On the Arctic blast

This is the point in the hike where I began to feel underdressed, and just a little bit frightened. Several minutes before, I had been standing in the Douglas Ski Bowl, just below treeline at an elevation of about 2,500 feet. I watched in stark wonder as the wind coursing at my back ripped streams of snow off the ridge and carried them hundreds of feet into the deep blue sky.

Just an hour earlier, a weather station at Sheep Mountain - a 4,000-foot peak less than five miles as the crow flies from where I stood - recorded 100 mph winds and a temperature of -8F. Standing among the last protective strand of trees in the Douglas Ski Bowl, I could almost understand what that kind of weather looked and felt like. An eerie howl echoed down the bare slopes and blasted the tops of trees until I was certain a few would tumble. Clouds of gritty, sand-like snow swirled over the top of the ice sheet I was standing on, old snowpack that had frozen to a solid sheen. The obscured sun cast a chocolate-colored glow on the mountainside, and I thought I should take a photograph. But as I removed my mittens to rifle around in my inside pockets for my camera, I could feel my fingers instantly stiffen, as though I had stuck them inside a flash freezer. I quickly pulled the mittens back on. I could not believe the windchill. The scene was more evocative of the moon than a place on Earth, and in that moment you really couldn't have paid me enough money to climb above treeline. Luckily, today I had the luxury of making that choice. So I took one last breath to end my hard climb, pulled my face mask on, and turned around to face the gushing wind.

When I left the house earlier, the thermometer read 12 degrees - down from the 17 it had been first thing in the morning and steadily dropping. But 12 degrees didn't seem too bad, and I dressed to hike hard uphill ... a single leg layer (snowboarding pants), liner socks, wool socks, winter boots, gaters, long-sleeved shirt, midweight polar fleece jacket, Gortex shell, mittens and a hat. The clothing served me well on the climb, but it became apparent fairly quickly that it wasn't enough to block the wind blast on the descent. Needles of icy air punctured my layers and scraped at my skin. I tried to bundle up as much as I could ... closing all my vents and maneuvering clothing around exposed patches of skin. Common sense told me I had a short walk home and I was plenty covered enough to avoid hypothermia, but as soon as the body's comfort level deteriorates, a fear factor sets in. I couldn't help but be afraid. So despite the frosty glare-ice condition of the trail, and despite the impact downhill running has on my knees, I began to jog at a fast clip. Gusts of wind stole the breath right out of my throat, but the jogging worked. I pretty quickly jolted by body temperature back up to a toasty 98.6, and I only slipped and fell once.

That seven-mile hike netted lots of valuable learning experiences. I had to stop and pee three times in two hours because I drank so much water, mostly for fear that my Camelbak hose was going to freeze up. Then, after I pulled on my face mask and ceased the endless sipping, the nozzle froze anyway, despite being wrapped in Neoprene and a plastic cover and stuffed inside my coat. I am still not good at doing things with mittens on, and the temptation to remove them was too strong. It is easy enough to bring fingers back to life after short freezing exposure, but definitely best to avoid it if I can, so I need to look for better ways to layer up my hands. And above all, I need to take windchill very seriously. It is not an arbitrary number on a weather report. Windchill is a very real temperature situation.

As far as camping in this weather ... I am now officially, genuinely frightened. I no longer have that self-assured swagger I carried with me during my ill-fated flat fest last week. I will have to talk to Geoff and see what he thinks about heading out tonight. Maybe there is a certain dignity to starting out in the backyard. Baby steps. And when I do set out into the wilderness to camp in this crap, I will be one humbling hiking experience wiser.

Feels hot out

Date: Dec. 1
Mileage: 20.5
Hours: 1:45
December mileage: 20.5
Temperature upon departure: 22

This seems to happen every time an Arctic blast moves through Juneau. The clouds completely fizzle from the sky. The temperatures drop 20 to 30 degrees. I don't change a thing about the way I dress to go cycling, and I yet feel like I'm frying.

There's just no real substitute for damp chill, try as the dry cold might. As far as layering goes, I'd have to say the amount of clothing I need for for 20 degrees and sunny is more similar to what I'd wear if it were 45 and raining. Who knows what kind of cold 35 degrees and raining mimics? I think it's fair to say it's down in the brrr zone. I've had to strip off layers while I'm riding just to avoid overheating in this cold snap. Then again, during normal weather I always dress as though I'm planning to get drenched, because I always do. But there's just no substitute for the dry cold. I'm loving it.

