This weather is killing me

I'm tired.

I climbed up Grandchild Ridge today. I didn't run my GPS, because I'm starting to burn through a lot of batteries as it is. But the ridge starts rolling at about 3,500 feet, and that's where I went, buffeted by cold wind and wheezing, not because 3,500 feet is particularly high, but because I was particularly tired.

OK, OK. It's easy to say. Aren't you bored of this stuff yet? Why not just take a day off? But look at that sky. I can't. Can't you see? I can't. I have the time. I have this perfect weather window that just won't quit. The only thing I don't have much of anymore is energy. These mountains lift my soul, every time, but my body is starting to wear down.

October Consecutive Bluebird Day Number Four. I woke up to my 7:30 a.m. alarm and debated it. I really did. I slumped out of bed, only to realize that the coffee beans I just purchased were decaf. Decaf! How am I supposed to survive like this? But pink hints of sunlight poured in through the window, and, well, I've been through this decision-making process before.

Everything was coated in a thick layer of frost, but at least the muddy trail was solid. I rode the Road Monkey to the trailhead and hoofed it from there. About four and a half hours time total. Slower than I should have been. I had to stop and catch my breath, somewhat frequently. Pull on my face mask in the wind and then take it off in the lulls. Rub that left quad muscle that is now in a perpetual state of soreness. Of course I know I'm overtrained. Of course I know that. But do you see that sky? That sun-bathed, nearly-snow-free ridgeline? That isn't going to last forever.

Or is it?

I wish I could say rest was coming my way, but I anticipated one more day - perhaps just a half day - of possibility and scheduled an epic tomorrow. It's a little late for me to back out of it, although a lot of it is dependent on weather and snow conditions and of course whether or not I can get these legs and lungs to rally. It seems unlikely that all will fall into place, but if it works out, it could become the culmination of what has been a very good fall. But to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure what I want to see out my window when I crawl out of bed early Thursday morning.

The wind we call Taku

Yesterday, as I was coming down the Sheep Creek trail, I crossed paths with another hiker wearing a big pack. "Headed to the ridge?" I asked him.

"Hawthorne," he answered. Hawthorne is a big peak, a majestic peak, one I covet but accept I won't reach this year. "How far did you go?" he asked.

"To about 3,000 feet," I answered. "There's some pretty intense wind up there; I got knocked around a bit, so I came down."

He took a big draw of air and sighed. "Taku winds are like medicine," he said. "Clears all the shit out." I nodded, and we continued on our way.

Taku is a Tlingit word for "stormy wind." Taku winds are big, mostly localized northeasterlies that hit Juneau in the fall and winter. Typically, they blow about 30-40 mph steady, gusting to 70 mph occasionally. Trees topple. Boats flip over in the harbor. The Taku winds stuck around today. I debated another day up high and decided against it. I headed out for some skinny-tire trail riding.

I have ridden enough bad-weather miles in Juneau to know where the wind-protected areas are. I fought a few gusts out to Dredge Lake and started looping around the maze of singletrack. Sometimes I forgot I was riding 80 psi and a rigid fork and got jolted around more than I was comfortable with, but as I settled into my flow, I also forgot about the Taku wind.

You know how it is when you're mountain biking - especially with a challenging bike. Every ounce of focus zooms in to the few square feet in front of you; there is no room for anything else. You pedal and brake and squint at every bump on every root in your path, sometimes thinking too hard about it, more often not thinking at all. On singletrack, the world becomes very small, which I think is a big part of the appeal.

Lately, I have been spending a lot of time in mountains thinking big, in a large part because I'm admittedly struggling right now. I'm trying to decide whether I'm in a holding pattern or moving forward; I'm trying to decide whether I'm blissfully happy with my life in Juneau or just scared to change; I'm grappling with new feelings and coming to terms with old ones. I feel like something needs to be done but I'm not sure what it is. So I seek out mountains, and I reflect, and I hope that answers will come.

On my mountain bike, I just ride. Which is why, when I stopped for a break by the shore of a moraine lake, it didn't occur to me how strange it was that the air had become completely calm. The surface of the lake was still, like ice. I rubbed the sweat from my eyes as I looked up at a near-perfect reflection of the landscape beyond. I didn't wonder where the Taku winds had gone. I didn't think about what I should do with my life. I just smiled. Everything seemed clear.

The weather's beautiful; Wish you were here

A fair number of my Juneau friends are out of town right now. They're in places as far-flung as Australia and Argentina, but they all seem to be following the over-arching theme of being as far south from Juneau as possible. It is, after all, October. Like January for Fairbanks-dwellers and every month that isn't January for people who live in Phoenix, October is the month we Juneauites scratch out on our calendars months in advance. "Rain season! Run! Run away!" And most of us do. Even I, ever year up until now, scheduled a Grand Canyon trip in October. I wasn't able to this year, because I took three whole months off during the summer to tour around Utah and the Rocky Mountains (places which, for the record, were uncharacteristically rainy.) So this autumn, I get to be the one who's stuck here.

Recently, I was hanging around a friend's place on one of those uncharacteristically beautiful bluebird September mornings when he pulled out his Hawaii maps to go over his ambitions for a three-week October trip to Kauai. And I, seething with jealousy, said, "You should just stick around Juneau next month." He glanced out the window and said, "You know, if it was going to be like this, I would." He turned back to me and smiled. We both knew the truth. It wasn't.

Last autumn, Juneau set a number of Seasonal Affective Disorder-inducing records: 34 consecutive days of rain, a deluge of record daily rainfall, record-high wind speeds. That's what I was braced for when this autumn rolled around, and that's why I am in such a mountain-madness-inducing state of shock over what we've had, which has been, for lack of a better word: Seasonable.

This morning was just that. Crystal blue sky. Frosty temperatures climbing into the high 30s. Golden sunlight glazed across the Gastineau Channel. OK, it was windy. OK, it was really windy. We here in Juneau take what we can get. I donned my ridiculous-looking-but-warm expedition fleece balaclava and foldable-to-free-up-climbing-fingers mittens, and headed up Sheep Creek. The 45 mph wind gusts carried a hard chill from the northeast that bit at ever millimeter of exposed skin, and knocked me around enough that I only ventured a few hundred feet above treeline. I thought it was beautiful all the same. I took a self-portrait to send as an e-postcard to my friend in Hawaii.

And I'm sending it out as an open invitation to my friends (especially you, Jen): Come to Juneau; the weather's fine, and I will take you to meet my mountains.