See SPOT ride

This post is for the benefit of my family mostly, but I will be carrying the blinking paperweight known as SPOT around the Golden Circle this weekend. If you want to follow along with the trip, you can click on my SPOT Shared page, which should begin updating at about 11 a.m. Thursday.

I was hoping to catch the 1:15 a.m. ferry out of Juneau, but late deadlines at the Empire and last-minute bike stuff will probably force us to grab the 8 a.m. ferry instead. That means a late night into Haines Junction, or a possible bivy in the cooking shelter at the Million Dollar Campground at mile 98. SPOT will share all.

I'm pretty nervous about this trip. It's almost an understatement to say I haven't done much biking since the Tour Divide. I'm a little uncertain if I've logged 370 miles since July 16, and I'm facing that many in the next three days. But hopefully my summer base and mountain-climbing-forged quads will see me through. My butt will probably hate me come Sunday. I'm hoping that's the only unhappy part of my body.

Weather is looking to be marginal, as expected. High winds Thursday, although with any luck they'll be tailwinds. 60 percent chance of rain, highs in the 40s, lows near freezing. Snow is forecast for Haines Highway on Thursday night. I'm planning to bring the NEOS for my frostbite toes; I'm even debating pogies. Multi-layered rain gear is key. There's no way to beat hypothermia if you're out all day when it's 40 degrees and raining unless you don't stop riding. But we won't have much time for breaks anyway.

I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I probably would have cancelled the trip if I hadn't talked John into coming out and riding with me. But it's going to be adventure, and as we learned in the Tour Divide, misery is just so much more fun when you have someone to share it with.

Wish me luck!

The SPOT shared page is here.

Circling the edge of the neverending

Wow ... it's been four days since I posted last. The truth is, I haven't been doing anything. Well ... that's completely untrue. I haven't been riding ... or hiking ... or running. That's a true story. And now here I sit on the eve of the eve of my third annual Golden Circle tour, something that I am completely undertrained for. But that doesn't really matter. That's life. And right now, it's the kind of life that's really best just to roll with.

I've been digging through last year's Golden Circle posts, hoping I'd convince myself the ride was easier than I remember it being. I came across this paragraph from Sept. 24, 2008, that struck me, for both its parallels and its premonitions:

"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."

September 2009 has been a big month for me. Huge, in many ways - the elevation I've climbed, the new places I've traveled, the intoxicating awe I've experienced and the new relationships I've forged. Planning this bike tour is a big way to end a big month, and it means something that it's the first non-solo bike tour I've planned since 2004. That thought occurred to me when I was sitting on Grandchild Ridge, talking about alpine euphoria with my friend, Dan, when my cell phone surprisingly caught a connection with the outside world through that beautiful, vast space, and it was my friend Keith in Banff calling to plot summer 2010 adventures. My friend Christina called later to say she had read my Mount Jumbo column and wondered if I'd climb it with her. My friend Abby and I have been plotting (although not yet executing, for me at least) monstrously long runs. Now I've convinced my friend John in Connecticut to endure an epic flight just to go on a weekend tour of the Yukon. For so long, I feel like I have been on a solo journey, and suddenly I am sharing these deep and lasting experiences with other people. And it's not, or at least it doesn't feel like, a desperate attempt to stave off loneliness post-breakup. It has been a genuine forging of deep connections with others who see the world the way I see it, with wide-open eyes and the glee of a child. (And, yes, I am aware of Geoff's latest post, and that is what got me thinking about all this. He and I, despite our general lack of communication these days, still share common views of the world.)

I guess I have him to thank for both of us expanding our perspectives.

Sean and I hiked the Treadwell Ditch Trail on Saturday. He wanted to walk the whole length of the thing, something I have never been interested in because I viewed it as 13 miles of tree-shrouded monotony. But on a rainy morning, I finally committed to traipsing through the forest on a muddy, deadfall-littered, badly maintained strip of trail. We pushed through misty thickets, traversed green and gold muskeg, crossed swollen streams and paused to check out the moss-covered remnants of long-ago mining ambitions. And as we approached Douglas, and the first downtown buildings came into view through the spruce branches, I was amazed at the distance we had covered. It felt like we had walked a mile. And part of me had to wonder if the Treadwell Ditch was really so interesting, or if maybe ... it was just Sean.

