I updated my photo CD

Date: June 9 and 10
Mileage: 14.4 and 40.6
June mileage: 201.2
Temperature upon departure: 63 and 69!

Way too much riding this weekend. I feel a little like a relapsed user - elated because the immediate pain has subsided, but guilty about the future consequences. There has been a rash of sunshine and I have been scratching at it incessantly ... biking, hiking, more biking. Something needs to rein me in ... or rather, rain me in. I'm sure that will happen soon enough.

The plus side of relapse is that I have been suddenly injected with more energy than I've had in a while. I've used the extra time to work on some projects I've been meaning to get around to. One was finally updating and organizing my vast collection of Alaska photos that have been lingering as anonymous files in limbo since September 2005.

In doing so, I also compiled a collection of 320 of my favorite scenic shots - many that have appeared on this blog, and some that haven't - for an "Up in Alaska" photo compilation . The winter before last, I mailed a similar (but much less extensive) CD out to readers who chipped in a few dollars to sponsor my 2006 Susitna 100 race. I thought I'd put the CD out on the table again, now that I'm beginning to horde funds for a future Iditarod Trail expedition (and already missing the prospect of mid-work sushi runs.) Amounts are completely optional. If you'd like to save your money for worthy causes but still want a CD, all I ask is a minimum of $4 to cover materials and shipping. The photos are of course open to all uses and reproductions. I like to think of this blog as similar to public broadcasting, without the decorative tote bags. I embark on these long-suffering rides for your (and my) entertainment.

You can click on the button below for paypal access, or e-mail me at jillhomer66@hotmail.com. In the meantime, I'll leave my final justification for the mileage spike.

It's just so nice out.

Perseverance

Date: June 8
Mileage: 31.8
June mileage: 156.2
Temperature upon departure: 58

As I rounded a sharp corner of Mount Juneau switchbacks, I nearly collided with the rear end of a mountain goat. At the time, all I saw was a bulk of white. My knee-jerk reaction was that I had run into a trail hog of a hiker, but then she turned to look at me. It's a strange experience, looking into the eyes of a wild animal standing at arm's length. I wondered if the respective reflections of ourselves would come to haunt us later -the way I could almost see my shadow framed by mud-streaked dreadlocks of white fur and wicked looking horns, flickering in the depths of those dark brown eyes. It's hard not to speculate about what the animal may have seen in my eyes; did she see the strands of broken connections that could have made us siblings in another life? Or fear? Or just a faceless threat? Not that it matters. It was a fraction of a second, and then she turned and sprinted up the trail, scaring out of the bushes a slightly smaller version of herself as they retreated together. By the time I wiped off my own stunned inaction and wrestled my camera out of my shirt pocket, they were far up the trail ... much too far for the money shot. But that eerie portrait remains.

I took my mountain bike up the Perseverance Trail this morning. First time this year. Near the trailhead, I passed a group of three women hauling telemark skis on their backs. As I was wondering, "What are they going to do with those skis?," they were probably wondering, "What is she going to do with that bike?"

I'm becoming better at my late-season snow biking ... but June 8? This is getting ridiculous. There's no accounting for elevation, and since there isn't, I thought I'd see what the south-facing side of Mount Juneau looked like.

I made it up about 1,200 feet before the snow fields really started to become thick. I know from past experience hiking with others that my own gage for perilous snow crossings is set pretty high, but after the first one I didn't see a single set of footprints that weren't hoof-shaped. It was just me and the goats up there - me clinging to the slush in my bike gloves, them hopping up boulders with the kind of grace I will always envy.

I almost believed I could be that invincible all they way to the peak, but I finally came to a snowfield I wasn't willing to cross - 15 feet high with a waterfall raging through the hollowed-out space below. Like I said, my gage is set high.

Back on my bike and flying down Perseverance as it hugged the precarious ledge of lower Mount Juneau, I couldn't shake the thought that I never really had anything to fear. Haunting brown eyes ... thin shells of snow ... everything fades into safe memories as life rushes forward. And I can't help but think that this ...

This is why I'm a happy person again.

Greenness

Date: June 7
Mileage: 52.8
June mileage: 124.4
Temperature upon departure: 47

I was finally able to surpass my longest post-injury ride - by mileage at least. Did 53 in just over three hours; it was pretty mellow with the exception of erratic but strong crosswinds over the entire distance and of course scattered bursts of rain. I didn't intend to ride that much today, but I woke up a little earlier than usual and had some time to kill before an anniversary lunch for my favorite co-worker. Twenty-five years at the Juneau Empire. Those kind of numbers boggle my mind.

Strange to spend three hours on a bicycle. After four empty months, three hours should seem like an eternity, but it's just the opposite. The minutes roll by like noon traffic on an expressway; the miles move forward even faster. I showed up at El Sombrero dripping rainwater from every square inch of clothing and feeling like I had just bike commuted in from my house, not from an out-and-back point some 25 miles north. And of course I shouldn't feel that way. But there is intrinsic virtue - even more than experience and fitness - in being new at something again. Before it becomes habit, before it becomes work, before it becomes life, it - whatever it may be - is simply an adventure. And time always gobbles up the adventures.

Not even the rain could bother me today. I often complain on my blog about rain (but not nearly as much as I could, believe me.) But this morning I found myself completely enamoured by the rich shades of green that have engulfed Juneau. Green crawls up the mountainsides all the way to snowline; it drips from the trees with neon intensity and saturates the ground like endless gallons of spilled paint. I spent most of my life in the drought-parched Mountain West, where the green season lasts all of two weeks. We learned to find beauty in the browns and yellows, saturation in the dust clouds and neon intensity in the glow of wildfire flames and lightning. So I am caught off guard by all the green, green everywhere, nearly suffocating the valley despite its infancy. The rainy season, after all, hasn't even begun.

It is spring, I suppose, the wave of newness, and I am happy to be in a position to ride its crest. It's still early to say whether or not my knee cartilage infection - or whatever I have - has finally let go. I bend the joint awkwardly out of habit, but am having a harder time finding the pain these days. Time will tell. I will continue to take it slow. And maybe, somehow, keep things new.