symptoms of asthma before, nor an asthma attack, but this is what I imagined it must feel like. Regardless of cause, this was certainly what it felt like to not breathe, and not breathing was very scary. 

"Pressure breathing. Try pressure breathing. It helps," Beat said to me. He'd heard me wheezing. He'd been there all along. Black spots were appearing again in my eyes. 

"I'm over-exerting myself," I gasped when I finally had enough air to speak. "I'm sorry; I just can't work this hard." I was already moving about as slowly as possible within the definition of forward motion. Basically what I was saying was I had to stop. But I didn't do that. 

Jay P's Backyard Fat Pursuit was a 200-kilometer snow bike race put on by Jay Petervary, a well-known endurance biker and record-holding veteran of the Iditarod Trail. The race started in Island Park, Idaho, then traveled over the Continental Divide to West Yellowstone, Montana, before making its way back to Island Park on a series of snowmobile trails through the national forests surrounding Yellowstone National Park. 

Beat, Liehann and I all traveled out from California to race the Fat Pursuit, despite limited training in this specific regard. We were all just out here for "fun," to explore new trails scouted by an experienced rider who we respect, and enjoy a social reunion with several good friends and others in the tight-knit and inherently wonderful fat bike community. Endurance races are all about community; I think even the most competitive riders would agree. Plus, the impetus of 200 kilometers was appealing. I have an intimidating plan for an Iditarod Trail tour later this winter, and needed a good long ride to get my mind and body better tuned in to the reality of this plan. I needed experience. 

While I could certainly race a lighter bike with less gear, the loaded Snoots isn't *that* heavy. I didn't think I'd be competitive, but I also didn't expect to struggle for most of the distance. But with low mileage and limited high-resistance training these past few months, I haven't really developed my "snow" muscles. The trails were recently groomed, but above-freezing temperatures ensured this smooth surface stayed soft. And as soon as a group of snowmobiles zoomed past — which was not an infrequent occurrence — they whipped up the snow into a creamy mush. Pedaling on top of this required a lot of power output, and the mountainous terrain ensured consistent climbing and descending rather than more forgiving flat terrain. It was quite strenuous, and almost impossible to not venture into the high-intensity range, even while pushing. Remembering how I felt two weeks earlier after riding just 20 miles in difficult conditions out to Borealis cabin in the White Mountains, I thought, "Wow, this is going to be a long race." 

None of it was going to be easy, but in so many ways, spending an entire day (and sometimes more) on the move is still my favorite thing to do. The flow of forward motion calms my mind and quiets inner chaos. The physical aspect is both invigorating and soothing, even through the difficulties. I have the experience behind me to understand that discomforts are just discomforts, and negative emotions are often just a chemical response to physical deficits. The nagging pains and fatigue fade away quickly, but the satisfaction remains. 

Sometimes, when you give yourself enough time and distance, many hours will pass in a peaceful trance. The barriers between the snowy forest and your own finite body are blurred, and the landscape of your mind becomes as expansive and limitless as the universe itself. Time bends over itself, night opens amid the quiet murmurs of your heart, and the world narrows into a soft beam of light, a place of shadows and memories. It's a beautiful experience. I do not tire of the pursuit for this perspective. Unfortunately, my body sometimes does. 

 Not being able to breathe was a frustrating development, but not exactly surprising. Consistently over-exerting myself at high altitudes, when I was still recovering from a cold I caught in Alaska, was a sure path to physical breakdown. Up on Two Top Divide, I crossed a line from which I was not going to be able to return. My throat was on fire, my nostrils tingled, my head became light and my vision dark. There were 40 miles left in the race, and no way to slow down without stopping, so I'd just have to demand that my lungs keep sucking limited oxygen through a straw. Hopefully, I wouldn't lose consciousness before I finished. If nothing else, it would be a learning experience.

Beat stuck with me, as we often do in races even when we decide not to, because we enjoy each other's company and quietly worry about each other. We arrived at a wind-protecting cluster of trees and managed to fix the tire, then continued toward a steep and jerky descent down the torn-up trail into Idaho. I was in too much respiratory distress to feel sleepy, and the long night stretched out indefinitely. I thought about the things I'd do differently in Alaska: Tubes in the tires. A flip-top pump. An extra pump. Always always put on my down coat when stopped. A better multi-tool. Maybe bring some thicker gloves rather than mittens. A better face mask to protect my lungs. Do some exercises to strengthen my wrists. Wish I could make myself stronger in general, but there's probably not enough time. Still, ultimately, most of my gear performed well. Despite projecting anger onto Snoots, it's a great bike — responsive and surprisingly agile for its girth, and as I mentioned, not *that* heavy. My only complaints were my rear tire and lungs, with their infuriating refusals to hold air.

Beat and I arrived at checkpoint three just before sunrise. When it's not a checkpoint, the "Man Cave" is a frequent respite for touring cyclists — a kind of garage with a corner kitchen and a giant bison head on the wall. We enjoyed sourdough pancakes, bacon and coffee while chatting with the friendly volunteers. I was feeling downright loopy — probably from sleep deprivation, although I suspected mild hypoxia. My brain hadn't been getting enough oxygen for many hours. I was mildly buzzed, drunk on the effort and a strong desire to just sleep it off.

