The dog race

As could have been (and effectively was) predicted when the Iditarod Dog Sled Race announced it would reroute the 2015 race away from 500 miles of the original course, the abandoned remnants of broken trail were obliterated by a major snow and wind storm. Between Takotna and Ruby are nearly 200 miles of trail rarely used, by anyone, and the dog race trailbreakers aren't coming. 

This is effectively what Beat and several others who are my friends — Tim and Loreen Hewitt, and Steve Ansell — are facing right now as they all chose to leave McGrath and press forward. I'll go on record now and admit I do not have a "Go Beat Go" attitude about Beat taking on 200 miles of breaking trail. This is not as simple as one foot in front of the other. A cold snap descended on the Interior, and where he's spending the night, in the ghost town of Ophir, it's currently 30 below. The going has been okay so far, but if drifts become deeper it could deteriorate into a 1 mph slog — 15- to 20-mile days at that rate. Tim Hewitt is currently about 50 miles ahead of Beat, with a bike, moving at about this pace. Beat purchased extra food and fuel in McGrath, and claims he has 10 days worth, plus an air-dropped food bag at a midway point in Cripple, if that's what it comes to. The thought of Beat spending the next ten days battling through this bleak place fills me with bleak emotions, but this is what he goes seeking, for his own reasons. 

Ah. Well. Nothing like a hard effort to clear the head. After nearly a foot of new snow fell on Fairbanks, I headed out Sunday afternoon for a run. All of my training runs for the White Mountains 100 haven't included the actual terrain I'll be running on, so a long snow run seemed like a crucial gauge of conditioning. I should have taken into account that crushed confidence would be the most likely outcome. 

 Footy toe-prints in the snow ... if ever I needed documentation that I'm a toe-striker. The trails had been broken but there was no base. Every step sunk in at least an inch, and with no solid surface to lift off, I had to shorten my stride. "Running" at my usual 160-165 bpm pace netted a 15-16 minute mile. Walking lapsed into the 23-30 minute mile range, especially once I hit the hills. Oi. Normally I would snowshoe trails this soft, but I wanted to test my running strategy for the White Mountains 100. What I got was 5 hours, 15 miles, sore Achilles tendons, and throbbing quads. Ah well. I probably won't even get a spot in this silly race.


Today I biked out the Tanana River to spectate the start of the Iditarod Dog Sled Race. For as much Iditarod Trail enthusiasm as I've perpetuated over the years, I've never actually seen the dogs. I had a bad night of sleep and was sore from my "run," and almost didn't go. But I'm glad I rallied. It was fun to see these mushers and their dogs in their element. I have lots of respect for mushers (seriously. I have a hard enough time taking care of my own feet and cannot fathom dealing with 64), and lots of envy for the dogs. They possess so many endurance abilities I would like to have. Plus, they have one job to do, and they seem to love it.

 Here are a few photos I took along the Tanana. This is Aliy Zirkle. Like many fans, I want this to be her year.

 Number 47, Becca Moore. I noticed a surprising number of women driving Iditarod teams. Perhaps it's not surprising. I still participate in sports where women comprise, at most, 20 percent of the field.

 Number 37 Benjamin Harper. Dude was chillin.

Like the neon yellow.

The temperature on the river was around 5 below zero, and once I rounded the Chena Ridge bluff, there was a brisk headwind. Obviously I pulled off the trail for every single musher who went by, often stopping for five minutes at a time. It was hard to find a rhythm and I was cold.

 I didn't get a photo of him, but Lance Mackey was one of the first mushers I watched go by. "You should hook a couple of dogs to that thing," he commented about my bike.

 Dee Dee Jonrowe, the only musher I've actually met. She's in her 60s, runs marathons, probably weighs 90 pounds soaking wet, and is this fireball of energy. Also, she likes pink.

 Beat would get a kick out of this — a musher towing a guy with a Google Street View camera. I will be annoyed if Google represents the Tanana River as "the Iditarod Trail," but think it's a fun project nonetheless.

 The one and only Jeff King.

 Despite the windchill and blowing snow flurries, it was a beautiful day. I biked 10 miles out the river before I turned around.

 Bye mushers! Have a great trip to Nome.

Finding winter

After temperatures climbed into the 40s again and my creative energy continued to decline, I decided it was time to escape Anchorage. Originally I hoped to travel to Whitehorse for an overnight bike trip with friends, but discovered too late that my car rental policy didn't allow me to leave the country. There's also the matter that Whitehorse is 700 miles from Anchorage, and although I enjoy the drive, it's risky in the winter and difficult to justify amid the limited time I have in Alaska. Fairbanks is half that distance, and there's an incredible mountain range in the middle with extensive adventure opportunities. 

