Saturation

It's thrilling, really, that first moment your defenses are breached, that first trickle of water between your shoulder blades, like a slow, icy tickle on hot skin. Then the rain pants soak through, followed by the slow saturation of wool long johns. Then the neoprene gloves become clammy; they drip water when you clench your fists. Then more water seeps in from your neck line; it creeps up your arms and your waist; your fleece hoodie absorbs it like sponge, swirling water vapor inside your plastic jacket, condensing until there are more droplets on the inside of the sleeves than the outside. When the wool leggings won't hold any more moisture, lukewarm water trickles down your vapor barrier socks to your liner socks, which are already soaked with sweat anyway. You wriggle your white wrinkled toes and breathe in the thick humidity, the vapor of warm sweat and cold air surrounding your own personal biosphere. And you pedal harder into the geyser streaming from both sides of your pathetic fenders, and you smile, because you and the rain are finally one, and you are free.

Geoff's big dream

Dark days are coming; really, they're already here. It's the time of year to build up body fat, pray for snow, and start dreaming about 2010. Most of my ideas for next year encompass things that even normal people would consider a fun vacation (ski touring in Banff), local epics (traversing the Juneau Icefield to Atlin, B.C.), and real big-time bike races (TransRockies).

But, so far, nothing truly huge. I admit that I wish I had something big, even in the abstract sense, lined up for 2010 or 2011 — if nothing else, because it might add some depth to this state of flux I feel like I'm drifting through. But, no, now is not the time for that. Now is the time to focus on the bigger picture and let the adventures fall where they may.

I think that's why I'm feeling excited about an ultramarathon that Geoff has been cooking up that he is calling the Tongass 100. It's not particularly new to me (a lot, though certainly not all of the terrain is stuff I've seen). It's not particularly far away (always within about 10 as-the-crow-flies miles from Juneau city limits). It's not even something I could participate in (Someone like me would require three to five days to complete the route, and even then I would call it "fastpacking.") But there's something about it that feels huge; maybe it's just potential - this twinkle of something larger, like when those Iditabike crazies in the '80s looked at the Iditarod Trail and said, "Let's try to ride our bikes on this."

From what I know about 100-mile foot races, the Tongass 100 would be similar to, well, none of them. There would be times racers would be sloshing through shin-deep mud or balancing on slippery wooden planks; others where they would be plodding up or swinging down 60-degree slopes; and then there's the alpine — hand over head scrambles up peaks, crossing massive snowfields, glissading down and repeating over and over and over again. The crux of the route involves the crossing from Nugget Peak to Ptarmigan Ridge. Either Geoff will have to drop the route several thousand feet and ford Lemon Creek (which is a raging river in my opinion), or stay high and cross over the Lemon Glacier, which I've heard has been done by people in running shoes, but still ... glacier. Big, shifting river of ice that tends to be full of large crevasses (usually exposed in summertime).

Of course, this race would be unofficial. It's an insurance nightmare, dangerous in many ways, but oddly doable. People could run this route. It would be one of the toughest 100-milers ever attempted in the U.S., for sure. I wouldn't be surprised if the elevation gain is in the 30,000-35,000-foot range. But it wouldn't be anything like the big climb-fests of the Rockies. Sure, there's no real altitude in Juneau, but what we lack in elevation we make up for in bad trails, treacherous terrain, horrible weather, and sheer remoteness even so close to a populated area.

I would hope my contribution to this race would be to man a checkpoint at a place near Cairn Peak called Camp 17. It would be located between to two huge ridge traverses, where runners would gain an endless string of peaks and a large bulk of their elevation, all without touching any hint of civilization. I would have to backpack in any provisions, over a seven-mile, 5,000-feet-of-climbing hike for me and anyone I could convince to do it. But I envision setting up shop in the unheated quonset hut, rolling out the extra sleeping bags I carried, firing up the camp stove to melt snow for water and filling up a small number of water bottles with some kind of endurance drink. And if I could find a really good friend with a big backpack, there would also be sliced oranges. Runners would drop in after their long traverse of Heinzelman Ridge, summit run over Nugget Peak and crossing of either Lemon Creek or Lemon Glacier. I would hand them a water bottle and a sliced orange and say, "there are only seven more peaks and maybe 10,000 feet of climbing and then a huge drop to sea level before the next aid station." Yes, that would be lots of fun ... for me.

But it is inspiring to watch Geoff dream up this monster, and maybe even talk others into joining him. I hope he pulls it off, and I hope I can somehow be a part of it. So if anyone out there has any crazy ultrarunning aspirations, I encourage you to get in contact with Geoff. It's not about how fast you can do it — it will be amazingly impressive if anyone can even do it, even Geoff, with his hometown advantage and superhuman endurance. But the Tongass 100 may be just crazy enough to become the next big thing.

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.