Wednesday, January 09, 2019

It's just life on Earth, part two

On the most disheartening days of the news cycle, I soothe myself with fantasies about bowing out of humanity. A little log cabin off the grid, deep in Interior Alaska. Living off a yearly mail drop of letters from loved ones, hardtack and butter. No Internet. All of my energy will be spent just trying to survive. It's not that I want to leave this world. I love this world. It's possible that I love this world more than life, which evokes guilt about my selfish existence. But the thing is, I also love life — fiercely, zealously, all the way to its hard edges. I'm not particularly blessed with hard-woman skills, just desire. I'd be the type who would fall and break a bone while gathering firewood, and freeze to death on tundra. So maybe I'll rethink this fantasy. Still, it's not the worst way to go. At least I'd be minerals to give back to the land I love most. 

By morning, the air inside Caribou Bluff cabin was three-liters-of-water-is-now-half-frozen degrees. Outside it was -18F. Beat got the wood stove going and the 10-by-12-foot interior soon warmed. We poured boiled snow over instant oatmeal with a dollop of peanut butter — the kind of food that seems sort of gross when you're packing for a trip, but by the time you return home, the warm memories linger and you wish you could eat only this.

We already knew the trail dead-ended beyond the cabin, but wanted to head out for a day trip. Beat suggested exploring the Fossil Gap Trail, which on this day was just an idea on a map. We set out a little before 11 a.m., when there still wasn't enough daylight to capture non-blurry photos while walking. This didn't stop me from trying. Deathly still air drained the warmth from my fingers, as though I'd plunged my bare hand into ice water. The sensation was exhilarating.

Fossil Gap is one of few trails left in the White Mountains that I have yet to explore. As one of the most remote trails, Fossil Gap is almost never broken out, and it's a long way to go to find out there's no trail to follow. Tracing the route on my GPS, it was clear that the first mile or two of the trail didn't just parallel Fossil Creek; it actually overlapped it. The creek was the trail. And having not been broken out before, we'd be forced to feel out untested ice.


I'm strongly afraid of river travel (yes, Fossil Creek is a creek in Alaska, but if this waterway was located in Colorado, it would be designated as a river.) Such travel becomes exponentially scarier at temperatures lower than -20F. But there were a few reasons we decided to test these waters. We both dream of potentially more remote expeditions in Alaska, where winter river navigation would be a necessary skill. Fossil Creek is never that deep, so the chance of a catastrophic collapse was small, and even if we broke in above our knees, there were two of us to help each other. We brought along all the necessary safety gear for a quick warm-up if needed. We both wore water-repellent overboots. Beat took the lead, gently tapping the ice with his poles, listening for hollow sounds. If we saw caribou tracks we used them, reasoning that caribou weigh a bit more than us, and the surface area of each hoof is much smaller than our snowshoe-clad feet.

It was going well until we encountered a log jam. Looking for a way around, Beat veered too close to the shore and broke through a brittle layer of ice into shin-deep water. From my stance it looked worse than it was, and I froze in panic as he continually crashed into the slush while trying to step onto a more solid shelf. I was in full deer-in-headlights mode, waiting for the entire creek to swallow both of us. All of the blood drained from my extremities, and my knees felt weak. My overreaction would have been comical if it didn't bode so poorly for handling such situations in the future. Finally I stammered, "What can I do to help?" Beat found solid purchase and pulled his sled through the water and onto the ice. "Go around," he replied.

I found a way through the log jam as Beat brushed instantly-formed icicles from his legs. The overboots kept his feet dry, and he wanted to continue. I was boiling with fear-induced adrenaline and just wanted to keep moving in any direction. I remembered the importance of building good decision-making skills and tried to bite back my fear. We continued another half mile until we encountered a river-wide lead, where we could hear water gurgling underneath paper-thin ice. The alders along each shoreline were exceptionally thick, and the ice lining the shore sounded hollow enough that trying to bridge a way around the lead would not be trivial.

