Last days of innocence — day eight

March 9, 2020. Nikolai, Alaska. 7 degrees and partly cloudy.

I must have had a good dream during the night, because when I awoke on the floor of the Nikolai community center, bruised legs and torso sprawled well beyond the edge of my sleeping pad, I was brimming with optimism.  
 

"Today's going to be a good day," I thought as I sat up and barely missed bashing my scalp on the table I'd been sleeping underneath. "Just 50 more miles to McGrath, probably by noon tomorrow, most of a day and night to convalesce, then just do the 18 to Takotna, then Ophir, and hopefully by the time I need to sleep outside, the 40 below will be done.”  
 

Of course, I couldn’t prevent my calendar from creeping into this hopeful schedule. The “calendar” was something I’d formulated in the comfort of my home several weeks earlier, with projected progress based on my limited conception of blazing fast trail on the Northern Route in 2016. I printed the tally on a sheet of waterproof paper and carried it in my backpack. If today was March 9, then I wouldn’t leave McGrath until the morning of March 11. Leaving Ophir on the 13th probably wouldn’t put me in Ruby until the 16th or 17th, and that was if I was able to blaze through the Interior. After that, I’d be in Kaltag on the 21st, Unalakleet on the 23rd, White Mountain on the 29th, and Nome on the 31st. March 31 was the absolute cut-off for officially finishing this race, and also so late in the season that it seemed likely the trail would be well into the process of melting underneath me. And this was the best-case scenario, only possible if I was able to consistently travel 35 miles a day and endure short camps wherever I happened to collapse, rather than enjoying restful stays in villages. 

 Why, oh why, did I ever decide it would be a good idea to walk to Nome? 

 Unconsciousness was good for optimism. Everything else had the opposite effect. Laying back down so I could roll myself all of the way out of my bag, I initiated the daily struggle just to rise and stand on two feet without buckling from leg fatigue and muscle soreness. Faint violet light shone through small windows overhead. I'd again slept until daylight. I don’t know why I kept doing that, because I certainly did not have the luxury of time on my side. I suppose I thought one of these nights, sleep would actually enable recovery, and I’d be able to move well for once. But in reality the snow was still deep, the trail still soft, the temperatures still plummeting. The miles would never become easier. Ever. 

 Pushing this waking pessimism aside, I packed up my things and walked over to the kitchen to greet the volunteer, George, who was cleaning up behind the counter. Beat had raved about the French toast at this checkpoint, and I’d looked forward to a plate of sweet gooey carbs for breakfast. 

George looked up and said, “Give me a second. We’re leaving on the 9 o’clock flight, so we have to clear out.” 

 I looked at the clock. It was a little before 8 a.m. “Oh, we gotta leave? Okay!” I stood up groggily and walked to the back of the room to gather the rest of my clothing. 

 “You can stay, no problem” George said. “We just need to catch our flight. You want some burgers? We have a couple left.” 

 George handed me a plate with two cold veggie burgers and cheese, no buns. He briefly took the plate back to add a scoop of hashbrowns, also cold. 

“Sorry, that’s all we have left.” 

 “It’s great!” I grabbed the plate and started chowing down. Honestly, I didn’t really care. I’d looked forward to French toast but this was still calories and every bit as useful. The Kiwi cyclists, George and Graham, were on their way out the door, and took the rest of the Oreos out of a nearly empty Costco-sized box. I eyed this greedily, as I’d hoped to take some cookies for trail snacks. Even though I’d packed every single item from my Rohn drop bag, my own calorie supply was still  running predictably thin. That's when I noticed a discarded sleeve with about five Oreos, partially crushed and lying on the edge of the table. I took them. 

 In hindsight, I feel guilty for scavenging these last morsels. As I finished up my burgers, it dawned on me that the food was gone and volunteers were leaving. There were still a number of racers making their way into Nikolai: Kari, Mark, Klaus, Nina and Cheryl, Loreen, Donald, the two military guys from California, and possibly a few more. A couple of ITI checkpoints have established cut-offs, but this one did not. It’s certainly not the volunteers’ fault that this had been such a slow year for so many of us — Nick had been languishing in Nikolai for nearly week at this point — but if the race directors knew they'd need to shut everything down at 7 days and 18 hours, they should have disclosed that much before the start. It would be rather awful, as a back-of-pack racer battling for every mile, to cross 75 miles of Farewell Burn and arrive here expecting food and shelter, only to find the ITI had cleared out and sled dog race volunteers had taken over the space. The ITI race director has since apologized that it turned out this way — he also was surprised to learn that there was no food left over for the remaining racers. Three of them would end up scratching in Nikolai. Their reasons were unrelated to the lack of support, although I doubt arriving to an abandoned checkpoint was good for morale.