I finally convinced Beat we had slummed at the checkpoint long enough. We were already close to the back of the race — which I admittedly found disheartening, because although I'd taken my sweet time in a lot of respects, I'd also been trying really hard. We had 21 more miles to get'er done. A woman from Fairbanks named Andrea joined us after her short nap at the checkpoint. She'd decided to stick with us for the remainder of the race, even though I was struggling mightily and slowing even more. Andrea is registered for her first Iditarod Trail Invitational in March. She wanted to chat about that race, and was a fun conversationalist even though I was often gasping too much to exhale more than a few syllables at a time. To Andrea: I'm sorry if I came across as terse or unfriendly. I enjoyed talking with you, I just was often too winded to speak.

We arrived at the finish line just after noon, which just happened to coincide with the after-race party under the arch. Because of this, there was a large crowd at the finish, and we received quite the reception. The final four miles of the course had been especially slow, torn up my heavy snowmobile traffic, and my head was spinning with the effort of just maintaining forward motion for that distance. Grunting over the final line took every last molecule of oxygen reserve, and I very nearly blacked out (I passed out and collapsed a few months ago after stepping out of a sauna, and I now know what it feels like right before you faint — the blood pressure crash and the intense dizziness.) The crowd was gathering around us and I could feel my knees weakening. I fought it, embarrassed, but eventually I had to lay down in the snow before my body did so involuntarily.

I spent the next hour feeling heavily buzzed, tilting my head to see things clearly and laughing at everything that was said to me, funny or not. I don't remember much about that time. I had to say goodbye to good friends who I don't see often, and congratulate the podium finishers who'd been done for twelve hours. It was a great group of folks. Jay P puts on a good event, well-planned and executed with just the right amount of checkpoint support. He told us that next year he might make Fat Pursuit a multi-day distance, which I wholeheartedly support. Let the fast folks experience what it's like to venture drunkenly into the next day, and the next, with only your own untrustworthy wits and past experience to rely on.

I still can't believe I had a near meltdown over a flat tire, or that I apparently need oxygen tanks to take a loaded fat bike above 8,000 feet. But I certainly learned a lot in my pursuit of experience. I always do. 

The magical land of Tolovana

Oh, these high latitudes and their irresistible magnetic pull. Hold up any compass and the needle will point where I want to be, at any given time. Sure, I appreciate that I am not a compass and can set my path in any direction I please, and value my freedom to reside in one comfortable place and visit many others. But there's something alluring about North. I have yet to define what continues to draw me up here, or capture the specific sensations so I can carry them home. But that something clings to these places like hoarfrost, with an enchanting sparkle that never fails to incite happiness. I feel it when I walk across the Styrofoam snow of a friend's driveway at 20 below, or pass by the heat-blasting fans in the entryway of Fred Meyer, or pedal through a boreal forest in the 4 p.m. twilight. I may not live here; I might not have ever lived here. But I'm home. 

I have a wonderful, accepting family in Utah, and I think they understand why we go "home" for Christmas every year. We flew into Fairbanks late on Dec. 23, and arose not-early before the crack of dawn to organize our gear and head out to the Goldstream Valley to spend Christmas Eve with our friends Corrine and Eric and their young-adult children. Before dinner, Beat and I borrowed their fat bikes and set out for a five-hour excursion up Eldorado Creek and along the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Temperatures were around -10 when we set out, and Beat had all sorts of new gear he wanted to try, so he loaded up his pack.

We didn't really choose to ride the pipeline; it's just where we ended up, having not done a whole lot of trail research before the trip. Although not exactly beautiful, the pipeline has its own interesting aesthetic, given you're riding along this 800-mile-long apparatus that carries crude from the North Slope to Valdez. You start to think "Wow, I could follow this all the way to the Arctic Ocean!" And people have done that, but it is not the most travel-friendly route. No, TAPS takes the most direct way possible, cutting straight down and then up every tear-inducing steep hill.

Oh, the gentle silence of Christmas Day. This quiet resonates through my childhood memories of the holiday. There was always that manic presents-and-food frenzy on Christmas morning, followed by the annual trip out to the grandparents' houses along quiet streets and shuttered businesses. Christmas is a wonderful time to be out and about, and Beat, Tom and I encountered close to zero traffic — save for a couple of North Slope-bound trucks — on the two-hour drive out to Manley Hot Springs Road. We'd hoped to gather a group of friends for an overnight trip to Tolovana Hot Springs, but only Tom was available to "ride out Christmas" far away from the grid. He skied in, and Beat and I packed sleds for the 11-mile hike.

As we descended into the Brooks Creek valley, a dense cold swept over my face and legs. Temperatures were actually quite nice for this time of year — 7 above with no wind  — but I'd dressed for "this is really warm" and it really sort of wasn't. One thing I am learning about myself is that I struggle to regulate my body temperature evenly when I am walking and running in sub-freezing conditions. Although it defies logic, I've actually had more success maintaining a comfortable equilibrium on a bike. On foot, different body parts are either too hot or too cold, often simultaneously. On this trip I battled cold knees and a completely numb butt (I had a pair of primaloft shorts in my sled, but I was being lazy about stopping and putting them on when there was a big climb coming up. As it turned out, my butt didn't come back to life until we crawled into the hot springs a few hours later.)

