April fools

April came around and Geoff and I finally got around to going winter camping. It was pretty cool. By that, I mean it wasn't a disaster. By that, I mean it wasn't a spectacular disaster.

We left for Caribou Lake in a raging snowstorm - him on skis and dragging what turned out to be a very study sled setup, me slogging behind on snowshoes and carrying what wouldn't fit in the sled on my back. We hiked into the wilderness about five miles on Friday and set up camp a little ways off the trail. I took off my snowshoes and instantly sank up to my crotch. It was all snowshoes all the time from that moment on.

We built a fire that provided warmth only in that it needed to be fed constantly with the thin, wet spruce branches we were trying to burn - so we had to do a lot of hiking, sawing, hauling, repeat. We began cooking dinner before we realized that we forgot to bring any silverware, so we had to eat this thin, soupy vegetable mixture in tortillas - slopping half our dinner over the firepit/snowbank (um ... the bears are still sleeping, right?). The new snow was heavy and wet, and it soaked into everything - gloves, coats, pants, base layers, skin. Our only respite was a little four-season tent, which wasn't waterproof on the bottom, and which soaked up the melting base with reckless abandon.

I slept through the night but was reluctant to get out of the tent in the morning, knowing the only thing I had to look forward to was eating gruel ... I mean oatmeal ... with a spruce twig and pacing around camp in my sopping wet clothes (sitting still for more than a few minutes was out of the question in the building windchill.) Geoff and I set out on a day hike around the lake that slogged on for six of its own miles. We returned to camp, ate tuna sandwiches as fast as we could get them down our throats while our body temperatures ticked down several increments, then began the march home just as the snowstorm was picking up steam into a full-on, into-the-wind, white-out blizzard.

And as I shuffled across the barren surface of a frozen lake - a space so choked in the monotone whiteness that walking with my eyes closed only improved visibility, with windburn searing my cheeks and chin - a painful sort of irony struck me. April showers - April fools.

Nature can be so cruel.

Work too hard

Date: March 30
Mileage: 22.6
March mileage: 366.9
Temperature upon departure: 34
On the iPod: "King's Crossing" ~ Elliot Smith

Squinting against radial gusts of wind, I waver a little at the intersection. Which way to go - left or right? One way is West Hill, the short way, the traffic-clogged highway spewing mud and melted snow. The other is East Hill, the long hill, the beast, the lung-searing climb that chews up my studs. The wind goes both directions. I go east.

The hill sets in fast, pulling hard at legs that sat unmoving, atrophied, dead weights for nearly eight hours prior. Wind grit builds up on my teeth and I clamp my mouth shut, squint downward, watch the odometer. 5.8 mph ... 5.9 ... I'm already sick of being out here. It's gray with little flecks of snow blowing around. And around and around. Wind hits from new directions. I tilt again. Studs grind into the pavement. I stand. 6.4 mph .... 6.7.

How high does your heart rate have to be to go to find that place where frustrating thoughts dissipate? I ask myself this question but don't really think about the alternative. 6.8 mph ... 7.0. I round another switchback. More wind. More snow. I think about April in the desert. I think about winter in Alaska. 7.2 mph ... 7.4.

Mouth wide open, I swallow bits of musty grit and road goo. I no longer have a choice. The tunnel closes in. First pavement. Then tires, patches of rubber tread, handlebars. Then only the odometer, encircled in blackness. 7.6 mph. 7.7 ... The iPod speaks to me in gasps and whimpers... 7.8 mph ... 7.9. Involuntary thoughts tear through. Thoughts that long for anything but the present, long for random times, times of after-school jobs and riding the banana seat Huffy to work, greeting the dead morning hours with the time-worn smells of yeast and bleach, of baking bagels at Einstein's with Sam.

Sam and I were equals in our dead-end job. We worked the 4 a.m. shift on Saturday mornings, baking bagels for the blurry-eyed people who no longer cared. We were brothers in arms, hiding in the walk-in refrigerator, eating frozen cookie dough, recounting our adventures in snowboarding and caving and sluffing school. We both went on to become cyclists. He became a racing roadie. I became a cycle tourist. I quit the bagel shop and went to college. He stayed and worked his way up to general manager. He made many thousands in savings. I made many camping trips to southern Utah. Now he manages a large hotel in Argentina. I pull in migrant worker wages at a small-town rag in rural Alaska.

The world seems black and white at 8 mph.

Tinted by choices.

Step away from the cereal

Date: March 29
Mileage: 17.1
March mileage: 344.3
Temperature upon departure: 37

If you could give up just one thing - just one - that would instantly improve your nutrition and diet, what would it be? Trans fat? Refined flour? Red meat?

You know what mine would be? Artificial coloring. That's right. Not because I believe this colorful little chemical has any negative effects in itself, but because Yellow No. 5 seems to grace all of my most secret, most shameful indulgences.

In most bad eating situations, I'm a rock. I can turn down chocolate without flinching. Pizza? No thanks - I had yogurt for lunch. Even the free morning donuts at work, which my coworkers would argue have a gravitational pull equal to that of the Sun, don't get me excited. My coworkers think I'm a health food hero, known even to turn my nose up at Girl Scout Cookies (which I love, by the way.)

But then I leave work. I go for a bike ride. I come home to a house filled with produce, look around my kitchen with wary eyes, and begin to chow down like a 3-year-old turned loose in a grocery store. Fruity Pebbles - I can stuff whole handfuls in my mouth without even losing any to the floor. Jelly - who needs bread when you have a spoon? Cheetos - they got rid of the trans fat, so why not?. Capri Suns - they're like a goo packet you can actually digest! And then there are Goldfish. Oh, Goldfish. When will artificial colors stop tempting me with the sugars and simple carbohydrates they hide?

Last year, when I was making a conscious effort to cut calories, I decided to give up high fructose corn syrup. It seemed like a good idea at the time, until I got addicted to diet soda and learned the hard way about too many cherries. Since then, I've let my diet slip a little (a lot), and I'm trying to think about ways I could start eating healthier again. It's so hard. I could give up chocolate, no sweat. Full-fat dairy would be a challenge, but doable. I'd probably cry if you went for the Lime-Flavored Tostitos, and then I'd get over it. But try to take away my Cranberry Crunch, and you better have a gun. I guess we all have our weaknesses.