"Let's turn around!" I suggested all too eagerly. Beat was not convinced. This was a problem he might need to solve for real someday. He stood pondering for several minutes before agreeing with me that portaging a sled while wearing hip waders was just a little too complex for a day hike.

As we slowly retraced our steps, adrenaline and minus-20 air was draining all of the life from my blood, so I distracted myself with my 2018 theme song thought experiment. One of the songs that got me through my march to McGrath earlier in the year was "Lead, S.D." by Manchester Orchestra. Beyond the appropriate images the lyrics evoked during a three-day span where it rarely stopped snowing, there was a strange sort of hopeful longing amid the hopelessness.

The snow is piling up, our temporary grid. 
It was just like this, this time last year. 
There's nothing in the wind, just white up to the trees, 
And it's been that way for eternity.

I gazed north across the cusp of a wilderness that remained more or less unbroken all of the way to the Arctic Ocean, and thought that perhaps a better Manchester Orchestra song to encapsulate the year would be "Simple Math."

What if we’ve been trying to get to where we’ve always been? 
What if we’ve been trying to get to where we’ve always been? 
Simple math, believe me, all is brilliant. 
What if we've been trying to kill the noise and silence?

We reached the Caribou Bluff trail junction, and Beat asked me if I wanted to hike back a ways on our trail from the previous day. Of course I did, as the sun was still "high" in the sky, it was a beautiful clear afternoon, and we'd only walked about three miles so far. But I'd spent all of my energy in one big burst of fear. My adrenals were empty, and I felt more exhausted than I had after all of the 30 miles we hiked the previous day.

Still, beauty and intrigue will always win over fatigue in my world. We marched back across the valley and climbed the bluff dividing the Fossil Creek and Beaver Creek drainages. This climb always feels like a crux during the White Mountains 100 — arriving after sunrise for my foot races, and around sunset for most of my bike years. My ego prodded me with dreams of a brilliant foot race in 2019, if only I can hold off the usual slump and train my way to a modicum of speed. "I want to be here well before dawn, in the dark," I thought. The speedy delusion filled my tired legs with energy.

Beat, who is planning to walk to Nome again, was perfectly in his element. In many ways, the Iditarod Trail is his remote cabin in the woods — the place where he goes to escape the trappings of modern life and focus on simple survival for a month out of the year. It's enough for him, at least for now.

Meanwhile, I was back to ruminating on how I might carve a place for myself in the modern world. I spent the first decade of my working life climbing a ladder into a building that was burning down, and the second sitting in a corner trying to turn an ethereal passion into something tangible. Now I'm entering the third decade, and what now?

I’m a little bit stuck right now. I feel like all I can be is either a low-wage laborer or a writer. But I’ve grown weary of the hustle, generating content in exchange for money. For similar income I’m content to seek out something more secure and mundane, like my copyediting work. If I come into need for more income, I’d happily return to full-time work with whomever will hire me. Work is work. The random things that others might pay me to do have never defined me. Although I admit, copyediting small-town newspapers has become uniquely meaningful. I can still play a tiny role in the dissemination of important information to communities — a service that I greatly value, and that is so swiftly decaying I can’t bear to look anymore. Maybe this is why I'm stuck. Watching journalism die is all I’ve done for my entire career.

All I ever wanted out of life was Truth. As the years pass, all of the truths I grew up with, and those I strived and struggled to discover, even those I believed to be immutable, have only continued to erode. No longer do people not know what is real and what isn’t real — they don’t even care. Everything about life is a story, and it’s becoming clear that we’re all just grasping at light and air, inventing our own truths.


“Be the change you want to see in the world.” But I can’t save the White Mountains from climate change any more than I can save the Utah desert from the desperate enterprises of late-stage capitalism. The current political climate has made it obvious that humans are willing to destroy anything and everything for almost nothing at all. I suppose I’ve given in to despair, but it’s hard to come back from that … like standing on the rising stern of the Titanic with a bucket and thinking, “Well, I guess I could try bailing.”

