Alaskab4udie

New blog!

2011-05-27T14:21:00.000-08:00

Brian and I are about to embark on a summer off from work that has been in the works for a long time. We'll be doing as many backpacking traverses within Alaska that we can fit into one summer. I started a new blog to document our adventures. You can check it out here.

This blog will be quiet for at least the summer and then I will figure out what I am going to do with it. I may retire this blog and continue posting to the new one.

Julie

Scratching Sucks

2011-04-02T12:33:00.000-08:00

We took off at 8 AM from the race start... blah, blah, blah.. it was a beautiful morning... blah, blah, blah...there was snow in the forecast for that evening, so all of the bikers were worried... blah, blah, blah...

I could talk about all of the usual BS that I write about when posting about a race, but I'm going to bypass all of that crap and get to what really happened.

I had had some trouble getting warmed up at the start, because I just don't climb very well when I'm not warmed up and the first twenty miles of this race is a series of long hill climbs. So I was already at the back of the pack of bikers, but I still had a couple of them in view and knew by how good I felt that I would catch them going over the divide.

And then somewhere around mile 30, just when I was starting to feel warmed up, just when I realized I was on pace to be faster than last year, just when I had formulated a plan to not stop very long at the checkpoints and crush my time from last year, my back tire went flat.

I remained surprisingly calm as I fixed the flat. A few skiers passed me as I sat on the side of the trail and pumped my tire. I was on a steep downhill stretch where the trail was narrow, so there wasn't much room for people to pass. I felt bad because I wanted to get off the trail to fix the tire, but as soon as I stepped an inch off the trail I fell in up to my waist. I pulled my bike flush up against the edge of the trail and tried to line my gear up out of the way

I was happy that I fixed the flat without getting all flustered, and I proudly pumped the last few pumps into the tire after reattaching it and tightening my brakes. The air seemed a little low though. I pumped 100 more times, then 100 more until it felt like enough. I told myself the trail was soft so it would be okay to run it a little low. But I got on the bike and it seemed too low. I got the pump back out and pumped again, and laughed about the fact that I was left in the dust of all of the bikers once again. It was oddly reminiscent of the year before.

Finally I decided I had pumped enough, got on the bike and rode on down the long hill to the Beaver Creek. Things were looking up and I had only wasted about 20 minutes fixing the flat. I rolled along the creek planning my new strategy to make up the time that I had lost. I would grab a baked potato "to go" at the Cache Mountain cabin and eat it on the way up to the divide. I would fill up my water. It would take five minutes, tops. I felt strong and knew I could ride more of the next stretch than I did last year. Inevitably I would have to walk some of the steeper parts, and that's when I would eat my potato. I would be at Windy Gap in no time eating meatball soup.

I drifted off for a minute and came back to reality to the sound of ppppffffffff. I had to be daydreaming, I stopped, squeezed my tire. It felt fine. I started up again and thought I heard air leaking again. Stopped squeezed the tire, it felt fine. I rode another quarter mile and definitely heard something, stopped and squeezed my tire, it felt a little low. I was not ready to accept this yet, so I pumped another 200 pumps into the tire and kept riding. And then it got louder. PPPFFFFFF. I looked down and my tire was completely flat, again.

This wasn't the same kind of flat as last year when my tire was slightly deflating and inflating as the temperature fluctuated throughout the cold morning. This was a flat. Another hole in my brand new tube. Another big fat WTF slap in my face. This was my fourth flat in two years of this race. And then I remembered that at the last minute in an attempt to lighten my load, I left my third tube behind. And I had no patch kit.

I really don't want to describe what the next two and half hours were like for me as I pushed my bike over some of the most ridable sections of trail into the Cache Mountain Divide checkpoint, but I'll try. I was bordering on manic depression, switching back and forth between bawling uncontrollably at the fact that I wasn't going to get to ride the other side of the divide to euphoria in getting to admire the beautiful landscape on foot. It was a real mess and I am happy to say that not one person passed me during that time to witness this pathetic display.

As I got closer to cabin I started to slow down. I knew if no one had a patch kit or another tube in the cabin that I was going to have to scratch and I wasn't quite ready to accept that. Scratch because of a flat? I don't think so. I started formulating a plan to push my bike the rest of the way around the course. Then my lower back stepped in and said, uh, hello, remember me, if you do that you are going to cripple yourself for the summer. "That would have been bad ass!" Brian said later when I told him this thought crossed my mind. Unfortunately, I'm not that bad ass, don't really have anything to prove, and most importantly it would have been mental torture to have to walk over all of the course that I have been dreaming about riding for months now. Torture.

In the cabin everyone was really helpful and once the skiers and runners started coming in they were handing me all kinds of things to try to patch one of the holes in my tubes that I had found. One positive thing I have to say amidst my post of negativity is that the people involved in this race are great. The racers, volunteers and race directors are all so willing to provide help when someone needs it. Even all of the racers who can't help but be wrapped up in their own race, trying to take care of themselves out there, took the time out to offer help or condolences. For that I am grateful.

Nothing worked. I pumped and squeezed and air kept leaving the tube. I checked inside the tire to find any obvious pointy things sticking out, but there was not really anything that I think could have made a slit in both tubes. No one had a patch kit.

And of course I was kicking myself inside for not bringing one. They are so light and small, but I have never needed one in the winter. I figured two extra tubes would be enough, but unfortunately I made a dumb decision and left my second spare tube behind at the last minute.

I have to admit I saw how little people were taking on their bikes (only a few of us had sleeping bags) and I started to try to lighten my load at the last minute before the race start. So dumb. Of course everyone asked, "Where is your patch kit?" which made me feel worse and just plain stupid.

My only hope was that the last biker, would come through with some sort of patch kit. I would be way behind the rest of the bikers, but at least I would get to ride the rest of the trail. I can't remember the time before I officially scratched, most of it was a blur, but I do remember Ann, the race director who was acting as sweep arriving and telling me that the other biker scratched and went back to the start. So that was it.

...

I stared out the cabin window and watched the snow fall on the valley that leads to the divide. I desperately wanted to ride my bike up there and was looking forward to that part of the race the most. I knew at that point that it wasn't going to happen. I was crushed.

But I didn't want to let it all out in front of 10 people I had just met, cause I knew there would be a flood of tears. It's pretty much all or nothing when it comes to me and my emotions, so I chose nothing at that time. Unfortunately Brian got all of it the next day, and of course he was great about it. That night, when repeatedly asked about what happened I told the story and then ended with, "Oh well, it happens." and forced out a smile. And it does, mechanicals happen to everyone, but I still felt like I had failed and it hurts much more when you work really hard all winter and show up race morning feeling great. At that point I had only ridden one third of the course, so my legs still felt really fresh.

I decided to make the best of my time in the Cache Mountain cabin and chatted and got to know the three volunteers there - John, Bob and Stan. I tried to help out whenever I could, but mostly I just felt in the way. I partook in some rum after all of the racers passed through and pulled out my sleeping bag and fell asleep around midnight wondering what was going on on the other side of the divide, wishing I was there, even in the snowstorm. I hoped that Brian wasn't stuck in the snow pushing his bike. Maybe by some miracle he was close the finish already, or sleeping in another cabin on the other side. I wouldn't know until noon the next day that he finished around 1 AM in 17 hours.

And I was the girl who scratched because of a flat.

Here's the part where I turn it around and talk about what happened that was positive. But I really don't feel like doing that right now. Maybe in a few days when I write my next post.

Update: I wrote this a few days ago and I am feeling much better now, no longer feeling sorry for myself and I was even able to look at the race results yesterday. That brought back some emotions because it was sad to not see my name in there, but I think I needed to make peace with it. I have accepted that it was my fault I failed at this race, decided to learn from it and move on. I hope that I can get into this race next year, because I have unfinished business.

Oh and I'm buying new tires. My old tires had been passed around amongst many bikers and probably had 5000 miles on them. I looked at them and the tubes again today and have decided the flats were probably being caused by cracks in my sidewall that were pinching the tubes and creating the slits in them.

Crust Biking

2011-03-12T18:17:00.000-09:00

We are back in Anchorage after 10 days in Pennsylvania eating sausage, hoagies, cheesesteaks, and pizza, drinking beer and wine with every meal, and moving between social outings with the least amount of movement possible.

Brian and I felt the burn and the fat rolling over our waistlines as we rode the Middle Fork trail today, a ride of about 4 1/2 hours in which I felt like I had never even trained for a 100 mile race.

Photos to come and some good news...

The Susitna 100 - The End

2011-02-27T08:00:00.008-09:00

The Alexander Lake cabin was warm, almost too warm. Bikers had gear scattered about. One man was fixing a flat. Another was just sitting staring at the ground. The loneliness I had felt out in the wind dissipated as I realized over a hundred other racers were out there going through the same thing.

I wondered how my friend Julie M. was doing. She couldn't be too far behind me. She had been having trouble with her feet, so I had hoped that she worked it out.

It was now after 10 pm. We'd been hanging out in the cabin eating soup and drying out our clothes for almost 45 minutes already. The wind really threw a wrench in my plan as I had only wanted to stay here at the halfway point for a half hour tops.

"Has anyone finished?" I asked. "Yep, Jeff Oatley and (two other racers who I can't remember their names) crossed the finish all within a few minutes of each other." Wow. Eleven hours. It was hard to believe they were finished and here I was just past halfway. They would be home in time to get a full nights rest. Weird.

I oddly didn't envy them. While I was feeling a bit dejected, my spirit was not completely broken. I was slowly beginning to warm up. I had planned to save my spare base layer for the second round at Luce's, but my skin felt a little damp, and I had a chill that I couldn't get rid of, so I tucked myself into the bottom bunk bed and completely changed my clothes. I didn't really care that there were seven strange men that I didn't know in the room and they didn't seem to notice. All modesty is left behind in an event like this.

The new layers lifted my spirits as did the endless number of dinner rolls with butter that I shoved into my mouth. "I really just want to eat the butter, but this seems more civilized." I was starrrving. Soup, dinner rolls, butter, nuts, hot tang, cookies, pringles... I couldn't get enough. I had burned through all of the calories I had eaten out on the trail and was feeling a serious deficit at this point.

After eating what felt like half of the food in the cabin, I started to gather my things, as did Erv. We chatted a bit and decided we should stick together at least until Luce's. I was excited for the tailwind and the fact that the 12 miles to Luce's was downhill. We gathered our things after an hour and a half and headed back onto the trail with a new outlook.

The moon was so bright. The wind had died down, so we didn't exactly get the tailwind we wanted, but I was so sick of wind at that point that I didn't care. The riding was easy! We were flying, before we knew it we were at the turn where the man told us we still had four miles. It really did only seem to take 30 minutes to get there. We rolled all the way back down to the Yentna river, hooting and hollering the whole way. It felt good to be on the bike again. I stood up for the last mile of real downhill and got shot out onto the river in no time.

We were back at Luce's in what seemed to be two hours, but it was already past 1:30 am. Most of the bikers that were in front of me had already continued on to Flathorn Lake. I ordered a cheeseburger and peeled off my layers. They had a sauna running outside of the lodge so I dried my gear in there. I sat there while I waited for my cheeseburger and even though it was over 110 degrees by the woodstove, I still had a chill running through me.

I wandered around Luce's like a zombie. I was really starting to feel tired and ill. My legs felt like they weighed a thousand pounds. The cheeseburger and fries sat in my belly and I feared it would not stay down. I chewed a piece of ginger gum. I laid my head down on the table and was out. I dreamed of strange things that I cannot even explain.

I felt movement by me and was shocked awake. "Sorry to wake you ma'am", the young kid that was working the night shift whispered. "No, no, I have to get up." It was now 3:15 am and I gave myself a 4 am time limit. I moved like a snail, and even spent another 15 minutes laying in the sauna room. I came back and sat by the fire. I chatted with two runners, who were warming their gear by the fire. I was stalling.

Finally I got a small burst of energy and was ready to go. I told Erv I was heading out and he said if I gave him a few minutes he would ride with me. After changing his layers what seemed like 13 times Erv was finally ready at 4:15 am. I didn't mind, I was happy that I would have company pedaling out into the cold, dark night.

"We'll be at Flathorn Lake by sunrise! And then it's only 16 miles to the finish."

I don't remember much of the next few hours. It was pedal, pedal, pedal at a hard pace. I led mostly and Erv was always just on my tail. We turned onto the Susitna and I knew the WALL OF DEATH was just 6 short miles of smooth, slightly downhill trail away. Way off in the distance I could see the sun coming up. At this point I was on auto pilot.

It is precisely at these moments that I seem to get an annoying song in my head. This time it was a song that I heard 6 years ago when Brian and I were on our third or fourth date. He had taken me to a Murphy's Law concert in a seedy bar in West Chester, Pennsylvania. We chugged PBR pounders and danced around in the mosh pit. It was that night that we realized how truly compatible we were.

A few hours into the night they played a little song that goes like this...

Wall of death, here we come.
Wall of death, just for fun.
Wall of death, link arms and run!

At which time everyone in the mosh pit links arms and starts forming a "wall of death" and taking people out on the dance floor. For real. I think I got clothes-lined by my boyfriend of two weeks that night.

But I couldn't remember all of those words, so in my head it went something like this...

Wall of death, here we come.
Wall of death, here we come.
Wall of death, here we come.
Wall of death, here we goooo...
Wall of death, here we come..

Damn it, I can't get this song out of my head!

And that went on for the entire 45 minutes it took for us to make it to the wall of death, while I slipped in and out of consciousness. We crawled up the wall and the song disappeared along with the darkness. The sun was up, and we were pedaling the last mile over Flathorn Lake in no time.

Mount Susitna hovered over us in the morning sun. It felt comforting in a time of so much pain. We stare at that mountain every day across the inlet, and now it was so close. It looked so big. When you are out there pedaling for so many hours in a row, staring at the tracks in front of you, you start to think strange thoughts. I was convinced that Mount Sustina was put there to protect me, like it was blocking me from the harsh realities of the Alaskan wilderness, somehow sheltering me and keeping me safe, carrying me in to the finish line.

Flathorn is a blur. I was fighting to stay awake. It was 8 am. Peggy, Erin and Kim the very nice and welcoming hosts fed me Jambalaya. I ate like ten pieces of cornbread. That cornbread is so good. I fell asleep drooling with my head down on the table. Sleep is never good on the trail, you know you should be moving. You never really get to rest.

We stayed at Flathorn Lake for over an hour and headed out for the final 16 miles at 10 am. Erv and I didn't even speak about riding together, it was pretty much understood at that point. There is not much I can say about the last 16 miles except this..

COME ON!!! RACE COURSE SETTERS!!! ARE YOU MAD??

Brian had warned me about this section, but it was so much worse than I imagined. Do you remember doing "perspective drawings" in art class in grade school? The ones where you pick a point on the paper that is infinity and then draw a triangle coming down from there that is the road, and then draw a bunch of buildings around it, each getting smaller and smaller until they disappear into infinity? That is what the trail looked like. It went on for infinity. 16 miles? No. Infinity.

I won't say much more about that. Except that yes, we eventually got back to Ayshire road, and those last 4 miles were some of the happiest miles of my life.

Done. Tired. Satisfied. Happy.

The Susitna 100 - Part II

2011-02-26T08:00:00.027-09:00

The wind whipped down the Yentna River. I had only a thin liner glove on my hands as I hurried to get my gear back in order outside of Luce's. It's amazing how quickly my hands can start to freeze in the wind, and how quickly I start to panic when this happens. I got on my bike fast and started to pedal into the strong headwind.

My fingers were numb and stiff after only being outside of the warm lodge for five minutes. I tried to ride fast and warm up my hands by swinging them, but nothing was working. They were just getting worse, even inside pogies. I could feel the slightest breeze swirling around inside my pogies, just enough to keep my hands frozen. The panic started to rise and I gave up and stopped and decided I need to figure this out before I continued on. The worst thing you can do is let the cold creep into you, because before you know it, it will be too late and you will never warm up.

I tightened the pogies around the handlebars to keep the wind out and stuffed two empty plastic bags up the sleeves to block the wind. I got out hand warmers and threw them inside the pogies. I zipped up my pit zips, pulled my balaclava up over my face and pulled up the hood to my shell. Back on the bike I pedaled hard and grasped the hand warmers in my hand. When they finally kicked in I knew everything was going to be fine. I relaxed, ready faced my next battle. The wind.

On the short ride up the Yentna, before the Alexander Lake turn off, I passed a rider who I recognized as a guy that works at REI, and yelled out through the wind, "Well, at least we'll have a tailwind on the way back!" He said, "Ya never know, that won't be for four hours!" True, I thought. I fully believed in my mind that I would be back back at Luce's by 10 pm ready to order up a giant bowl of spaghetti and start out the final 35 miles with a full belly and a nice tailwind. But as I am starting to learn in these races, what you think it will be like and what it is actually like, never really matches up.

Pedaling was tough now. The sleeping pad strapped to the front of my bike was acting as a huge sail, forcing my handlebars sideways every few feet. It was taking all of my energy to pedal into the wind. But at least I was warm, and soon I would be off the river.

This was the first time I ran into Erv Berglund, who was struggling as well. We walked a bit together on a soft section after we turned off the river and chatted. Erv was from Minnesota, but his son, who was also in the race lived in Alaska. Erv was back for his second try at the Susitna 100 after crashing badly last year and having to drop out around mile 50. He was determined to finish this year.

After awhile I got back on my bike, but it was slow, soft and uphill, but at least we were out of the wind. Finally I started to see my friends coming back from the turn around point. I was wondering when I would start to see them. Sean, Carl, Julie B - all people who I had ridden with during training, but who were quite a bit faster than me. It was nice to see friendly faces again, even if it was only for a few minutes.