I headed out a few minutes in front of the volunteers. The sun was just beginning to cast pink light over the horizon at 8:45, and the temperature was still surprisingly warm — 7 degrees.

“The cold hasn’t found me yet,” I thought. “Maybe it won’t come.”

 I had hoped the trail would set up overnight, but the surface was just as soft as messy as ever, even through the center of town. These “streets” were all soft-churn and ankle-twisting ruts. I stubbornly refused to put on my snowshoes until I’d slogged a mile and a half to the point where the trail veered onto the Kuskokwim River, and then reluctantly conceded that snowshoes were necessary. No doubt I’d remain stuck in these foot-torture devices until McGrath. I wondered how many miles I’d end up snowshoeing. Probably at least 200 of these first 300 miles.

 Nick passed on his bike shortly after I’d stumbled to my feet again. He was in a great mood, finally on the move again, riding surprisingly well over the choppy trail, and clearly excited about his journey to Nome. Nick is the type of guy who makes everything look easy and you kind of resent him for it, but you also admire his smooth approach and laid-back attitude toward any difficulty. He’s the type of person you’d probably choose if you had to be stuck with one person on a deserted island … or, you know, quarantined during a pandemic.

Nick quickly faded into the distance. I knew this was the last I’d see him on the trail. A handful of people left Nikolai a few hours before me, and Lars and at least one other person remained at the checkpoint when I left, but I figured I’d be alone for the remaining miles to McGrath. I turned on podcasts of soothing voices that my addled mind could only process as unintelligible white noise, and slipped into a drone-like state of mandatory motion. My memories for the entire rest of the daylight hours only register as robotic awareness of decisions that needed to be made and occasional consciousness of pain. Which is to say, most of my memories of the day are not happy, but they’re mercifully limited.

 

Shortly before sunset — always my favorite time of day — my brain came back online. A couple of hours earlier I’d rounded the bend at Big River — one of the few decisions my robot mind needed to register that day — and opted for the overland trail. About 25 miles from McGrath, the trail forks into two routes. The Iditarod Sled Dog Race follows the river, but there's also an overland trail that locals typically use, so it can have better conditions. I’d traveled the river three times and overland once; they're about the same distance. When I arrived at the fork, both trails looked equally choppy and terrible, so I viewed the decision as a wash. But most ITI racers had taken the overland trail, so I followed this route.

 I climbed away from Big River and started to make my way across open swamps that were smothered with ten feet of snow. I could tell, because the wood tripods marking the route — which stand ten feet tall on bare ground — were little more than six-inch fans of sticks, barely jutting out of the surface. The trail itself was only as wide as a single snowmobile with a hip-high berm on both sides. It was a strangely claustrophobic situation, to be trapped in this snow tunnel amid such expansive open space. The landscape was a patchwork of soft white and jagged black, snow-covered swamps and spruce forest. The setting sun cast a golden glow, but a deepening chill defied the warm light. Wind, which cut through the background white noise as a sharp breeze, intensified to an icy gale. The arrival of real cold is probably what jolted me out of my stupor. Okay, Jill, you really need to pay attention.

 I’d been alone for nearly twelve hours and 30 miles when I finally encountered another human. They were hunched next to a small cusp of trees surrounded by open swamp. The wind blew fiercely, and the temperature had dropped to 4 below. I arrived to find Amber packing up her sled and frantically spooning freeze-dried food from a bag. She told me she stopped to melt snow because she ran out of water, and heated up some food while she was at it. Chili Mac. She offered me a bite, but the thought of stopping long enough to shovel food in my mouth was unappealing, so I declined. She looked a bit frazzled, and told me she felt cold. She asked the temperature, and seemed disappointed when I told her it was minus 4.

 “It feels a lot colder because of this wind,” I said. “It's been dropping like a rock, though. It’s probably going to get a lot colder tonight. I still think I’ll stop, somewhere up there, if I find a good wind-protected spot. I’m fading and don’t think I’ll make it to McGrath in one push.”

Amber said she was going to try to keep going, and I agreed that was probably a better plan. I wondered if I could just turn my robot mind back on and march onward in a stupor, but a larger part of me wanted to try to camp in these conditions. It was going to be cold the next night, and the night after that, and probably the night after that. I needed to prove to myself that I could manage it.