Phew. This thought thread was not taking me to good places. I decided to blame crankiness caused by empty adrenals and shut it down with a few peanut butter cups and more longing gazes to the north. We were heading back the cabin as the sun was setting, which meant we'd been walking all day, even if the day was only about four hours long. I returned to singing "Simple Math" in my head.

What if I was wrong and you had never questioned it? 
What if it was true, that all we thought was right, was wrong? 
Simple math, the truth cannot be fractioned. 
I imply, I've got to get it back then.

After lunch — instant mashed potatoes in a bag, which is another disgusting food that I'd find myself remembering lovingly while surrounded by fresh fruits and vegetables in brightly lit Colorado grocery stores — we set out for a twilight stroll along the rocky spine that divides Fossil Creek Valley and Limestone Gulch. Beat was wearing his down booties and I didn't bother to pull on a face mask or mittens. It was still -21F.


Our stroll was thusly short, although we both regretted not dressing better for more extensive explorations. One last time, we returned to the little 10-by-12-foot public-use cabin nestled in the most compelling setting imaginable, equal parts fairytale and dystopia. Salmon-colored clouds reflected the light of a sun we again didn't see, and the frosted valley was a surreal shade of ocean blue. I may not have found my place within humanity or away from it, but a spot like this is nearly the perfect bridge. 
Sunday, January 06, 2019

It's just life on Earth, part one

For the past 10 years, the last image I see at night, in those seconds of viscous limbo between consciousness and sleep, is nearly always the same. It's midnight in the boreal forest, with frosted trees rendered in silver beneath the moonlight. A black figure creeps along the edges and passes into an illuminated spot of light in the foreground: A lynx, with muscled shoulders and shimmering blue-tinted fur, looks up to reveal the depths of its sea-green eyes. This is where the flickering dream ends. Sometimes I startle awake and remember the incandescent clarity of those eyes, and this fills me with longing. 

After several years of mostly playing around during our holiday training trips to Fairbanks, we've finally established a schedule that will better prepare us for the rigors of the Iditarod Trail (which Beat races every year, and I race some years while feeling too unprepared or unfit or burnt out to sign up for the others, but end up wishing I was racing anyway.) Thanks to Beat's tireless efforts and a 2 a.m. alarm for most of the nights spanning the last week of November, we'd booked five nights straight in the White Mountains. From Dec. 26 to 31, we'd be off the grid with no supplied source of water, heat or electricity, seeking shelter in tiny log cabins accessible only by winter trail, at times more than 30 miles from the nearest road. We hedged our bets with some conservative bookings, but our hopeful plan would take us more than a 100 miles through the subzero wilderness, dragging sleds weighing upwards of 60 pounds.

I had done no specific training for this journey. I realize, as I near 40, that I really can't get away this anymore. My base level of strength is not that strong. Dragging a weighted sled while battling the resistance of soft snow requires more power than my muscles can easily give. I now understand that a spring and summer full of leg presses, squats, deadlifts, etc. at the gym, towing my 70-pound cart on dirt roads, and other tedious weight-bearing exercises are 100 percent necessary if I ever want to pursue my "ultimate challenge" of walking to Nome.

For now, even a hundred miles over five days was daunting. My quads ached following our little trip to Colorado Creek, and my hamstrings cramped up while I climbed a set of stairs during our one day off, Christmas Day. I felt anxious as we drove toward Wickersham Dome in the ominous darkness of 9 a.m. — not about the cold, remoteness or self-sufficiency of the days ahead, but about my the state of my sad little legs that hurt so badly back in March.

The temperature was a few degrees below zero when we set out at 9:30, clicking our headlamps off just a few minutes later to soak in the deep violet light of a lazy dawn. The forecast called for overcast skies and light winds, so I expected a long gray march where day wasn't all that distinguishable from night. We planned to walk 30 miles to Caribou Bluff cabin. Beat set a brisk pace from the start, and I alternated my fastest walking pace and slow jogging to keep up. That walking pace is murder for my IT bands, and the jogging feels like trying to run across the shallow end of a swimming pool. This was going to be a long 30 miles.

