Saturday, October 31, 2020

Fifteen years

Like many of you this week, I'm wound into a tight little knot of frayed nerves and I haven't been able to remedy this anxiety. I mean, I spent nine hours riding my bike on Friday, pedaling to exhaustion along an icy 75-mile route with nearly 11,000 feet of climbing, and it didn't help. Like at all. I mean, it was a beautiful day and a great ride, but the effects wore off as soon as I stopped pedaling. I'm worse today than I was on Thursday. Alas. I think it might be time to break into the stress eating and wine. 

Amid the fretting about November 3, I realized this date marks an interesting personal anniversary. November 3, 2005, was the day I launched this blog. Yes, this one. Fifteen years. Fifteen years, 2,212 posts, 25,600 comments, and some 60,000 page views per month. I'm both proud and embarrassed that it's gone on this long. I recently read a post from a blogger who has been at it for a mere ten years. The writer mused, "One little blog post is nothing on its own. But publish a thousand blog posts over a decade, and it becomes your life's work."

I can't even fathom how different my life would be if, on November 3, 2005, I sat down at a clunky Dell desktop computer in the loft of a drafty cabin in Homer, and instead of launching a blog to update friends and family about my great new life in Alaska, I decided to trawl eBay auctions for gear I couldn't afford. Or rant about reporters who add two spaces after every period on the Testy Copy Editors forum. Or whatever it was I even did on the Internet in 2005. What did any of us do before Facebook and the rapid erosion of civilized society? I can barely remember. 

Still, I'm forever grateful that this Napster-surfing, 26-year-old version of me started this blog. It quickly connected me with a group of cycling enthusiasts, who donated actual dollars to my novice training endeavors, thus helping me venture into the wild world of endurance racing and winter adventures (yes, I'm embarrassed that I used to beg for money on my blog. But I wouldn't have been able to pay for the Susitna 100 on my $12/hour with no benefits newspaper salary otherwise.) The rest is a whole lot of history. 

This morning, when I again wasn't focusing well on the writing project that I'm currently trying to squeeze out of dry air, I turned to the Wayback Machine to look up my blog in 2005. It was satisfyingly soothing to scroll through the posts as they once appeared. For all of the importance I place on archives, I almost never go back and read old blog posts. It was fun to reimagine this era when life seemed so simple: Scraping feet of snow off my 1996 Geo Prism, bike commuting to work, narrowly avoiding frostbite while wearing four pairs of cotton socks stuffed into New Balance running shoes, well before I owned most of the gear necessary for riding bikes through an Alaska winter:


This was such a nice respite from the Internet hellscapes where I typically spend my time these days. If you have an old or neglected blog languishing in cyberspace, I strongly recommend a visit to the Wayback Machine. 

This nostalgia post doesn't really have a point, other than to celebrate a 15-year anniversary that probably won't feel appropriate to celebrate on Tuesday. It's Oct. 31, and Beat and I have nice plans to hike up Bear Peak and watch the sunset and moonrise of the rare Halloween blue moon. Quietly, I continue to plan an escape to the high Utah desert where I can park a car far away from cell phone reception and spend my nights looking at the sky. 


Escapes of the mind are almost as good as physical escapes. I feel better now. If there's anything I've learned from 15 years of blogging, it's that hope springs eternal. And long bike rides in all weather are the best course of action, always. 
Tuesday, October 27, 2020

Red flag October

Two weeks ago, the East Troublesome Fire didn't exist.  

Last week brought what was likely the worst week of wildfire in Colorado history as East Troublesome roared through 150,000 acres in a single 24-hour period, leaping across a mile of open tundra and rocks above 12,000 feet to torch beloved trails on the eastern slope of Rocky Mountain National Park. Estes Park scrambled to rapidly evacuate from a fire that started near Kremmling, nearly 50 miles away on the other side of the Continental Divide. 

This week brought as much as two feet of snow and record-breaking cold — down to -24F near Grand Lake, where the ashes of an estimated 100 homes are still smoldering. Fire officials reminded people that this isn't the end, just a breather, like throwing a wet blanket over hot coals. We can take a few moments to catch our breath, but soon the blanket with disintegrate and the coals will flare up again. I looked at a weather forecast for ten days of pleasant temperatures and sunshine as though it was the most upsetting scenario possible. 