The sun set and the wind raged. Within a matter of hours, blowing snow buried the trail in knee-deep drifts. The temperature dropped to 7 below, and then 9 below. The windchill was unreal. When I punched across these drifted swamps at an unbearably slow and difficult pace, the crosswind battered my body and rattled my nerves until I feared I was on the verge of uncontrolled panic. I felt trapped with nowhere to hide. The trail entered a slough, and for several miles was constantly exposed to the wind. I fought the encroaching panic until my adrenaline tanked. The crash was slow but palpable, and resulted in fatigue so deep that I could hardly breathe. I felt helpless and frightened. 

The trail veered to the south to cross several small lakes. These areas were wide open, with only shallow berms. The windblown trail was almost completely obscured. Every step through the sandy powder was so laborious that I felt like I was swimming. I was swimming to exhaustion, swimming to keep my head above the water. Swimming just to survive.

 “Next hill, I have to stop. I just have to,” I thought. 

 After crossing a fourth lake, the trail jutted steeply up a slope lined with the stick skeletons of burned trees. I believed I was just a couple of miles from Vanderpool Road, which wasn’t maintained in the winter but would probably have some well-packed and wind-protected spots to camp. But two miles felt as daunting as 200 miles at that point in the cold, windy night. My limited cognitive function had conjured a daydream about a nice nest dug into a tree well, protected from the wind, soft and cozy. 

Near the top of the hill I spotted a potential spot underneath the thick branches of a gnarled spruce tree. I stepped off the trail and — whoosh — I plunged into a quicksand-like powder hole that swallowed most of my body. The sensation was as startling as though I’d plunged through ice into deep water. Immediately I panicked and thrashed wildly. Snow pushed under my balaclava and stung the sensitive skin around my neck. I thrashed some more, and I could feel cold water dripping down my seemingly naked back. I threw two arms onto the ribbon of packed trail and kicked my way out of the hole. Still attached to my overturned sled and now somewhat tangled in my harness, I rolled onto my side, panting loudly. Powder snow had found its way down my pants, up my coat, into my overboots. My fleece jacket was completely coated in snow. 

 “That was a terrible, stupid thing to do,” I thought. Temperatures were plummeting, and now my clothing was saturated with snow. But how to remedy this? I couldn’t parse the electrical signals misfiring in my brain. I only had an instinctual sense that thoughts could not be trusted. I untangled my harness, righted my sled and continued down the trail. Less than a quarter mile later, I came upon a spot where a snowmobile had briefly pulled off the trail, packing down a short platform. This spot was a little more exposed to the wind, but still generally well-protected in the forest, and near the top of a rise where it might not get as cold. I convinced my addled brain that this was safe because I didn’t trust myself if I kept walking. I might step into another tree well and this time plunge into snow over my head and suffocate. Or maybe I'd decide a quick sled nap was in order … and then slip into eternal slumber. It sounds overdramatic, but everything feels this way when you're convinced you’re losing your mind. 

 Feeling frantic, as though aware that I was operating on my last fumes of cognitive function, I hurried to pull my sled into the indentation and threw my bivy bundle on top. I checked the temperature — 15 below. Then I paused for a few seconds to try to parse out the remaining chores. I removed my many layers of footwear, threw them into their designated dry bag and stuffed that into the foot of my sleeping bag, along with my thermos. The snow berm I'd squeezed into was narrow and loose. Powder piled up on top of my bivy sack every time I moved, but I was able to settle in with relatively little drama, all things considered. Amber passed by on the trail just as I was settling in. 

 “That looks like a cozy spot,” she observed. 

 “Just gonna sleep a few hours. I’ll see you in McGrath,” I replied.

 When I laid down, I wondered — as I always do, every time I lay down to sleep in the cold, even though more than a decade has elapsed since I survived my first subzero winter camping experience — if I’d ever wake up.

Last days of innocence — day seven

March 8, 2020. Bear Creek, Alaska. 19 degrees and snowing.

All night long, it snowed and snowed. I got up at one point during the night to pee, and noted that at least six inches of powder had accumulated on top of my sled since my arrival at Bear Creek Cabin. I went back to sleep until the trailbreakers stirred, around 8 a.m. The fire had gone out hours ago. The tiny window in the loft was still cracked open. I was sleeping directly beneath the window, so cold air and snow flurries brushed my face as I emerged from my sleeping bag. It was still snowing.

Strangely, nobody else arrived during the night. I expected more ITI racers to straggle in by morning, but it was still just the ten of us. The six trailbreakers mobilized quickly and moved out within twenty minutes. Robert was right behind them, and Greg left a few minutes later. I hung back with Asbjorn, firing up my stove and stubbornly lingering over a hot breakfast and coffee. Motivation had plummeted. I just didn't want to face another gray day of slogging through deep snow.