The climb up Tolovana Hot Springs Dome is often an ascent to the pinnacles of Hell. Last year, we experienced 25-mph sustained winds with a temperature of 25 below, for a windchill south of -50. These are typical conditions for Tolovana. For this reason, there's a special mystique to this place. Frost clings to alders, and rime builds in sparkling crystals on skeletal spruce trees. This delicate beauty contrasts the violence and austerity of the landscape — wind blows incessantly, streams of snow tear off the ridges, and burn zones reveal an unbroken expanse of equally inhospitable valleys and windswept mountains. Because my travels through the North are still limited, Tolovana Hot Springs Dome is one of the worst places I have ever been. The kind of place where if I stopped walking for even a moment, icy fingers would wrap around my neck and squeeze exhaustive gulps of warmth from every breath.

It was gratifying, although perhaps less exciting, to visit Tolovana on a day where I didn't think it was going to kill me at any moment. It was overcast, calm, and pleasant. Even with a cold butt, being able to stop and look around without turning my face into a powder blast of wind was nice. The trail was in great shape, with minimal snow drifts. Beat and I ran as fast as our sleds could coast down the steep descent, feeling weightless. We dropped off the inhospitable dome and into the valley where a magical spring draws warmth from the depths of the Earth. It was my fastest-yet trip into Tolovana, and I was surprised when we arrived at the cluster of three cabins — ours would be the only one occupied — well before dark. We exploded the generous contents of our sleds all over the tiny Frame cabin, and joined Tom for a pre-dinner soak. Sausage and couscous was our Christmas feast, followed by a post-dinner soak and hot chocolate before bed. Who could want anything more?

A thick fog settled in for the hike out, almost to the point of sensory deprivation, although I could feel a sharp burning in my hamstrings from pulling the sled up ~3,000 feet of climbing on this more difficult direction. The drive home fully broke the spell, with heavy snow and white-knuckle driving at 30 mph on the Elliot Highway. By the time we returned to Fairbanks, we'd have to unpack our gear, shop for resupplies, and re-pack what we needed for the White Mountains the following morning. It can be exhausting trying to cram all of my Northern love into a week here and there, and the trekking parts are often the easiest parts. But it's always worth it, always. 

Slow snow and 35 below

In Fox the thermometer read minus 14, which I think boosted the spirits of every Californian in the car. We'd been told by Fairbanks locals to expect "great weather" during our holiday visit. "It might not even drop below zero the entire time you're here," said Ed the weather guy. We'd flirted with minus ten on Christmas Eve, but now a Chinook weather pattern was on the way and the forecast was so warm that I didn't even bother to pack my down pants, Gore-Tex shell, or big mittens for our three-day trip into White Mountains. Six inches of fresh snow on Friday was a surprise, as were the double-digit minuses on Saturday morning. I was excited. The air was sharply clear and the low sunlight was magic. This is what winter tourists crave; we get more than enough "great weather" at home.

At the trailhead, I worked quickly with bare hands to strap a bivy bundle and seatpost bag to the fatbike I borrowed from my friend Corrine. After driving home from Tolovana Hot Springs in sideways snow the previous night, I'd come a breath away from packing a sled instead of the bike. The early-season base would already be soft, and six inches of new snow would be packed down by a handful of snowmachines at best (even in "great weather," travel through this BLM recreation area north of Fairbanks is light during this dark time of the year.) But Corrine has a beautiful bike: A carbon 9:Zero:7 Whiteout with neon green highlights and matching pogies. It made for a pretty accessory even if I had to push it most of the way. I reasoned this would be good training, and not that much harder than dragging a sled.

 
After a hundred feet of pedaling through the parking lot, I stopped to let most of the air out of both tires. Steve and Beat pressed ahead with their sleds, and I followed not far behind. The first mile was a gradual climb, and I could not catch them. The trail had the consistency of a bottomless channel of sand — the fresh snow was so cold that it wouldn't consolidate, and snowmachine paddle tracks had whipped it up into a deep and abrasive fluff. At low tire pressure the surface was rideable, but that's a relative term. It's embarrassing to be a cyclist with your butt in a saddle, turning cranks, and unable to keep up with people who are walking.

I doubled my efforts and managed to increase the pace from a pitiful sub-3 mph to something closer to 4 mph. Thanks to gasping high-intensity, I was able to pass Steve and Beat. But then, of course, I had to keep it up to not get passed again. Heat poured off my back. All I was wearing on top was a light synthetic base layer, a hybrid softshell with one primaloft front panel made by Skinfit, a hat and a balaclava, and open pogies with no gloves. "Temps must be warming up," I thought. To breathe and vent heat I pulled down my balaclava, but the tip of my nose kept freezing. I used my bare fingers to warm it up, but this strategy worsened my already squirrelly steering.

Just before the top of the Wickersham Wall, mile six, I encountered local legends Jeff Oatley and Heather Best. They were returning from a night at the Caribou Bluff cabin, which is about nine miles beyond the Borealis LeFevre cabin where Steve, Beat, and I planned to stay, and about 22 miles from where we were standing. They warned me it was cold at the bottom of the wall, "At least 25 below," and the trail was consistently rideable but really slow. "We've been riding for six hours," Heather said with a tone that indicated she couldn't believe it herself. If one were to put Jeff and Heather and me on a comparison chart of snow biking strength, Jeff would be titanium, Heather would be steel, and I'd be aluminum foil. If it took them six hours to ride 22 miles, well ...

The Wickersham Wall loses a thousand feet in just over a mile. The downward slope was a welcome break, but even at that grade, coasting was such a slow crawl that I had to pedal to make the Wall feel like a descent. This seemed a special kind of indignation. At the bottom, I stopped on the frozen shore of Wickersham Creek to eat a snack and listen to the silence. The was a crystal tingling in the air, the melody of tiny bells as microscopic ice crystals crashed into each other. It's a beautiful sound. I love subzero air ... when I'm warm.