Sean, who is also training to ride to Nome, stopped and chatted with me and Erv for a bit. I don't remember what we talked about, but this will always stick in my mind. He said, "I don't want to lie to you, but it's about to get messy up ahead. There is a really strong headwind and the trail is really soft. You have a long way to go." At that point I started to realize that my grand plans of getting back to Luce's by 10 pm were about to be spoiled, but I was still happy to be out there.

I tried to ride as much as I could but, once I was exposed to the wind the going got really tough. There were big snowdrifts across the trail and foot prints of riders that had come before us breaking up the trail into a soft mush. The wind kept pushing me off the trail. I would step down only to fall hip deep in the soft snow beside the trail.

It was good to get off the bike and walk a bit. It was around 6 pm the sun was about to set. I knew it would be dark soon, and secretly in the back of my mind I feared the darkness. Not fear of the dark in the traditional sense, but fear of the limited view of just the space around my bike where the headlamp shines, fear of a trail with no landmarks, only the tracks of racers that had come before me, fear of the drop in temperatures, the wind and the dark places my mind goes when slogging along at 2 mph pushing my bike into the night.

Erv kept catching up to me, he was surprised that I was still within his sight. "I thought you took off!" He said. We kept pushing into the wind, only able to ride for about ten pedal strokes before falling over. He'd fall down, I'd fall down, I'd help him up, he'd help me up, and it was at that point that we started to form an unspoken pact to stick together at least until we got to Alexander Lake and out of the wind.

Finally the sun set and on came our lights. Off in the distance I could see red blinky lights of racers in front of us. It was surprisingly bright out though with an almost full moon hanging over us. I have never seen so many stars. Erv yelled out, "There's Orion! Maybe he'll watch over us until we get to the cabin." This section of the course, which was only 12 miles, seemed to take for...ev...er. The wind was sucking all of the energy out of my body. The hours were ticking by. I made a point to not look at my thermometer for fear of seeing what the temperature really was. Later I heard rumors of 20 below ambient temperatures and 40 below windchill. That seems to be a bit of an exaggeration, because I never really felt THAT cold.

At one point we tried to figure out how far we were from the cabin. Neither me nor Erv had a bike computer or GPS so we had no idea. "I think it should only be another 2 miles." I said. "Ya think? I hope so." Erv replied. We pushed on. We flipped flopped with other bikers all trying to figure out just how far we had left to go to get out of the wind. After about another half hour we passed a biker coming out. He said, "I've been riding for 35 minutes." He was riding though, so we figured another hour of walking. We were slightly devastated by the thought, but kept pushing on. Two miles, I can handle two miles.

Then after another half hour we made a hard left turn and the headwind became a cross wind. It felt like it was gaining energy at this point, but we had long stretch where we could ride, so our spirits lifted. Every so often a gust would come through and push me clear across the trail into the snow. I picture it now, and it is quite comical. Maybe I would have been laughing at the time, except for the fact that my face was buried in the snow.

After what felt like forever again, we saw another biker and he told us we still had four more miles. I was crushed. It felt like we were getting farther away from the cabin not closer. How could this be? I felt the very beginning of a bonk rushing through my veins. I shoved a giant cookie in my mouth, a delicious giant cookie made of oatmeal, peanut butter, raisins and chocolate chips. I remembered Brian was calling them Man Cookies. Man Cookies, please give me strength, I thought to myself and giggled. It couldn't be that bad as long as I still had Man Cookies.

Bikers headlights passed in the dark. "Good job, keep going." I was only able to get out two word phrases at this point. After about another mile, it was reduced to "Hey." I finally saw my friend Leonard and knew he would be honest about how far we had left to go. I was sure he would say, see that light up there? That's the cabin. But he crushed me again with his words, "Oh, you still have a waaaaaaaays." In that sort of country sounding drawl that Leonard has. Those last two words droned on in my head. A waaaaaaaaaaaays....a waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaays...a waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaays.

Ahhhhh, the beloved low point in the race, the time when you curse yourself for getting yourself out into the middle of nowhere in Alaska only to have to get back somehow, the time when you swear you will never enter another endurance race again, the time when you start making plans to move to Hawaii to become a surfer, where you will retire and spend the rest of your life drinking fruity beverages and basking in the sun.

"This place should be called the fucking Dismal Swamp!" I screamed.

Luckily the wind was howling too loud and Erv was slightly hard of hearing. "WHAT?!!!" he yelled over the wind.

"Oh nothing, I was just saying THIS SUCKS!"

"Yep, it sure does!" He agreed.

After what seemed to be another hour of pure misery, there was a glimmer of hope. As I wallowed in my misery were were passed by a couple of bikers. Erv stopped them to ask how far. I didn't bother because I was tired of hearing bad news. "Oh less than a mile. That's the lake right there and then it's .25 miles from there."

Yes! We were there! We dropped onto the lake just as the wind started subside, got on our bikes and hammered into the Alexander Lake cabin. The Christmas lights that lined the roof of the cabin were twinkling in the night. I could see racers moving around inside. It was the most inviting scene of my life.

"We're halfway kid!" Erv proclaimed.

"Yes, we are. Yes, we are."

The Susitna 100

2011-02-25T11:00:00.001-09:00

As we pulled into the Point Mackenzie parking lot at 8:30 am, I wished I had listened to Brian and left Anchorage earlier. I said, "All I have to do is check in and strap my sleeping bag, frame bag and seat bag on and I'll be ready to go. A half hour will be plenty of time."

My first Susitna 100 was about to start in a half hour and I suddenly felt rushed. Julie Malingowski of Fairbanks was with me. She was the girl I met last year on the trail of the White Mountains 100, who I ended up riding with for 60 miles of that race. Driving the last few miles to the start we talked about a sudden rush of nerves that ran over us. There are always last minute doubts that you have to deal with. What if I didn't train enough? What if the trail is soft and we have to push 100 miles? What if I didn't bring enough layers or food? I have only been racing long distance for a little over two years, so I wonder if I will ever show up to a race feeling 100% confident.

We got our bikes out of the car and quickly rode them up to the cabin to check-in. "15 minutes to the start!" someone yelled as I hopped back on my bike and rode it back down to the car to pack up. The thermometer on my bike read -5 F. Not too bad, I thought. I had nearly everything ready on my bike, but I couldn't get my sleeping bag to stay on straight. I messed with it a few more minutes and then heard a cheer come from the crowd at the top of the hill where the start line was. I missed the start, but I wasn't too worried about it yet. In a race that I expected would take me over 24 hours, what was one minute?

As I pedaled up the hill to the start line and watched the last of the runners hobble away with their sleds I realized my mistake. I now had to pass about 60 people, runners, skiers and bikers included in order to get to a place where I could settle into my pace. The trail was completely torn up and I felt really flustered by my mistake. I started to think bad thoughts, but told myself as soon as my mind started to turn, I would force it back to positive. So I sucked it up and hoped the trail would improve after we left Ayshire Road.

Ayshire road was a mess. I think it's about 4 miles of riding in a ditch next to the road that had been trampled on by over a hundred people that came before me. I was lucky to pass most of the walkers right at the start and then flip flopped with runners, skiers and some other bikers that started late. I mostly pushed my bike through the chopped up mess of soft snow and wondered how long the trail would stay like this. I let air out of my tires and tried to ride as much as I could, the nerves slowly dissipating as I started to realize that race day was finally here and I was about to pedal out into the wilderness of Alaska yet again.

We turned off of Ayshire Road and suddenly I was riding on a paved road that almost had no snow on it. I cranked my twist shifters up to the highest gear and started spinning my way past everyone. Eventhough I was only still passing runners, it felt good. I'm just so used to getting passed. One other biker that was struggling with me came flying by and yelled, "Much better, eh?" I replied "Hell yeah!"

We pedaled past a sign that said "Welcome to the Susitna Flats". It was time to leave civilization behind once again. Mount Susitna looked bigger than ever, the sun was shining and I was finally catching up to the bikers about an hour into my race. It felt good to see bikers again. I came in dead last amongst the bikers in the White Mountain race and was determined not to do that again.

My strategy was to keep moving. I'm not a fast rider to start with, but my biggest problem is that I stop a lot. I take pictures, I stop to eat and drink, I stop to socialize and before you know it I'm dead last. I really wanted to put in a good racing effort this time and not just tour like I usually do. So here are some of the things I did to help myself achieve that goal.

1) Pogies - I usually don't ride with pogies, just really warm mountaineering mittens but I decided that I didn't want to have to manage my hands and I wanted to be able to put food in there. Pogies are great for keeping your hands warm, but even better for use as a feeding trough. And we all know I like to eat. At the start I had my pogies stuffed with pizza, fritos and a giant cinnamon roll. I was like a cafe on wheels.

2) No camera - I have a picture taking problem. I can't pass up an opportunity to stop and take a photo, so I didn't take my camera this time. I probably lost two hours of riding time taking photos in the White Mountain race. Once we were out there and the sun was shining I immediately regretted my decision.

3.) Once I warmed up, I decided to make an effort to push myself. This was my second time riding 100 miles in the snow, so I had an idea what it would take to get myself to the finish. My goal was to settle into a pace that felt comfortable and then push myself just a little bit harder. It really worked, although still slow compared to most racers, I was faster than ever.

After pedaling towards the mountain for a little we turned off of the 50K course for a fun hilly section. I had never ridden this section of the course before and was pleasantly surprised by the hills. I thought of this race as flat, flat, flat. Which means pedal, pedal, pedal, with no rest or fun. but this section was hilly and I even crashed a few times.

I zoned out for awhile and ended up pulling up to a spot on the Little Su where 10 bikes were parked. People were coming up and down this hill and I realized I was already at Flathorn Lake. The first checkpoint! And there were still bikes there. I promptly checked in, downed a huge piece of cornbread, and checked out hoping to pass the 10 bikers that lingered inside. I rolled out onto sunny Flathorn Lake with a huge smile on my face, the first 22 miles behind me and the taste of cornbread still in my mouth. Crisis averted. Time to enjoy the ride.

The next stop was the Dismal Swamp which was anything but dismal. Yes it was long and I could see tiny bikers far off in the distance where I knew I had to go, but the scenery was beautiful and the biking felt easy. It wasn't long before I dropped down the Wall of Death and onto the Susitna River. My nerves were completely gone now as I entered familiar territory. I had ridden on the Susitna River and up the Yentna to Luce's Lodge just two weeks prior to the race. I felt the temperature drop and the trail hard and fast under my wheels and started to crank up the pace. I was determined to get to the next checkpoint by 4pm.

During this section I was passed by Billy who had ridden most of the race with Brian last year. We chatted for a minute before he continued on. He wasn't racing this year, but out there training to ride to Nome in the Iditarod Trial Invitational, which starts on Sunday. I told him I had been thinking of them and remembered some funny stories about their race. Late in the race last year Billy demanded that Brian eat a bowl of Jambalaya, but wouldn't let him sit down at the last checkpoint. He said, "Eat this, and then we are leaving." Billy really pushed Brian and helped him along the last leg of the course. I wondered then if I would end up riding with anyone this time.

The section of riding up to the Yentna was still really hard packed and the going was fast. The Yentna is wide open and I could see riders miles ahead and miles behind me now. This section always takes longer than I remember and just when I think Luce's is around the next bend, I round the corner and realize I have one more bend to go. I zoned out for awhile admiring the mountains of the Alaska Range off in the distance. The sky was clear and blue. I daydreamed about future trips and wondered if I would ever ride to McGrath. I have always dreamed about it, and have read other racers accounts of the trail over and over. There is something that seems to be pulling me out there. I don't know what it is. I ended up arriving at Luce's around 4:30.

There were many bikers at the second checkpoint, some stopped for dinner eating giant bowls of spaghetti, some passing through for the second time on their way to the finish. Everyone still looked pretty fresh and awake. I finally felt like I was back in the place that I should be after the starting line fiasco. Up until this point I was feeling really great, but I had only ridden 41 miles and about 7 hours. I knew that is was going to become more difficult with the darkness and I already felt the temperatures dropping on the river on my way into Luce's.

I grabbed a brownie and planned to eat a full dinner at Luce's when I returned. At this point I had what I thought would be a short 12 mile ride up to Alexander Lake, although I had never ridden that section, so I didn't know much about it. Alexander Lake was at the half way point. 53 miles. There we would turn around and ride 12 miles back to Luce's.

"The wind is really picking up!" one of the checkers yelled out. I looked out the window of the lodge and saw snow blowing fiercely down the river. I had to go up river. I quickly got out some toe warmers, heated them up, stuffed them into my boots and headed out into the wind.

The Anti-Frosty Bottom

2011-01-16T11:26:00.000-09:00

Brian and I wanted to get out for a longish ride of over 30 miles. The Frosty Bottom was being held that day, but we decided why pay 45 dollars to ride on the Tour of Anchorage Trail when we do that all the time for free.

So Brian proposed an Anti-Frosty Bottom course. He sent me the following email while I was at work on Friday.

"Check it out:

Home

tour trail

blue dot

homestead

speedway

moose meadow

black bear

brown bear

Gas line

STA

Gas line to Prospect heights

Down powerline to creek

wolverine /wolverine bowl/near point intersection

wolverine bowl trail back to creek

climb again to middle fork

middle fork to power line

south rim trail

goldern grass

powerline back to creek (3rd time)

wolverine bowl trail along creek to north rim/basher

cross road (if trail exists) to tank trail or road to tank trail

entire moose ridge loop

North Bivouc, cross over to South Biv

Gas Line down to creek

Rovers

Viewpoint

salmon run

tour trail

Home

Hot Tub

Beer"

So we headed out around 10 am that Saturday. The trails in town were crap. We had a big warm up the week before and a lot of the snow had melted. Then it got cold again and froze everything back up. But not before three million people walked all over the slushy trails.

We rode through the first half of the planned ride, bouncing and sliding along the icy, bumpy trails. Mounting and dismounting our bikes as we hit tough sections. It was actually great training for the overflow sections of the White Mountain Race. On the bike, off the bike. This takes a tremendous amount of core strength.

The extreme cold temperatures we have had this winter, have created this beautiful hoar frost that covers everything...

Somewhere before we got to the Wolverine Bowl part of the ride we decided that it probably wasn't the day to ride the Middle Fork. It was super icy and we were on fat tires, not studs. So we revised our route and headed to North Basher early.

Riding on the Basher Trail I remembered how close to a cliff the trail goes in the summer. Given the icy conditions, I dismounted my bike. Only a dumb ass would ride this, I thought.

Then I rounded the corner and saw this...

Luckily he was caught by a tree.

And was able to climb out easily.

We found the connector trail on the other side of Basher and road down the Powerline Trail while the sun set over Anchorage. Yes, the trails were crappy and yes, I was in a bad mood, but if we didn't get out this day we never would have seen this. And that made all the effort and the misery worthwhile.

Portage Lake Ride

2011-01-15T19:50:00.000-09:00

We had been hearing about the ice on Portage Lake all week. The conditions were perfect. It had been cold enough for a long enough period of time for the entire lake to freeze solid. On top of that all of the snow had been blown off by winds, making it perfect for riding with studded tires.

I had talked to my mom in the morning and she asked what we were doing for the day. I told her we were going to ride our bikes across a big frozen lake and she didn't really like that. She wanted to know how we could be sure it was fully frozen and I told her we just know.

The ice only needs to be about four inches thick (although if it were only four inches thick I would probably pass) and since we have had sub zero temperatures most night over the past month, we didn't think it would be a problem.

And it wasn't. Although I can't say thoughts of falling through the ice didn't cross my mind once or twice. But the awesome views made me forget about that pretty quickly. We rode all the way out to the glacier. I was surprised to see that there was a lot of climbable ice surrounding the lake. I just might have to make a return trip.

Last Ride of 2010

2011-01-02T12:43:00.000-09:00

I considered posting pictures of every "last" thing I did in 2010. Last time I brushed my teeth, last time I cooked a meal, last time I walked the dog, but that could have gotten pretty boring pretty quickly, so let's just stick to the fun stuff.

Tim posted a great slide show of his year on the bike and Brian and I are lucky to have once again been a part of that. Check it out if you have a few minutes.

I have to say that mountain biking has changed my life over the past five years. In 2005, we started out a little rocky when my first mountain bike launched me thirty feet onto my head and broke my leg (luckily I was also wearing my first helmet that day), but over the years mountain biking and me have bonded. Bikes have taken me all over Alaska from the trails of the Kenai to the White Mountains of Fairbanks, and outside to Utah, Colorado and of course the Yukon.

I have met most of my good friends in Alaska through biking. I have suffered through cold painful winter training rides and felt the joy of that moment when you are effortlessly bombing downhill and finally feel like a real mountain biker. I have felt the torment of slogging up to Resurrection Pass (yet again) and the happiness you feel once you get there when you realize you get to ride in one of the most beautiful places around.

Friday before the sunset Brian, Niko and I did a short ride from the ball fields on Elmore as the sun set on the last day of 2010. Thank you bikes, bike friends and Alaska for another great year.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T11:22:00.000-09:00

In three brief hours of insanity, the Anchorage Assembly lifted the ban on fireworks within the city last night. What a great idea, let's wait until everyone in town is good and drunk and then give them a bunch of fireworks and a lighter and let them go to town.

I'm actually surprised to see this morning that the city did not burn to the ground. Around 9 pm last night Brian and I rode our bikes over to our friend's party a few block away through what seemed like a war zone. Smoke was everywhere and fireworks were coming from every direction.

There was no shortage of fireworks being set off at our party either. And I can say, now that I know at least no one I know got hurt and that the city seems to mostly be still standing today, that it... was... glorious.

I have never seen so many fireworks being set off at once in every direction that I looked. I even watched some guy light a paper lantern and set it off into the sky. How this is legal I have no idea. It was a giant lantern made out of PAPER and it was lit and set off into the sky to fly over Anchorage. Later we could see about 20 of these things flying over town.