"What am I doing?" I wondered as I emerged from the cabin. My sled was now fully buried in snow. If I hadn't remembered where I left it, I might have had some trouble finding it. I dug until I located the plastic platform, plopped my heavy duffle onto top, pulled the sled back until its poles emerged from the powder, then re-attached the harness that I took inside to thaw out frozen buckles. The muscles in my back screamed as I slumped over. "How is this even going to work?" I mumbled.

I'd walked 45 miles in 18 hours the previous day. As is my style, I barely stopped moving during that time, so the 2.5 mph average was effectively my moving pace. The hills beside the South Fork are steep and often tough, but I don't remember these climbs wrecking me to such a degree. The few breaks I took mostly happened at the top of each climb, because my heart was racing and my limbs threatened to buckle. I'd entered that physical state that I often experience at the end of 100-mile ultramarathons, when I've exhausted my muscle strength, burned 99 percent of my energy matches, and I'm just battling on fumes to make it to the finish. It's okay for mile 90 of a hundred-miler. But mile 220 of a thousand-miler?

Soft trail conditions fueled my pessimism. Although the trail-breakers had smoothed the foot of new powder, it was still dry and terribly loose. The trail surface remained punchy even with snowshoes. My pace slowed to 2 mph again. My legs felt like rubber, my back like hardened steel. My shoulders slumped against the strain of my sled. Every step felt like wading through molasses. Perhaps if I was a typical ultrarunner (masochists, all of them), I'd convince myself I could keep going indefinitely despite this extent of full-body fatigue. But as an endurance cyclist I'd been able to manage myself better — some pain, some fatigue, but I could usually recover well with food, warmth and nearly nine solid hours of sleep. Still feeling shattered after so much rest — more rest than I could realistically afford for my remaining miles on the Iditarod Trail — felt like a persistent downward spiral that I did not have the tools to reconcile. At least in a way that I believed could propel a meaningful journey, and not simply a punishing death march.

In short, my physical and mental stamina was lacking, and I felt despondent. I slogged to Sullivan Creek, eight miles in 3 hours and 40 minutes of nonstop moving time. At the bridge, I paused to take in a view that was different from the previous miles of snow-covered scrub spruce and endless gray. A burbling creek was a pleasant sound compared to the hiss of snow.

The rate of snowfall did seem to be diminishing though. A weak sun briefly cast a silver glow through the clouds before retreating again. I tried to recapture my mental stamina by embracing individual moments, searching for joy in immediacy. Just beyond Sullivan Creek, a weak snow bridge collapsed underneath me, and my legs plunged into an ankle-deep tributary. Resisting a sense of indignity, I celebrated the fact that I didn't fall over and that my feet remained dry. My snowshoes became coated in ice, and I made a game of trying to break off the gray chunks as I stomped down the trail. Soon I was jumping up and down, wasting energy but laughing out loud as the mean overflow ice fell away. It sounds so trivial now, that I was enjoying this "game" as much as I was. But amid the ceaseless demands of the trail, it pays to claim control where we can.

Skies began to clear. Over several hours I recaptured some optimism. Maybe this was a painfully slow march — with emphasis on painful — but this was still something I that I chose. Out here I was free, with no obligation but to keeping moving through the world — this immense, spectacular world. If I stopped, that too would be a choice. I'd have to accept everything I left behind, and everything I'd never experience, and I'd have to be honest with myself about why I made such a choice. Could I live with those reasons, whatever they may be? I wasn't sure.

Amid this renewed resolve, I again connected with Beat on my satellite phone. He was making his way from Nikolai to McGrath. The Iditarod trailbreakers had already passed him as well. The surface along the Kuskokwim River was also soft and punchy despite the trailbreakers' tracks. Ah well; I suppose tomorrow will be hard, too. For several minutes we chatted about mundane details before the topic of schedules came up, and my demeanor deteriorated into a gulping, ugly cry.

"I'm not even on pace to leave McGrath before ten days is up. I can't do this for 20 more days, I just can't," I sobbed. Snot poured down my chin and onto the mouthpiece of the phone. Gross.

Beat again tried to assure me. "It's been hard — almost as hard as 2012," he said. (That year is regarded as the most difficult conditions this event has experienced, and nobody went beyond McGrath. It was Beat's first year on the Iditarod Trail.) Ever the pragmatist, he seemed to share my view that trail conditions and weather weren't likely to cut any of us a break, but he thought I was managing everything well so far.

"You're still second," he reiterated — meaning I was in second position out of the six Nome walkers. "So many people have already dropped out. You're still doing fine."

