Friday, April 29, 2016

The first week

After arriving in Boulder on Sunday, Beat and I quickly settled into new routines. Beat woke up early to run into work — the shortest route is about ten miles one way, along the rocky singletrack of Bear Canyon. He also tried two different routes over Green Mountain, because who wouldn't want to bag a peak on their way to work?

I've been getting up early as well to chase away an obnoxious woodpecker who has taken up residence outside the house, and feed the goldfish in the outdoor pond. They were surviving just fine before we arrived, but I've taken a liking to the fish and now think of them as "pets." Although I have several projects that should take priority, this week I found myself pulling a camp chair next to a window and working on my Iditarod book. I figure I can probably finish quickly if I keep momentum, and it's going well. Fun project in an ideal setting. I'm stoked on life right now.

There were a couple of trips to town, but mostly I hung out in the mountains and loved it. I've felt hints of how living up here might become lonely, but it suits me. I made plans to have coffee with a couple of local journalists next week, and I have no doubt I'll start to meet folks on the trails. Hopefully I don't become too much of a hermit, but having scenic, private spaces to write and all these trails out my front door is ideal. Beat loves having his own space and a burly human-powered commute into work, plus he's enjoying his new job, so this is pretty much the dream.

Views from Walker Ranch. I enjoyed exploring all these new-to-me trails on foot, but I admit I have been pining for a long bike ride. It's difficult to guess when I'll be up for riding again, and that's frustrating. My hand has better dexterity and strength, but still a lot of numbness. Earlier this week I attempted to use two trekking poles to cross a few creeks, and felt electric shocks of pain from the pressure. I'm looking into getting this properly checked out and hoping a something magic like a cortisone shot will fix everything, but ugh.

It's funny how working on a memoir-type project helps me piece together specific details that I'd all but forgotten. While re-mapping the events of the first day of the ITI, I remembered a crash on the glare ice of the Skwentna River, about two miles from checkpoint two. I've convinced myself this crash is the likely culprit for this injury. A wind gust caught me off guard and washed out the rear wheel, and I landed directly on the palm of my right hand. Specifically, I remember now an electric shock of pain through my wrist, and the stem was knocked out of alignment. I put that crash out of my mind because there were (embarrassingly) so many others during the ITI. But it fits the profile of acute CTS, and explains why I had no issues at all until I arrived at Skwentna Roadhouse, where my right hand was suddenly and inexplicably numb (I'm generally very aware of my own physical discomforts, because I'm really quite a pansy when it comes to pain. There was no hint of numbness before that point, even a couple of hours earlier.)

Anyway, the cause of my injury isn't really important, but it seems an easier mystery to solve than finding the solution. A small storm moved in on Tuesday night, leaving a dusting of snow for a beautiful but brisk morning commute for Beat.

I admit I waited for the sun to warm up before heading out for my own run along Beat's main commuting corridor, Bear Canyon. Something about this trail — the steep sideslopes, boulder-choked stream crossings or power lines — reminded me so much of the Tour du Mont Blanc in Chamonix. Beat reminded me that the rocks and trees and pretty much everything looks quite different here, but I think it's uncanny.

I looped around to climb Fern Canyon, which is a mean route, just mean. The trail is more like a staircase of boulders and roots, ascending 2,100 feet in just 1.2 miles — average grade of 32 percent and a max of 60 percent. I'm already bogged down by the altitude, so I wheezed my way to a 57-minute mile (and two tenths) to ascend Bear Peak. If I make Fern Canyon a regular part of my afternoon routine, I figure I'll either finally achieve the mountain running fitness I've long desired, or blow up my lungs entirely. 

Selfie on top of Bear Peak. I took many selfies this week. I make no apologies. I'm just so excited to be physically present in this place.

I could see my house from the top! It did take some deep zooming in Photoshop to find it again in this photo.

One of Beat's colleagues from Mountain View was in town for a few days and came to check out Beat's new digs. Beat was excited to show off the self-designated camp spot on the property.

On Thursday a spring storm arrived, dropping a couple of inches of wet snow. I took the more direct route to Bear Peak, and found my new favorite six-mile "run." (Six miles is a common distance for me because it was generally what I could cover on my local California trails in one hour. It is going to take me a while to run any six miles out here in one hour. This run took 1:27.)