On Thursday I planned to ride my bike on snowmobile trails near Petersville, in the southern foothills of the Alaska Range. It was still warm, and misty rain and fog became driving rain after I passed the Talkeetna junction. I coaxed the rental car through gray mush to a trailhead, where I'd already decided I was going to run instead of ride. I suited up, stepped out into the downpour, and sank my foot into shin-deep slush. The trail wasn't packed ice as I expected, and any attempt to "run" through this muck was going to be a cold, soggy slog. I experienced a low point there, while slogging back to my car to remove my microspikes and grab snowshoes instead. Rain pelted down and I realized that much of my malaise over the past week was linked to constant worrying about Beat. It's strange, because concerns about his well-being and emotional state on the Iditarod Trail didn't bother me nearly as much last year. I think going to McGrath with him helped put me in the right mindset about the endeavor, and also helped me feel more connected to him after he continued onto Nome. This year, it's more difficult to see big picture when I talk with him on the phone, hear his tired voice, and imagine him stumbling over tussocks and taping his feet amid endless sloggy wetness. Sloggy wetness is not something I want for him or myself, and running the slush marshes in Petersville was close to the last thing I wanted to be doing. "I don't have to do this," I thought. The sun had been shining through a small suckerhole over Willow, and even though it was becoming late in the afternoon and Willow was an hour in the wrong direction, I turned around and drove south.

Loaded up Snoots at the gate on Willow Fishhook Road and pedaled through the icy slush until it turned to ice, and then packed snow. As I gained elevation toward Hatcher Pass, soft powder filled in the gaps and the quiet hum of the wheels lightened my mood. I let a bunch of air out of the tires and climbed higher until turning pedals through soft snow was beyond my power capacity, and the remnant hints of the sucker hole sun were sinking low on the horizon, and the night drive beckoned. This ride was a welcome respite and shifted my mindset in the right direction.

Driving north, I crossed back into the storm shadow of driving rain, which shifted to sleet, and then snow. Inches piled up on the freezing-rain-slicked highway, which was almost empty of traffic save for an occasional southbound truck. A few miles north of Cantwell, I moved slightly into the shoulder as a truck went by, hit an ice slick and slammed into a snow bank. I was alone with a rental Jeep Cherokee, no shovel, and it was just before midnight. I wondered if I might have to spend the night in the woods just off the road. After twenty minutes of kicking snow and driving the car backward and forward, backward and forward, I managed to free it from the bank. By that time, it was angled just right to flip a U-turn and drive back to Cantwell. Snow was still coming down hard, and I didn't want to get stuck anywhere where I really might have to spend a night in a ditch. I returned to the closed Chevron, parked in the corner of the lot, and set up my bivy inside the car. I awoke to a snowplow scraping nearly a foot of new snow that had fallen overnight.

I did go looking for winter. I found it.


The sun came out for the remainder of the drive to Denali National Park, which is only thirty miles north of Cantwell but only had two or three inches of new snow. There was another winter storm warning in the forecast for that evening. I had been sufficiently intimidated by snowy road conditions to want to escape the mountains before the storm came in, but had enough time for a half-day hike in the park. A park ranger recommended this loop starting at mile 12 of the park road, looping up around a ridge and then dropping into the Savage River Canyon before returning on a closed, unmaintained section of the road. In hindsight, it's crazy that the park ranger recommended this hike to me. I mean, I know this is Alaska, but this is a national park, and I didn't represent myself as a mountaineer. For all she knew, I could have been a random tourist from California who was just passing through on her way to Fairbanks. Oh right, that's exactly what I was. It was a scenic hike, but parts of the route were sketch-city. I'm guessing this is a popular summer trail, and the ranger had never been up here in the winter conditions.

It was 14 degrees where I parked my car, and once I climbed above tree line, I encountered strong winds — guessing 25 mph sustained winds with 40 mph gusts. Cold wind is a condition that frightens me, and my heart was racing as I made my way along the ridge. All in all, 14 degrees with a 25 mph wind would be a typical if not pleasant condition on the Bering Sea Coast, and I had to continually remind myself of this, since I'm still planning to head that way in a week. "If you can't take this wind, then you really can't take the coast." I ducked behind a boulder to pull on a windbreaker and neck warmer, and squinted against the gusts as I pieced together wind-scoured segments of the trail down the slope.

There were steep, boulder-strewn drop-offs to both sides, and the trail climbed onto this narrow knife ridge that only sharpened as the route descended. There was a reasonably defined trail, but it was coated in glare ice with anywhere from an inch to a foot of feather-light spindrift on top, with crusty, thigh-deep drifts in spots. I was wearing microspikes, but the points were still slipping on the hard ice layer and rocks. Safe foot placements were difficult to discern, the drop-offs were quite exposed, wind was knocking me off balance, and the odds of hurting myself were high. I should have retreated sooner, but kept thinking the ridge would widen or I'd find a safe route off of it. When these things did not happen, it was too late because I was more frightened of returning the way I came than going forward. By that time, you're pretty much committed.