Somehow, I did not share this view. My ranking among other racers meant nothing when the clock kept ticking and my energy kept crashing. Hanging up, I felt worse than ever. It was clear I hadn't resolved my misgivings at all, and my "find the joy" bandaids probably weren't going to last. Amid this emotional rollercoaster, I made the mistake of checking the weather forecast on my InReach. There was, again, a foot of new snow the forecast, but it wasn't expected for five more days. The more immediate predictions were confidence-uninspiring in new ways: Monday, high of -10, low -25. Tuesday and Wednesday, high -20s, low -40s. Winds 10-20 mph out of the north. So at best we would emerge from this damp chill and falling snow only to slam into extreme cold and blowing snow. Well ...

It was somewhat of a relief that no decisions needed to be made just yet. I had 32 miles to slog to Nikolai that day and no choice but to do it. The alternative was sitting down in a snowbank and giving up on life, and I certainly wasn't that depressed. Skies cleared to a swath of blue and temperatures were still warm — 15 degrees. I enjoyed soaking up the sunshine. When I pulled down my buff, there was a soft warmth on my neck that took the edge off my leg and back pain. I hiked across vast swamps that seemed to stretch across time and space. In a landscape I've long regarded as monotonous, I relished surprising moments of déjà vu: the thick birch grove that reminded me of Colorado even before I lived here. The knoll with the yellow "Nikolai 20 miles" sign that used to read 18 miles, but in fact is closer to 21 miles from town. The thin patch of spruce forest where I briefly considered firing up my stove in 2008, but the windchill was too distressing to stop. Then I crossed an indistinct swamp, and became certain that this was the exact spot where I broke my trekking pole in 2018.

"Remember that, Bernadette?" I said out loud. "I was so sad. About that! When all I needed to do was walk 70 more miles to McGrath and it wasn't even going to be 40 below. Ah, if only it could be so easy again."

The sun set in a familiar way over a familiar spot — I am a creature of patterns, even out here, and I always seem to be making my way around the bend of the Salmon River shortly before dusk. "How many times am I going to keep coming back?" I wondered aloud. "I not sure I can bear to come back; I really have to try for Nome."

I'd been listening to my iPod Shuffle, and shortly after I voiced this observation, a song popped up that I'd listened to on repeat in near the same spot in 2018 — Manchester Orchestra's "The Maze."
This song still evokes an image of the Iditarod Trail speaking to me.

First of a thousand to write on the wall 
It's only beginning, it's swallowing us 
Somebody said it's unspeakable love 
It's amazing.

Oh boy. The waterworks unleashed. If I thought I'd been ugly crying while talking to Beat, this one was an absolute meltdown. Just like when I broke my trekking pole in 2018, only these snot-soaked sobs arose from deep disappointment not in my equipment, but in myself. I was letting everyone down.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I sobbed, my apology directed at everything and nothing.

Darkness descended on the tundra, only to be illuminated again as the nearly full moon rose above the horizon. My emotional rollercoaster pitched upward again. I snowshoed the remaining miles to Nikolai in a pleasant daze, only jolting to half awareness when I stumbled over the postholes left by others in front of me.

I arrived at the community center just before midnight. The checkpoint was staffed by two attentive volunteers. One volunteer, George, repeatedly asked me what I needed as I stood in the center of the large room, blinking in confusion, immobilized by indecision. Finally I accepted a hot chocolate and spread out my sleeping bag under one a table in one of the few open spaces against the walls. The other volunteer I finally recognized as Nick, an Anchorage cyclist who was in the midst of his own independent ride toward Nome, but decided to stopover in Nikolai and help out at this remote checkpoint for nearly a week. Nick offered to cook burgers and vegetables for me at this late hour. I gratefully accepted, feeling especially excited about the vegetables. He asked how many burgers I wanted, sharing that some of the earlier racers were chowing down six burgers. To me this sounded like a strange admission — I know how supplies are limited in these villages. Surely there was some food left over from all of the racers who had already dropped out, but still. I wasn't feeling terribly hungry, so I clarified that I only wanted one burger.

I settled into my nest a little after 1 a.m. I didn't set an alarm. I figured morning commotion would wake me, and I was beyond glimmers of ambition. I still had fifty miles to McGrath that I could use to put myself back together. Right now, fifty miles didn't seem like nearly far enough to achieve such a drastic turnaround. 

Last days of innocence — day six

March 7, 2020. Rohn, Alaska. 12 degrees and overcast. 

