Golden days on the Golden Circle, Day 1

Date: Sept. 25
Mileage: 108
September mileage: 634.0

I stepped off the ferry at 8 a.m. Thursday in a mental fog, vaguely aware of only two things - the morning could not have been more beautiful, and I could not have felt more awful. As the warm light of the sun rose into a bright blue sky, I regarded it with something that was almost like irritation. If it had been pouring rain, I might have been able justify slinking back onto the ferry and hitching a return trip to Juneau. I had slept restlessly Wednesday night on the floor of the ferry's top level, at one point waking up half out of my sleeping bag and completely drenched in sweat. It was as though my body had tried to expel a week's worth of sickness in one spectacular flash fever. It didn't know if it was nerves or if I really was getting sick. It felt like a little of both.

I pedaled through Skagway, stopping at the grocery store to try to cram down some yogurt and granola. I was only able to eat a few bites and had to throw the rest away. It's not the way to start a beautiful day and certainly not the way to start a three-day fast-tour around the Golden Circle.

It doesn't help that the way I was riding the route, backwards by almost all accounts, allows almost no time to warm up. I had three miles of fairly flat pedaling along a river before the climb began in earnest. The road rises from sea level to 3,200 feet in 14 measly miles - 11, really, if you don't count the flat "warm up." I took my first break at mile five, trying to calm all of my apprehension and bile with a little bit of big-picture perspective. But perspective was hard to find. Beautiful weather the day before had coaxed me into a five-hour hard hike, which not only ate up precious energy reserves but also precious time. I had little of that left to finish preparations, and had to cram so much between work that I didn't even take the time to eat dinner. Then I slept poorly while trying to overnight on a ferry. In short, I felt completely physically unprepared for the trip.

The only way in which I did feel prepared was my gear. I had packed up the supplies I would need for cold rain and hard frosts and remote repairs and a big handful of spare batteries for my lights. I was admittedly way overpacked for a three-day trip, but I don't regret any of it. I was traveling alone in late fall in remote areas where eight-hour spans of silence can pass between the cars that go by in the middle of the night. I would rather be prepared for the worst than live on the edge of comfort and hope for the best. But I also, unfortunately, never trained with any kind of weight on my bike. So to suddenly load it up with a lot was a big shock. I don't know if it was all the weight or the crappy way I was feeling, but I had no power climbing up White Pass. I was still in the single digits of miles and already formulating a plan should I feel the need to turn around.

A man I had talked to on the ferry, a Haines candidate for the state Legislature (can't remember his name), told me "the ride from Skagway must be great. It's a quick trip up to the pass and all downhill from there." No, I told him, there's a lot more climbing after the pass. My GPS later confirmed what I suspected. It's 3,292 to the pass, and more than 4,000 feet of elevation gain beyond it to Whitehorse, mostly on steep rolling hills along a seemingly endless string of lakes.

Still, that first glance into the northern edge of British Columbia, with all of its breathtaking open space, will soothe any physical maladies, even if only for a moment. I tried to take in some more calories, relying on an old stand-by that always seems to go down easy no matter what: Peanut butter cups. The air was calm and stunningly clear. If I couldn't find a way to enjoy myself on a day like that, there really was no hope for me. The big picture perspective was starting to sink in.

I dropped a few hundred feet to Canadian customs, where the border guard recognized me from the 24 Hours of Light. After I answered the string of seemingly ridiculous questions (I mean, really, what bicycle tourist carries alcohol, firearms and $10,000 in cash?), I told him where I was headed and how long I planned to be in Canada. "Wow, you sure like to ride a lot!" he said. "I hope so," I answered.

The afternoon was largely a struggle with the haze of low-level nausea, punctuated by startling beauty. The region was enveloped in the peak of fall colors, with winter creeping in from above. The views really were enough to keep me on task, namely, turning the pedals away from Skagway. I always wanted to see what was up over the next hill or around the next bend. The thrilling descents also always seemed to come along just in time to lift my spirits when I needed it most. If there's any one thing I've never failed to be on the Golden Circle, it's lucky.

Lucky, lucky, lucky.

The hills around the endless lakes did threaten to break me; the bike I was pedaling felt like it weighed half a ton. But if there's anything I've learned about distance cycling, it's that eating will almost always make me feel better. Physical stress puts my emotions at such extremes that I could be on the edge of despair, and a simple peanut butter cup would quickly lift me back to normal, where I can continue pedaling to the brink of elation. So I used the miles to slowly recover, knowing I had a lot more ahead of me.