Now I'm looking ahead to a number of paths, and I have no idea where they lead, but I'm genuinely OK with that. In fact, I'm excited about it. Even wandering around in dark woods has led me to some amazing places. And I'm excited to push my overused, undertrained body around the Golden Circle again. It's a vast amount of space in which to think ... and to share.

Grandchild awesomeness

Ever have one of those days when everything works out perfectly? Like when you go to Safeway to buy cheap sushi, and they have exactly one pack of California rolls left, and exactly two packets of soy sauce remaining in the bin? Or when your avid alpine junkie friend Dan is in town for exactly one day in five weeks, and the weather has called for a 90 percent chance of rain, and you wake up to fog and go anyway, and you get, well, let me show you ...

I posted a borderline obnoxious number of pictures today, but I feel justified in indulging myself because I'm pretty sure it is probably the awesomest bundle of photographs I have ever taken.

We decided to head up the Grandchild Peaks trail. There is something mysterious and almost secretive surrounding this trail. It's not on any Juneau map that I have seen. Its entrance isn't marked in any way. Few people I've talked to about it have even heard of it. The ones who have, haven't been there. Dan, who has lived in Southeast Alaska all of his life, fell into this latter group. I jumped at the chance to introduce him to a trail that contains the best of all of Juneau's ridge day hikes combined.

Dan was feeling pretty lousy today. He just returned from a trip to Utah, where he crewed for Geoff in the Wasatch 100. I found out today that Dan actually ran the last 25 miles of the race, in the dark, at high elevation, having never run nearly that far or high before. I was impressed. I almost felt bad for dragging him up a ridge in the fog. Almost.

Dan brought along a gun in case we ran into a deer near the trail. Carrying guns on hikes seems to be a common theme among males in Alaska. I think they bring them because it makes them feel like their hike has purpose, rather than just being the frivolous activity that it really is.

He didn't find any bucks, but we did see a lot of goats. Dan often stooped over to gather clumps of matted white hair on the ground, telling me that he collected goat hair all the time, and someday he would have enough to spin it into yarn and knit it into a mountain goat hat.

We were at about 2,800 feet when we saw our first breaks in the clouds.

The partially unveiled sun offered up some dramatic light. I expected fall color to be far past peak, but the tundra did not disappoint.

The view from our lunch stop. Keith, I took this photo while I was talking to you on my cell phone. I'm really sorry I did not call you back tonight. Do you forgive me now that you've seen this photo?

Clouds continued to move through, and we caught our first glimpse of the ridgeline.

We pushed on for the first Grandchild Peak, and were hit my a sudden downpour of freezing rain. Not just cold rain, but rain that literally freezes before it hits the ground. We stood on the knife-edged ridge for a couple minutes as daggers of ice pelted our coats, debating whether to continue. We decided to continue.

I'm so glad we did.

It was up there that I had a repeat of what I call my "Cairn Peak epiphany." I often complain that Juneau is a small place, limited in scope, closed in and cut off from the world. But when I climb to these high places and look out over an expanse of land rippled with jagged mountains, cascading ice, tree-covered islands and a web of sparkling salt water, I remember that Juneau is in fact an enormous place, an insatiable place, that I have only tasted with the tip of my tongue.

Token self portrait on the peak.

Even though it was time to turn back, we found a few minutes to assess terrain and point out all of the places we would go "next time" when we had unlimited time and overnight packs and less chance of freezing rain.

There was a lot of fresh snow on the Mendenhall Towers.

More dramatic light coming down.

It's cliche to say, but pictures don't do these places justice, even in the smallest ways. But they do capture tiny frames of quiet moments, and for that I value them.

Wondering when the clouds were going to engulf us again.

Filtered light in the rainforest.

After we came down, I stopped at Safeway for dinner, scoring the last sushi and soy sauce, along with my very favorite comfort food in the world - a jug o'soda. I settled down for dinner and a sunset in my front yard (full disclosure: I actually have to cross the street and walk 25 yards down a path to get to this place.)

From my picnic spot, I could look out and watch evening settle over the ridgeline where Dan and I had just been.

It was pretty much the perfect day.