I don't enjoy winter camping. There. I've said it. What I enjoy is moving through wintry landscapes, feeling powerful against the cold, absorbing beauty and wonder while generating my own bubble of comfort and warmth. Sleep is one of the biological necessities of being out for days on end. And of course, after long hours of sled-hauling, it feels incredible to remove the weight from my sore limbs and temporarily fade from consciousness. But once I crawl into a sleeping bag, movement ceases and my personal bubble of protection bursts. Suddenly I'm dependent on these inert materials that I don't quite trust. I smother myself in nylon and down until it's difficult to breathe. Then I open the bag ever so slightly to allow a tight funnel of air. The feel of this frigid air is sinister, but I crave oxygen so I must ignore an innate sense of danger. In order to shut out the anxiety and get some sleep, I need to be fully exhausted. 

In Rohn, exhaustion and mild dehydration let me remain unconscious in my bag for nearly five hours. When the 2 a.m. alarm sounded, I felt disoriented and desperately thirsty. I sat up, let the cold slap of air jostle me into awareness, then jumped up quickly to generate heat. I jogged in place to thrash away the grogginess and then fumbled through packing up my gear. My fingers tingled as I worked. The thermometer informed me that it was 12 degrees, which is pretty warm. I smirked and shook my head at my own ineptitude. 

"If I liked winter camping, I would probably be better at this," I thought. 

After packing I jogged a few hundred yards to the Rohn cook tent to collect the things I'd hung to dry overnight — shoes, socks and waders — and quickly gulp down coffee and instant oatmeal before refilling my thermos with hot Tang. Amber had chosen to wake up at the same time. We shared the groggy minutes with Kyle, who seemed to have taken on the job of 2 a.m. checkpoint watch, but mostly sat on the straw and stared blankly into space. The rest of the tent was crowded with sleepers, as I'd expected, which is one of the reasons I opted for the peace and quiet of an outside camp. 

As I packed up to leave, a few flurries wafted through the air, but there wasn't any new snow on the ground. The InReach weather forecast offered an hourly assessment that predicted the snow wouldn't begin until 2 p.m. I believed this, and hoped to make good mileage before the blizzard began in force. I struggled to start moving. Grogginess remained and I hadn't rehydrated as well as I should have in Rohn. Still, as soon as I hit the glare ice of the South Fork of the Kuskokwim River, I dug in my studded shoes and marched with purpose. The South Fork is another volatile mountain river that I fear, but it did feel incredible to move across a hard surface, hauling a suddenly weightless sled as it glided effortlessly across the ice.

After two miles of river ice, the trail veered onto the shoreline, where it would roll in and out of steep drainages for the next 15 miles before wrapping around Egypt Mountain and descending toward the Farewell Lakes. The trail through the forest was soft and punched with moose tracks. Moose-a-noia kept me in silence for a couple of hours, but my consciousness began to flag, and the sleep monster demanded that I find a distraction. I chose music — specifically Grimes' latest album, "Miss Anthropocene" — and fixated on an upbeat song that spoke to the surreal time of day and place through which I moved, "4ÆM."

"I'm out late at 4 a.m.
He says, 'How's the weather, baby? How've you been?'
You're gonna get sick — you don't know when
I never doubt it at 4 a.m. ..."

As the chorus repeated itself again and again — because I'd put the song on repeat — I became more reflective. It seems prescient now, only because I'd been so distracted by my own adventure, but I had been thinking about this issue earlier. On the day we flew from Denver to Anchorage, which was Feb. 27, I'd come across a long essay published in Smithsonian Magazine in 2017 that I spent much of our layover at the Seattle airport reading. It described in captivating detail the 1918 flu pandemic. From that article I followed links to another long essay which drew parallels to the novel coronavirus. This author speculated that eventually 40 to 70 percent of the global population would contract this virus, and the implications were unknown but almost certainly devastating. I remember shutting my laptop as we boarded our plane and thinking, "Wow. It's coming."

Of course, on Feb. 27, the notion of a global pandemic was still abstract. There had already been an outbreak in Washington state, so we knew the virus had arrived in the United States, but it still seemed plausible that it could be contained. I thought about the article on and off as I went about my pre-race preparations. Still, it was easy to put it out of my mind. I had my own immediate concerns to address. By the time the race started on March 1, I wasn't thinking about the issue at all.

Now, as I traversed a landscape devastated by recent wildfires and surrounded by stark mountains and ominous skies, Grimes' heart-pumping beats and nihilistic lyrics stirred up week-old reflections about a vague, unknowable future that was probably closer than it seemed. I still thought about the issue in abstract ways. My trains of thought were frequently fractured and my intelligence was undermined by fatigue. I remember thinking about my experience with pneumonia in 2015, which I contracted in part because I was headstrong and reckless during the Tour Divide. One takeaway during these abstract reflections was, "We need to be strong. Right now I'm not strong."