And there were plenty of calm, quiet moments, when I stopped thinking about my sour stomach and my blood sugar and my heavy legs, stopped worrying about elevation and destinations and miles, and simply let the landscape carry me, sometimes deep into the past, sometimes into my hopes for the future.

I was near a low point again when I reached the town of Carcross, still only 65 miles into my 370-mile trip. I chugged some Gatorade at a gas station and limped up to the "Carcross Desert," which is actually not a desert at all but a large deposit of silt left behind by a long-faded glacier. Still, I take a lot of strange comfort in these dunes. They remind me of a far-away past, of my home. Much like I did a year before, I stopped in the desert, set down my bike, and laid all the way down in the cool sand. I breathed deep as grains of sand crept around my arms and neck until I felt like I was dissolving into it. I also was locked in physical distress when I stopped here one year before. Only then, I was facing the last 65 miles of my trip, not looking back on the first. But just like last year, the softness of the sand was rejuvenating. I could look around at the big picture again. I also realized that if I did not pick up my pace, I was going to be pedaling to Whitehorse well after dark.

After 45 miles of subdued but determined pedal-mashing, I finally arrived in town right at dusk - about 7:30 p.m. Alaska time. It was 8:30 in Whitehorse, and my friends Sierra and Anthony had waited up for me, holding out on dinner the entire time I dawdled into town (I had told them, very optimistically, that I would be there by 6.) Sierra cooked up a delicious northern delicacy, moose stew. "Everything was grown and shot right here in the Yukon," Sierra told me. She made it with potatoes and greens from her garden, and moose meat from a co-worker. Sierra and Anthony are really great. I always manage to stop by when I'm completely wrecked, and they make everything better with amazing homemade food and a warm bed and real understanding, because they do all this crazy bicycle stuff themselves.

I went to bed telling myself I would feel much better in the morning, and believing it.

Adventures in solitude

"So you just sort of go it alone?" my friend asked when I explained to her why I wouldn't be able to attend her gathering this weekend.

"Yeah, that's kinda the idea," I said.

"Why is that the idea?" my friend said.

"Well," I said. "For starters, it's pretty hard to convince other people that riding a loaded bicycle 110-150 hilly miles a day in the cold is a good time. And, anyway, I'll be visiting friends along the way and maybe even talking them into riding some of the route with me. For the rest of the trip, I'll just have all sorts of time to really think about things."

"What do you think about?"

"My life, my goals, stuff," I said. "These tough trips really help me separate what's important from the general fluff. Although, I have to admit, I usually end up spending a bulk of my riding time thinking about food and sleep."

"So are you scared?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm scared. But mostly of bears and weather and scary people. The loneliness isn't so bad."

Geoff woke me up this morning with a quick call to inform me he was no longer planning to run the Bear 100 on Friday.

"That sounds like the smart plan," I said. "What made you change your mind?"

"I'm still fighting off a cold," he said. "Plus, Dane and Jess invited me to go backpacking with them in Boulder (Utah) this week, and that sounded more fun. That's where we're headed right now. Reception is pretty spotty. I wanted to call before I was out of range completely."

"But you already registered for the race, right?" I asked. "Didn't you spend like $200 on it?"

"Yeah, but ..." The call cut out. I wondered what really made Geoff decide to dump his plans for the Bear 100. Dropping out because he had a cold on Wednesday didn't really sound like him. Was he scared? Less certain about his physical recovery than he let on a few days earlier? Or is it possible that he's making peace with the idea of moving back to Alaska?

After I got off the phone with Geoff, I noticed what an amazing bright blue day Wednesday was shaping out to be. I had promised myself I would take the day off. I have 370 miles to ride in the next three days, and none of those miles are likely to be easy. But, as I looked outside, I thought that some days, resting the body is not as important as stimulating the soul. Most days are like that.

Luckily for me, in my nervousness about preparing for my bike trip, I had finished packing on Tuesday night. So I had little else to do Wednesday but eat and work and wait for my ferry to pull into port. I headed over to Mount Roberts for the second time this week, in favor of "easy" trail and lax hiking.

However, I tend to forget how energizing a clear day can be, when heart-stopping beauty stretches out beyond the farthest reaches of my vision. I'm gripped with a desire to push and push and push toward the horizon until it ends, knowing it never will. That's how I ended up on top of Gastineau Peak again, feet almost floating atop a couple inches of new snow, facing east toward a snow-capped skyline that continues into Canada.

I looked down the ridge at a healthy coat of termination dust that may be here to stay and thought, "It's still early. If I don't bag Mount Roberts today, I'll likely not have another chance this season." So down the ridge I went, the joint-jarring consequences of a long hike unacknowledged.