Finally, after about thirty minutes of intense scrambling where I put my poles away and took my mittens off occasionally so I could use my bare fingers to grip rocks, I saw moose tracks above a creek bed, in a spot where I could climb down and reach them. Before, from my vantage point, it wasn't apparent whether the creek below would drop safely to the river or drop off cliffs. But I figured if a moose could climb to this spot, I could crawl out. Getting off that sketch human trail and following the moose was the best decision I made all day. From there it was a fairly simple powder-bound down to the Savage River, where I located the canyon trail and walked to the road. The fear that encompassed that seven-mile hike left me exhausted. It was all I could do to trudge 2.5 miles of road back to the car and finish the drive to Fairbanks.

It snowed for most of today in Fairbanks, so my friend Corrine and I went snowshoeing through the powder on the hills near her house. Lots of fun, this hike, and not scary at all. What's funny is there's now probably too much snow here for me to ride my bike. But that's all right. Running and hiking is arguably better for my physical training right now, as it might still help my fitness for a hopeful White Mountains 100 run at the end of the month. There's a cold snap forecasted next week, and practicing setting up my bivy, working on my bike, and melting snow at 20 below will really help my emotional and mental fitness going into the coast trip. Right now, after my experience with the wind on the mountain in Denali, I'd put my confidence level at about 10 percent. Today, Beat confided in me that his own confidence is flagging severely right now, with all the new snow and wind and likely slow conditions for the next couple hundred miles. He, more than me, could use a hit of positivity, and I hope he finds it in McGrath. 

Desperately seeking winter

The past few days in Anchorage have been wet and gloomy, and I've been in a funk. It seems I've snagged myself in this emotional loop of stress about my coast trip, insomnia, and missing Beat.

I know — I'm usually so thrilled just to be in Alaska that I can easily leap over the everyday angst. But I think a combination of the weather and the fact I left California with a lot of loose ends to wrap up, have made the transition tougher. I've even met with a few friends in town, but it didn't really cut through the loneliness. Beat calls three times a day, and this just makes me miss him more. I keep refreshing the race tracker instead of focusing on what I should be doing, then lose focus altogether. I scour the one duffel bag of gear I brought with me and make little piles, trying to determine what to take to Unalakleet, where it should go on my bike, and why. Then I re-arrange the piles. I gathered everything I needed for an overnight tour here in Southcentral Alaska, and then nixed those plans because of rain. I feel wistful and wish I was just walking to McGrath with Beat, even as wet and miserable as it all sort of sounds right now.

Alas, I suppose this is what happens when you take a California dweller who doesn't even realize she's addicted to sunshine, and put her in what for all practical purposes resembles late-term break-up season in the north. I know deep down I'm glad to be here; I just have to push through the surface gloom. I've enjoyed watching the Iditarod Trail Invitational so far. A nice freeze-up just in time for the race start created hard-packed, dirt-like trail conditions, prompting another year of record times for the lead bikers. This turned out to be a narrow window that closed quickly, and now those still out there are slogging through wet snow and thawing conditions. These things are to be expected and Beat is taking it in stride, still moving well on his way over Rainy Pass.

A bout of sleeplessness last night at least prompted me to finish up some accounting I've avoided (tax season for the self-employed. I can't stomach doing it all at once, so I break it up into slightly more palatable pieces.) This was the last item on my immediate to-do list, so today I got out for what turned out to be a five-hour ride around Anchorage trails. The trail conditions were consistently bad — I effectively rode 31 miles of slush and glare ice, wearing microspikes on my boots so I could hike out the worst sections. A misty rain fell all afternoon, which had a strange effect of making the climbs feel humid and hot, and the descents clammy and frigid. I wasn't loving the ride but stuck with it, mainly because I hoped a long ride would improve my mood. And actually, it did. After three hours I gained more confidence in my studded tires and relaxed enough to find a rhythm.

I find sometimes when I'm in a flow, I lose all visceral sense of time and place, residing only in each fleeting moment. This meditative state reliably leads to startling snaps back to three-dimensional reality, where surprises lurk. This moose crashed through the brush as then stopped at the edge of the trail as though waiting to cross a street. I slammed on my brakes because, yikes, moose! Then we had a three-minute standoff that carried an air of politeness — "After you. No, after you. No, after you." Finally it became clear that she was not going to continue until I was gone. Passing her was my only way forward, so I did, stealing a quick snapshot as I went by (Moose make me very nervous. But she didn't appear agitated, so I didn't sense danger.) After that I had a good laugh about forgetting completely that I was even in Alaska, let alone riding slush ice rather than dirt. I was just out for a bike ride.

