I'm in the photograph

It has been a rather dull weekend - dull meaning, mostly, that Juneau's normal autumn weather came back. It still has no real teeth to it ... a little rain, a little wind, nothing hurricane-ific. I rode 57 miles on Thursday, 27 miles today and did a 3.5-hour hike up Thunder Mountain on Friday.

The hike was inspired by a semi-sunny sucker hole that closed in very quickly. I decided to try out a new trail to the top. I located the trailhead on my map, and after about a quarter mile came to what looked like a three-way fork that was not on the map. I chose the path that went straight up the mountain, because that seemed like the most logical route. It petered out quickly and dumped me in a drainage - an obvious deer trail. But, bull-headed as I am, I continued to zig-zag between that drainage and another, bushwhacking through barren alder and blueberry bushes, until I was scrambling up a virtual waterfall, slipping all over the place and clutching devil's club stalks because they were everywhere, and consequently the only thing to hang on to. I'm still picking thorns out of my palms. By the time I crawled out of the jungle, I was nearly to the ridge, soaked in muddy runoff and frustration and determined to take the familiar Heinzelman Ridge trail back to civilization, even though it would have dumped me on the Glacier Highway, where I faced a four- or five-mile jog to my car. I didn't care. I traversed the ridge through sideways rain and gray-out fog. Upon return, I found the Thunder Mountain trail, which turned out to be a real trail, and also was nowhere near the place where I hiked up. Live and learn.

But I was disappointed by the lack of photographic inspiration this weekend, and even more disappointed by the way the gray sky and wet pavement seemed to strip away any motivation I had to ride. The 57-miler was the first truly tedious thing I've done in a long time. I stuck with it mostly because I had planned it. Then, after Friday's debacle of a hike, I had an even harder time coaxing myself out the door today.

It wasn't so much the weather - to be perfectly honest, I have been pretty lucky with the windows I've caught and I didn't even get rained on during both of my rides. But those gray drab landscapes were just uninspiring. It was cold and windy and I just wasn't feeling the same nervous energy that has propelled me to new heights this season. Instead of big dreams and realizations, my mind remained as gray and blank as the sky. I was just bored. And it was enlightening to realize the reason why I was so bored ...

There was nothing to photograph.

Despite my proliferation of pictures, photography hasn't been a major driving motivator for me in the past. There's a reason I still only own a single, simple digital point-and-shoot and photograph landscapes almost exclusively. I'm not a photographer on a bicycle, I'm a cyclist with a camera. My art isn't photography, it's the outdoors - or, more specifically, my enthusiasm for the outdoors, and my zeal for documenting the things I see and feel.

But the fact remains that I've become increasingly more attached to my camera as an outlet for my art. If I've had a particularly good day on a mountain, I won't let the thing out of my sight until all of the pictures have been downloaded. While I was riding the Great Divide, another touring cyclist in Colorado asked me what I'd rather lose - my camera or my wallet. I breathed a long pause and weighed the choice - my wallet, which was my only means for acquiring food and shelter and bike parts and really even continuing the ride; or my camera, which I received for free and had used to shoot hundreds of pictures from the previous 1,500 miles. I looked at him and answered, in all seriousness, "I'd rather lose the wallet."

Which basically means I care more about the past than the future.

But it also means I've become too focused on the visual side of my art — let's just call my art "creative cycling" (slash-beginner-mountaineering). I'd like to find ways to get back to the roots of expression - the way I used to experience the changes in my body and the startling movements in my mind. Part of me thinks it's about time for real training; that I need to find a concrete goal and drive full-bore toward it. Another part thinks it's time to plan another adventure, even if it's a long way off, and focus my outdoor activities in a way that helps me become more self-sufficient and better prepared for a wider range of demands.

I don't know. I know that right now, I go outside to go outside. And as rewarding as that has been and still is, sometimes it's just not enough.

This amazing autumn

(My newspaper trail column for this week)

By Jill Homer
Juneau Empire

I feel like I have been getting away with something I shouldn’t be.