Indeed, any illusions of strength and energy were elusive. I was struggling to hoist myself up every hill. As I write this post exactly one month later, memory has already scrubbed some of the specific pains I was experiencing. But I can still recall one particular hill, climbing away from the Post River. At the time I was following closely behind the Italian cyclists. From the top of the previous hill, I watched as they shimmied up a vertical-looking slope, precariously perched almost underneath their bicycles as they pushed. Witnessing this, I resolved to get a running start, and bounded recklessly down the slope as my knees locked with each impact and my sled weaved erratically. Near the bottom, I was distracted by a massive gut pile left behind by bison hunters, and lost momentum before hitting the wall. My quad muscles seemed to give out as my back strained against gravity. The sled yanked me backward and I lost my balance, briefly flailing as though I might tip over backward, before lunging forward and slamming my bruised  knee into a wind-scoured patch of frozen dirt. This pain I remember, along with the cause of it — I was too weak to boost myself up a hill, so I had to use my injured knee as an anchor. When I recount this moment it sounds trivial, but at the time it felt like I was slowly losing control, and it was unnerving.

Endurance racing is a paradox. We pursue these challenges to prove to ourselves that we have strength and resilience, that we can rise above weaknesses and overcome difficulties. But the act of pushing limits requires exactly that — venturing close to physical and mental edges. Tumbling over the precipice is always a risk. My experiences in 2015 and beyond have proven this to me, beyond doubt. And I admit, even as I continue to enthusiastically pursue endurance racing, I have pondered consequences and costs I might no longer be able to afford. I do so while acknowledging that a life scrubbed of risk and uncertainty, a life of bland inertia and unimaginative stability, a life as void of joy as it is of pain, is the last thing I want, for anyone. Life — forever a paradox.

I'm prone to existential crises in the best of times. One reason among many that I pursue endurance efforts is because intense activity forces me into a more focused plane of existence, where I must direct my usual overabundance of mental energy toward immediate concerns. Once my motivating Grimes kick lost its effectiveness, my immediate concern was flagging energy. I switched off the music and returned to an audio book of "The Sun is a Compass," but I wasn't listening. Instead I watched gray skies deepen as snow flurries picked up in intensity and began to accumulate on the trail. For the rest of the day I no longer thought about the abstract future or even walking to Nome; I only thought about my next steps into a snowy wilderness that might as well be eternal.

Along a five-mile-long flat stretch crossing the Farewell Lakes, some 25 miles into the day, I was finally caught by Greg the skier. He was badly hungover from too much whiskey in Rohn, and provided some comic relief with a lighthearted attitude about his sorry physical state. He'd already reached his goal — Rob's Roadhouse in Rohn — and now was just slogging through the mandatory victory march to McGrath. Motivation was low but spirits were high. He said he was going to stop soon for a meal or an eight-hour nap; he hadn't quite decided. My plan was to not stop at all until I reached Bear Creek Cabin. Not even one of my thirty-second sled slumps, because with my own level of fatigue and flagging motivation, I couldn't trust myself to not let one of those short rests turn into minutes or hours. Snow was coming down hard and it was warm, 28 degrees. These are some of the most difficult camping conditions, because it's almost impossible to prevent gear and shoes and stoves and pretty much everything from becoming soaked. I was determined to reach that cabin.


Near the end of the last Farewell lake, I told Greg I expected eight more miles of rolling hills to the former site of Bison Camp, where the trail finally drops from the foothills onto an expansive river plain. It turned out to be closer to ten miles, which became a frustrating miscalculation when each small hill renewed a demoralizing struggle. A persistent wind whipped the accumulating snowflakes into a frenzy, prompting me to don my hated goggles for a few hours. I was grumpy, and that was before I connected with Beat on his satellite phone. He told me no one had broken the mile-long offshoot trail to Bear Creek cabin, and the snowpack was so deep that there was no way to access the shelter. Now I understood that I'd be camping in the wet snow, whether I liked it or not.


Sullenly, I descended into the Farewell Burn, a place that long ago was barren and dry, but now hosts an impossibly thick spruce forest and many feet of snow. For the first ten miles beyond Bison Camp it's difficult to even find an open spot to camp among the practically interlocking tree branches. More swamps begin to open up around the Bear Creek intersection, so that's where I planned to camp. I restarted "The Sun is a Compass" because I hadn't been listening, but I still wasn't listening. Instead my staccato thoughts jumped through past memories of the Farewell Burn, both distant — the barren, frigid wasteland — and recent — the snow-choked leg-trap.