For the rest of the night we alternated between watching fireworks and dancing, bringing in the new year in style. Thanks Josh and Alexa!

Tough Race

2010-12-19T12:52:00.000-09:00

Photo from sheepmountain150bike.com

Twelve tough winter bikers lined up for the inaugural Sheep Mountain 150 bike race last Saturday morning at 9am. There were no women singed up for the race. Two of the twelve were signed up for the 100 mile "easier" option, including Brian.

The course proved to be tougher than any of the racers imagined, non of who had ridden the course before. Conditions were good, but hills were steep and long, so there was a lot more pushing than anyone had anticipated.

When asked what made the route so tough, many racers talked about the demoralizing effect of pushing a bike up a couple of hundred feet thinking that you were arriving at Belanger Pass (the high point on the trail) only to get to the top and realize you were not even close, followed by a long torturous descent in which all of the elevation just gained was lost, only to do it all over again.

It's tough not knowing how far you are along a course and what to expect in the miles to come. People like to know what's coming, how much farther they have to go, and what effort it will take to get there. The only way to overcome the mental torture of not knowing what lies ahead is to train your brain to live in the moment.

You have to try to have fun wherever you are, really take the time to enjoy the scenery, focus on your bike handling skills or do some thinking that you never have time to do at home because you are too busy. When it's dark and you are cold, hungry and tired, that's really hard to do. Your mind keeps going back to how uncomfortable you are and when you are going to be finished. You think about all of the food you'd like to eat, but don't have, what it will feel like to finally snuggle into your warm sleeping bag or bed, or how it will feel to finally thaw your frozen toes. I have never ridden a course this tough before though, so I can't even imagine what these racers went through.

It took the fastest racers 9 hours to ride the first 50 miles. Brian arrived at the first checkpoint spent after 11 hours.


Photo from sheepmountain150bike.com

In the end only five of the original twelve finished. Only two finished the full 150.

More race photos

Sheep Mountain 150 Bike Race

2010-12-08T15:53:00.001-09:00

The Sheep Mountain 150 is this weekend. It's new bike only race that follows the route of the similarly named dog sled race that occurs a week later.

Brian is participating in the 100 mile version of the race. I, however, will just be a spectator at this one. We are headed up to Sheep Mountain Friday night. The race starts Saturday at 9 am and will probably extend well into Sunday for most racers. It looks like they will be riding some interesting terrain. I will probably get out and ride part of the course sometime during the race and take photos.

Good luck to everyone racing this weekend!

Coastal Flats Attempt

2010-12-06T15:06:00.000-09:00

The photo from yesterday's post was taken when I followed a group of fatbikers down to the Coastal Mud Flats on Sunday. Tim proposed a ride, but admitted the conditions might not be right. The only way to find out was to ride down and check it out.

Tim and Tony led the way as we headed down the bluff. I immediately knew that even if the ride turned out to be short, it was going to be worth it.

We rolled out onto the frozen mud and pedaled into the 1 pm sun. The snow was only about 6 inches deep but untracked and provided a lot of resistance on our tires. Every fifteen feet or so, we would hit a pile of wind blown snow and have to dismount our bikes.

We pushed and rolled until we reached the bare ice. I watched as Tim slowly crossed over a depression in the snow and in slow motion his bike began to sink. It was a sight my brain could not process. What was happening?

The ice was slowly giving away under his bike. He was diving with his bike into a river of almost frozen ice slush. Tim quickly pulled himself out the other side and stared at his bike in confusion.

After trying a number of different avenues with no luck, we decided to pack in and come back another day. But not before we hung out and enjoyed the views from the flats. We drive and bike by the inlet all the time, and look out across the flats to the mountains on the other side. It was interesting to get out onto the inlet and view everything from a new perspective.

Flat can be beautiful too

2010-12-05T22:36:00.000-09:00

I spend so much time playing in the mountains in Alaska, climbing the steep waterfalls, skiing the slopes, biking the rolling tundra, and scrambling to the top mountains in search of some beauty that I can't find in town. But today I discovered that flat can be really beautiful too.

Winter night riding at it's best

2010-12-02T10:41:00.001-09:00

This picture wasn't taken on last nights ride, but it looks about the same. Tim took this photo on a similar ride last year. We headed out from the Smokejumper trailhead last night around 7pm with a group of seven. It was -10 degrees.

I wore my winter tights with ski pants over top. My face was covered with a full face mask. On my hands I wore wool liners and my mountaineering mittens. On my feet, I donned my minus forty degree dog walking boots.

We took off from the trailhead quickly, there was no time for talking. As the wind blew through all of our layers we struggled to warm up. At this temperature my muscles feel really stiff and sluggish, my breath is more labored and the cold air burns my lungs. I start to wonder why I like riding at this temperature. I knew there was a reason, but I just couldn't figure it out right away. As I chased the fast group up the first hill, struggling to breath and to warm my hands, feeling nauseous from the extreme cold, I just couldn't think of any reason why this would be a good idea.

About ten minutes into the ride, we turned onto the trail called Speedway (or the Aspen Trail or Area 51 depending on who you talk to). I could feel the warm blood from my core slowly making it's way to my extremities. My feet felt warm, my hands began to thaw with a little bit of the stinging pain that comes with returned circulation. The tingling feeling slowly crept around my body until I felt completely warm.

We pulled out into the open meadow on Speedway, a line of headlights in the dark quietly floating over the trails with the Chugach Front Range hovering over us in the background. The only sounds were tires lightly squeaking on the snow and the sound of breathing through masks. I removed my mask and felt the cold air on my face. I felt the warmth moving through my body. I was completely comfortable and content at minus ten. And then, I remembered the reason.

Rock and Ice... Skiing

2010-11-30T13:21:00.002-09:00

Brian, Dwight and I headed up the Ram Valley access trail in search of some skiing. We wanted to stay close to town because we had a thing that night, but we also wanted to explore something new that was away from the crowds of Turnagain. We took a chance and lost in the snow area, but made up for that in scenery.

Niko has learned how to take short naps along the way when he suspects we will be out all day... dogs are so good at conserving energy. This nap was around 15 seconds.

Heading up to Falling Water Valley. Brian has been up here three times since we first discovered it on our way out to Ram Valley last June. Once to hike it, once to bike it, and now to ski.

There was this flat light over the entire Eagle River Valley, but it made for this beautiful eerie gray and white setting.

We decided to follow a skin track up to the ridge. It was already looking a little thin and we suspected we'd have a nice hike with a not-so-nice survival ski back down.

We took our skins off at the top of some point 4600 something or other and started the quick but slightly terrifying descent. Brian took off and said, "Follow me! I'll warn you of any rocks as they come." He turned down the slope, took two turns and immediately skied over a band of rocks a crashed. Dwight avoided the rocks and gracefully swished all the way down the mountain. After Brian collected himself he too had no problem. I however was very cautious for fear of hitting rocks and ruining my new skis. It was a two turn at a time kind of thing that made my progress down very slow.

The bottom was a bit of a ski-whack back through the trees, so we put our skins back on and slowly made our way down. It was a challenging but satisfying day out! This area will be fun to ski once more powder falls. A lot more powder. We got back to the road five or six hours later, tired and happy.

Niko disliked the descent

Turkey Day Ride

2010-11-26T12:43:00.000-09:00

After three days of ice storms, rain, and general melting of everything that is fun about winter we finally woke up to more snow on Thanksgiving Day. It came down all day covering the icy slushy trails with a blanket of white creamy goodness. We decided it was time to ride for a preemptive burn off of some of those Turkey Day calories. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

Back on the Ice in Nabesna!

2010-11-26T00:24:00.001-09:00

Friday morning Brian and I headed out to Nabesna for the weekend to ice climb. It's very rare that I get him to agree to ice climbing. While he loves exploring mountains he dislikes all of the gear setup and standing around that ice climbing involves.

But he agreed because I told him about this climb called the Corridor where we could free solo a bunch of ice steps while making our way up a narrow canyon only roping up on the longer pitches. The ice is moderate and I thought it would be a perfect lead for me since I haven't led ice in over a year.

We arrived Friday evening to the sun already set at 5pm. We stayed in a cozy cabin at the Sportmens Paradise Lodge, drank wine, ate macaroni and cheese and sorted our gear for the climb in the morning.

We headed out around 10 am. We are not into the alpine start, although we recognize that we might accomplish much more if we could wake up early. We parked at the Jack Creek pullout and headed over the tundra up towards the gully.

It was unseasonably warm, especially for Nabesna. At this time of year I expected it to be between 0 and 10 degrees. And after reading that earlier in the week it got down to 40 below with the windchill I was a bit nervous. But Brian's thermometer read 24 degrees. Perfect ice climbing temperature.

Eventually we were in the gully proper and started to free climb a few small steps.

We passed Wing and a Prayer, a grade V climb which Jayme, Carlene and I attempted and failed to climb a few years ago. It was March and the snow was deep. It had taken us three hours to just get to the gully after breaking trail with our snowshoes. We climbed the two smaller steps below the main pillar. I had no intention of leading it, but Jayme was game to try. She started up, got about a quarter of the way, and said nope. We had already been out five hours and it was getting dark so we retreated.

Wing and a Prayer

But I noted the alternate route "The Corridor", which Jayme said was more moderate, and knew I would be back to climb it.

Finally two years later I was back to climb it. I have to admit I was nervous to lead, considering I hadn't even swung an ice tool yet this season and only climbed three times last year. I pictured my first swing bouncing wildly and that I wouldn't have the strength in the my forearms to hold on, almost like the feeling you have the first time you swing a tool with your left hand.

The view back down the canyon


Roping up for the Corridor

But it turns out it's just like riding a bike. While I did feel a little out of shape, I felt like I got back into the groove of placing screws and building anchors pretty quickly. This climb is similar to Kid's Corner in Caribou Creek, where you keep discovering another fun pitch just around the corner.

I even had someone ask why we were going all the way to Nabesna to climb something similar to what we could climb closer to town, and I thought well if you have to ask that question then you don't really understand why people ice climb. I'm not out there to get laps in on really hard climbs. While it's nice to climb really difficult routes sometimes to see how far you can take it, for the most part I love to climb because I want to explore new areas that I'd never be able to get to without crampons and ice tools. And getting far away from town is not a bad thing.

The fact that I got to do this all with Brian made it that much more fun. I was worried about him having a good time. I'd like him to go with me on future trips, so it was important that everything went well. We have such different levels of comfort in the mountains. He is completely comfortable scrambling unroped on exposed ridges, but admitted that he is not as comfortable on a rope. I've been known to cry unroped while clinging on a moderately exposed slope and have even had a panic attack or two. On the rope I feel much more comfortable.

We picked a turn around time of 3 pm and it came up so quickly that we didn't get to go all the way to the to. But we put in a good solid day out. By the time we got our act together with all the rappelling it was dark and we only had one headlamp. We ended up hiking out in the dark.

Brian won an entire turkey dinner at work, so we brought it up to the cabin and cooked up a big feast that night.

Back at the cabin, tired and happy.

Variable

2010-11-15T09:58:00.001-09:00

It's amazing what a difference three days can make. Thursday we were swimming in fresh soft powder and Sunday we were breaking through crust and falling on our faces. Okay maybe just I was falling on my face.

A group of us headed down to Turnagain Pass again Sunday. We bypassed Tin Can and Sunburst and decided to head up Corn Biscuit to find some untracked snow. The conditions were variable and so was my skiing.

I was still having a great time, but mostly because I was laughing at myself falling on every other turn. I would make a few beautiful turns in soft powder only to hit a hard crust and launch myself face first down the mountain. I got my ski caught under an alder and did a face plant into crusty icy snow, then took 15 minutes to figure out how to get up while laughing hysterically. These are only few scenes in the comedy of errors that was my day yesterday.

Last night our friend Ken asked, "Do you have to be a good skier to ski in the back country?" And the answer to that is no. It's probably a lot less work if you are though.

Even though I sucked pretty bad today, how could I have a bad time with a view like this.

Afternoon Ride

2010-11-13T16:08:00.000-09:00

It seems that everyone is headed down to Turnagain Pass this weekend, after hearing about all of the snow they have been getting. Since I have plans to ski Sunday, and had some things to get done around town today, I decided to stay in town.

I wanted to get out for a little though, so I met up with Tim at noon for a Fatbike Ride. We rode all the good winter singletrack - Moose Ridge, Salmon Run, Blue Dot, Birch Meadow, Black Forest, Baseball Boogie, Speedway (or Area 51), to Moose Meadow, up Rover's and back to the car.

We rode for three hours and on the ride home I thought about how a three hour ride has become a short afternoon out for me. I felt like I could ride for so many more hours. Having endurance is a good feeling. I remember back to a time when an hour long workout kicked my ass.

It makes me wonder, if I take the time and put in the energy, what else can I do? I guess that's how people get hooked on endurance racing

I guess this month begins my White Mountain training. I'm also throwing around the idea of doing the Susitna 100. Training right now consists of only a few days a week of riding with lots of climbing and skiing in between.

Last year I got burnt out on winter biking by the end of February. This year I'm taking a more leisurely approach to training by doing a lot of cross training, and hopefully I can avoid the burnout that comes with riding too much. I think I will enjoy my winter much more this way!

November Powder

2010-11-11T20:30:00.000-09:00

The office I've been consulting at was closed for veteran's day today, so instead of sitting around on my ass all day, I decided to take advantage of all of the powder I have been hearing about in Turnagain Pass.

We headed down to Tin Can with a group of seven and were a little discouraged by the rain we drove through in the Portage area. It was a mix of rain and slush at the trailhead but we knew that meant fresh powder up higher....

And now to just get up higher...

Yep it was dumping...

Visibility was pretty bad at the top, so we stopped short of the summit and did a long run down through the trees. The snow was deep, up to our knees in places and light and fluffy at the top.

Down below the snow got heavy and it was hard to turn, so we had to just point it and go and keep up our speed or we would get buried in snow with cement like consistency.

After another run, we were exhausted from thrashing through all the deep snow, and ended the day with beers and burgers at the Brown Bear. I had a really fun day out and considering it was the first ski of the season, I feel like I did really well. My new skis and skins make such a big difference.

More storms on the way, more powder to be skied this weekend!

Sitka!

2010-10-28T00:40:00.000-08:00

The overnight ferry to Sitka was interesting. We got a cabin and thought we'd sleep the whole way. We were tired from the hike up McGinnis that day, and didn't have trouble falling asleep. But not before we caught the sunset and snapped this shot off the back of the boat.

After sleeping for about three hours we woke up to the boat turning a lot. We were sliding back and forth on the bunk beds, and listening to the engine rattle the doors to our cabin. Every time I fell asleep, I awoke again to doors banging and my feet hitting the bottom of the bed.

We arrived in Sitka early. We still didn't understand how the ferry worked, so we took our time getting dressed, because we figured we had a lot of time. We were wrong, just as I was changing out of my pajamas a women came barging into the cabin yelling that they needed to clean it for the next people getting on. Sooo, you pretty much have fifteen minutes after you dock to get the @#$% off the boat!

We sleepily checked into a hotel and slept in that day. After dragging ourselves out of bed we got coffee and walked down to the bike rental shop. We needed away to get around. We talked to the bike shop owner and he gave us a tip on a hike that wasn't on the map.

We rode to the end of the road in Sitka and found the hatchery that he told us about.

We locked our bikes to a bridge and headed out to find the trail.

This giant log bridge got us over the creek.

Wandered up through the trees wondering what we were going to find. The shop owner told us there was a lake there with a canoe that we could use. There were actually two boats there. We came out of the trees and suddenly found ourselves at this beautiful alpine lake. It felt like we were the only people who had ever been there. (Despite the boats).

We hopped in one of the boats and floated out onto the lake. This was probably my most favorite place we visited on the whole trip. It was so quiet and peaceful here. There were huge waterfalls coming

There were huge waterfalls coming down the sides of this canyon. I wondered if anyone had climbed them.

After the hike we spent the rest of the day riding back to town and then relaxing in Sitka. We looked over maps and realized we had already covered half of the trails in town. Sitka was beautiful and we were sad to have to leave the next day. Back to Juneau!

Fall Riding, Moose, Ice, Rainbows and a little Bromance

2010-10-24T17:53:00.000-08:00

It was a weekend of riding, but somehow I didn't get any pictures of anyone on bikes. Saturday a bunch of us headed out in the chilly morning up the powerline trail for a mellow social ride to Green Lake

My friends are so colorful...

Green Lake was completely frozen over. This is about the only time of year that you can see this lake frozen. In a week or so it will be covered in snow.

The moose were out all over the place, including this bull not too far off the trail. He was accompanied by four others. Another bull, a cow and two babies.

Today we rode from my friend Emmy's house, behind the ball fields, up to the STA trails and then a fun ride all the way back down. The puglsey handled the frozen bumps and roots pretty well. Not as easy to maneuver as my Dos Niner, but not too bad either.

We cut through an area I have never been through before and found this...

Joe giving himself some lovin on Bromance rock.

And these are my cats...

I know. Most random post ever. But fall is kind of like that in Alaska. You never know what you are going to find. Ice, Snow? Wind, Rain? It's an interesting and unpredictable time of year.Of course we are all waiting for the snow to come, but sometimes you just have to roll with what you get.

Crabapples, Raspberries, Muffins, Yum

2010-10-04T21:22:00.000-08:00

It's no secret that I like to bake. Mostly, I like to eat baked goods. When I am having a craving for a pastry, instead of running out to the bakery, I just make whatever it is that I want to eat.

For the most part I have all of the ingredients I need on hand to make the things that I crave. Butter, sugar, flour, chocolate, eggs. Yep that's about all you need. But I also like using ingredients that grow in the backyard, or that we pick out in the wild.