The hard work persisted. I churned and churned, winced with throbbing quads and calves, and breathed fire that was hot fire because my fleece balaclava recirculates air quite well. I'd put on a fleece jacket and liner gloves before the Wickersham Wall, but debated removing them again because I didn't want to overheat and sweat. My heart pounded. At home, I tend to gauge cycling intensity based on the level of effort needed to scale certain steep road climbs. Silently, I put this effort somewhere below "Bohlman On-Orbit" but above "Redwood Gulch." The virtual equivalent of a 12-percent grade, with a 170 heart rate, on average. Hard work! I didn't dare look at my watch, until I did, and the screen was foggy, but it was definitely registering in the high teens minutes-per-mile. So, 3 mph. I wasn't just running as hard as I could for walking speed — I was biking as hard as I could for walking speed. Grumble, grumble, grumble. I took pushing breaks for the same reason runners take walking breaks, just to catch my breath. My average pace did not drop that much. I started pushing more. It was easier, and not much slower. But ... I was there to ride a bike. It was good training. This was "only" a 19-mile trip, so I could afford to burn some matches. I cranked up the high burners until I was dizzy and almost entirely out of steam. Then I just walked, and my heart slowed enough that I could hear the ice bells jingling again. It was a beautiful night.

There's something about a good, hard effort that shuts out all the excess noise. It's an ethereal sort of tunnel surrounded by a vacuum that sucks up time and space without detection. As I trudged up the steep incline to Borealis, I couldn't believe six and a half hours had passed since I left the trailhead. If I wasn't so exhausted, I'd almost guess my watch was wrong. I shined my headlight at the thermometer above the porch. The mercury registered south of 30 below. "Maybe it's broken," I thought. It was definitely cold, but 30 below?

I unpacked my bike, started and nursed a small flame in the wood stove, gathered several armloads of split wood from outside to bring inside, and only then began to feel enough of a chill to pull on my down coat. As I tried to change the propane canister in the lantern, I noticed the indoor thermometer also read 30 below. "Huh."

Steve and Beat showed up two minutes later. In all, it only took them twenty more minutes to hike to Borealis than it took me to "ride" there. They were cold. Beat's thermometer registered temperatures as low as 35 below on the lower reaches of Beaver Creek. This was gratifying information. It may have taken me 6.5 hours to ride 19 miles, but my reward was a blistering furnace of body heat.

On Sunday, the temperature warmed up to a balmy -16. We reserved two nights at Borealis, so we set out for a day trip toward Windy Gap. Only three or four snowmachines had traveled out that way since the storm, but a night of -35 set up a nice crust that supported considerably faster riding than the previous day. Beat and Steve were bogged down and postholing on this punchy trail, but my bike could float on top of the thin crust at a cool 5 mph. It was like flying! 

While "flying" down the trail toward Fossil Creek, I hit a deep moose track and did some actual flying over the handlebars, into a snowbank. Cold snow packed into my balaclava and sleeves, and it took me several minutes to dig it all out. Now this is snow biking. Twenty miles only sucked up 3.5 hours on this day. 

I returned to Borealis to discover our friends Joel and Tom had biked and skied out, despite my satellite messenger warning about the 6.5-hour ride into an icebox. They also enjoyed a frozen crust, and the trip took both of them considerably less time than it took me. Joel only rode in with minimal gear and the clothes on his back. With the crowds he was confined to the sweltering loft, and thus was forced to reveal his silky smooth triathlete legs.

Ah, cabin life. For dinner I made grilled cheese sandwiches, buttering and flipping each one with a spoon in small pot on the propane stove. Someday, for a few months during a winter, it would be an interesting experience to live in a place like this — a simple cabin out in the Alaska woods but near a traveled trail. I'd bring only stuff I could carry on a bike or in a sled, chop wood, make trails with snowshoes, eat a lot of rice, lentils and butter, write in a notebook, and pedal out once a week or so to gather more supplies. Someday.

Beat and Steve hauling out of Beaver Creek on Monday morning. The Chinook had finally blown in, and when we left the outdoor thermometer was all the way up to 11 above.

Trail conditions had improved, but I still managed to burn all my energy matches by tacking on ten extra miles. From the top of the Wickersham Wall, I descended a steep trail that had been only been used by a single dog team since the storm, which made for a slow churning eight-mile climb before the finish. When I passed Beat and Steve, I expressed the truth that I was "so tired" and "I always forget how hard snow biking is" and "My confidence has been shattered and now I'm really scared of the Idaho race. There's no way I can work this hard for 200 kilometers." I don't think they believed me. To a person hauling a heavy sled, a cyclist pedaling by looks like they're coasting on a hovercraft. That's exactly how they look, and that's exactly what I've thought when I've stood on the other side with an anchor strapped to my hips. But put a snow bike in volatile ("real") winter conditions, and those things are harsh taskmasters.

Beat and Steve had to work plenty hard themselves, and also admitted that these supposedly easy-going training trips have a way of shattering confidence. (They're both preparing for the thousand-mile haul to Nome.) But there's something about working especially hard for something that boosts appreciation, and this may have been my favorite December trip into the White Mountains yet. But I still wonder how I'm going to survive the Fat Pursuit, let alone the Bering Sea coast trip I planned for March. Best not to think about it too much.