I spent the week battling an existential crisis, sparked by wildfires. The places I love are burning. The sky is filled with smoke. I can't breathe. I feel like I haven't been able to breathe for months. Years. There's no refuge in nature, thanks to the smoke. There's no refuge anywhere, thanks to an equally out-of-control pandemic. Newspapers are closing. Journalism is failing. Nothing I do or have ever done has any meaning. Democracy is dying. The whole world is burning.

I write "battling" an existential crisis because I am working on shifting my perspective, believe me. I've long battled fatalism with demanding yet purposeful distractions — training for races, planning fun escapades, reading and writing about the grand adventure of life. Like many people, I've met my match with 2020. These October wildfires have been especially troubling because they show the effects of explosive environmental change in real time. I am a person who loves places. Perhaps this love is different than the love I feel for people in my life, but the emotion burns just as bright and loss cuts deeply. The Tonahutu Creek Trail where Beat and I backpacked in August. The Saddle between Hagues Peak and Mount Fairchild. Spruce Canyon. Hollowell Park. None of these places will be the same in my lifetime. Because of climate change, they may not ever fully recover. Maybe Colorado will become the next Arizona. 

I get it. That's reality. Things change. Things end. Acknowledging the hard truths doesn't make them less hard. 

I think about ways I can contribute to positive change. I voted. I donated to a fund set up to help those impacted by our closest-to-home blaze, the Calwood Fire, which thankfully is now mostly under control. I daydream about training to become a volunteer firefighter ... if it wasn't for the barrier of, you know, being a 41-year-old asthmatic with high sensitivity to smoke. I acknowledge that there's a lot more I can do on an actionable level. But really, when it comes to existential despair, perspective is the only thing over which we have any control. So I'm working on sharpening my outlook and refocusing on the aspects of life that deserve gratitude and joy. 

I thought about this on Friday as temperatures dropped to the teens and an icy fog enveloped the landscape. I had been closely tracking the horrific progression of the East Troublesome Fire, including a Twitter thread from a woman who was live-tweeting a phone conversation and subsequent radio silence as her grandparents hid in a bunker while the wildfire surrounded them (they were later confirmed dead.) It had become a lot. It had become too much. Beat rightly criticizes my fixation on Twitter during natural disasters and political upheavals, but I only want to know what's happening, right now. I do recognize that I need to take a step back. Friday offered a welcome breather, even though news sources informed me that just above this inversion, red-flag winds were still blowing and humidity remained low in the wildfire zones. Within the cloud, though, it was easy to feel safe and calm. 

One of my favorite places to visit in icy weather is Bear Peak. Well, Bear Peak is one of my favorite places, period, but frost and snow paints this mountain with a delicate beauty that feels wholly unique. The west ridge still bears the scars of a 2012 wildfire. The fire came within a mile of the house where I now live. Neighbors talk about the terror and awe of watching flames move down the hillside while they packed up to evacuate during the night. Firefighters were able to put out the Flagstaff Fire before it damaged private property, but we all live with awareness of the ongoing risk. Bear Peak's burn scar is a daily reminder ... and yet it's beautiful. Spring wildflowers are abundant, summer views are expansive, fall brings rare crimson hues to the chokecherries, and winter coats the skeleton trees in ghostly frost. There can be beauty in destruction. 

I'm grateful for friends. My favorite people are scattered all over the world, and the drawn-out pandemic makes it feel like I might never see some of them again. But they've all been wonderful during this time. Australian friends frequently send us memes to commiserate about the ridiculous state of American politics. Canadian friends send drool-worthy photos of the places they'll take us when and if we can ever return. For a wedding present, our Alaskan friend Corrine sent us an amazing quilt, an Aurora Borealis pattern that she designed and sewed herself. Now, even when confined at home far away from the Great Land, I have something to carry my imagination back to Alaska. 