This year Brian formed an obsession with picking berries. I made raspberry crisp, raspberry nectarine crisp, raspberry pie, raspberry jam, blueberry banana muffins, blueberry pie, and so on. Late in the season we still had a lot of raspberries, but I was all raspberried out so we froze a ton of them.

The trick to freezing berries is to lay them out on a baking sheet and put them in the freezer. That allows them to hold their shape and prevents them from squishing together to form a giant raspberry block. After a few hours you can take them out and put them in baggies. Then you can use only a few at a time, or a whole bag, depending on what you are making.

Today I was looking for a sourdough recipe in my Cooking Alaskan book and ran across a recipe for Crabapple Sauce. Who knew you could eat them? So I got a ladder and my ice axe (to pull the branches down) and headed out back to collect a bunch of crab apples.

Cooked them down, and made applesauce with them. It was a bit tart and I could only eat a few spoonfuls, so I decided to make muffins out of them.

I have been trying out vegan muffin recipes lately, not because I am vegan, but because I haven't had any eggs in the house and wanted to bake something. Turns out you don't need eggs to bake. You can use applesauce or mashed bananas. Yum.

So here's the recipe I came up with by combining a few of the recipes I have used lately.

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
Pinch of cinnamon
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup applesauce
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup frozen or fresh raspberries

1. Preheat the oven to 325º Place muffin liners in muffin pans (approx. 12-16 muffins) or grease them with Pam.
2. Combine the flour, salt, baking soda and cinnamon.
3. In a large bowl mix applesauce with the sugar, oil and vanilla.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the liquid mixture and mix.
5. Gently fold in the raspberries.
6. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full.
7. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Tada! Muffins! It would probably be a good idea to let them cool first, because the raspberries will burn your tongue.

More Summer: Mount McGinnis

2010-10-03T11:14:00.000-08:00

Rewind back to June, when we were in Juneau. I'm finding it really hard to go back and write about trips we did in June, but want to get the photos on here, so here goes.

On Day two in Juneau we woke up to tea and delicious sourdough pancakes, made by Ben's mom. Ben told us stories of all of the peaks he had climbed in the area and beyond, which was pretty much every peak on the map. The peaks he hadn't climbed he already had a route planned out. He was back in Juneau for the summer and was going to spend most of his time climbing before he headed back to school in Anchorage in August.

He gave us about ten options for great day hikes. We decided on Mount McGinnis because the hike started by paralleling the Mendenhall Glacier, which we wanted to visit while we were in Juneau.

The hike started out at Mendenhall Lake. It was hot and sunny again. I think it got up to 80 degrees during this hike. I drank three liters of water in about three hours and then did the rest of the hike without any.

For the first few miles the hike is in the trees, but after about thirty minutes we started to see glimpses of the glacier as we climbed.

Eventually we came out onto the ridge where we needed to turn left and start scrambling. At this time we had a great view of the glacier. We could see people down below and heard helicopters flying back and forth all day. This is kind of a noisy hike on a day that a cruise ship is in town. People get off the ship and get in a helicopter and get flown out to the glacier.

Because we ended up visiting all of the towns in Southeast where the cruise ships stop, this became a theme of our trip. We felt bad for tourists who only get to stop in town for a day and never really get to see Alaska the way we do.

Cruises are great for people who want to pay a ton of money and don't want to do any planning on their own, but if you have the time and are on a budget I would recommend traveling by ferry. You can travel from town to town on your own schedule, talk to the locals (most of them don't really like the cruise ships coming to their towns, so we found the locals were nicer to us, and they travel by ferry themselves so you meet them along the way), and you have time to really explore the surrounding areas.

We turned left up the ridge and had a fun scramble on solid granite until we arrived back in the trees.

We were now well above where most people stop and turn around on this hike, it started to feel like we might be in bear territory. Then we saw this...

Out of the trees and into the snow...

We stopped just short of the summit again because we had gone over an hour past our turn around time and were planning on getting to the ferry at 5pm.

View from our turnaround point...

Off to Sitka for an overnight ferry ride...

Falling Water Valley

2010-10-02T22:46:00.000-08:00

Brian and I wanted to do a new hike, but didn't have the energy to climb a peak so we took Niko and Guiness, my friend Trish's dog, out for a hike in Falling Water Valley to check out the fall colors.

The doggies had fun running around on the tundra...

So excited that the snow is coming...

Taking a break to figure out what peaks we are looking at, and planning future trips...

I guess I would call this hike a pleasant walk on rolling tundra. We didn't gain any significant elevation and it was pretty easy going.

The fall colors were everywhere. I love the contrast between the oranges and yellows with the stark white snow at this time of year.

We saw more sheep this summer than any other. My camera does a pretty good job of zooming, these sheep were at least a half mile away.

Eventually we reached the snowline. Yippeeeeee!

We took note of some fun looking skiing slopes for future winter trips.

Guiness napping in the snow. Actually that's not true, I made her pose for this.

We made good time once we turned around and headed back down the valley. We took a lot of breaks and walked leisurely up the valley and it still only took four and a half hours round trip. Can't wait to explore this valley on skis.

I can't believe it's October already. This is the time of year we usually try to get stuff done around our house, getting ready for winter and doing some cleaning that we have neglected all summer, but the hiking has been so good, I think we'll just live with the messy house.

White Mountain Bound Again

2010-09-28T00:15:00.000-08:00

Just signed up for the White Mountain 100 Race for 2011. Finishers from last year got a chance to pre-register a few days early and judging by the overwhelming positive reaction to the race last year, we guessed it would fill up pretty quickly.

So we sat with our laptops and hit refresh until the Register Now button showed up at exactly 12 am. Yes, pretty sad, but we didn't want to risk it.

We are in! I have actually been riding my Pugsley for the past week because my other bike is broken and I haven't had time to fix it.

I rode it out the Powerline Trail one day after work last week to climb Ptarmigan Peak and had a blast coming back in the dark on the Pugsley. I forgot how it just rolls over everything.

Winter is almost here!

Catching up and Mount Jumbo

2010-09-27T21:07:00.001-08:00

I have a lot to catch up on with this blog. I thought about not sharing my summer experiences and just picking it up now, in September, only blogging about things moving forward. But I realized that we did a lot this summer and I want to share it and document it.

Plus I have some photos I want to share. And I didn't realize how much I missed blogging until I started writing again last week.

I guess I will pick up where I left off. May was a busy month for me. We had such nice weather that I was out rock climbing a couple of times a week, and even did my first rock lead. But as I suspected my interest in rock climbing waned after I hit all the regular spots.

Brian and I went on a two week vacation and when we came back we had six straight weekends of trips planned. That combined with bike training and there just wasn't any time to climb.

We took two weeks off at the beginning of June to tour Southeast Alaska by ferry and then headed up to the Yukon for some mountain biking.

After our one way flight to Juneau we stayed with our friend Ben's parent's in Douglas. I think I like the Douglas side better than the Juneau side. You can watch the cruise ships come down the channel and park themselves at a safe distance on the OTHER side of the water. You can hike out on the beach and it's quiet. I don't think tourists make it over there. It feels more like a community and less like a tourist town. I imagine that's what all of the Juneau area is like in the winter.

We decided to head up Mount Jumbo because it was close and we only had about 4 hours before dinner. I now understand why our friend Ben is such a strong and fast hiker. You step out of town onto the trail in Douglas and you immediately start going straight up.

We climbed up through the forest for about 45 minutes and then came out to this boardwalk and the blaring sun. It was about 75 to 80 degrees for our entire stay in the Southeast. A nice change from what we are used to in Anchorage, but not ideal hiking weather.

There was still quite a bit of snow towards the top. We decided to turn around when we were almost to the top because we didn't want to be late for dinner, but we did get some great views of Juneau before heading back down.

My favorite part of the hike was this meadow of wildflowers about half way up.

That night after dinner we hiked along the beach in front of the house.

The next day we decided to try to climb Mount McGinnis before having to catch the ferry to Sitka, more on that to come..

The New Look!

2010-09-23T12:00:00.000-08:00

If you regularly read blogs through Google Reader or some other RSS Feed subscription program, come over and check out the new look of my blog!

I'm really impressed with the upgrades that have been made to Blogger lately. I was considering moving over to wordpress and designing my own theme, but Blogger now makes it really easy to customize your blog and really make it your own.

Now all I need is a new name. The title doesn't really make sense anymore. I stole it from that stupid advertisement for Alaska back in 2005. It was meant to scare my friends and relatives into coming up to visit. I really don't like it, but am horrible at naming things, so it has stayed the same over the years.

Any suggestions?

Above the fog on Flattop

2010-09-21T20:00:00.016-08:00

This summer we had choices to make. We could sit inside and wait for it to stop raining, or we could head out in search of better weather. We chose the latter for the most part. If we couldn't find better weather we just played in the rain. And we had a blast.

Last week Anchorage was covered in fog for a few days straight. The cool thing about Anchorage and fog is that you usually don't have to go very far to rise above it.

Jill, Heather and I drove up out of the fog to Glen Alps to hike up Flattop, because we heard rumors of great weather up there.

And we had some of the most spectacular views from Flattop ever.

People complain about the weather in Alaska a lot, but the unpredictability of the weather is what I love most about living here. If it were sunny and warm all of the time I would be bored.

And I wouldn't get to have days like this.

Nancy Lakes Canoe Trail

2010-09-20T23:08:00.001-08:00

Niko is kind of a nervous dog. He shies away from anything new that he deems scary. He hates the water, but Brian and I thought it was time to test out his sea legs.

Next summer we plan on taking some time off to travel around Alaska and some of the trips we have planned involve boats. So this Saturday we headed up to Nancy Lakes and rented a Canoe to see if we could get Niko in it.

We thought it would be a disaster. Niko would most likely not want to get into the boat, then we'd force him in, he'd pull his stiff leg move that he uses when I try to give him a bath, eventually we'd get him into the boat and he would tremble the whole time all the while trying to find a way out.

It didn't exactly go like that.

He got in the canoe on his own, with only a small bit of trepidation...

And off we sailed into the fog...

The trail consists of eight miles, fourteen lakes, and thirteen portages. Each time we neared land, Niko would get ready to dismount. He'd jump out, we'd carry the canoe to the next spot and he'd jump back in.

Inside the boat he laid down and even took a nap.

Sometimes he'd hear a loon calling and stand up, but Brian would start to gently rock the boat and Niko would lay back down.

It could not have gone more smoothly. Here he is practicing his zen canoe Buddhism. He really wants to jump at that dragonfly, but he is restraining himself. Impressive.

Niko "tundra dog" is more versatile than we thought.

An American Wedding

2010-09-16T08:00:00.001-08:00

I think my sister got it right. Have the ceremony amongst a small group of close family on a remote island in the Caribbean, relax and enjoy the actual day. Then come back to your home town, invite everyone and part-ee, part-ee, part-ee.

One of the great things about hosting your wedding reception in your backyard is that you don't have to go home at 10pm when the time is up, you can make (almost) as much noise as you want, and you don't have to worry about staining the carpet. Okay that's three things. How does the song go.. Have you ever been to American Wedding... non of that applies here.

I spent most of last week setting up for my sister's wedding reception, which was held in the backyard of the house I grew up in. I would work on the reception by day, and visit friends at night. Every time I come home I worry that things won't be the same, or things won't be as fun as they were the last time, but then I see my friends and family and realize it just keeps getting better.

The party was a huge success, with almost 100 people in my mom's backyard, a tent, catering from a great Italian restaurant, a band, and cops showing up to tell us to keep it down. In my opinion if the cops don't show up, something went horribly wrong.

We danced all night to the band until the cops showed up. One of the neighbors had complained that we were too loud. But one of my best friends husbands, who is also a cop, went and talked to them to smooth things over and let the band play a few more songs.

I thought it was a good idea...

Now it's catching on...

By the way, the song they were dancing too, was "Grow Old with You" by Adam Sandler...

This picture looks harmless, but after the slow song, they sped it up and the less than sober people started dancing quickly with the candles in their hands and risked spraying hot wax all over everyone. I had to run around and pry them from their hands.

Congrats to the happy couple!

Thanks to Kate for all the great photos, even though we yelled at you for making us pose and blinding us with your unnaturally bright flash, we love you for documenting our lives for the past 25 years.

Congratulations to Angie and Eric!

2010-09-14T16:20:00.006-08:00

My sister got married in Turks and Caicos last weekend and followed it up with a fantastic party in Allentown, PA this Saturday.

We stepped off the plane in Turks and Caicos and were hit with a wall of heat - 110 degree heat index to be exact. It was quite a shock to my system after 14 hours of traveling and coming from 60 degrees and raining in Anchorage.

We have had such a good time with our family and friends over the past two weeks. It's amazing how easy things are when you are with people who you have known for years and really connect with. Life is good when you can share it with people you love.

Here are some photos from the past two weeks.

Before the ceremony...

The beach ceremony...

Cooling off in the air conditioned bar (note the shiny face and fallen hair, it looks like I just rolled out of bed!)...

Reception in a gazebo by the beach...

Photoshoot on the pier afterwards...

Good times were had by all. It's been a crazy two weeks and we are back in Anchorage enjoying the fall weather and being out of the heat. I have to admit though it was nice to be at the beach, smell the suntan lotion, swim in the ocean for hours at a time, and of course, have all you can eat and drink for five days!

Somewhere along the way I picked up a nasty cold and am trying to recover as I work from home on the couch. More pictures to come from the reception in my mom's backyard...

Someday I will blog again

2010-06-29T09:23:00.004-08:00

A lot has been going on in the past four weeks, which is why the blog has fallen silent. Brian and I were on vacation in South East and the Yukon for two weeks in early June. We hiked and/or biked every day and drank beers and ate tons of food every night. It was a great time.

Then a week later we set out on a four day trip in the Chugach with our friend Carl. We had planned to circumnavigate Mount Rumble and maybe climb it too. We didn't actually meet either of those goals, but we got to some really cool places in Chugach State Park with some unbelievable scenery. More to come on that.

This past weekend was the 24 Hours of Matanuska. I randomly signed up for the 24 solo division and was the only woman. I ended up just riding casually with a few friends, so I actually did less laps than most of the women who rode in the 12 hour division! How embarrassing! But it was fun. Pictures and stories to follow.

This weekend Mount Marathon is coming up. This will be my third time racing it and I hope to finish in under 1:30 this time. I haven't been doing any formal training for this race, but have been hiking and biking my ass off. I feel like I'm in better shape than ever before.

After that I will have a free weekend or two to catch up, but I hope to get some photos out on here this week from recent adventures.

On Vacation

2010-06-10T06:55:00.001-08:00

Monkee and I have completed our South East Alaska ferry tour and are in the Yukon soaking up the sun and riding bikes. We are having a blast but getting tired of living out of a backpack for two weeks. Pictures and stories to come... we are headed back to Anchorage in two days.

First Rock Lead!

2010-05-28T13:36:00.002-08:00

Last night I did my first lead on real rock. Craig and I went to Pivot Point Tuesday night and practiced mock leading a few climbs that we felt pretty comfortable on. Despite my crazy fears lately, it really felt right to me. Somehow I have worked through them and we decided we were both ready to lead.

So last night we headed back up to Upper Pivot with leading on the agenda. And I did it. It was very empowering. I have stood at the top of many ice leads with that feeling of accomplishment that you get from working through your fears and really pushing at the edges of your comfort zone, but this was different.

When I started climbing ice, I jumped right into leading. There aren't many areas where you can top rope ice and I wanted to be able to go out on my own, so I had to learn how to lead. Not to say that there wasn't any fear involved, but I jumped right in and never let the fear stir around in inside of me.

It's been different with rock. I started rock climbing after I started ice and it's really easy to just head to a crag and set up a top rope and play around. I declared myself a just-for-fun rock climber and didn't set any goals for myself in that area. I told myself I didn't want to lead rock.

But that wasn't true, that was just my way of not having to face my fears. I let them simmer for awhile and found other things to do in the summer like mountain biking and hiking. I knew this summer was going to be the year that I either start leading or stop rock climbing. Playing around in the crags is still fun, but I started to feel the pull of greater adventure.

But if I didn't learn how to lead, I couldn't go very far. So for the past few weeks, I have been thinking a lot about leading. I knew that when the time came to lead I would know, and just waited for it.

And the time came. It felt right and I just went for it. It was glorious!

I didn't get any photos, but I imagine it looked something like this...

...except I'm not that fit, and my hair doesn't flow like that, and it wasn't an overhanging 5.11b, it was more like a 5.8 with lots of bolts. But it's a start. And I just wanted to give you a visual. Hopefully someday that will be me.

Climbing at Ravine Lake

2010-05-25T09:42:00.000-08:00

Jill, Ben and their friend Mary Mae called Friday night and said they were heading up the Glen Highway to camp at King Mountain and climb at Ravine Lake the next day. I've been wanting to try climbing out in some of these areas outside of Anchorage for awhile, so I drove up Saturday to meet them.

None of us knew this area even existed. A few miles after Chickaloon, you turn off onto an old dirt road that goes 3 miles to Bonnie Lake and all along the way there are cliffs that you can climb.

We were hoping to find some more quality (less crumbly) rock than we climb on the Seward Highway, but alas that did not happen. This was part of the scree field that led up to the climbs. That boulder was actually sitting in the road.

We attempted to find a trail up in the woods near the lake, but ended up doing a scrambling, scree hike, buswhack up the side of the steep ravine that leads up from the lake.

The view from the top...

Ben led while the girls basked in the sun...

Then we played around on three different climbs for a few hours...

After we finished climbing we headed back to their campsite for some beers, sausages and corn on the cob... aren't they cute?

I ended up driving home late that night, because Sunday I wanted to get our house in order and plant my garden because we are leaving for vacation next weekend! Ahhh, the sky was still lit up at 11 PM on my drive home...