Still, I think it will be good for me to get out of town, so I'm heading north on Thursday — a few days camping in the Denali area, and then Fairbanks. Beat is starting to find his flow as well. The first few days are always difficult as bodies settle into the new workload and minds adjust to the wildly swinging emotions and solitude. This is why he sets out on these journeys — to find the deep vein of strength and serenity that is often buried under our everyday angst. I could use this attitude adjustment as well. 

2015 Iditarod Trail Invitational, day one

Well, Beat has embarked on his third journey to Nome. We flew into Anchorage late Friday night and had the usual whirlwind 36 hours before the 2015 Iditarod Trail Invitational started at 2 p.m. Sunday. I'm not participating this year, which left me simultaneously relived and disappointed. I cheered for everyone at the start, then prepped my fat bike for a spectator ride out the Iditarod Trail. Trail conditions were so hard-packed and fast that I caught everyone effortlessly, even the indefatigable Dave Johnston. I ended up riding all the way to Flathorn Lake slough — 50 miles round trip — and still returned to the Knik Bar just after dark. 

It was a gorgeous day, and I was on Cloud 9 with this ride. These rolling hills of the Susitna River Valley, and this loosely distributed but tight-knit community of people, have been intricately woven in my life since 2006. Returning to this place is always intensely meaningful for me, as is participating in the "ritual" — even if only on the periphery. I don't have the time right now to write about the experience, but I wanted to post some photos of the race start: 

 Steve Ansell, Tim Hewitt, and Loreen Hewitt digest their final meals at the Knik Bar — officially "Mile 0" of the Iditarod Trail.

 Final preparations at Knik Bar.

350-mile foot racer Jason Buffington is on the right. Last March, he heated up some lasagna for me the minute I arrived in McGrath, and for that I remain grateful.

 Beat and his sled. This year he constructed a carbon pole and custom-machined (by him) titanium joints. Note his husky, Bernie, in the foreground, is along for the ride again this year.

The start of the race was warm (30F) but with a stiff breeze. Beat was prepared. 

Steve is also going for the full distance to Nome this year. Here, he contemplates 1,000 miles.

 Beat chats with Kevin Breitenbach, the defending champion of the McGrath race and holder of the 350-mile bike record.

 Jason Boon. We spent some time with him on the trail last year as well. He's one of four walkers aiming for Nome this year. There are 12 Nome racers in total.

 Dave Johnston, holder of the 350-mile foot record, racing in memory of Rob Kehrer. Rob is an ITI veteran and longtime volunteer who died last summer during the Alaska Wilderness Classic.

Saying goodbye. Note the lack of pretty much anything in Dave's sled.

 Final GPS check before the start.

 Andrea Dubenezic of Fairbanks. She accompanied Beat and me as I wheezed my way through the last 20 miles of the Fat Pursuit 200K in Idaho this past January. She's awesome ... and pretty nervous. First time on the Iditarod Trail. She'll do great.

 And they're off. The journey of a thousand miles begins ...

 Dave Johnston's son, Miles — already being indoctrinated into sled-dragging culture.

 Look at that snowless marsh. Snow cover was slim to non-existent in open areas. The surface of the trail was glare ice with a dusting of about a centimeter of powder. Further down the trail, it was sugar snow with a reasonably solid crust. Trail conditions were frequently treacherous, yet the studded-tire fat bike made riding seem effortless. I try to imagine what this race would be like seven years ago when most everyone had Surly Pugsleys with 65mm rims, and no one had studded tires. Or in the 1990s, when fat bikes did not even exist. But things pretty much don't change for the walkers. One of the many reasons why the softest spot in my heart is reserved for the foot racers.

 Jason Boon, "I'm just getting a few more things dialed in."

 3 Mile Hill, the first of many short but steepish climbs that ripple across the Susitna Valley.

 Fellow spectator Shawn McTaggart trying to catch up to her husband, Tony, and Dave Johnston. Shawn is the only woman besides Loreen Hewitt who has completed the thousand-mile journey to Nome on foot, and she's done it twice.

 Tony and Dave, looking fresh as a daisy at mile six.

 Biker and Mount Susitna.

 Jill loves these wide open spaces. People tell her that this first section of the Iditarod Trail is boring, and she strongly disagrees.

 Dave, still looking fresh as a daisy at mile 22 — three and a half hours after the start. Amazing sled-dragging pace.

 Bye Dave! I'll told him I'd visit after he returned from McGrath and that I'd make sure to bring him a six-pack of Budweiser. "Make it a margarita," he said.

 Snoots is sad because she wants to go to Nome.

 Beat and Steve, both looking great at mile 17. If all goes as well as it can, this will be the last time I see Beat until he arrives in Nome, hopefully under four weeks from now. This is always a tough but satisfying goodbye.

Bye Beat! Have a great trip to Nome.