That first subtle tinge of guilt came as I crested the snow-swept summit of Mount Roberts one bluebird Friday, gazing out at a carpet of fog as it disintegrated over the shimmering Gastineau Channel.

“This is not what Oct. 2 should be like,” I thought.

And again, during a five-day stretch of unconscionably dry weather, when I climbed up to the Grandchild Ridge north of Mount Stroller White and sprawled in short sleeves on the soft tundra.

“This can’t be Oct. 14,” I thought.

My guilt about my glutinous consumption of late-season vitamin D reached a full boil on Tuesday as I marched through the soft snow near the summit of Mount McGinnis, looking at the startling contrast of light and shadow on the Mendenhall Glacier. “Oct. 20 and it’s still beautiful,” I thought. “This just can’t be real.”

In short, I have been getting out. A lot. In the sunlight. A lot. And something about that just isn’t right.

Call it seasonal reflective disorder. Autumn sunshine just isn’t normal. In Southeast Alaska’s climate, I’m not even sure it’s legal. And yet it’s so sublimely intoxicating that it’s revealed high gears I didn’t even know I had. I come home from work at midnight and set the alarm for 6 a.m., drag my battered legs along a leaf-strewn trail or rocky ridge for several lung-busting hours, and then I do it the next day, and the next. I feel like I can’t slow down unless the usual sheets of cold rain are falling from the sky — which they rarely are, and so I don’t.

And yet, I don’t get tired. At least not in the way I should. Quite the contrary — I open my eyes to yet another sun-drenched morning, and I’m instantly injected with a shot of highly potent energy that feels like it’s going to somehow become toxic if I don’t work it out of my system.
The resulting pursuits to purge that energy and soak up sunshine have taken me places I could hardly dream of during the infamously dreary summer of 2008: the Juneau Ridge, Cairn Peak and Sheep Mountain, just to name a few. Last year, I waited for months for a weather window to open wide enough that I could simply climb Mount McGinnis. It never came. This year, an entire season’s worth of mountaineering opportunities opened up in the six weeks that are normally reserved for short, soggy mud runs followed by guiltless consumption of carbs.

I can’t say I’ve earned it, although I did endure three Southeast Alaska autumns prior to this one. In 2006, I dabbled in the experimental sport of “bike-swim” by trying to pilot my mountain bike around the heavily flooded Dredge Lake trails. In 2007, I finally bought a boot drier after each and every one of my running shoes became caked in mildew. In 2008, I just accepted that I had seasonal affective disorder and ate a copious number of cookies.

Last year was the year Juneau broke all kinds of uplifting weather records. We had wind records, daily rainfall records and consecutive days of rain records. According to the National Weather Service, Juneau received 15 inches of rain in October 2008. Fifteen! I'm going to come right out and say that's as much precipitation as those whiners in Anchorage receive in a year.

It could be worse. In 1999, Juneau only saw two dry days in the entire months of September and October. In 2005, torrential rains led to mudslides. In fact, it seemed record-breaking wetness was becoming the norm, until this year.

As of Oct. 21, Juneau’s monthly precipitation total was a measly 3.23 inches. Three-point-two-three! Those are June numbers. The perfect numbers to bust out a full-on fall trekking frenzy.

I can’t be the only Juneau resident who feels this way. I’ve seen others out there, riding bikes along Glacier Highway, hauling paragliding gear up Thunder Mountain, paddling the calm waters near False Outer Point long after all the kayaking tourists returned to the balmy south. Every single one of them, like me, had a big smile stretched across their face, as though they, like me, had been let in on some great secret that no one else knew.

The secret: It’s always sunny in Juneau.

OK, I know it can’t be a secret if it’s not even true. But this autumn, it felt true — true enough to be the source of much fun, and much guilt.

But like all guilty pleasures, Juneau’s amazing autumn couldn’t last forever. Based on Friday’s forecast, I’m guessing that as you read this column, sideways rain is pelting your window while 25 mph winds blow the 40-degree air around like an unwelcome blast of air conditioning.