Starting this Saturday we will have two weeks of actual vacation. Brian and I were talking and we discovered that we have not had two full weeks of vacation since we moved here. AND we are actually traveling in Alaska! Crazy!

This will be my first Alaska trip (not work related) that I have to fly to. All of our other trips have been on the road system. I know it's really sad, but it's expensive to fly in Alaska and most of my money has gone to flying back home for Christmas and weddings and taking trips in the lower 48.

So I'm pretty excited, more on this in a few days.

Goat's Head Soup

2010-05-21T06:06:00.006-08:00

More climbing fun was had by all down on the arm this week at Goat's Head Soup. I climbed my first 5.10 outside! Once I had the moves down, it was not as hard as I thought it would be.

No I did not lead it. Part of it was quite terrifying because we had to climb out over to a free hanging boulder, with only space and distant rocks down below.

It's hard to believe that only a few weeks ago, we were wearing down jackets and still stomping through snow. Here's Justin belaying in a t-shirt and bare feet. Bare feet I said!!!

Craig, nearing the top...

And there's me resting after the crux, with a huge smile on my face. Now above the trees I was able to look out over the arm.

This view is always more satisfying when you take the most difficult route up...

Rides like a dream

2010-05-20T06:43:00.003-08:00

I cannot believe I already have my new bike. After the drama of building the Puglsey this fall, I thought I'd never build a bike again. But guess what? It gets easier every time you do it.

My advice on bike building. 1.) Find a big sale on Jenson USA so that you can buy all the parts in one place and have them in a week. 2.) Find a friend and a boyfriend who like to build bikes 3.) Hand them tools 4.) Open beer 5.) Sit back 6.) Ride your new 29er the next day

In reality, I think it is a good idea for anyone who travels in remote areas on their bike to at least once put an entire bike together by themselves, especially women who are intimidated by the whole process. Once you do it one time and start fixing and tuning your bike yourself, it all starts to make sense. I honestly never thought I would know this much about bike building and maintenance and as painful as it was to get started, it has been a great experience.

After making a few more adjustments Saturday morning, we threw our bikes on Tim's car and headed out to the valley, where talk of dry trails lured crowds of mountain bikers.

We attempted to ride the course from last year's 24 hour race, but even though both Brian and I rode it 7 times in a row last year, we still got a little lost.

I knew pretty much instantly that this bike was going to be great for me, because it climbed the first section of singletrack so easily. I mean, I know I have been riding a lot this winter, but it has never been so easy riding a mountain bike. That's the bike, not me.

I used to call Brian a "cheater" for riding a 29er. Yep, it feels like cheating. But cheating never felt so good.

Thanks Tim and Brian for all of your help!

Photoblog time

2010-05-19T09:52:00.006-08:00

I have been wanting to get this project started for awhile and I finally got it off the ground. I wanted a place to hold all of my favorite outdoor photos (mostly taken in Alaska) where I could go back and look at them from time to time without the danger of losing them in some folder on my computer. Because let's be honest, 99 percent of the photos I take are crap and it's really easy for the gems to get lost in the shuffle.

It's been fun for me to go back through the past five years of photos and pick out my favorites. It's also motivation for me to start really learning about photography.

It took me awhile to find a template that I liked, but it is finally up and running. Click here to see it.

The latest photo is one that I took on the first dirt ride of this season up in Palmer. The other photos that I have up so far have been taken over the past five years that I have lived in Alaska. I hope to add a new photo almost every day (old and new), so check back often! And let me know what you think!

Sunshine Ridge

2010-05-18T16:42:00.004-08:00

Not much time to post because I have to go to sleep, but Sunday I got out with a group to play around on Sunshine Ridge. It was sunny as advertised, but really windy and cold and we were on the most exposed climbs on the Turnagain Arm.

Still it was a fun day out with my now regular climbing partners. Joe and Craig... quit yapping and gits to climbing!

Justin... our rope gun. (Currently the only one of us who leads)

Joe pulling an overhang...

Some random but nice people from Colorado...sorry you have discovered our crappy South Central Rock.

Even though it was cold, the views do not dissapoint...

It's funny how climbing in the gym all summer can give you a false sense that you are a good climber. Unfortunately I have been pretty uncomfortable climbing on real rock this year. After I get comfortable here, I'd like to do my first rock lead, but first I need to get some laps in and work through this fear.

More to come...oh yeah, and my bike is built, more on that when I have a minute...

Greeeeen!

2010-05-11T11:08:00.000-08:00

It's finally that time of year when all of the snow is melted in town and the trees start to burst with green. Last week was the city wide cleanup, so the winter trash is mostly gone and the we have been having many blue sky days over the past week. Spring is here!

After a brief hike with Niko on Sunday (he didn't get to join us on our gully adventure the day before), I headed out on Brian's cross bike. I always forget how much fun a road bike can be. As much as I hate riding on the road, riding on a road bike on paved trails can be exhilarating.

I headed out the door of my house with the intention of riding for 3 to 4 hours, taking lots of green pictures and exploring some paved trails that I have never been on before. I wanted to see how far I could get up to the Glen Alps or Upper DeArmoun area on a bike without actually riding on the road. I'd like to be able to combine biking and running as much as possible this summer, so it would be nice to be able to ride to the trailheads. Since the dirt trails are not dried out yet, I would have to do it via mostly paved trails.

I thought I would cut through the APU area on a new trail that I found this winter, but I quickly hit a swampy area and had to turn around. This trail is a snow highway in the winter, and my direct route to University Lake and FNBP. But in summer, not so much.

I eventually ended up on Elmore Rd, which has an awesome bike trail that runs the length of it from 36th all the way up to Abbot. In no time I found myself at Abbot Road and then at service high school. Road bikes are fast!

It was fun spotting all of the new growth around town. As much as I love winter, when spring arrives I start to feel full of energy again. I don't realize how much the darkness wears on me until I feel the sun on my face for hours and hours at a time. It stays light out past 10pm now.

I took the bridge over Abbot Rd to the Birch Road trail. This trail was a great hill workout. I followed it all the way to the end near Huffman and then followed a road that led to DeArmoun. I realized that I was really close to the Rabbit Creek Trail head. It was just about another mile on the road, but my goal was to stay off the roads so I turned back and road home the way I came.

It's nice to know that I can get to most of the trailheads in the Chugach now by bike and not have to drive or ride on the road. I'm hoping to have many multi-sport days this summer.

Explorin'

2010-05-09T22:57:00.004-08:00

Wow what a weekend. The weather has been so unbelievably nice in South Central. Brian and I plan on climbing Indianhouse Mountain next weekend via a route that we already know people have climbed, but this Saturday he wanted to explore a different route up to the point in front of Indianhouse, via a gully on the West face.

From Falls Creek we followed the trail up for about a mile and then started up the first obvious gully full of snow. In the past I have been a little uncomfortable on snow. Even though I know how to self arrest, there is a certain degree (I'm not sure what that is, maybe 45?) that the slope goes past and I start to feel vulnerable. Like I could start sliding and never stop.

But I felt unusually comfortable this day. Maybe because the slope was not very steep and the going was easy. About half way up we stopped for lunch and put our crampons on after the grade steepened and the snow hardened a bit. We could have made it up without crampons, but I just felt more secure with them.

We continued up the gully seeing what looked like a vertical rock face above us, but we've learned to not turn around until we actually walked right up to something because it can be deceiving. If I would have been able to see the gully we walked up from far away (which I did later) I may not have ever started up.

After a long slog up the snow, we got to a point where the gully split. Two of the routes were way too steep without a rope, but one looked manageable. We headed up the middle towards some alders and suddenly the slope steepened and the snow hardened and I started to become uncomfortable. It did not look promising up above, so I stomped out a platform to sit on while Brian continued on to check it out.

I sat there and thought about how comfortable I am when I'm on a rope. I will climb something that is vertical (or more than vertical) and have no problem hanging from a belay. But take the rope away and up the exposure and I start to get uneasy.

It's not so much the going up part that bothers me, but I like to keep looking back deciding if I would be comfortable coming back down the way I came. I do this because I have climbed myself into a panic situation more than once and it usually happens when I am blindly following Brian up something. It's always more tough to come back down because you are less stable facing away from the slope (unless you are down climbing), you can't see where your feet are going and you have to constantly look down at where you could fall. My wild imagination can make this quite interesting.

I have definitely upped my comfort level on steep slopes since we've moved here. Sometimes I envy the people who grew up in the mountains and seem to have no fear. But then I also greatly value this journey I have taken as an adult becoming increasingly comfortable moving around in the mountains. It's very rewarding to know that something that scared the crap out of me a few years ago, now is completely within my comfort zone.

Brian showed up again about 15 minutes later as I made myself comfortable with where I was. He had discovered a route that might be doable, but in his words, "You wouldn't like it." Which means, without a rope I would panic.

After down climbing the top part, we plunged stepped down the now soft snow and back down the trail. We briefly headed up the trail further to scope out another gully that Brian has had his eye on, but I was bonking and had had enough snow climbing for the day, so we ran back down the trail to the car.

Next weekend, Indianhouse proper!

Not exactly el Capitan

2010-05-06T09:20:00.000-08:00

When I came to Alaska I wanted to be a climber. I didn't really know how to go about it, but I knew that I wanted to be like the girl in Rock and Ice Magazine who seemed to be floating effortlessly up the vertical rock, with her soft, shiny hair waving in the wind and a perfect look of concentration on her face.

Well, that didn't exactly happen. For one, my hair will never be soft and shiny. There is usually dirt in it. Secondly, my look is more of fear than concentration. Most importantly, there really isn't that much awe inspiring rock in South Central Alaska. There is nothing that I can look up at and say, "Some day, I want to climb that."

It's mostly just this crumbly pile of rocks we call the Chugach. Each summer, I start out saying, I'm going to climb more rock, but then read the guide books and look at the rock around town and my motivation falls flat. I pick up a bike or a pair of hiking shoes and find other fun ways to spend my free time.

But there has been something nagging at me lately. Eventually we are not going to live in Alaska anymore. I'm not saying that is anytime soon, but some day we will probably move away. I don't want to regret not spending my time here wisely.

There is great rock in Alaska. Huge towers of granite that cause even the laziest person to wonder, maybe I could get to the top of that. The problem is that these mountains are not close to town or close to anywhere that you can drive in Alaska, so I don't get to see them very often. But after seeing Brian's recent pictures of the Alaska Range, I find myself wondering, why are we not spending more time there?

The answer is, because I don't have the right skills. In order to climb peaks in the Alaska Range I need to be able to climb ice, rock, snow, and travel across glaciers. I've got the ice and glacier skills, and I have learned a little about placing snow protection (it's not rocket science), but the rock is where I am lacking.

That's what I intend to spend some time learning to do this summer. I have to say, climbing trad scares the crap out of me. I got a chance to do a bit of a mock lead last night and I would not want my worst enemies to fall on any of the protection that I placed. I definitely need more practice.

But I have got to start somewhere. On a night like last night, playing around on the rocks and lounging in the hot sun was not half bad. And now I have some good climbing partners to start exploring with. I think I might even stick with it this time.

Am I really doing this again?

2010-05-05T14:37:00.003-08:00

I know I said I'd never build a bike again. I'm just not very good at it. I'm clumsy and I get frustrated pretty easily. I like the idea of my new bike arriving at my house all shiny and put together.

But well, I want to try out a 29er AND Brian has a small Salsa Dos Niner frame AND it's orange AND it's basically a hard tail, but has one inch of travel in the back AND it's cheaper than buying a new frame AND there is a big sale on jenson usa right now so I basically got all the parts I need (excluding the frame) for under 1000 dollars.

There are also great advantages to putting a bike together yourself, for example, the satisfaction that you feel in the end, but most importantly you really know how your entire bike works and are able to fix it easily if you need to, say, when your forty miles into the interior of Alaska and there is no one around to tell you why your bike won't shift into granny gear and your legs are tired from mashing your pedals up hill after hill. (I bet Tim is cringing right now at all of my run on sentences)

All of the parts have been ordered, so the answer is yes, I am doing this again. Hopefully with the help of Brian and Tim this time so that I can get it working smoothly. I told them I would pay them in beer. I know they can't say no to that.

It's exciting to think that in a few weeks I will have a new 29er!

2010-05-04T09:30:00.007-08:00

I hiked up the Dome and along the ridge towards Knoya last night. It was the first night of a busy week of after work play I have planned. I orignally was going to go out for a run in the woods, but when it looks like this out as I'm leaving the office I know it's time to get above treeline.

I thought I'd still be able to run a bit on the winding set of trails that leads up to the ridge, but the trail was impossible to run on. It was an off camber ridge of snow in the middle of the trail about a foot wide. If I slipped in the downhill direction I ended up in prickly bushes. If I stepped off the other side, I post-holed up to my knee.

But it was a beautiful day out regardless and Niko and I had fun playing on the tundra.

Niko had a bit too much fun. At one point as I was nearing the top of "Ice Cream Cone" I heard this horrible barking and growling coming from down below. My initial thought was that he was fighting a bear, and I whipped out the bear spray and got it ready. But as he came into view, I realized it was much smaller than that.

My next thought was a wolverine, which for some reason was less scary to me, but not good for Niko at all. Still I got closer and Niko kept barking this strange wild bark that I have never heard before. He was stomping around on the ground and tossing this thing in the air, until it stopped making noise.

Then he paced around it panting with his tail low and would not come to me or even look at me. I was honestly afraid to go near him because he seemed to be guarding it. I did not want to see what it was, because I felt bad that he killed something just for fun. I got this video at the very end of it after he calmed down.

I also blamed myself somewhat because I had run out of dog food earlier that day and tried to feed him cat food. What's that saying about never going to the grocery store hungry? I guess that applies to dogs and the tundra as well.

Finally I got him to come to me, but he kept looking back at the dog and hikers behind us, so I put him on the leash.

Other than that we had a gorgeous night out, with lots of great light for taking photos. I ate my dinner of a peanut butter, banana and honey sandwich on top of the Dome, watched some hikers glissade down the front of the mountain and then headed down a few hours later.

Midtown Bike and Beer Tour

2010-05-02T20:50:00.004-08:00

During this transition from Winter to Summer that some like to call Spring, we are often lost about how to spend our time.

Do we hang on to winter and go skiing and hope we find the elusive stash of powder that somehow survived warm temps and hid from direct sunlight? Sometimes.

Do we look forward to warmer days and try to get outside summer style? We try, but we often get our feet wet falling through a failed ice bridge, get stuck in the mud on a trail that hasn't dried out yet or freeze our fingers while clinging to rock that hasn't had time to warm up yet.

Or do we just stop fighting it and drink beer? Generally we go with this last option.

Friday night bike and beer tour. We toured around the midtown area, me on my Pugsley for lack of another vehicle, stopping at various bars along the way. A perfect way to spend a spring time evening.

More spring skiing

2010-04-27T17:14:00.000-08:00

It was a rough wake up call Sunday morning. My entire body was aching from the 6 hour race the day before, but it was warm out and I had made plans to meet friends at noon for a backcountry ski. I thought it would be good to get out for a mellow day in Arctic Valley to stretch out my legs, instead of just lying around getting stiff.

Craig, Zuzi, Dean and I headed up to Arctic Valley and up Gordon Lyon Peak. The snow was quite sun baked on this side, but made for an easy skin up.

On the way down my new skis didn't perform quite as well. The snow was very grabby and I was having trouble turning. I haven't yet mastered this jump turn and always resort back to trying to carve, which doesn't work on this stuff or in powder. What can I say, where I grew up there was no powder. I'm still learning.

The other three had no problem. Dean has been skiing since he was like 5 or something. Craig used to be a ski instructor. Zuzi was once a national champion of downhill skiing. I was in good skiing company, and it was fun to watch them glide down the mountain effortlessly as I tumbled and struggled to turn.

After the first crappy run I was hesitant to go back up, but we wanted to check out Rendevous Peak and Avalanche Gully which looked soft. Dean noted that the powder gets blown into this gully and the sun barely hits it.

We skinned all the way to the top of Rendezvous taking in the fantastic views that the Chugach provide.

Then headed down the gully. The top was pretty soft with areas of wind blown crust scattered about.

The gully was at least a foot of smooth powder for a nice 1000 foot run.

Niko was happy to run around with Jasper again, and these two were completely done at the end of our second run.

Women Rock! Adventure Race

2010-04-26T09:58:00.006-08:00

Saturday Jill and I ventured up to Mirror Lake to participate in the Women Rock! Adventure Race. It was one of the nicest days this year, with blue skies and temps in the 50s. Downright steamy after coming out of the cold winter.

We went and hiked up Peters Creek and up to Bear Point the week before because we figured a race starting near Peter's Creek would access the mountains this way and that we would possibly be biking out the Peter's Creek trail and hiking up Eklutna Mountain.

But we were wrong. We didn't take into account that this was a race geared towards beginners. It turned out to be more of an urban adventure race. But it was fun! We navigated roads, trails and powerlines in the Mirror Lake and Peter's creek area and did a bit of bushwhacking to find points in the woods.

The bike portion was interesting as we navigated through a maze of roads whose layout make no sense whatsoever. We then did a huge 1000 foot climb up the hillside in Peters Creek towards Bear Point.

This was painful, but a good gauge of the fitness I am starting with for the summer. I'm feeling pretty good about it. I definitely have more endurance than ever and now just need to work on speed. Despite my higher level of fitness, my lungs were still burning on the climb. I guess it really never does get easier, you just go faster.

My teammate Jill is a beast who, despite not riding very often, can climb on a bike like mad woman. I chased her up the entire climb and got the feeling she was slowing down to wait for me. She really needs to enter some mountain bike races this summer, because I think she could do very well.

The finish line was back at Mirror Lake, where we got a free massage and an aromatherapy foot bath. Now that is a new one. It was awesome, but I hope these new adventure racers don't think that this was a typical race finish. The closest thing I ever got to a foot bath was having to cross a glacial stream (which also actually feels pretty good).