All of these gestures warm my heart and keep it from going completely rigid. I've also valued visits in person with local friends. I'm lucky that most of my friends are runners and bikers, so socializing outdoors is not an issue. On Saturday, we had another day of wind and heat sandwiched between record cold. I took advantage of it for a longer training ride, pedaling down to Arvada to meet up with my friend Betsy. We rode east toward the plains, and I daydreamed about a long-standing goal to ride gravel to Kansas. Maybe next year. The air quality was not good — above 100 AQI for most of the afternoon — and I started to wheeze even before I commenced the climb back into the foothills. But it was a good day. Friends help take the edge off disheartening views of haze. 

I am grateful for Beat. Like many couples, we've been spending a lot of time in close proximity since he started working from home. I tend to become snippy when I haven't carved out enough alone time, but overall the togetherness has been enjoyable. We have flexibility for more weekday adventures, such as this Monday morning run around Walker Ranch after 10 inches of snow fell on Sunday. I was giddy when we woke up to our first subzero temperature of the season (well, it was -0.2F. But that counts.) Beat sternly reminded me to pack for contingencies in the danger cold, but I wasn't concerned. Putting on these winter layers feels like slipping into a pair of comfortable old shoes. 

I am grateful that winter is coming. I suppose in COVID times I'm blessed that I experience the opposite of seasonal depression. I can be surly about summer — especially awful smoke-filled summers — but my personal reward is the intensity, beauty, and solitude — finally! —of the darker months. Winter will bring some reprieve to this terrible year of wildfires, although any extended dry period still carries risk. The next couple of weeks will be trying. It's been so dry that meteorologists expect this October snow will vaporize into the air rather than melt into the ground, so fuels will remain dry and the current fires will keep their foothold. The Cameron Peak Fire flared into a monster after it was doused with September snow, so I'm braced for the worst ... but hoping for the best. 

I'm grateful for racing. I may feel dubious about the responsibility of participating in a winter race during a pandemic, but I feel no guilt about training. I value the process. The goal brings a sense of purpose, even as the practical side of me recognizes that it's rather fruitless. Then the existentialist in me fires back that everything about life is absurd. Might as well do what you love; that is purposeful enough. 

I love how racing and training immerses me into both new and familiar places. I love using my body in a tangible way. I love the simplicity of these endeavors. I'm beginning to understand that my reason for endurance pursuits is not that they're hard — it's that they offer a primal and satisfying simplicity that feels more natural, and in many ways easier than modern life. My recent 150-mile ride to Mount Evans reminded me of this relaxing respite from day-to-day ennui. I don't know if I'll end up heading out to Idaho in January to push my bike 200 kilometers through deep snow. But if it does happen, I imagine I'll effortlessly turn my brain off and probably crush it. I can't wait. 

So ... life is good. Yes, East Troublesome is still smoldering in Rocky Mountain National Park. And yes, COVID cases are skyrocketing. And yes, in less than a week our Democracy seems doomed to end up in a serious grinder. And yes, I read too many books about climate change and I can't stop thinking about them. Wait ... where was I again? Oh yes, perspective. My perspective. I'm still working on it. 

Monday, October 19, 2020

Winter Wind meets Fire Summer

The sound is both familiar and chilling: a high-pitched whistle accompanied by a whoosh of tree branches, reaching a crescendo that resembles a frantic scream before fading to a low moan. There's a thrilling harmony to the wind that I can appreciate. Sometimes I sit next to the window and listen, watching the trees bend sideways while random debris tumbles through the grass. This is the downslope wind, heralding the onset of winter in Colorado's Front Range. Summers have their share of storms, but summer doesn't contain the temperature gradients necessary to generate these blasts of air rushing down from the Divide. The Winter Wind is different. By October I've almost forgotten what it feels like. Its return reignites a thrilling familiarity: the way a 50 mph gust will stop me mid-stride, frantically jumping off my bike to avoid being toppled, the exhilarating spice that ground blizzards add even to the most basic runs around home. Wind, like winter, is a dynamic circumstance that I've learned to embrace. 