2014 in photos

 I've fallen behind in blogging but didn't want to miss out on the "Year in Photos" review that I've been posting since 2006. It's always fun to pick one favorite photo for every month of the year. However, as I scrolled through my blog archives here at Sea-Tac airport, there was a sense of disappointment about this past year's selection. "I need to diversify my repertoire," I thought. "Too many variations on the small people in big places theme." But this is what 2014 was for me — a year of ambitious adventures coupled with feelings of insignificance in bewildering expanses.

The above photo is my favorite from this past year, as those who have seen my blog banner might have guessed. I took it in late February during the Iditarod Trail Invitational, in a region near the South Fork of the Kuskokwim River known as Egypt Mountain, while Beat and I dragged (and I mean dragged) sleds across a barely-frozen swamp. Beyond this day being one of my most physically strenuous days of a physically strenuous year, this place was spectacularly surreal. It was February, in the Far North, and we had been hauling for three days through subzero cold and snow. We crossed over the Alaska Range, into what is often the icebox of Alaska, only to watch winter disintegrate with breathtaking rapidity. We were far from the outer reaches of modern civilization, where the air was warm and still, and yet devoid of any signs of life. It looked and felt like a dystopian wilderness — the world after the end of the world, and for that reason had a special kind of uniqueness to an already unique place to visit. Now that it's over I can say it was worth dragging my sled over fifty miles of glare ice, alders, swamps, roots, and mud, just to stand in that place at that point in time. But it was one of my most difficult days of the year (it's a toss-up between that day, bushwhacking through the Stettynskloof on the last day of the Freedom Challenge, and the day I tore my LCL in the Tor des Geants. The TDG probably wins.)

 January: Tree house, Big Basin Redwoods State Park, California. January was a heavy training month of long bike rides and 50K runs, and I didn't take time to compose the most interesting images. But I love a good oddity, and this tree house on Gazos Creek is a fun place to roll past while descending from a high chaparral ridge into a dark, dense forest.

 February: Loreen Hewitt on Rainy Pass, Alaska. This is another image from the Iditarod Trail Invitational. Rainy Pass is a special place that commands awe and often terror. We were fortunate to visit in beautiful weather, even if the warmth and sunshine would become more of a nightmare on the eastern side of the range.

 March: Placer River, Southcentral Alaska. While Beat continued to make his way toward Nome on the Iditarod Trail, I enjoyed a full month of rambling around Alaska. There were many fun mini-adventures that month that culminated in the White Mountains 100 in Fairbanks, so it was hard to choose one photo. I like the lighting in this image of a fat bike ride near Turnagain Arm during a failed attempt to see Spencer Glacier (three of us were stopped by unwillingness to cross a waist-deep river. My friend Jill chose a different route earlier on and managed to reach the glacier.) Despite no glacier, it was a fun and beautiful outing all the same.

 April: Santa Cruz, California. April and May were heavy on all-day bike rides to prepare for the Race Across South Africa. One upside was exploring an array of places close to home but new to me.

 May: Henry Coe State Park, California. I like this photo because it's a quintessential image of mountains in the Bay Area. In all honesty, after living most of my life around mountains in Utah, Alaska and Montana, it took me some time to develop an appreciation for the subtle beauties of grassy peaks and oak-dotted hillsides. In four years I've grown to love California's landscapes, and miss these curvy ridges and deceptively steep slopes when I'm away.

June: Lehana's Pass, Eastern Cape, South Africa. There were many images I liked from the month-plus I spent in South Africa, but I had to go with the hike up and over the Drakensberg Mountains during the Race Across South Africa. The elements of this photo illustrate the experience well — the ways in which the route was difficult and stunning, often simultaneously.

 July: Jonkersberg Nature Preserve, Stellenbosch, South Africa. Following our completion of the Race Across South Africa, we spent a few more days in Cape Town and I had a chance to embark on several trail runs in the area. The day before we left, which was the fourth of July, there was a cold and wet storm that dumped fresh snow on the rocky peaks above this preserve. Despite a pounding soreness in my legs, I ran through the downpour and relished the chance to reflect on the past month and soak it all in. This was a rewarding way to wrap up my adventure in South Africa.

 August: Mount Baker, Washington. Beat joined Bellingham runners Daniel and Aaron on a hundred-mile run from tidewater to the top of this volcano in Northern Washington, then back. I served as part of the support crew and joined the run for two choice segments, including an 18-hour summit bid that started with a treacherous river crossing and continued along a difficult bushwhacking route. The lower reaches of the route — which was the closest access point from the sea — proved to be far more challenging than the glacier climb. I took this photo on a lower snowfield in the morning, before we roped up.

 September: Alta Via, Aosta Valley, Italy. This photo is from the Tor des Geants, and thus my favorite thing about it is the stance of the runner in the foreground. The Alps make you feel very small in different ways than Alaska, and at this point I felt very, very small and very, very slow. (But not as small or slow as I'd feel two days later when I faced an extremely difficult descent with significant pain and without the ability to bend my knee.) I still believe it's rewarding to gain these perspectives, even if the Tor des Geants proved to be an admittedly large disappointment in an otherwise fantastic year.

