Final preparations

Oof, it's been a busy couple of weeks. Predictably I have not yet written down a gear list for the trip to Nome, but I've made a nice stack of things that looks disconcertingly like a lot of things. Beat and I have been putting together our Nome food boxes, and I just have to say that this part is the absolute worst. I am now neck-deep in planning fatigue and tempted to just grab random things from the pantry to fill out my food boxes rather than try to adhere to the lists I made. I told Beat I will not be doing any of this next year. I don't even care if I fail miserably in the 2020 race and don't manage to save the funds to buy a plane ticket to New Zealand next winter. I'll stay home. I hear Colorado is nice in March. I wouldn't even know!


Last week I joined my friend Cheryl for a sub-24-hour overnight trip to Leadville. The Arkansas River Valley is one of the relatively close-to-home parts of the state that is often quite cold, and I was excited when the nights leading up to our trip dipped into the negative double digits. Of course, by the time we arrived in Leadville, heavy storm clouds were building over the Sawatch Range. The forecast called for 1-3" of snow, but I was already bracing for a foot, since warm, wet snow just seems to be my lot in life. Alaska has been experiencing one of its coldest winters in years, but I have little doubt by the time I arrive in the North, the winter-hurricane conditions I experienced for an entire month last year in Nome will return. Not that I have any sort of crystal ball. And of course, because I'm bracing for warm and wet conditions, the universe will probably smack me down with endless days of 40 below.

We started out from the southern tip of Turquoise Lake just after 2 p.m. Initially the weather was quite nice, 15 degrees and partly cloudy. The trail was recently groomed and a bit punchy, but had a good base and optimal sled glide. I got a head start with my fully packed sled and wanted to see how long I could stay ahead of Cheryl. I even did a bit of jogging, and was thankful that dragging a sled at a decent clip actually doesn't feel that hard in good conditions. I don't think I've done a sled-drag yet this winter where conditions weren't unreasonably difficult — either deep and unconsolidated snow, or a continuous steep climb, or loose powder at 30 below. 

Cheryl passed me about three miles in. The flurries had already started, and we were heading toward ominous skies. We had agreed on a likely place to camp near our starting point, and I planned to hike out and back. But I was making such good time that I decided to follow Cheryl all the way around the lake. I texted her to let her know my new plan, but we had forgotten to exchange specific InReach e-mail addresses, and a message sent to her phone number from my poor-reception cell phone just disappeared into the void. This miscommunication caused confusion when our planned site wasn't accessible, and Cheryl became sweaty and cold while riding around and looking for me.

Meanwhile I was feeling good, marching up a thousand-foot climb in increasingly heavy snowfall, listening to decade-old podcasts about the Iditarod Trail Invitational that I managed to dredge up from deep Internet (so much nostalgia. Gear talk about Pugsleys!), and trying to keep Cheryl's disappearing tire track in sight so I could meet her wherever she decided to camp. Between the big climb and a longer-than-expected route — 16 miles, when I was banking on 13 or 14 — I was about an hour late. Cheryl had decided to return to the car. She didn't seem too irritated about the miscommunication, although I felt bad. She was carrying a lightweight sleeping bag that she recently purchased and changed her mind about using it. She wanted to return it while it was still new and instead bring her 40-below bag to Alaska for the 350-mile race. On the drive up, we'd had a long talk about how I was a "fear-packer" and hold few regrets about this. Sure, I'm not that strong, and I acknowledge that the weight does affect my performance. But I'd rather carry my fears in my sled than in my heart for a thousand miles. I wholeheartedly supported her decision to go with the 40 below bag, even if it meant she wouldn't be camping with me on this night.

Unfortunately it was still fairly early in the evening when Cheryl headed back into Leadville and I walked a mile up the trail to a dead-end picnic area to pitch my camp. We set a time to meet in the morning and it was 12 hours later ... I should have given that more thought. Winter bivies can be okay for five or six hours, but longer than that becomes tedious. I've found I need to be endurance-racing exhausted to sleep much in a winter bivy, so this was going to be a long night.

Anyway, I expected to find a nice picnic table in this picnic area, but of course the sites were all buried under six feet of snow. At the trail turnaround a musher left a few bails of hay, so I made those into a table for my leisurely dinner of Mountain House Chili Mac and tea. (The meal gave me indigestion, and now I'm having second thoughts about packing this flavor in my boxes. Which means I'm down to about three freeze-dried dinner varieties that I'm willing to eat.) It was snowing heavily and snow got into everything. The first night of winter camping is always quite the junk show. On a long trek it doesn't take all that long for routine to settle in, but flailing my way back into the routine while inundated with wet snow means lots of things get wet. This overnight was a valuable refresher, in that regard.

The overnight low was 6 degrees, and about six more inches of snow fell on the trail overnight, in addition to the four or so that accumulated during the hike. It's just my lot in life. I did not sleep much and tossed and turned in my bivy sack for close to eight hours before I finally got up a little after 5 a.m. and started to hike out. It was six miles to town, and by the time I got there to meet Cheryl at 7:30, we'd both decided we'd had enough of slogging through deep snow, and opted to head home early.

There's less than two weeks until the start, and it can't come soon enough. Although I am enjoying being warm, not wet, and not hyperventilating into a closed bivy sack while trying to sleep at night. I suppose I should enjoy these terrible days of stress and anticipation more than I have been.