Now, in this forsaken year of 2020, the sound of the Winter Wind has become chilling on a whole new level. By Saturday, that whistling sound sparked anxiety reactions that I couldn't fully control, so I took a CBD capsule and hid under a blanket, rolling from my stomach to my back and taking deep breaths. It was cold outside and a little chilly inside the house, which is how I justified the blanket. Truthfully, I was strung out and using the most basic comfort sources to pull myself together. If I had a higher tolerance for harder substances than CBD, I would have turned to them. On a better day, I would have set out on my bike. On this day, the smoke situation was too unpredictable. I didn't know whether situations might rapidly change and force us to pack up our vehicles and evacuate. Instead, I shifted between doom-scrolling and eyes-closed breathing exercises whenever a wind gust roared past. I'd ridden my bike for nine hours the previous day and planned for Saturday to be a "rest day." Of course, this was by far the most restless day of the week. 

It all started on Wednesday. The Cameron Peak Fire had a bad day on Wednesday. This blaze has been active for more than two months but had been holding steady around 130,000 acres for nearly a week. That period of relative calm ended when the west wind arrived, driving an explosive surge that pushed it to 155,000 acres in a single day, becoming the largest fire in Colorado history. Since then it's grown to 203,000 acres, making Wednesday's run seem almost small. But at the time, I took it hard. We'd enjoyed several days of deliciously clear air, freezing temperatures were in the forecast, and it was starting to seem like fire season was almost behind us. But as I drove to town for my usual weekly errands and appointments, all I could see was this smoke plume pouring into clear blue skies. The Cameron Peak Fire broke my heart all over again. 

It's difficult not to focus on all of the losses these fires represent — the forests and wildlife, the vistas and trails, people's livelihoods, their homes. It's difficult not to widen this perspective toward a difficult future, when all of this loss, literal scorched earth, is simply a new normal fueled by climate change. October fires are the scariest yet. When the worsening drought and heat of summer mix with increasingly convective seasonal winds, the outcomes can only be catastrophic. I couldn't help but ruminate on a dark future as I ran along the South Mesa Trail, grateful for this potentially last window of clean air as an enormous plume of smoke billowed to the north. I made strong time up Shadow Canyon and scrambled to the summit of Bear Peak from the ledge where Beat and I were married last month. From this vantage, I looked toward the smoke plume and broke out in tears. This isn't the first time I've cried about the Cameron Peak Fire. There was the trickle of tears that surprised me as I watched a single plume from a spot fire rise from a nearby valley while traversing Mummy Mountain. That was September 4, when the fire was still at 23,000 acres. I cried a little more openly on Mount Evans a week ago, as I sat more than 75 miles away watching a pyrocumulus cloud mushroom into the sky. This run on October 8 drove the blaze to official megafire status (over 100,000 acres.) That it keeps ballooning skyward is both predictable and surreal, not unlike watching COVID cases climb. Like any out-of-control phenomenon, the encroaching smoke is a reminder that for us, too, it's only a matter of time. 

On Friday, I just wanted to go for a long ride. I filed away a training excuse by signing up for the Fat Pursuit 200K, a winter fat bike race scheduled for early January in Idaho. In truth, I'm skeptical that I'll actually end up at the start line for this race. There are so many unknowns with the pandemic. Traveling to a different state to participate in a winter race, even if it's mostly self-supported, seems like an iffy proposition at this point. Still, for now, the Fat Pursuit is something to look forward to, to take my mind of the present. Any excuse to spend most of a day riding a bike is a good excuse. 

I headed south away from the Cameron Peak smoke plume and climbed toward Gilpin. The National Forest land to the west is threaded with a seemingly endless maze of jeep roads that, in theory, are fun to explore. I write "in theory," because by now I've learned that most of these roads are only marginally rideable and actually not that much fun — a morass of babyheads strewn along 25-percent grades with fleetingly rare flat stretches buried in ankle-deep sand. But it's still a place within a day's biking distance from home that feels new and exciting. At least a few times a year, I resolve to go exploring. 

After the summer-long, pandemic-fueled rush on recreation, it feels like the crowds are finally calming down. It helps when it's still 32 degrees at noon and the winter wind is howling out of the west. I like this weather. It feels safe to me, quiet, and with a couple extra layers, I can ride as hard as I want without becoming thirsty or overheated. It's bliss. Well, it's bliss until it isn't. As I rolled along a series of drainages below Yankee Hill, I had to contend with a continuous ribbon of ice threading through the babyheads. Since I didn't have studded bike tires, the ice made all of the easy lines impossibly treacherous. If I wanted to ride at all, I had to hug the eroded berms, bouncing over all manner of rocks and ruts.  