October: Highway 6, Juab County, Utah. I was injured an unable to run or hike, but headed out to Utah anyway for my favorite tradition with my Dad, the fall Rim-to-Rim in the Grand Canyon (instead of hiking I joined the shuttle drive-around with my Mom, which was enjoyable.) On the trip out to Utah I enjoyed a fun driving adventure by traveling small two-lane highways through the desert. Although I clearly value my health and ability to be physically active, it was rewarding to reinforce the aspect of adventure that matters most to me — the experience of moving through the world.

 November: Prewitt Ridge, Big Sur, California. Before Thanksgiving my friend Leah and I were able to steal away for an overnight bikepacking trip on Cone Peak and the surrounding ridge. In this photo you can see Cone Peak in the center, framed by this beautiful old tree.

December: Tolovana Hot Springs, Alaska. Beat and I hiked into this backcountry hot spring, joined by our friend Tom on skis, on Christmas Day. Temperatures were mild (around 10F), and it was for the most part an overcast day. But the low winter sun peeked out as we descended the upper ridge where thick hoarfrost clings to the trees, illuminating a appropriately Christmasy scene. This is the third solstice-Christmas-New Years that we spent in Fairbanks, and we had a fantastic trip. More on that in the next blog post. 

2014 in numbers

We managed to log one last dirt ride for the year before we head to Fairbanks this week — eight hours of soupy fog and equally soupy mud. The California drought and an attitude that "rain is running weather" has almost completely desiccated my patience for mixing bikes with mud. Hours of splooshing through a cold goo shower is just so much better when you don't involve a fast-moving, difficult-to-clean mechanical object. But I wanted to squeeze in a long ride this weekend, as we're now just three weeks out to the 200-kilometer snow bike race. Beat and I rode with our friend Jan, who had a great attitude about the grimy day. "How many times do you get to see Skyline like this?" he said, referring to fog so thick we could barely see a few meters in front of us. As I remember from March 2011, if we have a more "normal" winter ... actually, a lot.

From a "pre-holiday-party run" along Russian Ridge on Saturday.

Plugging the ride into Strava started me thinking about my "year in Strava." This is the first year I've used GPS fairly consistently to track rides and runs, which means I have a nearly complete record of my training data (the GPS did stay home from time to time.) I can be a numbers geek with the best of them. Although I don't place high personal value in my statistics (because statistics do not tell very good stories), and although I can't make much use of them because I have little interest in a structured training plan, I still have fun tracking these details. I'm glad I managed to record my activities consistently through 2014.

I thought it would be fun to crunch the numbers for 2014. I realize the year is not quite over, but like most people, my free time will be limited over the holidays, so winter solstice it is. Hikes are included in the running totals, because in my world there isn't that much of a difference between running and hiking — either way, I am trying to move in the most efficient way possible in regard to terrain, distance, and elevation change. Usually my effort levels are fairly consistent regardless of pace. Cycling is both road and mountain biking. Strava doesn't distinguish between the two.

Cycling:

Distance: 4,557 miles (including RASA)

Time: 321 hours, 13 minutes (not including RASA)

Elevation gain: 478,196 feet

Rides: 92

Running:

Distance: 1,570 miles

Time: 394 hours, 46 minutes

Elevation gain: 282,608 feet

Runs: 140

Cumulative distance: 6,127 miles

Cumulative elevation gain: 761,227 feet

This section of the Skyline Trail opened to bikes in November, but remnants of past discrimination linger.

It was a good year. Not even including the moving time within 21.5 days of the Race Across South Africa, I spent 716 hours on the move. That's the equivalent of 29 days — nearly a month. Some will undoubtedly ask, "Why do you spend/waste so much time training?" My answer is simple: I am consistently the most happy when I am moving through the world. Even better when I am moving through the world under my own power. In 2014 I had the privilege to spend more than one twelfth of the year in this happy place — in addition to a variety of other great experiences. Yes, 2014 was pretty fantastic. 

The month-to-month breakdown tells a better story, because there are some wild variations to the numbers. In January and February I was simultaneously training for the Iditarod Trail Invitational and the Freedom Challenge — so loaded cart pulls and long mountain bike rides. March was mostly snow biking in Alaska followed by the White Mountains 100 at the end of the month. April and May were highly training-focused with many hours on the bike, and June was the Race Across South Africa. July was a recovery month, although with Tor des Geants on the horizon I embarked on some long hikes. In August I increased the running mileage. Early September was the Tor des Geants, which ended in an LCL tear in my left knee, followed by four "zero" weeks. Once my knee started working again in October, I ramped up the bike mileage quickly, and started walking and then running again in November. I was lucky to get away with increasing my mileage as quickly as I did after my injury. I believe having a solid base of high-mileage conditioning helped. I also really did take all that time off, and my knee had a fair chance to heal. 

Beat looking good during a day of playing in the mud. 