And yet, next week, hopes for dry days re-emerge.

In fact, the weather forecast for Tuesday is a simple “mostly cloudy.”

I don’t know about you, but I’ve soaked up too much sunshine this year to take the path of pessimism. Maybe it will be Oct. 27, dang near winter, but I’m going to hold on to hope. And come Tuesday morning, I’ll most likely be at the trailhead of some mountain, ice ax in hand, still hoping.

My goodness, McGinnis!

I feel like I'm getting away with something I shouldn't be.

I blame this mountain, Mount McGinnis, which I first scaled on Aug. 20 as something entertaining and symbolic to do on my 30th birthday. Sure, there were mountains before McGinnis, but I feel like that one trip sparked the embers of what has become a full-flame fall trekking frenzy. I keep pinching myself, waiting for the weather to close in for good. But I also keep monitoring weather reports, wind data and the local radar with my own brand of analysis, and now there's a science to my madness.

Or pseudo-science, if you will. Take today: It was Tuesday, which has historically (since Aug. 20) been a good day for sunshine. Weather reports called for a 40 percent chance of rain. Less than half! Radar was noncommittal - therefore, non-damning. And it was Oct. 20, two months since the trekking frenzy began. Nice round anniversaries are good omens. Based on that data, I knew this: There was an 82.4 percent chance that it would be a good day on Mount McGinnis. I came home from work at 12:15 and set the alarm for 6:30.

Which, at this late date, is before sunrise. Icy fog clung to my eyelashes as I moved through the thick morning. The beam of my headlamp collided with a wall of water vapor and streamed out sideways. The light was nearly useless so I switched it off and broke out into a blind jog.

I rose out of the fog and into the monotone shade of overcast skies. I was not discouraged. I had faith in the sun. The trail steepened and I slowed to a walk, picking my way across a minefield of stream crossings and wet rocks. At about 1,900 feet I hit the ice - a slick layer of frozen rain cascading like a ribbon over the entire rocky route.

My progress slowed to less than a crawl. I veered into the brush, where the slope was covered in its own crazy-slick, frosted rotten groundcover, but at least there were branches to cling to. Every once in a while, I pulled out my ice ax and chipped away at the ice layer, hoping to expose a rock foothold beneath. I wasn't so much annoyed by the effort or how treacherous it was - I just wanted to pick up the pace. Fourteen miles plus 4,228 feet of climbing before my early afternoon meeting meant I was going to have to start moving a lot faster than a half mile per hour.

But I held on to my patience, slowly chipping away at the icy rock face until I finally reached snowline. I turned the ax around and started using it for its intended purpose - as an extra point of contact in the snow. The fresh-fallen, single layer of wet powder was so malleable that I didn't even need the ax, but it's fun to play with a new toy. I just bought the thing Thursday, after weeks of ignoring necessity, and I was amazed how dramatically it improved my confidence while I stomped up the steep slope.

In almost perfect line with my predictions, the sun poked out of the clouds right as I was relaxing into my snow stride, and quickly the sky opened to a dramatic cerulean blue. With its shimmering colors and sharp contrasts, the landscape was so mesmerizing that I forgot all about my tight schedule and stopped frequently to wipe the sweat from my eyes and stare off into a far-reaching horizon. It was a beautiful day.

It was just after 10 a.m. when I crested the false summit, about 500 or so feet below the real summit. It would have been a fairly simple jaunt to the top, but I just couldn't swing it. I budgeted six hours for the hike, three each way, based on how long it took me to reach the summit in August and the fact that it always takes me just as long to descend a mountain as it does to ascend it. Three hours came and went and even though I jogged most of the West Glacier Trail (last time I biked half of it). The glare ice slowed me enough that I was at least a half hour below the peak at crunch time. Late for work is one thing; an hour late for work is quite another.

It's all good. I am pretty much over peak-bagging now. There is so much more to a mountain than the top - like fingers of snow reaching across the talus, pointing the way to a whole new perspective.

I look at them differently, every time.