Somehow in the midst of battling ice and rocks, I climbed to nearly 11,000 feet, where the lovely pine forest opened to the scrub spruce and brush of the subalpine zone. Up there, the wind was so strong that I could no longer ride west. It was impossible. Gusts pushed me sideways and backward as I swerved and bucked over babyheads. Even hiking proved difficult. The wind seemed determined to grab the bike from my hands, wrenching my arms as I marched, head lowered, into an invisible wall. I scanned my GPS and saw the road would soon turn north, so that was something. I could see a ribbon of dirt rising up a hill to my right, but I wondered if I even had the strength to push my bike to the top. 

"This is the winter I remember," I thought. "Hello, West Wind, my old friend."

Shoring up the sum of my strength, I shambled to the top of the rise and caught my first unobstructed view of the full and ominous power of the West Wind — a smoke plume, stretched into lenticular waves thousands of feet over the Continental Divide. Smoke almost entirely blotted out South Arapaho Peak, which was only a dozen or so miles away. The base of the plume was almost black, dark enough to see a distinct red glow reflected from a not-so-distant fire. "East Troublesome," I thought. East Troublesome was the latest fire to erupt in Grand County. On this day it doubled in size from 3,800 acres to nearly 8,000. And of course, it's nearly doubled again since. 

Still buffeted by a strong crosswind that carried a chill so deep it seemed to flash-freeze my gloved fingers, I wrestled the bike to a clearing. An awkward gust nearly toppled me, but I jumped just in time to avoid a shoulder hit. This was as good a spot as any. I plopped down in long-dried grass that has been ready for winter since August and slowly removed my backpack. The wind genuinely seemed strong enough to blow the entire pack away if I wasn't careful, so I kept a tight grip as I removed a sandwich from its container and leaned into my pack to take gulping bites. It was a terribly uncomfortable spot for a lunch break, so cold and windy. The East Troublesome smoke plume was alarming from this vantage, to the point where I involuntarily shuddered and looked away. Still, it seemed appropriate to acknowledge the moment in this way. 

Sometime during my weird apocalypse picnic, Everclear's 1993 hit "Fire Maple Song" floated up from a deep abyss of memory. For much of the bumpy descent into Mammoth Gulch and Tolland Road, I probed this memory for lyrics to a song that I'm not even sure I've thought about since the '90s. Impressed with my recapture, I rewrote lyrics that better fit my mood: 

Lying down in the grass with the wind around us as we watch the smoke erupt. 
Listen to doomsday reports on the radio. 
They tell us how the mountains turn to fire, every year now. 
We’ll lay in the grass all summer just to watch the world burn to the ground. 
I can’t smile. 
Now I can’t smile.


As I neared home, the smoke plume grew closer and darker. I was lucky it stayed south of me throughout the day, but my luck was running out. I could see flakes of ash wafting through the air, and then I tasted something acrid in my throat.  

My breathing soon began to sound like a high-pitched whistle. I was glad I was only about twenty minutes from home. I carried an N95 mask for such situations but opted to race the encroaching plume rather than fiddle with putting it on. I had no idea how bad the smoke had become near Boulder. Our home meter registered an AQI over 400; some places in town recorded 600. Both are so far beyond hazardous that the EPA doesn't even have a health rating for that level. The sky over town turned an apocalyptic shade of orange. Beat was caught out in it during a run, and had no choice but to stumble home in air so bad he was barely able to breathe. I'm not even sure what I'd do if I met an AQI of 600. I doubt my mask would offer protection enough to allow even a slow walking pace before my asthma became unmanageable. I feel like I'd be wholly trapped if the AQI rose to 600, like I'd just have to lay down and die. I know this is overdramatic and it would certainly not be that bad. But it feels that way. 

In hindsight, it's a risk to venture outside at all during such a volatile fire season. I can't know which way the wind will shift, and what will happen to air that was perfectly breathable only an hour before. But on this evening, I simply slowed my pace to reduce the wheezing. I reached smooth gravel and finally pavement, where I could pedal easily and watch the evening sky with a renewed sense of awe. 

