Just missed it

(photo by Peter Bibb, stuck on the wrong side of a big slide)

Date: Feb. 7
Mileage: 19.8
February mileage: 165.5
Temperature: 39

Every once in a while, I have a rare but memorable day where I come home from a bike ride grumpier than I was before I left. Today was one of those days. I planned a short recovery ride, 20 miles on pavement, and the roads looked almost bare thanks to an overnight scouring by heavy rain. But because city road crews never actually scrape the shoulders, I had to ride my brakes over wet ice as a strong southeast wind pushed my back like a sail. After two miles of hardly pedaling on flat road, I turned onto the bridge to meet the crosswind. Unobstructed over the Channel, the gale pulled like an industrial vacuum toward traffic, blowing 50-60 mph steady. Steering was an exercise in futility, coasting a vehicular game of Russian roulette. I crawled off my bike and started walking, bike on the leeward side, until the wind ripped it right out of my hands and tossed it like a blanket against the pedestrian barrier. It didn't even hear it clatter amid the ceaseless roar. Daggers of rain pierced my cheeks. I moved the battered bike windward, leaned against it, and kept walking. I nearly turned around right there, but decided if I could just make it over the bridge, things would get better.

I churned out Thane Road directly into the gusts, but a least there the wind was buffered by houses and trees as it rushed along the steep face of Mount Roberts. Near the bottom of the second hill, my studded tires slipped and washed out on the wet ice. I went down, elbow first into a puddle. I swore out loud and picked myself up, holding my sore elbow against my side, dripping rainwater and grit as I made all the mental promises that I don't really intend to keep, but that make me feel so much better: Throw away the Nokians; Renew my gym membership; move far, far away from Juneau and never look back.

But because I get so stubbornly locked into things, I still fought the wind to the end of the road and turned around, playing Russian roulette with patches of wet ice as the gusting tailwind determined my speed. I had little choice in the matter, brakes and all. When tailwind gets overly pushy, it stops being fun.

And of course, grumpy as I was, I was thinking, "Can it get any worse than this?"

I rode the freight train of wind past Snowslide Gulch at about 12:15 p.m. I was probably in the shower when the avalanche came down at 1 p.m. It tumbled down the mountain like a rock slide, 300 feet long and 18 feet high, completely burying the road before settling into the sea. The debris effectively blocked off the community of Thane and its dead-end road from the rest of the world. Right now it seems that there wasn't anyone driving by when the slide came down, but in the Russian roulette game of life, that possibility is always there ... you never know ... it could happen to a random hapless cyclist who picked Thane Road because it's usually the most wind-protected area, who fell off her bike on the ice in nearly that exact area a mere hour earlier, who thought she was having a bad day ...

I guess it can always get worse.

Seven hours of white

Marginal weather conditions showed up this morning as promised - heavy snowfall with temperatures right on the cusp of freezing, threatening to warm throughout the day and mix rain with snow for the worst kind of riding surface imaginable (in my opinion). It's like trying to pedal through a six inches of Slurpee.

I wanted to get outside for seven our eight hours today, and it was either that or a long hike. I picked the hike. Walking, actually, is a huge part of the Iditarod race, and I learned last year it's important to be in good trudging shape for slogs that can last upwards of 24 hours and more. To be best prepared, I'd actually have to get out and push my loaded bike, thereby building the shoulder and arm muscles that I am still probably lacking. But there's a limit to the misery I'm willing to endure when I'm just training. The idea of pushing my bike through the unbroken snow of the backcountry definitely goes beyond this limit. Slogging through steep, deep stuff in snowshoes feels like punishment enough. But a little slogging is good for the soul ... in the long run.

I left from my house, hiked up the Mount Jumbo Trail, traversed along the Treadwell Ditch Trail and went up the next canyon to the Douglas Ski Bowl and eventually the ridge, where I traversed until the wind and chill rattled me back down. I lost the trail more than a few times. I snowshoed about 15-17 miles and 4,500 feet of vertical gain in seven hours, much of that mired in the slow slog of trail-breaking. The kind of work that cuts deep into the core of your muscles with every step. The good slog. And the whole time, icy snow fell in streams, sometimes to the point of whiteout conditions. The above picture pretty much sums up everything there was to see for seven solid hours.