The breakdown: 

January: 

Bike: 511.3 miles, 50,334 feet gain

Run: 195.4 miles, 35,010 feet gain

February:

Bike: 78.7 miles, 9,718 feet gain

Run: 456.6 miles, 33,233 feet gain (Iditarod Trail Invitational) 

March:

Bike:  327.8 miles, 16,388 feet gain (White Mountains 100)

Run: 28.8 miles, 1,349 feet gain

April: 

Bike: 490.9 miles, 61,936 feet gain

Run: 110.5 miles, 19,544 feet gain

May: 

Bike: 647.1 miles, 72,110 feet gain

Run: 137.8 miles, 27,270 feet gain

June:

Bike: 1,450 miles, 121,391 feet gain (Race Across South Africa)

Run: 19.5 miles, 5,866 feet gain

July:

Bike: 33.2 miles, 4,380 feet gain

Run 108.5 miles, 23,625 feet gain

August: 

Bike: 183.9 miles, 23,822 feet gain

Run: 169.7 miles, 48,323 feet gain

September 

Bike: Big fat zero

Run: 133 miles, 48,615 feet gain (almost entirely Tor des Geants)

October

Bike: 494.6 miles, 59,632 feet gain

Run: 12.4 miles, 1,824 feet gain

November

Bike: 263.7 miles, 39,423 feet gain

Run: 93.4 miles, 17,927 feet gain

December so far

Bike: 155.2 miles, 21,893 feet gain

Run: 119 miles, 22,172 feet gain

Some bloggers ask questions at the end of their posts. This is one I'm curious about. Do you track your outdoor/training activities? How do you feel about your "year in numbers?" 

Almost like a comeback

 I was a bundle of nerves about this 50K on Sunday, which Beat found hilarious. "How many of these have you run now?" he asked. I've lost track of my official 50K number, but I guessed I could still count the number of times I've run a Woodside event. Three different race promoters offer two events here per year, so one rolls around seemingly once a month. It's gotten to the point where the question, "What do you want to do this weekend?" can be frequently answered by, "Let's run that 50K in Woodside."

I tallied each one I could remember. "Seven," I answered. "I think this will be my eighth Woodside."

Beat and I like to participate in these events for the same reasons people go to their favorite restaurants. They're fun social outings in a familiar and pleasant setting. We get to indulge in an activity that releases a surge of mood-elevating neurotransmitters like serotonin and endorphins, and drink ginger ale in a setting that elevates the taste to something like unicorn tears (Oatmeal reference.) There are friends to visit and fun people to meet. I always enjoy these events even through occasional discomfort and nagging pains, which are as natural to a trail race as indigestion at a French restaurant. But after a June bike tour across South Africa, a tight recovery period, a failed hiking race in the Alps, and a subsequent injury, it had been more than six months since my last long run, and there hadn't been all that many miles of actual "running in between. I didn't really care about going slow at Woodside, but I was scared of my LCL giving out, or buckling my knee, or IT band agony, or damn it, tripping and falling — because eating dirt is the source of nearly every running injury I acquire.

 To get my mind off pre-race jitters, Beat suggested we take the fat bikes out for a Saturday afternoon ride. He recently installed a 1x11 drivetrain on Snoots that I needed to test out, as well as contemplate gear distribution and handlebar position for the real adventures this winter — the 200K snow race in Idaho, which in itself is just a test ride for a 250-mile tour on Alaska's western coast in March. This plan is actually scary, as opposed to the Woodside Ramble 50K, which was only scary in the ephemeral sense of fleeting pains and ego-trouncing poor performances. I'm glad there's something to keep it all in perspective.

This was the Woodside Ramble 50K, somewhere around mile 15, where I was thinking, "I'm about ready to be done running now. Yup, just about ready to be done." The first ten miles actually were quite fun, and I was buzzing with happy hormones, but I admittedly started out too fast relative to my current running fitness. One problem with running a similar course eight times is knowing exactly how well I *should* be moving at any given point. There's also the fact that even with 5,000 or so feet of climbing and sections of roots and mud, Woodside is 100 percent runnable on fresh legs. So it's difficult not to berate myself for any walking, of which I did a fair amount.

Beat loves to stroll and chat during this race, and I caught up to him near mile 19, as he and his friend Tony were distracted by shared tales of past derring do. "It's all going okay," I told Beat. "But I'm working really hard for this. It feels a lot harder than usual. My hamstrings are super tight and I'm fading. I'll have to take the descents slow."

After some stalling at the aid station, Beat surged ahead and I loped along the Skyline Trail, which is my favorite part of this enjoyable course. The trail slices a narrow path along steep slope beneath towering redwood trees, winding in and out of drainages on a rolling traverse approximately a hundred feet below Skyline Ridge. Except for aforementioned sections of mud and roots, it's not all that technical, but steep drop-offs always keep me extra vigilant on this section. Despite this focus, around mile 21 I still managed to put my right foot down at a point where there was nothing beneath it. I actually ran right off the trail, in a spot where touching down on the 45-degree-plus slope could easily result in a tumble that wouldn't end until my ragdoll body slammed into the broad trunk of a coast redwood. Somehow, the side of my foot caught the edge of the hill a few inches below the trail. I instinctively rolled my ankle to dig in some toes before setting my left foot down on safety, then flailed dramatically to the left until I had both hands punched in the mulch on the steep uphill slope.

Damn, that was close. Here I am, scared of Alaska, when I'll be lucky to survive the Woodside Ramble.

And if you're wondering whether I'm still concerned about potentially worsening problems with coordination. Yes. Yes I am. I have no idea how I stepped off such a simple trail when I was deliberately focusing attention not to do so. It's still impossible to make any tangible connections to an ongoing tally of incidents. But this one left me rattled for the final ten miles, enough to not think too much about my searing hamstrings. Either way, the downhill miles were slow.

Still, the left knee and LCL performed perfectly, until that night when it was sore in the same spot that had been injured. There were a few disconcerting hours of "what have I done?," but it proved to only be superficial soreness and was gone the next day. I went out for a four-mile run Tuesday afternoon without incident, and despite 25-mph winds and rain, I managed to not stumble and fall, not even once.