We dropped into the Wickersham Creek Valley, where the snowpack was so thin that it didn't even bury low-lying crowberry patches in the swamps. Frost-coated needles with berries still attached poked out of pillows of snow, an eerie apparition of summers' past. I thought back to the many times I've crossed this valley. How many? I'm not sure I could even count. The number of miles I've traveled in Alaska's White Mountains must be more than a thousand by now ... perhaps even closer to 1,500. This valley is so familiar to me, and yet still so alien. I've never seen it in the summertime.

Happy memories briefly removed my mind's focus from sore legs, the tug of an unreasonably heavy sled against my shoulders, and the thumping of my heart as I tried to catch Beat on a long straightaway. The temperature was -11F with a light breeze, which I only felt in more open areas. The frosted forest reflected strange hues of pink and turquoise, but when I looked toward the sky for hints of sunlight, all I saw was gray.


Morning imperceptibly trickled into afternoon, and then dusk. I'd landed on the perfect ratio of strenuous effort and tough-but-not-technical terrain to achieve steady flow state, and had peacefully zoned out for some time. Long minutes passed, perhaps hours, before my reverie was broken by an errant epiphany ...

"That's what my problem is! Mid-life crisis!"

Wait, what? Where did that come from? Conscious again of my aching quads and gnawing hunger, I popped a handful of trail mix in my mouth and scoured my short-term memory. The faded daydream didn't reveal itself. Was I thinking about how I don't really want to be a writer, because trying to pursue one's passion in exchange for money isn't actually that great of an idea? Was I having that fantasy about going back to work in the bagel shop again? A daydream about returning to the jobs I had when I was 16 or 17 years old is often the first weird idea that pops into my head when I ruminate on a certain upcoming birthday. I really don't want to be the type who frets about meaningless milestones, but I was rather neurotic about turning 30. Why should 40 be any different?

Every minute of rumination about the lost source of my epiphany brought more heaviness to my legs. I needed to shut this down. "Be Brave" by Modest Mouse came up on my iPod, and I cycled back to flickering memories evoked by music. "This is the theme song for 2015," I thought. Having somewhat randomly chosen "Be Brave" to represent all of 2015, I resolved to revisit every year of my life that I could remotely remember, and pick a theme song. At least this would pass the time.

2016? "Dressed in Black" by Sia. 2014? "Ends of the Earth" by Lord Huron. 

The sky dulled to a charcoal gray, only to become lighter when darkness revealed the distant lights of Fairbanks — the "Southern Lights" as we've referred to them before. Light pollution reflected from the overcast sky, illuminating the white landscape until frosted spruce branches glittered, just like my reoccurring dream. I felt safe. Calm. We passed Borealis cabin. Eighteen miles in. This distance felt like a lot, and nothing at all. "Want to keep going?" Beat asked. "I'm feeling pretty good," I nodded.

2007? "Chicago" by Sufjan Stevens. 2005? Definitely "Gray Ice Water" by Modest Mouse. 

Beyond Borealis, the trail narrowed to a single, punchy snowmobile track. We were lucky to have that, as a couple driving a snowmachine out of the Wickersham Valley stopped and told us they were the ones who had Caribou Bluff over Christmas, and had broken fresh trail the whole way out there. We were glad for their trail, but conditions were still significantly softer and more strenuous than before. My hamstrings started to cramp with every other calf-straining step. The bluff over Fossil Creek climbed interminably. There was no inversion here, and the temperature didn't rise at all. 

2002? "What Never Dies" by Sense Field. 2000? "Tomorrow Tomorrow" by Elliot Smith. 

Finally we strapped on snowshoes. Specks of white flickered in my headlamp, and I wondered if it would snow much. 