I was pretty well soaked through and through by the time I crested the ridge, because the falling snow was so wet. The wind had picked up throughout the day, and it hit the ridge with shocking force. The gusts were probably 40 to 50 mph - enough to actually knock me off my feet once. My soaked hair froze into one solid block even after I put my hood up, and my coat and pants froze as well. It felt like I was wearing an outer layer made of wood. The fabric became almost immovably stiff, trapped as it was beneath a sheet of ice that had once been beaded-up precipitation. But in the amazing way Gortex can, the coat still completely blocked the wind and let my insulation layer (just one) keep me warm, so I hiked along the ridge for a little while.

I'm always fascinated by the ghost trees that live along the ridge. They live just a few dozen feet of elevation below treeline, the absolute margin of where a tree can even grow. They're fringe trees, and their postures show the burden of hard, hard lives. Every square inch of needle and bark is coated in solid ice (not snow, ice), for most of the months of the year. They're incessantly pounded by brutal wind. And yet, somehow, they survive. I don't pity these trees. In a way, I envy them, because through whatever twist of fate, they arrived at the brutal fringes of their environment and still decided life was worth living.

I don't have real photoshop on my computer, just this freeware photo organizing software with an "auto levels" setting that goes more than a little heavy on the contrast. But I kinda like what it does with monotone photos. Artsy.

The last miles of the hike passed in the way that many, many miles on the Iditarod Trail pass ... forever moving toward a small island of light amid an ocean of night.

8.5 hours

Date: Feb. 5
Mileage: 93.4
February mileage: 145.7
Temperature: 28

I had a really good, strong ride today, according to the "sweat test." I usually feel I can't base the progress of winter rides on distance or speed, because trail and road conditions are so variable (and generally marginal at best, necessitating a lot of work to go pretty dang slow.) So I base my winter progress on the amount of sweat I generate. I always check the weather forecast and current temperature before I go. Since neither varies much in Juneau, I have pretty much down pat exactly what I need to stay warm but not overheat in the most common temperature/precipitation combinations (between 10 degrees and 40 degrees dry or wet I have down pat. Beyond those I have much less experience.) So, if I look at the temperature, and dress exactly how I think I need to, then head out and still sweat a ton and have to shed layers, then I know I've had a good, strong ride.

These eight and nine-hour rides don't really feel long or hard any more, but they're good enough because I don't have much more time to burn. Working nights as I do, the only way I can have any social life at all is by making dinner plans on Thursdays and Fridays. So I wake up early (for me) and ride from 9 to 6. Lately, I've felt relaxed and strong the whole day, even pushing at a rate I consider moderately strenuous, and often come home wishing I could stay out even longer, if I didn't have this and that lined up. I guess that's a good sign that I should be taking in longer rides, but I still believe I'll be more successful in the long run if I live a balanced life rather than taking the quickest route to burnout.

I've been pretty frustrated with the road conditions and general uselessness of snow removal crews in Juneau. The roads are basically in better shape where they don't bother to clear them at all, like mile 35-40 Glacier Highway, because then it's just a snowmobile trail. But I'll try not to complain about snow removal because it's a boring subject. I will say that if it's snowing quite a bit tomorrow morning, I'll probably spend my planned long day as a long hike rather than take too many more chances in the slush and sandy powder in traffic. I've just lost control of both my bikes too many times for comfort, and going slow enough to feel totally confident about staying in control just isn't really exercise (This specifically isn't a criticism of Juneau road crews. It's just a truth about riding on roads where snow has been piled up unevenly by traffic flow. The fact that the City and Borough of Juneau never bothers to clear that crap away even after many days go by is what irks me.) Ok. Rant officially over.

It was a nice day, though. The sun was always on the horizon, stretched between the mountains and a ceiling of clouds.

I found my way to the Airport Dike Trail right at sunset. It was the perfect combination of a trail ride and exactly the right time. Great way the end the day.