At least five inches of snow had accumulated by the time I heard the whine of a snowmobile for the first time all day. I assumed it was race director Kyle and Craig, but in fact it was the Iditarod Sled Dog Race trailbreakers, a team of six high-powered snowmobiles dragging massive trailers. Where they caught me, the trail was so narrow that I had to stop, unhook from my harness, lift my sled onto a chest-high berm, and them climb up there myself so they could pass.

I was overjoyed to see them. I'd had some suspicion they'd pass, since Iditarod trailbreakers had caught me near the same spot in 2018. That year, I had been banking on a quiet night at the cabin and was annoyed when I realized I'd have to share with six loud-partying men. This year, however, I acknowledged that the trailbreakers were my ticket to shelter. They presumably were heading out tho Bear Creek, so they'd break in the trail and I'd be able to follow. I knew they wouldn't be thrilled to share the small space with freeloaders like me, Greg and likely others, but such is the way of public shelter cabins in Interior Alaska.

After they passed, I also enjoyed the still-soft but much smoother trail that they'd broken. A mile later, Asbjorn skied up from behind as though I was standing still. He glided to a stop beside me and offered a piece of chocolate, which I declined, then proceeded to relax and munch on his chocolate for several minutes before zipping past again. After another mile Greg passed, and then I caught up to a walker, Robert. It was going to be tight in that cabin, but I didn't mind. It was dry in there. The trailbreakers were hauling a sled full of firewood, so presumably it would also be warm. Just unbelievable luxury.

Around 9:30 p.m. I arrived at the intersection, where it was clear the path had been recently plowed — the trench was nearly neck-deep in spots, and the trail surface was choppy. It took me nearly a half hour to make my way down to the cabin. By 10 p.m., snow was coming down so heavily that I could barely see a few meters away. Much of my upper body was caked in this wet snow. The buckle on my sled harness had collected so much ice that I couldn't release it. Eventually I just wriggled out of the shoulder straps and stepped over the harness, forgetting that I was still wearing my snowshoes, which caught on the straps and sent me tumbling headlong into a five-foot-deep drift just off the cabin's porch. I thrashed out of the drift, spitting and swearing. Powder had found its way into my ears and up both nostrils. My clothing was now fully saturated in wet snow. Yikes.

"Thank god I'm not setting up camp right now," I thought.

The interior of the cabin was stiflingly hot. The trailbreakers had gathered around the small table with playing cards, beers, and a giant bag of fun-sized candy bars from Costco — dinner, they told us. The four ITI folks set to a flurry of activity, melting snow for water and spreading out our wet clothing across the cabin. The trailbreakers watched us, bemused.

"You guys sure have to work hard at night," one observed.

Another pointed out that all of their water — 16-ounce plastic bottles also from Costco — had frozen solid. But hey, they had plenty of beer.

Cognizant of the many hazards in the crowded cabin, I slipped outside to fire up my stove so I could heat water for freeze-dried chicken and noodles. My initial instinct had been to just plop down in my sleeping bag and pass out. But my blood sugar had dipped so low that my hands were shaking, and given my struggles with strength, I knew I couldn't afford to skip a meal. It was quiet outside, the kind of saturated silence that accompanies falling snow. My toes tingled. While stumbling around the newly broken trail to collect snow for melting, I managed to break through into some kind of overflow, and now both of my down booties were soaked. I figured I could dry them overnight, and just let my feet remain sopping wet as I dangled my legs over the edge of the porch, softly singing a random Roxette song that had plopped itself in my head.

Lay a whisper on my pillow 
Leave the winter on the ground 
I wake up lonely, this air of silence 
In the bedroom and all around.

 And then, more loudly, knowing the commotion inside shielded me from judgement:

"It must have been love
BUT IT'S OVER NOW
It must have been good
But I lost it somehow ..."

My voice was ragged and hoarse, my singing terrible, and I don't think I remembered these lyrics quite correctly. But the comic relief was worth it. I felt better already, and I hadn't even eaten yet. Since I'd arrived less a half hour earlier, more than an inch of powder had already accumulated on my sled. Based on the forecast I'd checked a few hours earlier, there was a good chance it wouldn't let up until morning.

"There could be a foot of new snow by then," I thought.

Back in the cabin, I joined Asbjorn, Robert, and two of the trailbreakers as we squeezed together into the small loft, which was designated for gear only and probably not designed to support five full-sized humans. Robert asked when I planned to wake up.

"Whenever they get up," I replied, nodding toward the trailbreakers. "The trail is probably going to be buried by morning; seems pointless to leave early and have to break trail, when we know they'll pass by eventually."

The temperature in the loft must have been 90 degrees. I cracked a small window and sprawled on top of my bag. My earworm — more comforting than annoying — lulled me to a sweaty sleep.

"And it's a hard
winter's day. 
I dream away ..."