1995? Has to be "Ghost" by Clover. 1991? Ha! "Silent Lucidity" by Queensryche. 1990? (big toothy grin) "Hold On" by Wilson Phillips. 1986? That song from the Fievel movie. What was it ... An American Tail? "Somewhere Out There!" 

And there I was, dragging my snowshoe-laden feet through sugary snow in the Alaska wilderness, dredging up any memory real or fake that I could summon from second grade, feeling giddy with little-girl silliness and singing to myself: 

"And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby 
It helps to think we're sleeping underneath the same big sky ..."

Take that, mid-life crisis.

During all of these long meanders down the darkest corridors of memory lane, I couldn't come up with a song for 2018. Everything was just too fresh, a barrage of images, too many to abridge. I decided this would be my goal for the trek — to come up with a 2018 theme song, and also to figure out the solution to this so-called mid-life crisis. If only my sad little legs could walk that long.

We climbed the last steep pitch to Caribou Bluff just after 8:30 p.m., for 11 more or less nonstop hours of laboring like a pack animal. A few stars twinkled to the north, evidence that the sky was clearing. We'd checked the junctions of Fossil Creek and Fossil Gap trails, and no trails had been broken beyond the couple's single track to the cabin. We knew we were alone out there, and that clear skies promised deepening cold. We weren't sure what tomorrow would bring. For now, all we needed to do was attend to our basic needs — fire, drinking water, dinner, and sleep. If only life was always this simple. 
Thursday, January 03, 2019

Windswept paradise


I'm beginning to think my friends don't believe me when I insist that the Far North in wintertime is my version of heaven. That if somehow consciousness goes on after death, mine will reside here, on the snow-covered tundra under the incandescent light of a low-angle sun. And it will be cold, too — so cold the air chimes, silence echoes from miles distant, and I'll know the peace and clear-minded lucidity I find only in fleeting moments here on Earth. 

Heaven for the soul can be hell for the body, but you see, this hellishness is what gives weight to the wonder. There can't be light without darkness. No joy without grief. No ecstasy without pain. If the yin and yang doesn't extend into eternity, and if there really is some sort of afterlife that involves sitting and singing on comfortable, climate-controlled clouds forever and ever, that would be my version of hell.


For our annual Christmastime trip to Fairbanks, Beat and I booked two trips in the White Mountains. Usually we visit the Magical Land of Tolovana Hot Springs for our first overnighter, but the availability was limited to one night although we were required to pay for two, and the costs have skyrocketed in the past few years. It seemed unreasonable, so I argued that "Colorado Creek is just as fun." Sure, there aren't any hot springs in which to frostnip one's scalp while scalding the nether regions, but you can't beat the price. Or the setting.


The route to Colorado Creek starts at the Tolovana River — one of the lowest spots in the region, where dense cold air settles in for a long winter's nap. Lows were forecast to hit 20 below overnight, which is mild for the Fairbanks of yore, but still a harsh introduction for our first night of the trip (we arrived at the Fairbanks airport at 11 p.m. Friday, grocery shopped for eight days' worth of trail food, slept a few hours, woke up early to unpack all of the gear as Beat re-built the sleds, repacked our gear, drove two hours north on a snow-packed and frost-heaved Elliot Highway, and hit the trail around 12:30 p.m. Saturday.)


From its start at the Tolovana River, the Colorado Creek Trail features 14 miles of gradual but infernally noticeable climbing. Snowpack is low for this time of year, and the trail was coated in packed but slippery sugar snow that barely masked the tussocks. Beat had been suffering mightily from our Death Cold less than week earlier, and had so recently recovered that I wondered if this first trip would happen. He felt better but was still dragging, enough so that I could almost keep up with him ... almost. Darkness came early, and it would have been jarring if I wasn't already jet-lagged from sleeping about three hours the previous night.