Perilla's Gorillas (I got to name our team since Jill wasn't at the meeting) came in fourth place! What a fun day out in the sunshine!

The "Far Away" Mountains

2010-04-19T12:59:00.007-08:00

When you hike a lot in the Chugach front range, you get many opportunities to gaze across the Cook Inlet and wonder what is out there. Sometimes on really clear days, you get a glimpse. "Look, you can see the far away mountains!" Brian will yell out every time the blue sky reveals the mountains to the west of Anchorage in the distance.

Actually the mountains across the inlet to the west of Anchorage are called the Tordrillos. They are part of the narrow expanse of mountains called the Alaska Range that form an arc around South Central Alaska, from Lake Clark up through Denali National Park and all the way over to Canada. But in our house we call them the far away mountains, because you can't drive to them and you rarely get to see them, which makes them seem so far away.

For the past few years Brian has been talking about going heli-skiing in the Tordrillos. This year he finally saved up all of the money to be able to do that, but wasn't able to get a group together to go out there.

Two weeks ago we were at a beer tasting party and some guys sat down at our table that we didn't know. We started chatting with them. They mentioned something about having to get a sat phone, so Brian asked where they were going.

"To the Tordrillos, and we need a fourth, wanna go?" I immediately said, "Yes he does!" It turns out they were not going heli-skiing, but getting dropped on a glacier somewhere, setting up a base camp and skiing the nearby peaks. That is actually much cheaper than what Brian was planning and it was happening now, so he couldn't refuse.

That's where Brian is now. Finally after years of wondering what is over there, he is finally finding out. Sunday morning, he and three others flew out of Talkeetna. I imagine today they have their base camp set up and are skinning up some nearby peak. I'm so glad that he got this opportunity to discover a part of Alaska he has been dreaming about for a long time.

Bear Point

2010-04-18T19:59:00.003-08:00

Hiked with Jill out of Peters Creek today in search of some sunshine. Jill shows some leg...

We found it. It was so sunny I couldn't get the face recognition setting on my camera to work. It's supposed to wait to take the picture until it sees another face in the picture. That's not my face.

That's not either.

Oh well, lets' do cartwheels on this patch of open tundra.

Hooray for sunshine!

Six months people, six months

2010-04-15T08:28:00.007-08:00

In Alaska we have six months of winter, there is no getting around it. I didn't fully understand what that meant before I moved here, but it is part of what I love about living here. If you love winter, six months seems just long enough to get in everything you want to do without wearing on you.

But then April comes, which is still very much part of winter, if you consider that it started mid October. And we think SPRING IS HERE, because most of us have come from other states, that are not so close to the Arctic Circle, where spring comes as early as March, and we are fooled yet again. We also think back to that one or two years where spring did come early April.

It snows in Anchorage in April. Most years. Despite all of the talk about how weird this weather is. It's normal.

Wednesday I woke up... wait actually let's go back farther than that. Tuesday I woke up and said, "Wow! The snow is really melting fast! It's almost gone from our back yard." Because even a true winter lover can be seduced by the warm sun, the sight of GREEN GRASS, and the idea that maybe today I won't have to scrape ice off my windshield.

Wednesday morning comes and I take a shower, get dressed, feed the dog, get my stuff ready, and THEN I look out the window (because why would I need to check the weather, it's spring right?). And I see that it had snowed at least 8 inches over night and was still coming down heavily. It continued to snow all day and night.

But, I have learned to take the weather in Alaska in stride. Fighting the weather is the most unproductive thing you can do. So when it snows A TON mid April, I play in it. I don't complain. And I am comforted knowing I can get a least one more winter play day in.

Today I skied up to Peak 3 (behind flattop) with my friend Craig, who is a really good skier that used to be an instructor, but fairly new to backcountry skiing. I was a little worried about finding the way up there, because I hadn't been back there in the winter in about 3 years and invited Craig. I didn't want his second or third exposure to backcountry skiing to be lame. We found the gully we wanted to ski pretty easily though and made our way up.

It was a great day out despite the fact that the wind was blowing hard and causing whiteout conditions as we ate lunch at the top of the gully. Niko was happy to play with another dog all day, Jasper, Craig's giant German Shepard. But even the dogs were getting cold as we got ready to head down.

(Craig messing with Jasper)

The new skis are awesome! I can't put it any other way.

About two weeks ago, when I was struggling in chopped up heavy Chugach powder at Alyeska, I considered giving up on skiing entirely. I made a conscious choice at the beginning of this season to make it one of my goals to become a better skier before winter ended. So when I was nearing the end of the season and not getting any better, I thought, well, maybe I'm just not a skier.

But today I felt like a skier. It was so easy to turn, so easy to let go and go fast down the steep slope, but still feel in control. It was even easy to navigate through the trees and bushes at the bottom at high speeds, which I never do.

I think I'll give skiing another chance. And winter, if you care at all, know that at least one person in Anchorage still welcomes you.

Spring skiing just got a whole lot better

2010-04-12T19:06:00.003-08:00

It never ends. Just when I have every piece of gear I possibly think I would need for climbing, biking and skiing, I outgrow something or something to be replaced.

Enter my new backcountry skis! I got them 50% off at World Cup on Saturday and picked them up today with my old bindings installed.

Little O'Malley

2010-04-09T21:08:00.003-08:00

The long days of spring and summer in Anchorage are starting. We now have enough daylight that a decent hike after work is possible. Tonight after work I decided to get out for a run up Little O'Malley.

Niko and I both were thrilled to be out running in the mountains again. Except for a few trips to the rock gym and some easy bike rides, I have been pretty much resting for the past two weeks since the White Mountain race. I was on a huge high after that race.

But I started to feel anxious and down earlier this week. As soon as I start to feel like this I know I need to get out and exercise in the mountains. It's the only cure.

The sun at 7pm is still high in the sky.

Niko and I happy at the top. The best thing about spring hiking is that you don't have to hike down the steep parts. Time to glissade...

This hike up Little O'Malley felt unusually easy and I'm hoping to be able to keep this new level of fitness up for the entire summer. I always read that the bigger the base of fitness you have, the higher the peak will be. I am excited to see how high that peak will be.

Five Winters

2010-04-09T09:53:00.000-08:00

When you ask Alaskans how long they have lived here, they often reply with the number of winters they have survived. "Three winters..." or "Twenty-three winters.."

So when someone asked me that very questions the other day, I replied, "Five winters..." and then gasped in disbelief.

Five winters. When Brian and I originally discussed moving to Alaska... (the first conversation was actually two weeks after we started dating) ...the plan was to try Alaska out for two years, climb Denali, and then move somewhere down south like Colorado, so that we had easier access to our family and friends.

Five years later (this weekend), we are still here and recently had a conversation about how much we still want to do in Alaska. We have discussed moving to Colorado or Vermont, usually around the holidays when we feel the pull of our family and friends from the East Coast. But that day, when we feel like we are done with Alaska and ready to move on, doesn't seem to be getting any closer.

And the Denali plan hasn't gone through yet, partly because we have found other things we didn't even know we wanted to do, but maybe we are just saving it because we don't want to have a reason to leave.

Slowing down

2010-04-04T10:48:00.006-08:00

I have been doing some mellow hikes around town with Niko in order to stay active but not push it too much. Yesterday Jill and I got out for a six mile hike around the Moose Ridge Loop, a place where we bike a lot on winter evenings after work.

It was nice to slow down and enjoy the sights and sounds of the forest instead of whizzing by on a bike. And we got to see what we later found out is a bird that is rarely seen by people. I finally got this shot of the American Three Toed Woodpecker after trying about 15 times to catch him with his head out of the hole.

It is definitely spring here in Anchorage for now. The trash is melting out of the snow piles, the roads are clear and the trails are starting to get soggy. That doesn't mean that winter can't return before summer, but for now we are enjoying the warm weather.

It's time to do some spring organizing and summer planning. We have some fun trips coming up this summer.

Relaxin'

2010-04-03T16:12:00.000-08:00

I have spent the past two weeks seriously relaxing back in Anchorage. I had planned to get back into the rock gym after a three week break, and to start some running, but I really am lacking motivation right now.

For about a week I thought well I already rode 100 miles this week, so I earned some relaxing time. But after about a week of this I started to get the itch again. I can't really workout just to be in shape, I have to have some goal in mind.

Brian and I went to ski at Alyeska last weekend and stayed in the hotel, which we never do. But we decided to treat ourselves to a luxury weekend (sort of).

I thought skiing would be okay because I could just have a mellow groomer day and slide down the mountain without really using my legs. But as we approached the top of the tram on Saturday morning, it was becoming evident that this day would not be relaxing at all.

Since the south face was windy and the visibility was zero, we ended up on the North Face for the first run. This doesn't work so well for me because I need a few warm up runs on less steep terrain. I watched as Brian elegantly swished back and forth and then followed him by turning and falling and rolling until my legs couldn't hold me up anymore.

We did about three more runs and I decided to head back to the hotel and have a bath. I hung out in the hotel room and read all of my friends Facebook comments about how spring had come early to Anchorage. It was still winter in Girdwood though. These fat flakes fell from Saturday morning until we left on Sunday and continued throughout the week.

My legs were not fully recovered from the race and they still are not today, two weeks later, so I'm giving it some more time. I've started doing short 20 minute runs, but mostly have just been walking and hiking slow with Niko as we watch the trash and gravel melt out in Anchorage.

This is an ugly time of year in Anchorage, so we spend a lot of time socializing with friends and making plans for summer. Ahh, summer. I think I'm ready now.

Winter Cycling Gear that I love

2010-04-02T12:14:00.000-08:00

While preparing for the White Mountain Race I did a lot of research and tried a lot of different gear. Some of it worked, some of it didn't. I wanted to document that for myself and for other beginners that might be searching for information on winter cycling.

My Patagonia Das Parka. I have had this synthetic puffy jacket for almost four years now and it is my most used piece of gear. I have taken it on many an ice climb and it always keeps me warm. And to think I almost left it behind at the start of the race for a smaller and less insulated down sweater. This would have made my race experience A LOT less enjoyable and possibly caused me harm out in the cold. Yes, most people did not need a jacket of this caliber but what happens if you have to stop and it's 20 below?

My front rack. I mounted the sleeping bag, bivy and pad on the front and this also served as a shelf to stack my mittens and other stuff while I was stopped. I even strapped my food bag under one of the straps while I rode.

These mittens kept my hands warm without pogies at all times except when riding down from the pass in the wind, but in that case I just threw some hand warmers at the front of them to block the wind and I was fine. I am now convinced that I do not need pogies (although they do look like they make great feed bags). I don't plan on riding in temperature below 20 below, and who knows what the wind chill was that night.

This Epic Designs seat bag is awesome. It rolls out to expand and collapse to whatever size you need. There is nothing better than gear that is hand made by the people who use it. You can tell this was well thought out.

Hand warmers... this is kind of an obvious one, I know. But I always carry these and never really use them. These were the 7+ hour ones, and they do last longer than seven hours, because I put some in at 10pm and they were still warm at 7am.

This headlamp is the bomb diggity. Designed for extreme cold. The battery pack is kind of big, but worth it.

Neos, oh how I love my neos overboots. Overflow, what? I have Neos overboots.

Oh yeah, and never leave home without a good doggie to run next to the bike.

White Mountains 100 (the rest)

2010-03-30T15:12:00.002-08:00

Read Part I and Part II first...

We didn't stay long at Checkpoint #4. I was happy to see that Julie M. was still there when I arrived. Before we left the cabin, Ed asked me if I would be back next year, I said, "I think so. But ask me after this last 20 miles."

We only had about twenty miles left to go, but it was going to be a tough twenty miles. Remember all that down, down, downhill that I talked about at the beginning? Well now we had to go up, up, up.

But I felt really strong. Maybe it was the sun, or maybe it was the bagel sandwich that Brian left for me at Checkpoint #4, or maybe I was running on a high of knowing that I was going to finish. Even if my tire completely deflated at this point, pushing my bike twenty miles was not out of the question and I still had over 24 hours to finish before the cutoff.

It was hot. Well probably about 20 degrees, but that was a 40 degree temperature swing from the morning. The sun beat down on us as we stripped layers and made our way to the trail shelter at mile 91. These miles flew by, but we could see the Wickersham wall looming in the distance. It was a mile long hill, with over 600 feet of elevation gain.

After stopping too long at the trail shelter, stuffing our faces with Pringles, Julie M., Ed (who was on skis) and I started off on the last 11 miles of trail. We hit the Wickersham Wall and began to push. Ed took off up the hill. On a day hike this would be nothing, but after riding for 30 hours and pushing a bike that weighed 50 pounds, this wall felt horribly difficult to me.

It was reaally slow. Reallllly, reallly, slow. It probably took about 30 minutes to go that one mile. But we got to the top and from there Julie M. told me exactly how many hills there were left. I was looking forward to the one mile of downhill at the finish.

We traveled over the hills and counted them as we went. There was a short stretch of fun downhill in between each hill and I think we were both happy and sad to be so close to the end. And then before I knew it we were at the one mile sign. I stopped to take it all in, because I knew it would soon be over.

(Me and Carlene at the finish. I love this photo.)

Then I was at the parking lot. Brian was there. He had waited over 6 hours after finishing his own race which was quite impressive. I figured he would be back in a hotel in Fairbanks by then.

My friend Carlene (who had been volunteering at the race Head Quarters for two days with no sleep) was there dressed in a crazy costume with a feather boa and pom poms. She was yelling, "YAAAAAY JULIE! YAAAYY JULIE!!!" and I told her later that it was the best greeting I have ever had at a finish line.

(Me and the other Julie. Done.)

It was over. I had finished my first 100 mile race. I'm still not sure what made this "the greatest race ever", but I believe it was a combination of the following:

1. The race was really well organized.
2. The volunteers and race directors were super fun, really helpful, and genuinely concerned for our well being.
3. The course was so scenic and the scenery kept changing throughout the race.
4. I got to ride with Julie Malingowski and we helped each other along the course. When I was struggling, she was strong and vice versa. It really worked out well.
5. The cabins were only 20 miles apart and were filled with warm people and warm food.
6. The hills! Yes the hills made this a true mountain bike race, unlike any other winter race I know of. YES, we struggled up super long steep hills sometimes taking only one step every other second, but that just meant there was the reward of a long and fast downhill on the other side!
7. I fixed my first sub zero Endomorph flat (well sort of).
8. I finished my first (yes first) hundred mile race, and it was in the snow, crazy wind, and sub zero temperatures of the interior of Alaska.

Take any of these away and the experience would not have been as great. Sometimes in life it all comes together and this was one of those rare moments.

Thanks so much to everyone who volunteered (especially Dan and Ti the medics) and thanks to Ed and Ann for putting on such a great race. We'll be back. Thanks to everyone who took the beautiful photos that I stole from the race website. Thanks to my stomach for keeping all of that food down. Thanks to Carlos for loaning me the frame bag, Carlene for the Bivy Sack (that I didn't have to use thankfully), and of course Brian for all of the support leading up to, during and after the race.

White Mountains 100 (some more)

2010-03-29T19:38:00.012-08:00

(The Ice Lakes)

"@#$%^&!" I yelled every curse word I could think of as Julie M. and I ran up and down the trail swinging our arms like idiots. My hands were starting to freeze and I thought this was the only time I really wished I had pogies. Julie showed me her hand and it was starting to turn really white. "Let's get out of the wind." she suggested.

It's a shame I was in such a hurry for the 2.5 miles down to the Ice Lakes because it was a downhill luge that I remember not even having to steer through. My bike just kind of got funneled down this chute and out onto the Ice Lakes. No steering, no brakes.

Ahh, the Ice Lakes! It was still light out, and... they didn't look that bad. From what Ed, the race director, had described the night before I was picturing a 12 degree slope of glare ice. Glare ice yes, slope... not so much.

I followed the snow machine tracks, as Julie M. followed behind. I tried to take the path of least resistance, or in this case, the path of least slippery trail. I pushed forward against the strong headwind and could feel my body temperature dropping. I stopped to wait for Julie, and tried jumping up and down to keep warm. But then I heard a crack in the ice that started at my feet and crawled it's way over to the side of the "lake". Okay, maybe no jumping then.

Finally at the end of the ice lakes, and I saw a headlamp. I looked back and saw that Julie was struggling with her bike. The wind kept pushing it out of her hands and she dropped it many times.

The headlamp at the end of the lake belonged to a medic named Dan Young. He had a tent set up there at the end of the lakes, just in case people coming down off of the pass at night needed help. Thank you Dan!

Julie showed him her hand and he told us the tissue was starting to turn. She couldn't move three of her fingers. He said, "There's nothing I can do here, we'll have to get you down to the Windy Gap cabin."

"Does that mean I have to scratch?" Julie said, and he replied, "If you get a ride on the snow machine it does." I was pretty bummed that she might have to quit, but thought all hope was not lost. Suddenly Dan thought of an idea and decided to warm her hands on the snow machine grips.

About and hour and half later, after her hands were warmed up and she had warmed up in a minus 30 degree sleeping bag, she made a miraculous recovery. She suddenly sat up and started chatting with us again. It looked like she was going to be able to keep riding.

During the time while Julie was getting warmed up I put all of my layers on and stomped around trying to keep warm. I put hand warmers in my mittens and boots. I chatted with Dan who I found out knows the owners of the company I work for(and good friends of mine). They actually bought his company some years back in order to form PangoMedia. Small, small world.

I guess I could have continued on to the cabin, but I thought if I left, Julie would have no one to ride with the rest of the 8 miles down. It was dark now and the temperature was dropping rapidly. It probably wouldn't have been a good idea for her to continue on by herself coming so close to hypothermia and frostbite. I was in no hurry to get to the cabin, I had planned to eat dinner and try to get a few hours of sleep there anyway. And I was ecstatic that my race up to this point had gone as planned.