Friday brought a few more inches of snow. It was not quite the spring snowpocalypse we were promised, but I did have a great time splashing through slush puddles and dodging powder bombs from low-hanging branches. And yes, I had to re-create the bench selfie at Walker Ranch.

Of course, a late-April snow means it's colder inside as well as outside. The empty house becomes a bit chilly, so in addition to running ten miles to his brand new job, Beat has been busy teaching himself to use his new chainsaw, and gathering and splitting wood. I can't be of much help with my bad hand, sadly, and he hurt his back while using the ax. But we still prioritized firewood gathering.

This is what it looks like when Californians move to Colorado in the spring. I've spent the past month running in temperatures topping 90 degrees, so any cold acclimation I ever had is long gone. But Beat and I are both enjoying the nesting process in the snowy Rockies.
Monday, April 25, 2016

Eastward home

 I warned Beat that Los Altos to Boulder is a really long drive. I explained that I genuinely enjoy sitting in a vehicle for hours on end, sipping gas station coffee and watching empty landscapes roll by, but I don't expect many people share my ability to do this and not become painfully bored. I also reiterated the high potential for weather-related drama along the mountainous route, although by late April I thought the worst would be over. Google would have covered Beat's flight, but he insisted he wanted to join me on the land route. We planned a two-day blitz of I-80 with a layover day in Salt Lake to visit my folks.

Beat decided to document the driving journey. Friday morning, we said goodbye to our last Bay Area traffic jam(s.)

A large storm front was barreling east on top of us, and the morning deluges became snow at Donner Pass. Chain controls and more traffic. So much for minimal weather drama in late April.

 It kept getting worse. Secretly I wanted to pull off the highway at Castle Peak trailhead and go play in the wet powder. I didn't voice this desire to Beat, but I wondered ... if I was alone, would I have given in?

The hills outside Reno. I've never seen them this color — usually they're a dull shade of sienna.

Outside Wendover, Nevada, a road sign warned of crosswinds gusting to 75 mph. Weather drama was high as we dropped onto the wide-open Bonneville Salt Flats, where gusts rocked the car violently, tumbleweeds shot toward us like cannons, and visibility dropped to less than a single car length at times. It looked like a white-out, but we could hear something gritty pummeling the car. Was this a sand storm in the fog? When visibility improved a bit, we could see a ground blizzard of sorts streaming across the pavement. Beat asked, "is that snow?" The temperature outside was 74 degrees. "No, I think that's salt," I said. "I think that's all salt."

At least I wasn't riding a bike. A 75-mph crosswind salt storm would probably be even worse than Alaska's sea ice in a 30 mph headwind with 40 below windchills (maybe.)

The visit to Salt Lake was fairly noneventful. We had lunch with my sister and then went for a short, soggy run in Corner Canyon. We were hoping to hike Mount Olympus, but the weather discouraged anything ambitious — heavy rain in the hills, wind, and a snow line that dropped below 7,000 feet. We were effectively following this storm east.

So of course we continued to tail the storm on Sunday. We chose to follow it along I-80, which turned out to be the wrong decision. While I-70 enjoyed a relatively nice, dry day, we got slammed with heavy rain and sleet outside Rawlins, Wyoming. The highway had only just opened after being closed all morning, and there were trucks jack-knifed along the road as 50-mph crosswinds pummeled us. Beat was annoyed with me because I advocated heavily against I-70. I maintain that he wasn't there with me in November when a not-so-large storm resulted in being stuck in traffic for eight hours between Vail and Boulder.

We were relieved to finally reach Boulder on Sunday evening. The weather was calm, dry and pleasant when we arrived at our empty house in the hills. I imagine many people moving 1,300 miles away would pack a car with clothing, dishes and other essentials, but Beat and I crammed the Subaru with our five most favorite bicycles (The three titanium fat bikes, my beloved Mooto-X mountain bike, and Sworxy the Specialized Roubaix.) The moving van with a small apartment's worth of stuff doesn't arrive until next week, so we are camping out at home with an air mattress and REI camp chairs.