It was Dec. 22, when the sun peeks over the horizon south of Fairbanks at 10:58 a.m. and slumps into a spot slightly farther west at 2:40 p.m., for three hours at 41 minutes of daylight. What often is discounted is civil twilight, which begins at 9:30 a.m., ends at 4 p.m., and is arguably every bit as useful to an outdoor recreationalist as the subtle sunlight. I'd argue for a full seven hours in which headlamps aren't necessary. An abundance of light!

It's also interesting to note that the Colorado Creek trailhead, which is only about 50 miles north of Fairbanks, received nearly 20 minutes less daylight on that date. The invisible line marking the Arctic Circle, less than 150 miles north of the trailhead, saw only a few seconds of the tiniest sliver of sunlight. Degrees of latitude really matter up here.


We arrived at the cabin a little before 6 p.m., which felt more like 10 p.m., and went about the usual cabin chores: Starting a fire in the wood stove, firing up the white gas stoves to quickly melt snow, stringing all of our ice-crusted gear on clothes lines, chopping firewood (this cabin had a bunch left behind, which is always a incredible boost in places where the only sources of deadwood can be a half mile away or more), and rehydrating dinner: Hot chocolate and a bag of something mushy and bland but simple and hot, which is what matters. We crawled into sleeping bags and I spent a couple of hours scrolling through my Kindle, not landing on anything terribly interesting to me right now. I felt worked but was actively trying not to doze off. I'm one of those night-circadium-rhythm people who can't easily shift to early bedtime. I will wake up in a few hours and, like a child who took a nap at the wrong time, remain awake and grumpy for the rest of the night.


We slumped out of the sleeping bags a little before 7 a.m. Sunday morning, which looked like 2 a.m. but felt like a bizarre version of late day. Having let the stove go out overnight, the air was frosty inside the cabin and my hydration bladder was partially frozen. Most of the muscles in my upper legs ached, and my lower back was stiff. Blame that one on poor sled-specific fitness. The last time I even strapped on a sled was the fateful March 18 trip to Eleazars cabin. This last experience so destroyed me that I nearly swore off the notion of dragging a sled ever again. These resolutions never last, but selective memory did help me forget the level of strenuousness, especially in uneven, soft, and entirely uphill trail conditions.


We had Colorado Creek cabin a second night, so our Dec. 23 plan was a day trip up the nonexistent Big Bend trail, climbing a wide and weather-exposed ridge. The wind here blows incessantly, so even if a trail was broken, it would be gone the next day. We packed slightly lighter sleds — carrying most of our gear as a safety buffer, but leaving the food behind — and hiked into the slowly awakening dawn.

The temperature was -4F, but as soon as we climbed above the thin strip of forest protecting the cabin, we were blasted by 20-30mph winds. The worst gusts put the windchill around -33F, which is solidly in the panic zone. Beat and I both strongly believe that folks who declare that "windchill doesn't count" have never actually spent much time in the wind. Windchill is all. It's fairly simple to hide from an ambient temperature of -33F — an extra layer often does it. The body's bubble of warmth stays in place beneath insulation. I've moved comfortably for hours at -35F or -40F, although I'm never mentally comfortable when it's that cold.


Windchill, on the other hand, is sinister in its razor precision. It can cut into even the tightest protections, and finds every weakness in one's system. Wind pulls warmth away from the body constantly. If one doesn't have the energy to continuously regenerate core heat, it becomes more troubling much more quickly than similar ambient temperatures. I've never been comfortable in subzero windchill, although I can manage it with care.

It's still early in the winter, and I was lax about my care. My experience is rusty, and I need to re-learn these lessons all over again. I'd neglected to put on goggles. With my hat pulled all the way down and wind-proof buff pulled up to my eyelashes, I could barely see through the thin slit but still ended up with a frostnip scab on my right cheek. Beat with his wolverine fur ruff wasn't comfortable, either. He's spent long blocks of time in ambient temperatures near -50F, and still agrees with me that windchill is worse.