So I stayed. And I'm glad I did because Julie then popped out of the tent, back to her old cheery self and we rode the last 8 miles to Windy Gap (mile 62) together. We got to mile 62 (checkpoint #3) at midnight, 16 long hours after we had started that day.

(Getting ready to go at 10:30 pm)

The Windy Gap cabin was so warm that we stripped down to our base layers as soon as we got in. It was very busy too and I was happy to see that there were still three bikers there. We ate meatball soup, talked with the volunteers and other racers, and got some sleep after some of the racers cleared out.

It was at Windy Gap that I saw that Brian had left at 8pm. I thought he was probably at checkpoint #4 by then, so he was just about 4 hours ahead of me.

Throughout the night racers came in until the very last racer showed up around 2 am. Eventually everyone went to sleep. We slept in a 6 person cabin with 12 people. It was quite cozy. Everyone was hacking and coughing all night (including myself), so I'm not sure I got any actual sleep.

I rolled over sometime later and it was 5 am. Julie M. said, "I think I'm ready to go." and I whispered, "Me too." We tried to get up quietly, but as soon as we stood up, most of the other racers jumped up and started packing. I think no one wanted to be the last one out of Windy Gap. Not only because it would mean that you were in last place, but because it's very lonely at the end. No one just happens to come along the trail behind you. It's just you.

(Morning on overflow)

And so we embarked on our second day. Mornings are rough for me so I told Julie M. I was going to hang back and take it easy. There was a ton of overflow on this section of the trail, so it was more on and off the bike to negotiate the ice. I was shocked that this section was so flat. If you look at the elevation profile, it looks like downhill the whole way with one hill.

(Looks downhill right? It is soooo not.)

It was a bit demoralizing when it was painfully gradual, to the point where it almost seemed to be uphill. It was bitter cold. We were told this would be the coldest part of the course and it did not disappoint.

Then about seven miles in just as I was starting to warm up and get going. I looked down and my front tire was completely flat. I looked up to yell to Julie that I got a flat, but she was cresting the horizon and she couldn't hear me. I cannot describe how completely devastated I was. And I absolutely hate changing Endomorph tires. They are really hard to get on and off. I hate doing it in my living room where it is 65 degrees and I have had a full night rest. But I was tired and it was probably 25 below at this point.

I tried first pumping air into it because this has happened before where the valve just comes loose and it's not an actual flat. That seemed like it was going to work, but then I got back on the bike and it went flat again.

By now Julie had to be almost a mile ahead and was probably waiting so I started to run next to the bike so that I could tell her to just go ahead, and that I would probably be awhile. I had one of those, oh my god I am going to burst out crying moments, and even made this "eeeeg" sound, then said out loud, "THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING RIGHT NOW!" but then I held back the flood and got it together.

I eventually caught up with Julie and yelled to her, "I have a flat! You should go ahead." She asked if I had everything I needed and we parted ways.

And so I fixed the flat. It took about 15 minutes for me to get the tire off. There was ice build up on the rims from all of the overflow and the tire kept sticking to them. I would work on the bike for about a minute and then have to put my hands back into my mittens to warm them up. When I took the tube out, it still had air in it. And I could not squeeze anymore out. What the shit?

(Fixing the flat, getting passed by everyone once again)

But I put a new tube in and pumped it up a little, then proceeded to take a half hour to get the freaking Endomorph tire back on. This is when I had my major break down. I can't believe I actually thought I was going to get through the entire race without an emotional breakdown. So silly.

I think about it now and laugh. I was kneeling on my camelbak in the middle of this canyon, with no one around for miles (I hope), beating on my tire with all of my strength. There was two inches of tire that I could not get back on to the rim and I was literally screaming out expletives and punching it as hard as I could.

Awful words, unthinkable things, that you can not even imagine. Think of the worst curse words you know and then string them all together in a sentence. Now say that out loud. That's what I yelled over and over again.

I thought I was being punished for not practicing changing these tires more often. Then magically it popped back in. I was so proud of myself. I didn't give up and it worked. Then I pumped for what seemed like another half hour. Just when I thought I had enough air in, I packed up my stuff, got back on the bike, and then...

My tire went flat again. No joke. I was devastated yet again. But I was surprisingly calm. I pumped another hundred times, just to get the tire to where I could ride it and decided. well, I can ride it. It's going to be slow, but I can ride it.

The strange this is that about an hour later I looked down and it was fully inflated. An hour after that, flat again. I still have no idea, but guess what? I got to checkpoint #4 at noon. Hooray! Only 20 miles left to go.

(Me enjoying a tasty bagel sandwich that Brian left for me at Checkpoint #4, thanks Monkee Man!)

(This is getting long again... I finish it up tomorrow. Yes, I realize it was only 100 mile race and I've already written two novels here, but a lot happened and I have a job.)

White Mountains 100 (this is a long one)

2010-03-26T22:51:00.000-08:00

The White Mountains 100 race course was not familiar to most of the racers that lined up at the start on Sunday morning. Some had ridden parts of the trail, some all of it, but some of us had never been there before and none of us had ever raced it.

This was the inaugural year. After this year, I imagine there will be many repeat racers and word will spread about the difficulties and joys of the course. But for these brief two days, forty-nine other racers and I discovered together, for the first time, what racing the remote White Mountains of Alaska was all about.

About two weeks ago, after my last long ride, I became completely turned off to winter biking. It's no secret that if I do the same thing over and over again, I'm eventually going to get bored. I was a little worried when I began my taper that I would never want to ride my bike again.

And I didn't ride for about a week and a half. The taper became a complete period of rest. Then suddenly as the race was upon us, I got back on the bike to test out my setup and my excitement for winter biking and the race had been renewed (along with my nerves).

The night before the race I felt a bit of nerves as the race directors described the "Ice Lakes" and I found out later I was not alone. The Ice Lakes are a mile long and quarter mile wide stretch of slightly inclined overflow that could have posed my greatest challenge in the race. Slide down off into the willows and you could get soaked from head to toe, your bike parts could freeze up rendering the bike unrideable, while you still have 8 miles left to descend down to the next cabin in potentially negative 20 degree temperatures.

Not only that, but I figured I would be getting there just before dark and if I messed around too long in the first 50 miles I would get there after dark. So at the start of the race I felt pressed to get over the divide and over the Ice Lakes in good time.

As Brian and I drove up 28 miles of the winding Elliot Highway to the race start, a flood of nerves rushed over my body. I was in danger of losing my breakfast. It was about -15 degrees out and windy. After getting our gear all loaded up we headed to the race start. A woman from KUAC (which I later was calling KTUU) came up and asked to interview me and Janice Tower, a well known endurance cyclist from Anchorage.

I hesitated because I had a lot on my mind and still so much to do before the start. But Janice was cool and calm as she always is and said, "Sure." So I complied. I have no idea what I said to this woman who asked questions about why we chose this race and what my goals were, and I'm sure what came out was a jumbled mess of words that were linked together in a fashion that only I could understand.

But basically I told her my goal was to "stay alive" and that the biggest draw for me was "the hills". This last comment later haunted me. Over and over in my head I kept hearing myself saying, "It's the hills, I'm looking forward to the hills".

After the interview was over I frantically searched for Brian because I knew he was still messing with his gear back at the car and the race director had yelled, "5 minutes!". I also knew this would probably be the last time I saw him for three days. That last five minutes I must have blacked out because the next thing I know they yelled, "Ten seconds!" Brian rolled up, we said our goodbyes and good lucks and then we were off.

I must have completely blacked out the first six miles because I remember nothing. All I was doing was trying to ignore the nausea in my stomach that wouldn't subside, and focus on the task at hand.

For the next few days all I had to do was ride my bike and it was becoming evident that all I had to do was ride my bike with some great people and arguably some of the most beautiful scenery I have seen in Alaska.

The first ten miles were up and down and then down, down, down, down a fast and fun downhill with bumps that tested my handling skills with a fully loaded bike. I must have got up to almost 20 miles an hour, but was afraid to look down at the speedometer for fear of crashing. On the first really long uphill I realized that my rear derailleur would not drop down into the lowest gear and in fact it was stopping two from the lowest. That made climbing a bit difficult and I ended up walking up most of the big hill at mile 17 to the first checkpoint.

But I was at the first checkpoint! And in under 3 hours and only a half hour behind Brian who was in 11th place! At this point all of my nerves melted away and I knew everything was going to be fine. At this pace I would get to tackle the big climb up to Cache Mountain Divide followed by the ice lakes all with plenty of daylight to spare.

I should have stopped to fix my derailleur, but part of me didn't want to slow down my pace by stopping to make a repair. Looking back this was really stupid, I probably used up a lot of energy mashing my pedals up the hills of the first 40 miles because I was too stubborn to stop and was convinced I was strong enough to do the whole course with no granny gear.

After the first checkpoint we rolled through an area that had been affected by a forest fire in 2004. Despite hearing many racers complain about how long the Burn area was, it was one of my favorite parts of the course. There was something eerie and beautiful about the burnt black spruce that lined the trail. The skinny trees allowed me to see for miles and try to imagine where in the landscape we were going to travel next.

I saw Crowberry Cabin and shouted out "Crowberry!" because any landmark along the trail was a relief. It meant I was making progress, going in the right direction, and not just pedaling into the far off interior of Alaska somewhere.

I stopped for a bit to take this picture of my bike and chatted with Matias, who I had been flip flopping with for miles and later realized that he was Matias Saari, a name I recognized to have won many running events throughout Alaska, including Mount Marathon last year. I was thrilled and quite shocked to be amongst so many great athletes in this race.

Before I could even think I was at the one mile sign for the second checkpoint. As I crested the next hill, I could see the cabin down below out on the open tundra. It was 3 pm and I was ecstatic to have gone almost 40 miles in 7 hours. I knew at this time, barring no major injuries or mechanicals that I was going to finish.

I didn't want to stay too long and lose my momentum, so I ate some food at the Cache Mountain cabin and packed up my stuff quickly to go. I knew the next task at hand was to climb the 1500 feet up to the divide and I imagined with my derailleur issues that this was going to be somewhat of a push.

I came across Julie Malingowski about a half mile down the trail, while she was negotiating the first area of overflow. Julie and I had met the night before, but I had been reading her blog for trail updates in the weeks before the race.

We ended up flip flopping for a mile and then just started chatting and riding together. A few people asked me before the race if I thought I would team up with anyone to ride and I said no. If I ended up riding with someone, it would happen naturally out on the trail because we were going the same speed. But for some reason riding with Julie just made sense. We found out we had a lot of random things in common and somehow just got along really well from the start. It turned out that we would later help each other out along the trail. I was very thankful to have her there with me.

The climb up to the divide seemed to take forever and we kept trying to guess how far we were. "I think it's just two more miles", I would say. Then we'd go two miles and still were not in sight of the pass. "Uh, I think it's just two more miles." It felt like we had been pushing for twenty.

The wind started to pick up and the sun fell behind the mountains. It was cold. It was the first time I felt cold since the whistle at the start.

Finally we came out above the trees. We were only pushing at this point. The headwind coming down from the pass was threatening to push us back down the mountain. But we pushed on. My bike felt heavy and I cursed myself for bringing so much. I was taking one step every second. If you can't imagine how slow this is, try it. One... two... three... four... It's slow.

But it's true, if you keep putting one foot in front of the other eventually you will get there. And we eventually came out on top of the pass. Tired, hungry, windblown and a little disoriented we started the long downhill stretch to the Windy Gap Cabin (Checkpoint #3), where I had planned to rest. But we had a few more challenges to get through before then. The Ice Lakes were upon us and it was starting to get dark.

(This is so long already, this looks like a good place to stop. I'm going to have to continue it tomorrow...)

In Fairbanks!

2010-03-20T21:09:00.003-08:00

The drive up was beautiful, sunny and clear the whole way. It only took 6 hours. We had a pre-race meeting where they warned us of all of the dangers of the trail, which include an extensive area of overflow and a sneaky 8 foot drop somewhere near mile 70.

We had few slices of pizza and are off to sleep early, gotta get up at 5:30 am to head to the race start. I'm hoping I can get some coffee before then. Good night!

Wish us luck!

2010-03-19T23:17:00.002-08:00

Hopefully we won't need it.

We are headed to Fairbanks tomorrow morning. Should be a six to eight hour drive depending on road conditions. The forecast for Fairbanks during the race...

Sunday...Partly sunny. Highs near 30.

Sunday Night...Mostly clear. Lows near 5 below.

Monday...Sunny. Highs near 25.

Monday Night...Mostly clear. Lows near 5 above.

Tuesday...Mostly sunny. Highs near 25.

Tuesday Night...Partly cloudy. Lows near 5 above.

Sounds downright toasty to me. But it will probably be a bit colder up north of Fairbanks where the race takes place. You can follow along if you want. There will be live updates on the website.

I'll check back next week after it's all over.

Getting there

2010-03-18T22:39:00.003-08:00

From this...

To this...

I'm pretty much all packed. I'm done trying to figure out where I will be and at what time and how many calories and how long it will take. It will take as long as it takes, I will eat as much as I eat, I will ride as much as I ride, and push as much as I push, and will get done when I get done.

No more planning! No more training! I'm ready to get started!

I make lists

2010-03-16T21:59:00.005-08:00

Day one of packing is finished. I made two lists, one for a super cold forecast and one for a not-so-cold forecast. Then I made a master list of everything I will need before during and after the race until next Wednesday, when we plan to come home. Hopefully I won't still be wandering around in the White Mountains by then. I also made a list of where everything will get packed on the bike and on myself. Each one is on a separate sheet of excel workbook. Nerd alert!

Hi, my name is Julie, and I make lists... ? There is a good reason. I am a really forgetful person and if i don't have a list for everything, I will forget... everything. If I don't have my keys strapped to my forehead in the morning I will forget them. Don't even get me started on my cell phone. Let's just say I forget I even have a cell phone (I have to carry it for work) until it starts beeping telling me the battery is dying.

Back to my packing strategy. The not-so-cold forecast would be a low of minus 5 and a high of 25. When did minus 5 become not that cold? I'm not sure, somewhere between sitting on my deck in Philly wearing a tank top and flip flops and sweating my ass off... and now.

Day one of packing consists of laying everything out on the floor of the living room. Tomorrow I'll start sorting this mess out.

Arctic Valley Ski

2010-03-15T19:55:00.009-08:00

We drove up to Alpenglow ski area on Saturday hoping to enjoy some of the new powder that fell last week. Alpenglow is the all volunteer run backcountry ski area that is a fifteen minute drive from our house. It's only open on the weekends so if it snows during the week, the powder stays untouched until the lifts start running Saturday morning. The first winter we lived in a Alaska I used to volunteer at Alpenglow for two hours taking tickets or serving food in exchange for a free lift ticket. It's where I really learned to ski.

We were greeted by about a hundred people in line at the one lift that was running, and saw that half of the powder was already skied up. So we slapped on our skins and bypassed the lift lines. We skinned up the valley in between two peaks. Mount Gordon Lyon and Rendezvous Mountain.

We headed left up Mount Gordon Lyon first. This was actually a new peak for me and standing up on the tippy top of this peak got me excited for spring peak bagging. Only standing on the very top of a peak, with no obstructions on a perfectly clear day can you begin to understand fully why climbers have an obsessive need to always get to the top.

It's here where you can see around yourself in every direction for hundreds of miles, with nothing blocking your view. I wanted to stay up here all day...

But Brian yelled, "I'm ready to ski!" from down below so I figured I better get going.

After skiing down, we decided to start up the other side to Rendezvous where we spotted a sea of untouched powder. Others skiers in the area quickly caught on as the side of Rendezvous became tracked.

Then it was back up Gordon Lyon for one last run. Some day this summer I would like to make this into a loop run. Start at the parking lot, then head straight up Gordon Lyon, along the ridge and then down to the saddle that leads to Rendezvous. Then run up Rendezvous and down the other side back to the parking lot. It would make for a nice after work hike/run.

As much fun as I have had on the bike this season, it's really nice to be done with the long bike training hours and to start thinking about climbing and skiing again. This week we are scrambling to get everything packed for our trip up to Fairbanks. Six days until the race!

Ice Festival!

2010-03-09T23:28:00.003-09:00

I forgot my camera, but got this picture that someone tagged of me on Facebook at the Ice Festival this weekend. Sunday was one of my happiest days in awhile. With the weight of heavy training lifted, I found myself hiking down Hunter Creek, pack on my back, my favorite boots on my feet, smile from ear to ear, without a single thing to think about except driving tools and crampons into ice while moving upward.

It really was a great day that started with me popping out of bed at 6:30 AM ready to go. That never happens, if I have to get up that early it's usually a crawl, with a lot whining for the next hour or two.

I drove up to Hunter Creek with a few co-workers that I conned into signing up for the Intermediate Course. We parted ways after hiking down into the creek as I went off with my group. It was fun to catch up with all the climbers, I hadn't realized how much I missed them until that day. I'd say the ice climbers I've met in Alaska are the most adventurous people I will ever meet. After telling everyone that I was essentially DONE training for the bike race that took me away for so long, plans were starting to be made.

I climbed with the advanced group where we learned how to move efficiently when doing multi-pitch climbs. I really haven't done much multi-pitch climbing because it always takes so long to just do one. I guess the more you climb the more efficient you become.

Later we got to do a "mock" lead on some steep ice. Hollowhead was the name of the climb that is pictured above. We weren't allowed to really lead, but to be honest, I don't think I would have had the nerve to actually lead this. It was Grade IV ice and I have only led up to Grade III. Mock leading is going through the motions of leading, but with the back up top rope.