Today I went about the tasks of switching accounts over and picking up necessities (draining my checking account for a cart full of cleaning supplies was not the most fun shopping spree.) I had a couple of hours to venture outdoors on a jaunt from home to the summit of Green Mountain, which is only eight miles round trip. The altitude is a challenge — as usual, it feels like there is an invisible bag of bricks hanging off my shoulders and pressing into my chest as I attempt to run. My experience with moderate altitude (6,000+ feet) is that it continues to get worse for a while, and I haven't spent enough time at these altitudes to know when it gets better. One must assume it eventually will.

The permanence of this move also hasn't sunk in yet. It's strange to walk around a building and ponder what I might do with a space, as though it's my space. Today I stood on the rear balcony and watched animals play out a veritable musical of activity — chipmunks chirping as they chased each other, rabbits hopping through the grass, some kind of raptor swooping low, and birds collecting twigs near the backyard ponds that I just discovered contain koi fish. Just as I was thinking, "This is a nice place to visit," it occurred to me that I'm not visiting. It hasn't sunk in, though.

Still, there is much excitement. The things I look forward to most are exploring the local trails on foot, scheming big bike routes when I can finally ride again, starting on some art projects, and dragging these camp chairs out onto the balcony to write. I imagine somewhere in there we'll buy some furniture and start settling in. But first things first.
Thursday, April 21, 2016

I guess it's not surprising, but it's spring and I should leave

Packing, cleaning, doctor visits, one last run up Black Mountain. I wasn't really in the mood for any of it. Transitions inevitably build stress, and stress is bad for stoke. Temperatures were in the mid-80s, recent frolics through the grass left my face oozing with tears and snot, and my lung capacity was on the low side again. The parking lot was full at Rhus Ridge trailhead, which evoked a sigh of relief. "Guess it's not to be." Just as I moved to turn my car around, another car starting backing out.

Shuffling up the hot gravel fireroad, snot streaming everywhere, sunscreen leaking into my eyes. My stomach was irked after eating two apples, a quart of strawberries, an orange, some grape tomatoes, a bell pepper, and some ice cream for lunch (trying to clear out the fridge.) "It seems dumb to force this." Still, this strange sense of duty to my own nostalgia pulled me upward.

At the singletrack junction, gnarled oak trees and chaparral provided patches of shade. There was a stick in the trail that was actually a small rattlesnake, but by the time I realized this it was already too late to do anything but leap over it. My heart raced. I remembered reading somewhere that babies are the most volatile and most venomous rattlesnakes.

I was cooked at the summit, where I plopped down on a jagged rock outcropping that overlooks the redwood ridges and cloudy coast. Memories cycled back through orange sunsets, frosty evenings, the golden grass of summer, coastal fog pouring over these soft ridge lines, autumn skies in a bright cerulean hue that seems truly unique to California. Everyone needs a place like this — close to home, simple but not easy to reach, a place to visit frequently, to look out over familiar landscapes and see all the ways the world is simultaneously a big and small place, and time is both linear and cyclical.

Flying downhill, where the old fireroad drops off the ridge. Glittering buildings of the Silicon Valley sprawl out below, and grade is so steep that it looks like you're falling into it, arms outstretched and plunging toward the city.

My spirit was buoyed as I turned back onto the singletrack and leaned into switchbacks, kicking my feet to pick up speed, eyes scouting for poison oak and rattlesnakes. It was all going so well until my right foot came down at an inexplicably bad angle, rolling the ankle and tossing my body onto the gravel-strewn trail. Skiiiiiiid. Ow ow ow ow.

I popped up quickly, hunched over, then plopped back down on the trail so I could sit and moan until the initial impact wore off. It's been a bad week for running crashes. I've noticed recently that while the clumsy is always there, it becomes noticeably worse when I'm at a certain point in my hormonal cycle. I've heard other women call this the "dropsies," because they drop things like coffee mugs and plates. I drop my body.

Limping down the trail, blood oozing from my elbow and shin, and pain throbbing beneath new tears in my favorite tights. Still three miles to go. At least I tucked and didn't land on my bad hand, but this may possibly be my worst run to Black Mountain yet, after five years of running and biking to Black Mountain. I suppose it's fitting, for a break-up run. You know I'll always love you, Black Mountain.

Friday is the day we load up the Subaru with our favorite bicycles and head east on I-80 toward Boulder. We expect to arrive on Sunday night, and after that I'll have new backyard mountains to explore and fresh scars to remember Black Mountain.

So long, and thanks for all the views.