Today's ride was a little rough around the edges, though. For the first time in a while, I never found my groove. I actually cut the ride five miles short, because I began to feel those familiar sharp knee pangs. This time, the pain was in my left knee, which is my good knee and has never given me problems before (those sharp pangs still flare up in my right knee from time to time.) It's probably nothing, but I've been uber-paranoid about both my knees, since they are my weakest link and the most likely obstacle between me and the starting line of the Ultrasport. There's a chance that this paranoia has me babying my bad knee to the detriment of the good one, and now it's showing symptoms of what my doctor expertly refers to as "angry knee." Whatever the problem, it's a good reason to take a day or two off the bike and wrestle my snowshoes out of the closet. Cross-training: Good. Repetitive motion disorder: Bad.

The weather forecast for Sunday and Monday has me excited in a way only those crazies training for winter survival races can be excited. As the Arctic front moves through, forecasters predict increasing winds in the 30-40 mph range, possibly gusting to 60. Couple this with lows between -2 and 5 degrees, and we're facing 30-below-0 windchills. I'm trying to talk Geoff into camping with me tomorrow night. Because of our equipment and travel disparities, the only way for us to go together is to both walk and carry backpacks. We both agree that camping out in the yard doesn't make much sense, since: 1.) We live in an almost entirely wind-protected area. 2.) Going from a warm house straight to bed doesn't really simulate trail conditions, and 3.) It makes it too easy to give up at the first sign of any discomfort. Plus, it's just not as much fun. We're thinking about climbing up to elevation just above our house, a place where we can face the full brunt of that madness but retreat quickly enough if things start to go badly. I don't come home from work until 10:30 p.m., so we see how well we make that a reality.

Two beautiful days

Date: Nov. 29 and 30
Mileage: 21.2 and 80.4
Hours: 2:15 and 6:15
November mileage: 793
Temperature upon departure: 28 and 25
November rainfall: 3.94"

This is one of those posts in which I tried to decide on a favorite picture, but couldn't do it, so I'm just going to post seven. It was two days of regular rides with spectacular scenery.

On Thursday, I rode the trails out in the Mendenhall Valley. It was a bit of a "recovery" ride. That is, recovery from my failed camping attempt. Despite being really glad to have met Rebecca (who is amazingly nice, I agree, and who has invited me to come visit her again in the near future), I am a little bummed about missing out on the camping experience. The next time I try, (hopefully this weekend) there are likely to be windchills near 25 below, so I will not be able to venture too far from my house (can't pass up a chance to experience temperatures that low when they happen, although it will probably be rather brutal for a first-time try, and I don't want to take any big risks.)

So my trail ride was a recovery ride in the psychological sense. It was everything I needed. The weather was perfect, just perfect, and the trails, though still devoid of snow, were frozen to a hard sheen. Mountain biking does not get better than this in the place where I live. It really doesn't.

I stopped for 20 minutes to just sit on the beach and watch the alpenglow move across the Mendenhall Glacier as the sun set.

Today I had hoped to do a longer ride, but I slept and slept the morning away, and it was 11 a.m. before I got out the door. In a place where darkness descends just after 3 p.m., it was a terrible waste of sunlight. All my good training intentions had me hoping to increase my long rides by 30 minutes to an hour each weekend. But between the temptation to sleep in and my evening plans, I've had a hard time carving out cycling windows longer than six hours. I'm still making encouraging progress, though. The six-hour rides feel easier each week.

Herbert Glacier. This is view I was hoping to wake up to Thursday morning. Instead I was out there near sunset today, making frosty figure-8s on the frozen mudflats. The mountains were bathed in yellow light. So much beauty.

How can I ride my bicycle so much and continue to be so awestruck by the experience? It's a mystery to me, and one I don't plan to solve anytime soon. Sometimes, when I am having a good day, I remember a thought that occurred to me way back in 2001, as I was swimming across a lake in eastern Texas. Geoff and I were criss-crossing the country in my Geo Prism, held by necessity to a budget of less than $100 per week. He was in the woods cooking green beans and cream of mushroom soup for dinner. I hadn't bathed in days and was sitting on the shoreline when a random flash of inspiration convinced me to strip to my skivvies and jump in. The cold water chewed at my capillaries until my skin went numb. But there was something very real in the feeling, and when I looked to the other shoreline, I knew I could make it there. I just knew it, like it had already happened. I swam toward the open water without fear, nearly blind against bright hues of red and gold shimmering on the lake's surface. At one point I rolled over on my back and gasped at the nuclear sunset stretched across the horizon, like a ceiling splattered violently with a million cans of paint. I didn't even have enough money to see a movie, but in that moment, the entire sky belonged only to me. And I thought, right there, that I would never find another moment in my adult life that would make me feel so free.

But I keep re-discovering that moment, everywhere.

I've been really lucky to be a witness to a lot of beauty and goodness in this world, and for that I am grateful, every day.