And I was so glad I went to the top of Mount Roberts. To just stop and turn off my iPod and listen to the frigid wind and the absolute silence of solitude. These are the moments I wish I had more opportunities to share with my friends. But there is also he sense that the reality of listening to someone rip into a PowerBar or complain about the cold might just crush these fleeting, perfect moments. And then there's Geoff, who on a gorgeous day like Wednesday, would probably just do all the things I can only dream about doing while I stand on peaks. I could picture him running the crest of the entire ridgeline until he looped back into town. It's too bad he doesn't really like Juneau so much any more.

In the time I've spent alone this fall, I've worked on formulating a concrete reason why I can't leave Alaska. And what I've come up with is, over the past three years, I've never known a period in my life in which I was so consistently inspired. I started writing again, a hobby I had all but given up on, and developed a passion for something I never even used to think was all that interesting - photography. I've honed my physical fitness to levels I never imagined and forged my new skills into something even better ... inner strength. I think often about my life before Alaska, a life Geoff actually had to drag me away from, kicking and screaming. I was once scared of nearly everything, but I was especially scared of being alone. My life revolved around late mornings at the Apple Fitness club, afternoons and evenings at work, and late nights with my friends, sometimes out until sunrise. I thought I was happy. Then I moved away from it all, and learned I hadn't been happy. Now I am afraid to go back. How can I leave Alaska? Alaska is my muse.

When Geoff told me he registered to run the Bear 100 this weekend, he said he mostly just wanted a good, hard effort with the alone time he needed to think about his future. I told him that's the same reason I wanted to ride around the Golden Circle again. Now he's backpacking in the desert and I'm still planning to pedal into the Yukon, a vast amount of space in which to think, and a vast number of miles to ride on less rest than I should have given myself. But I look forward to all of it. I leave soon to catch the 12:15 ferry. Wish me luck.

Not that heavy

Date: Sept. 22
Mileage: 25.1
September mileage: 526.0

I loaded my bike today with food and gear and set out to see how she handled. I quickly noticed the extra weight on climbs, but, as usual, started to forget about it as I coasted along the road in the crisp fall wind. I love packing up my bike with everything I need to live. There’s freedom and joy in the knowledge that I could ride to the end of the day and just keep going.

So my preparations are nearly complete for my spontaneous fall Yukon tour. I am starting to feel pretty nervous about it, which is a good thing. To me, being scared is a sign of a worthwhile adventure. The weather forecast for the area is calling for highs in the 40s and lows in the 20s with a moderate chance of precipitation on Saturday. I am hoping any precip falls as dry snow flurries if it falls at all. If I run into freezing rain, I may have to turn back or hole up for a bit.

This trip is the same route I rode in 48 hours in August 2007. During that trip, I clocked the distance at 371 miles. This time, I will have 72 hours between ferries to complete the tour. I also will be riding the route backwards, due to the only ferry schedule that worked out for me. It will be fun to see the Golden Circle from a whole new perspective, but I do have reservations about riding from Skagway to Haines. For starters, the climb out of Skagway gains 3,000 feet in 11 miles, as opposed to the same elevation in about 60 miles out of Haines. With all of my extra bike weight, that probably amounts to two hours of climbing in the red zone right out of the gate. Then I still have nearly 100 miles to ride into Whitehorse over the rolling hills that follow the headwaters of the Yukon River.

Day two will be the Alaska Highway, with mild rollers, more traffic, and, as I learned last year, very little water. When I rode this stretch in August 2007, I encountered temperatures in the 90s, oppressive sun and a steady headwind. What a difference a year and a month can make. This time, I will be happy if temperatures are in the 40s; happier if it’s dry; and even happier if the stiff wind is blowing in that same general direction.

Day three will likely be the longest and most remote stretch of the trip. I’d honestly rather get this leg out of the way on the first day rather than the last, when I haven’t seen a weather report in three days and have less options if I need to turn back. I will be watching the sky closely as I distance myself from Haines Junction, because I don’t want to be caught out there in a blizzard. Once I round the summit of Haines Highway, I’m nearly home free. It’s a quick drop back to the U.S., followed by a nice, flat meander along the Chilkat River that I’ve ridden several times before.

So that’s my tour. I have to overnight on the ferry on Wednesday, and I set out first thing Thursday for the hideous climb into Canada. I’m nervous! I know from experience that once I settle in, I’ll likely feel happy and content, with nothing to do but sleep, eat and ride my bike. But the days leading up to a big ride are always hard.