In our snowshoes we punched through brittle crust into shin-deep sugar snow, step after laborious step. Beat was breaking trail, but if I fell more than fifty meters behind him, his snowshoe prints were almost gone by the time I went through. Spindrift obliterated the trail faster than we could make it. I felt uncomfortable on the cusp of being recklessly chilled. Every passing minute was an internal battle over a simple decision — whether pausing to put on more layers was worth the shivery cold that would overtake my body if I stopped at all. Past experience has taught me that it is *always* better to stop, but it's still a difficult thing to accept.

After what turned out to be less than three miles in two hours, the wooden tripods delineating the trail shot up a steep slope through a tangle of alders and knee-deep sugar. The route was nearly impassable — it could probably be done if it had to be done, but for an optional side trip, it strongly tipped the scales toward silliness. We stopped to finally add a few more layers. I put on a primaloft jacket over my wind fleece, and a pair of knee warmers that always add a surprisingly robust amount of warmth for eight-inch tubes of fabric. I felt a little better, but I was glad we were headed back. The trail we broke was fully obliterated by the time we turned around. The wind, which had always been a crosswind, was even more disconcertingly in our face. Turning around made me realize how numb my butt had become. It's a large chunk of flesh that would take a long time to actually freeze, but the sensation is still alarming.

We returned to the cabin at high noon — which is to say just before 1 p.m., when the lazy sun reached its highest point on the horizon. A thick layer of blowing snow over mountains to the south had hidden the orb all day, and we never saw a hint of direct sunlight. Still, it was early. We rehydrated Idahoan mashed potatoes in the bag for lunch. We debated going back out. I was just barely beginning to warm up again and felt demotivated, but I also recognize what a rare opportunity it is to visit such a moonscape at the metaphorical edge of the world. Also, the idea of spending the next 18 hours laying around in my sleeping bag did not appeal.

So I went in the opposite direction and heavily overdressed: all three of my jackets with the down parka stuffed in a backpack for safety. Primaloft overboots on top of my shoes and three pairs of socks. Primaloft shorts and knee warmers. A windproof balaclava over my hat and buff. We left the sleds behind as we planned to snowshoe for 90 minutes tops, heading further out the blown-in but slightly more distinguishable trail toward Wolf Run cabin. The temperature had dipped a little, closer to -8F, but the wind lost some strength in the forest. The air felt significantly warmer.


With my body's equilibrium back to normal, my mind broke away from physiological tunnel vision. Finally, both were free to explore this vast landscape. The way the mind wanders out here is unique, and something I hope to further explore in my posts about the second trip (insert pre-emptive navel-gazing alert here.) The afternoon light, rendered in rich pastels and softened by blowing snow, was surreal. Frost-crusted spruce trees swayed in the wind, looking a little like dancing skeletons and adding to the otherworldliness of this place. We followed the drainage of Colorado Creek itself, wending toward the Limestone Jags. My butt was still slightly numb, but my heart was at peace.


When we returned to the cabin, we were surprised to see our friend Eric. He had told us he might come out, but he was also sick with a cold, and trail conditions had not been all that conducive to fun biking. But he loaded up his panniers and rode out anyway, and we had a fun night of low-level cabin partying with ice cream cones, a big bottle of Fireball and more warm mush in bags.

The hike out was mostly uneventful. Temperatures dropped to -16F, but the wind had been reduced to a gentle breeze, so it felt more or less like summer. Eric passed us about three miles out after battling through thick drifts on the ridge, and likely zoomed the rest of the way out, as wind-polishing had also hardened the lower trail significantly since two days earlier. Beat found the iPod Shuffle that I dropped on the way out, and there was much rejoicing, since the small Shuffles aren't manufactured anymore, and are worth more than gold to me. My hamstrings were cramping on the descent, which seemed like a bad sign for our big trip coming up, but I chose not to dwell on it. It was Christmas Eve. The low sun set without shedding a hint of direct light on us. I never wanted to leave.