It's continued to be rainy and gray all week — which I'm also enjoying as a welcome change — but the sun came out for the half day on Sunday and we enjoyed perfect weather for the Woodside Ramble. Afterward the race organizers put out a delicious spread of fresh fruit and other snacks. I was ready to sit down and stuff my face, but Beat finished ten minutes earlier and had become so chilled in the interim that we couldn't stay long — not even long enough to pick up my age group award (third! heehee.) I didn't tell Beat about my stumble because I was deeply embarrassed about it. It's kind of funny, actually, how I can be so embarrassed about something and yet feel no qualms about blurting it out to the whole world on my blog. Funny indeed. (Sorry Beat.)

Turns out anything can be treacherous, therefore every day is an adventure. I'm glad there's something to keep it all in perspective. 

Cry me an atmospheric river

Where did this week even go? I've been wrestling with two writing projects, in that sort of phase I think most people can relate with — the phase where everything becomes drivel and I need to step away for a while before the whole project is slashed and burned. Journalismjobs.com is a good diversion, a place I like to go to daydream about landing angst-free copy editing contracts that let me work on my own schedule. Twitter can erase a surprising number of minutes as well, for shouting at random into an echo chamber.

A college friend, Craig, came to visit from Alaska. We spent the weekend in the city doing city things — tapas at a Mexican restaurant; an afternoon at the de Young Museum of fine art; getting our exercise by walking eighteen blocks from the place where we actually found parking; being coerced into buying a 100-pack of fancy jasmine tea I didn't even want because, well, someone like me really shouldn't enter shops in Chinatown; late nights with other old friends talking about the best days that were now 15 (!) years ago; and attending the lively and harmonic Sunday services at the Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church (Craig is a Mormon, but joked it was fun to spend one Sunday worshiping the sound of saxophones.)

I finally booked all the reservations for Fairbanks at the end of the month, and became immeasurably excited about Christmas.

Somewhere in there I remembered I needed to train a little for this 200-kilometer snow bike race in Idaho that's just a month away. After a weekend getting fat on tapas and dumplings, I lumbered outside on Monday afternoon to climb the best tear-inducingly steep roads near my home. Redwood Gulch (ouch) to Skyline (tell me that doesn't start to hurt after 3,000 feet) to Montevina (2,000 more feet of !!!) The tires cut like knives into the mud as I ground the road bike over Montevina's dirt section with the fading light, then nearly burned out the rim brakes on a pitch dark, damp pavement descent down Bolman. There was a certain exhaustive quality to this four-hour ride that left me dangling on threads, but I was glad to put in some saddle time before the storm.

The storm. "Hellastorm." Also "stormaggedon" to the Twitterati. A forecast for a particularly strong flow of atmospheric moisture was played up heavily in the local media, and I'm not sure anyone thought it would live up to the hype. Everyone likes to joke about how Californians can't handle weather, even Californians. Even I shook my head and recalled past days of weathering "typical" storms in Juneau — being knocked off my feet by wind gusts on Gastineau Ridge, full days of constant rain, nearly swamping my car on inundated roads dammed by piles of slush, spending on evening on a moored boat on Juneau Harbor as 60-mph gusts rocked the vessel violently against the dock. There was no way hellastorm was going to be that bad.

However, it sort of was. Locally there was widespread flooding, flash floods, 80 mph gusts recorded on nearby peaks where I ride my bike frequently, and, as of 6 p.m., 3.93 inches of rain had been reported at the nearest weather station to my house, since midnight. I used to track weather reports religiously when I lived in Juneau, and I don't think I ever saw a 24-hour total over 2.5 inches. If 3.93 inches fell in downtown Seattle, it would be the second wettest day in recorded history for that city. (Juneau's record single-day rainfall is 17.38 inches. So yeah. There's that.)

But yes, stormaggedon made a dent. Even amid three years of exceptional drought.

Of course, I made a big deal about going for a run on Thursday afternoon. Not because I thought we would assert any semblance of Californian badassery by going out in hellastorm, but because I thought it would be hella fun. I even put in extra effort to pick up Liehann at Google, braving standing water and multiple collisions on Highway 85, just so he could join. Liehann, Beat, and I hit a nearly abandoned Rancho San Antonio park for good splashy lunchtime fun. The gustier wind had calmed, so we weren't too worried about trees falling on us. But there were a lot of trees already down, including two elderly oaks that we simply couldn't climb over or find a way around without risking a high-consequence hack through poison oak. Trails were inundated by shallow streams that carved deep ruts into the surface, and puddles were sometimes shin deep. Creeks that are usually dry gushed with brown rapids, and the hills were a vibrant shade of green, when prior to Thanksgiving the grass was so dry it was gray. This was the most fun I've had with running in a while, and I've been having a lot of fun with running since I took it up again post-knee injury.

Beat and I signed up for a 50K run in Woodside on Sunday, which is admittedly not a great idea since ten miles is the longest run I've completed since the Tor des Geants debacle in September. But I'm so stoked on running right now that I just can't let it go, even with that Fairbanks trip and the 200K fat bike race on the horizon. Beat expressed strong disapproval at my desire to go snowboarding in Utah, citing high-consequence injury risk, but he's surprisingly nonchalant about this 50K. Of course I don't intend to jeopardize winter plans; I'm not above quitting a 50K at the slightest tinge of knee pain. But I'm unabashedly looking forward to this Sunday run, especially since it's supposed to be nice and sunny again.