I felt guilty for feeling such awe. This was still smoke, carried by the West Wind at such a high speed that it looked like molten lava flowing through a volcanic stream. I hated it, but I had to admit it was beautiful. 

Then came Saturday. My Friday ride took most of nine hours — 68 miles with nearly 10,500 feet of climbing — so it seemed prudent to take a rest day and try to get a few things done. I did not get anything done. Instead, I managed to catch a super early report about a new fire in Boulder County. It was only an acre at the time and seemed trivial. But within the seconds it takes to write a Twitter comment, the report grew to eight acres, and then twenty. Suddenly it was hundreds of acres, then thousands, racing down Lefthand Canyon toward North Boulder. People way out in Denver posted photos of an all-encompassing black plume that reminded me of The Nothing from "Neverending Story." I caught news of friends evacuating, friends who were certain they would lose their homes, and then the fire jumped the divided highway and continued burning near suburban neighborhoods in the plains. People who live miles east of the foothills started evacuating. It was chaos, true chaos. It took two months for the Cameron Peak Fire to become the largest fire in Colorado history. It only took six hours for the Calwood Fire to become the largest fire in Boulder County history. 

I didn't take it well. It was just so sad, and so close to home, with so many unknowns. We live a few valleys to the south and weren't under immediate threat. But this whole region is such a tinderbox right now. It's hard to feel secure, and everyone is on edge. Beat and I discussed our evacuation plan. I imagined escape routes I might take if a smoke plume erupts nearby while I'm out running on trails — it could happen. I might get out with only the clothes and pack on my back. If we're lucky, we'll have time to fill a vehicle with bikes. Of course, if we're truly lucky, a neighborhood wildfire won't happen at all. What are the odds, really? I didn't want to think about it. I knew another day of doomscrolling would do me no good, so by late Sunday morning, I decided another long ride would be prudent — nay, necessary. 

It was another day of strange weather. There was a thick fog and temperatures near freezing when I set out a few minutes before noon. The inversion brought much-needed humidity and drizzle to Boulder, but it also prevented the air assault that firefighters had planned for the now-nearly-9,000-acre fire that had already burned 26 structures in fewer than 24 hours. I had mixed feelings about the fog. Any wet weather was a good thing, but I knew it couldn't last. Indeed, as I climbed above 8,000 feet, the inversion cleared. It was much warmer than it had been on Friday, and nearly as windy. 

I effectively rage-pedaled into the headwind, burning off a fair amount of negative energy as I repeatedly glanced to the north for evidence of a Calwood smoke plume. So far, the smoke didn't seem too bad. I climbed to the top of Caribou Hill, another huge rock-strewn grunt, and sat in another dry field of grass to eat a sandwich while facing the wind. This time, I faced James Peak. It was a nice view. I love James Peak.

When I turned to descend, I saw a dramatic smoke plume that I hadn't noticed before. It was confusing. It looked fresh, and far too close to be part of the Calwood Fire. The Calwood Fire started north of Jamestown, which from this vantage would be a fair distance to the northeast. This plume looked like it began mere miles away. A new fire? Was that even possible — a new fire just one day later, in the same general area, in October? It seemed so unlikely. But this looked real. And it looked like it might be burning near Ward or Gold Hill, which was the direction I had planned to ride to close my loop. As I coasted along Peak to Peak Highway, I didn't see fire trucks or other indicators of a close fire. But just to be safe, I cut downhill early on Sugarloaf Road, rather than take the Switzerland Trail to Fourmile as I'd planned. 

Later I'd find out this was a new fire. The Lefthand Fire, which forced the evacuation of several mountain communities in and around Ward, and grew to several hundred acres over just a few hours on that windy, warm afternoon. It seems so surreal. The hot and dry weather only reigned above 8,000 feet. Below that altitude, the inversion held, which was a blessing for the Calwood Fire. Indeed, the shift between microclimates was dramatic. I crested the final rise of Sugarloaf in full sun with the hard wind at my back, then plunged into a thick fog that dropped the temperature at least 20 degrees in seconds. My fingers again flash-froze, and I started to shiver. It felt calm, quiet, and safe. I wished the freezing fog would never go away.