The lead felt great actually and made me start thinking about stepping it up a bit and getting on some steeper ice in a real lead. It did feel sketchy for a few moves, but I didn't fall and placed all of the protection exactly as I would have if I had been leading for real. I tried to pretend that the top rope wasn't there.

The day ended in a fast hike out of the canyon and a fire and BBQ on the creek. My co-workers survived as well and hopefully I have created some new climbing partners! I can't wait to get back out on the ice. This weekend maybe.

Stay tuned...

2010-03-07T00:26:00.003-09:00

I haven't had much time to blog in the past week, but thought I would write something quick before I go to bed. For most of my waking hours that I am not working I have been staring at what you see in this photo below. This has been my biggest week of training yet. Yesterday I rode for 8 hours and 50 snow miles with my bike fully loaded with gear.

My thoughts about biking have gone to both ends of the spectrum this week as I followed along with the Iditarod Trail Invitational. For the past few years at this time of year, I have watched this race closely and have read all of the stories and have found myself longing to be out on that trail. But then I would ride my bike for a long time, like yesterday, and at points in the ride when my lower back is hurting and my hands are throbbing I think, hell no I am never doing that race. Let's just take this one step at a time and see how 100 miles feels.

Now today I'm back to day dreaming about the Iditarod Trail. It mostly happens behind the comfort of my laptop, so for right now I'm dismissing it as a daydream and that's all.

Tomorrow I Ice Climb in the Alaska Ice Climbing Festival! Oh how I have missed the ice. I almost feel the way I feel when I am making a trip home to see my family and friends in PA. I cannot wait to be back on the ice. And now that I will be tapering for the race, I'll be able to climb all the time, now and when the race is over. Happy, happy times.

Frigid Bits Spectator

2010-02-23T08:07:00.001-09:00

I was a spectator for the first time at a Frigid Bits event on Saturday night. We showed up late and I just couldn't decide whether I wanted to race or do the social ride and in the end I decided I didn't want to ride at all.

Since we had skied all day and I did a long ride the day before I enjoyed myself eating hot dogs and cookies around the burn barrel. I felt guilty for not riding at first because I had planned too.

Lately I have been pushing myself to ride even when I don't feel like it, because I am sure there will probably be some point in the 100 miles of the White Mountain Race that I won't feel like riding. I probably should prepare for that.

But does riding when I don't feel like it really train me for that? Sometimes I think it helps. As soon as I get 30 minutes into a ride, I usually feel better and have fun. I like to think of it as training my brain to just stop thinking and to get on the bike and start pedaling. Everything will work out if I just start pedaling.

The problem with that way of training is that you can push yourself too far and then end up hating the sport. Especially someone like me who can't do the same thing over and over again and not get bored.

For that reason, when I'm really tired and uninterested, I'm allowing myself to skip a ride that I had planned. It's all about finding a balance that works, and knowing the difference between needing rest and just being lazy.

And hanging around the burn barrel on a Saturday night you can't go wrong. Especially when they are giving out free stuff. Check out this new Camelbak I won!

Pango Ski Day

2010-02-21T21:55:00.003-09:00

We had a fun day out skiing with some of my coworkers on Saturday. I took off Friday to ride the bike all day, so that I could get in a ski day on Saturday. I finally feel like I'm really flowing on skis off piste. Even in the crud that is Alyeska right now. They got 30 new inches of snow this week but it was so warm during the days that it melted down into a dense frozen tracked up mess.

That was okay because I have been skiing so well lately that even crud doesn't phase me. I'm sure that it still doesn't look pretty. I'm not really in full control ever when skiing and my form leaves something to be desired, but it's getting more fun and I'm am becoming less cautious.

My favorite part of the day was when we hiked up a small ridge and sat at the top and took in the view. It was so warm that some of the guys were in t-shirts. Not exactly Februrary weather, kind of depressing actually that it was 35 degrees at the TOP of Alyeska in Februrary, but we have warm ups every year and we just have to go with it.

Warm Weather Warning

2010-02-18T10:10:00.001-09:00

I giggled when I was watching the news Tuesday night and the first story was "Warm Weather Warning". The temperature goes above freezing and people in Alaska (at least the type of people who recreate in the snow and on the ice) start to panic.

There is a buzz about town that happens every year when we have a warm up in the middle of winter. What if all the snow melts? What if the ice falls down before the Ice Festival? What will we do with our weekends? This is going to create a big mess! Then a few days later the temperature drops, the ice freezes up, the snow begins to fall again and we all take a big sigh of relief in our little bubble of winter happiness.

In all seriousness the warning is really to watch out for ice and snow falling off of roofs and snow melting and freezing at night onto the roads creating dangerous driving conditions, but it's funny to think of all of the winter lovers (including myself) sitting on their couches watching the news with wide eyes thinking, OH NO, NOT WARM WEATHER! It is completely opposite from where I used to live (Philadelphia) and makes me happy to know that I am where I am supposed to be.

A multi sport weekend

2010-02-17T08:53:00.001-09:00

While Brian was slogging away at the Susitna 100, a couple of friends and I were headed up to Nancy Lakes Area to stay at a cabin on Lynx Lake. Since Laura and Mel couldn't get out there until 4:30 pm, I thought I'd ride my bike around, explore the area, and haul some stuff out to the cabin to get some miles in.

Niko and I started out on the Nancy Lake Parkway where conditions were good. I got my "Springer" dog walker attached to my Pugsley so that Niko wouldn't run off in front of all of the expected snow machine traffic.

Conditions on the road were good but as soon as we dropped down onto one of the lakes the ride started to deteriorate. About every ten minutes the trail would get to soft to ride and I would feel that familiar sink of the front tire down into deep snow. For five hours I was on and off the bike, happy when I could ride, happy when I couldn't. I didn't have any real agenda for the day except to pass by the cabin and drop some stuff off, so pushing never really bothered me.

I thought about Brian out on the Susitna course and wondered if he was experiencing the same conditions. I hoped that the conditions were better for him, which it turns out they were. He ended up riding 98 percent of the course. I'd say I rode about half of the five hours I was out on Saturday.

At 5 pm we arrived back at the car to meet Laura and Mel. Niko was wiped out and he took his place in his bed in the back seat with a look of relief for being back at the car, ready to nap on the long drive home. He stared at me curiously as I packed up the bike and proceeded to get out the skis and pack up a sled. I literally had to pick him up out of his bed and set him on the ground as he whined and squirmed.

"Just four more miles buddy."

Me, Mel, Laura, Niko, Deuce (Mel's dog) and Aly (Laura's dog) set out for the cabin in the dark.

We were happy that I had been out to the cabin earlier that day, because the only way we found it in the dark night was by following my Endomorph tracks. Eventually we arrived at the cabin around 9pm and settled in with a warm fire, some Jambalaya and many, many well earned chocolate Valentine treats.

I fell asleep wondering where Brian was. Was he pushing his bike up the Yentna River? Was he riding? Soaking in the hot tub at Luce's? Already at home? Was he going to finish? Would he aggravate his foot injury? There were so many possibilities, but I had a feeling he was pressing on to the finish line.

In the morning I was stiff and tired from the nine hour day before, so I was glad to only have to ski four miles back to the car and with a much lighter sled.

I decided to check my messages because Brian said he would call when he was done. There was one message. At 8am he had called and said, "I finished in 21 hours and 48 minutes, I'm going home to sleep, see you there." Yay! I was happy for him and relieved that I didn't have to wonder any more.

We packed up the stuff and headed onto the lake at a slow pace.

Ahhh... back at the car, this time Niko could really take a nap.

Congratulations!

2010-02-15T11:39:00.005-09:00

After much concern last week over newly fallen snow and a recent diagnosis of Plantar Fasciitis in both feet, Brian ended up starting and finishing the Su 100 (100 miles of biking in the snow) in just 21 hours and 48 minutes this weekend. Nice job Monkee, I knew you were going to kick ass!

Look at him smiling in this photo by the Nome sign. What do you think, it looks like he wants to go to Nome...

...or maybe he was smiling because he was NOT going to Nome.

OR maybe he's smiling because he's wearing his fancy knickers! (Seriously what is going on down there?)

Also congrats to my friend Carlene for skiing the Little Su 50K, to Julie and Jill of Palmer for taking 1st and 2nd place in the female bike division of the 50K, and to Tim Kelly for finishing the Su 100 once again. You all continue to inspire me!

Training continues for the White Mountain Race which is just 5 short weeks away, yikes!

Snowy, snow, snow, snow...

2010-02-09T17:52:00.002-09:00

...that's what I imagine goes through Niko's mind as he jumps and squeals by the front door when he knows we are about to go play in the snow.

We got pummeled with snow here in South Central this weekend. Great for skiing, not so great for training for a hundred mile race. But I am trying to find a way to train in all conditions. I suppose this is a scenario that could play out the day of the race.

I went out for a ride Saturday amidst the "Blizzard" and made it only four miles in my first hour. Niko had a blast bouncing around in the freshly fallen snow, and I pushed. I rode some, but fell a lot. I did get a chance to try out my new Neos over boots in the deep powder.

It still feels wrong to squash the snow with my monster tires. I feel like a big bully doing it. But I really don't have a choice right now. So I'm trying to balance putting in a lot of miles on the bike and enjoying the snow on my skis.

Sunday we showed proper respect to the snow and skied in it at Aleyska. The powder was glorious!

Check out this stud I found on the slopes!

This year I'm venturing out into new territory at Alyeska. I am at the point where I can pretty much ski the whole mountain. Well, except for something they call "The Knuckles" which requires a "sketchy traverse" over rocks where any mis-ski could turn into a tumble off of a cliff.

But I do ski the High Traverse or the "High T" as locals call it, which is a journey in itself just to get there. First you veer off the groomed run into a fast traverse on the side of steep slope and aim your skis towards a narrow gate. You fly between the gate around a blind corner hoping no one is stopped at the entrance, then you traverse and side step up, and traverse and side step and then glide a long distance over several bumps and around the bowl until you find what you are looking for.

Then before you drop in you look back at how far you have come...

It was a great day that ended at chair five with beers and wings. And I am happy to say that I only watched about five minutes of "the game".

Sometimes we have to push

2010-02-08T20:49:00.008-09:00

It feels wrong to push a bike through fresh snow, I should be on skis, I kept telling myself. But sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do....

...and generally we feel great after it's over.

Alaska Ice Festival - Sign up Online

2010-02-02T10:01:00.005-09:00

The second annual Alaska Ice Festival is March 5-7, 2010. I've been working on the website in my free time and it's finally up with Online Registration hooked up. If you want to sign up for a clinic, the climbing competition, buy tickets to the kick-off party or buy a t-shirt, it's ready to go!

AK Ice Fest Website

It was pretty when it was easy

2010-01-31T21:34:00.007-09:00

With the White Mountain Race coming up quickly and the Susitna 100 (Brian is doing this not me) we decided it was time to really get out there and test out our gear and put in some good hard miles. Saturday we woke up at 6am and drove up to Willow to start a long ride.

The moon was spectacular as we loaded up the bikes in the dark.

We arrived at the boat launch at Deshka Landing just around sunrise and loaded up the bikes. I still don't have much weight on my actual bike. I am used to carrying weight on my back and don't understand why more people don't do this on bikes. I'm sure I'll find out soon enough, but to me it makes more sense to have most of the weight over my center of gravity on the bike.

This week I'm going to get a front rack in order to strap my sleeping bag, bivy and foam pad to, and I have a seat bag on the way from Epic Designs, but I am going to carry some weight in a backpack on my back unless I find that there is some disadvantage to this.

The temperature was 15 degrees at the car, but that quickly dropped to zero as we got down onto the Susitna River. We required a quick wardrobe change before we were ready to go.

The riding was flat and the conditions were great and I found the going easy as we started the 15 miles down the Susitna to the intersection with the Yentna. It was especially easy to ride in the tracks made by snow machines pulling sleds behind. But only a certain kind of sled makes for easy going.

Once we turned up the Yentna it felt slighty uphill and the snow got soft from the sun. This became difficult for me. I guess I've been spoiled on the pansy packed down, rock hard trails of Anchorage.

Flat rides are mentally and physically torturous for me, because of the non stop pedaling against the resistance of the snow. It's pretty much "pedal, pedal, pedal" the whole way with no break.

I don't remember what the exact conversation was late in the ride that sparked the quote that inspired the title of this post but it went something like this...

Brian: "How ya doin'?"

Me: "OK... actually, this hurts."

Brian: "We're almost there. It's beautiful though, right?"

Me: "It was pretty when it was easy. Now it's just pain."

After about 4 1/2 hours of riding we saw the sign for Luce's Lodge, climbed the steep hill to the lodge and parked our bikes...

Luce's is a fantastic place to stay. Not because of fancy rooms or food(although the food is good) or amenities, but because the Luce's (Janice and Dave) are really kind and generous people and it they make you feel very much at home in their lodge.

You walk in and you are greeted with free coffee and warm stove, cheeseburgers, great french fries and beer. We were amazed at how many snow machiners were stopping in, making this remote lodge pretty crowded during lunchtime.

Our cozy room at the lodge, where I took a nap in the evening while Brian went out for another 20 or so miles of riding in the dark.

They even have a hot tub where you can soak tired muscles and watch the sun set. In the morning we were greeted by the moon again and a huge breakfast prepared by the Luce's.

At 9:30 it was time to pack up the bikes and hit the trail again. It was 10 degrees at the lodge and zero again when we dropped down to the river.

The sun was so bright on the ride back down the Yentna that it was hard to take photos. Brian would occasionally disappear into the sunlight and then reappear when he stopped to let me catch up.

The view of Denali was spectacular on the way back up the Susitna. This picture doesn't do it justice. We were a little surprised at what seemed to be steam coming up off of this section of open river.

As we got closer to Deshka Landing where the car was parked my legs were screaming at me for not training more in these conditions. It made me realize that I cannot train in Anchorage much anymore on the weekends leading up the White Mountain Race. The snow is just too packed down to provide enough resistance.

As I approached the end of the ride, I had one more look back at the river that really was pretty even when it got hard.

Missing the ice

2010-01-29T13:33:00.000-09:00

What have I been doing for the month of January?

Riding...

Riding...

and more riding...

It's becoming a problem because the climbing people are getting restless. Mainly this girl...

She harasses me about my bike every chance she gets. She hates my bike. It's eating up all of my attention. We used to spend so much time climbing together that Brian started calling her my "winter boyfriend". But alas, I have not been out on the ice yet this year! It's very sad. I miss the ice and I miss climbing with Kim.

But I'm starting to realize that if I want to accomplish any of my goals that I need to be able to focus. It used to be that I would do a little of everything, but it's really hard to get good at anything like that.

The plan is to ride my ass of in January, February and early March, and then taper for two weeks before the race. During that time I can start ice climbing again. I'll have at least two months of good solid (warm weather, long daylight) climbing days after that.

So there it is. I can do everything I want to do, I just need to organize a little bit. And maybe Kim can be my spring boyfriend this year.

A whole month flew by...

2010-01-28T16:36:00.004-09:00

...while I wasn't looking. It's the end of January already and I have neglected my blog. My days are now filled with work, riding my bike, climbing in the rock gym, cooking fabulous meals and then back to work at night on various websites I have volunteered to set up.

I haven't had time to stop and think. The only time I get to really think is when I'm on the bike. Bike rides are getting longer now and we are preparing to start adding weight to our bikes while training in order to simulate the White Mountain race conditions.

By the way, the BLM permit for the White Mountain Race went through, so it's official. On March 21st Brian and I will be starting our 100 mile journey north of Fairbanks into the White Mountains. Woohoo! Or OMG, WTS? depending on what day you talk to me. But if there wasn't an element of panic in me it wouldn't be fun, right?

Our Saturdays have been spent riding all the daylight hours away. Last weekend we rode out to the Knik Glacier, wow! What a beautiful ride.

We started out at noon at Hunter Creek...

Niko was full of energy on the first half of the ride...

We arrived at the glacier about two hours later...

There are so many cool places to explore in this area. You can weave your bike in and out of ice formations. I was kicking myself for not bringing the ice climbing gear, but then again it felt like the temperature had dropped to about -10 on the glacier and the sun was about to set, so we didn't stay long.

We headed back to the car after eating a couple of burritos. I'd definitely like to go back and wander around here for a few hours (or days). In addition to the glacier I could see multiple waterfall climbs down further in the gorge.

We arrived back at Hunter Creek at sunset with Niko dragging behind, his paws bleeding from running on hard crusty snow all day.

I'm feeling pretty good about the upcoming race. February is going to be a big mile month on the bike for me. This weekend Brian and I are heading down the Susitna to ride and stay at Luce's Lodge for a night. More photos to come!

Happy New Year

2010-01-04T08:47:00.004-09:00

I created a slideshow from my favorite photos of 2009. I finally got this thing working and uploaded it after a few days of fiddling around with it, but here it is... I hope you like it.

I have heard many people saying 2009 was a tough year, but we have been fortunate to have had a great year in 2009. I chose the song "Hold your Head High" by Heartless Bastards that reminds me that even if I am going through a rough time, things will eventually turn around and be great again.

(Some of the photos were taken by Brian and also my friends Tim, Heather and John.)

I'm not really one for New Year's Resolutions and saying, "in 2010 I'm finally gonna get my act together and do 'fill in the blank'". I'm more of a "I want to do something so I'm going to start now." kind of person. Why wait until a new year, or until Monday, or until the weekend? Do what you want to do now. Walk outside of your door and start.

Crab Feast!

2009-12-29T13:25:00.002-09:00

I brought with me five pounds of Alaskan King Crab and a pound of Alaskan Scallops so that we could have what might become our annual Crab Feast in Allentown.

Scallops wrapped in bacon...

The crab...

Eric, my sister's fiance enjoying a huge chunk of crab...

Angie dumping her crab onto the plate...

Tony wrestling with a claw...

I could eat like this every night!