The bender ender

(Note: A bookend morning of sunlight gave me one last day to bask in the mountains before a forecast storm dumps several inches of heavy snow on a really rotten surface layer, thus creating avalanche conditions that I'm not equipped to deal with. I snowshoed up the Grandchild Ridge with Sean. It was a fun, beautiful day, but this point, it's probably best left to short photo captions. So I'm including the first draft of my Empire Outdoors column with the photos. Now, time to sharpen up the snowboard and finally get down to bicycle training for the White Mountains 100. Who wants to go to Eaglecrest on Saturday?

Sean follows wolf tracks up to the Sun Bowl.

SAD? Winter joy just a matter of perspective

By Jill Homer
Juneau Empire

The extended week of Dec. 4 to Dec. 12 was perhaps one of the sunniest I have ever experienced in Juneau.

It didn’t matter that it was out only for six hours a day, hovering low on the horizon and casting long blue shadows between intermittent flecks of gold light. It didn’t matter that temperatures were in the 20s, sometimes in the teens, and bulbs of frozen sweat clung to my air. It didn’t matter that thick fog hugged the shoreline, forcing me to gasp and claw my way to new winter heights. I spent a week-plus basking in sunlight. During these short days when many Alaskans are perched in front of full-spectrum florescent bulbs, that really matters.

A fairly large slab avalanche slides off the ridge.

It’s that time of year again in Alaska. And no, with the exception of the most holiday-crazed among us, it’s not the most wonderful time of the year. It’s dark. It’s cold. Winter solstice offers but a small glimmer of hope, and it’s not even here yet. Time to flick on the SAD lights.

I’m no stranger to Seasonal Affective Disorder. I’ve had my fair share of bouts. I remember one particularly strong flare-up in 2008, when I climbed up Mount Jumbo in a summer gray-out only to be hit with the full fury of a snain storm (for those new to Juneau, that means a chilling swirl of snow and rain.) It was July. I don’t think I’ve felt so SAD about anything weather-related in all my life.

This is the kind of photo we take because it says, "Dear Mom, Alaska is great! Merry Christmas." As I backed up to get the full profile of Mount Stroller White, I broke through the deep fracture of a separated cornice that hung over a very precarious, avalanched slope (see previous photo.) That's the part we don't tell moms about. (Sorry, Mom.)

But in December, there’s something wholly joyful about pulling on layers of fleece and wool, wedging oneself into a winter coat and pushing out into the wind and ice and yes, sometimes snain. Beyond the initial “yuck” factor of cold weather and sometimes difficult-to-navigate trail conditions, the best-known cure for SAD is out there, just waiting to be discovered.

Take this past week for example. A high-pressure system moved in, bringing lots of sun, light winds and only mildly cold temperatures. I wanted to take full advantage of what for me is ideal winter weather with an outdoor binge:

Sean chips his way up the steep ridge. Later, these slopes would provide humbling lessons in the art of self-arrest.

On Dec. 4, a friend and I trekked up Mount Jumbo, punching thigh-deep snowshoe tracks in the seemingly bottomless fluff. In four years of endurance cycling training, I have yet to experience a more endlessly strenuous workout. But as we stood on the saddle with endorphins pulsing through our blood and basking in full sunlight, I doubted if I’d ever experienced a more satisfying one.

On Dec. 6, I rode my snow bike up the Lake Creek Trail to Spaulding Meadows. I followed the narrow tracks of cross-country skiers as they weaved across a frost-feathered blanket of clean snow. It’s still too early for snowmobiles; the meadows were soulfully quiet and reflective on a Sunday morning.

On Dec. 7, I cycled out the road, studded tires crackling like sizzling bacon on the cold pavement, and frosty wind chill amplifying the thrill of movement in warm muscles.

On Dec. 8, I mountain biked around Dredge Lake, where frozen beaver ponds provided easy passage and hoarfrost-coated alder branches sparkled.

On Dec. 9, I climbed Thunder Mountain, tracing the tracks of a mountain goat along the sun-drenched ridge.

On Dec. 11, I hiked Blackerby Ridge, which rose like a breathtakingly scenic bridge over the thick inversion that kept most of the city in fog.

And on Dec. 12, another friend and I returned to Mount Jumbo. We followed those well-earned snowshoe tracks from Dec. 4, nicely hardened into a express “stairway to heaven,” and continued on to the ice-glazed peak.

Looking toward the majestic Chilkats.

All in all, it was one of my best outdoor weeks in three and a half years of living in Juneau. I wouldn't have traded it for a dozen 60-degree days in July. I’m not saying every Juneau resident should immerse themselves in the same activities. After all, not everyone has a job that doesn’t require them to be at the office until the sun has nearly set. And some winter enthusiasts prefer regular storms and fluffy powder stashes to the hardpack crust and sun that winter bikers and hikers thrive on. And, really, after a week of playing hard for three, four, and sometimes eight-hour stretches in the freezer of December, I’m pretty much exhausted. But I also have enough quality stoke in the bank to stave off Seasonal Affective Disorder, at least through Christmas.

Goodbye to the Sun Bowl, goodbye to the sun ... at least for a little while.

And that’s my point. Whether you’re a cross-country skier, a downhill skier, a snowboarder, a snowshoer, an ice skater, a bundled-up beach walker, an ax-wielding ridge trekker or a studded-tire-clad cyclist, the rewards of venturing outdoors in December far outweigh the discomforts. Analyze the risks. Choose some good equipment. Don’t push past your abilities. Dress warm. And just get out there!

It can’t be worse than snain in July.

My December mountain bender

(Note: Most of these photos are from my Saturday trek up Mount Jumbo with my friend Bjorn. So the photos don't necessarily match the text, but they still illustrate to some degree, so I'm posting them.)

When I sat down on Friday to write about my experience on Blackerby Ridge, I genuinely could not find the words. Descriptions like "sublime," "transcendent," "spiritual" and "closer to God" all fell flat to their inevitable cliches. I started the trek at 8:15 in the morning in the midst of a thick fog, both mental and literal. I went to Blackerby Ridge mostly because I had already told a few people that's where I planned to spend the day Friday, and it's always good when people know where you are. But as I began the trudge up the ice-slicked trail, I felt tired and downtrodden and disconnectedly obligated, just going through the motions.

Why the obligation to climb a mountain? It's tough for me to say. There's the physical factor - exercise is good for me. And there's the environmental factor - this long high pressure system has created absolutely ideal winter climbing conditions - hardpacked crust, lighter winds, mostly clear skies and relatively low avalanche danger - that should be taken advantage of while the going is good. There's the emotional factor - I find a lot of comfort in big spaces, swept clean of confusion by a blanket of snow, bright and flawless. But there's something else there, something deeper than my physical being and emotional state, something that approaches spirituality. But as I continue this activity with increasing gusto and dedication, I'm realizing that this really is my spiritual outlet - a temple where I can touch the greatness that is everything and connect with the more abstract motions of my soul.

And I realize that sounds hokey. Thus my reluctance to write about it. But there is little else I can say to describe those short, beautiful daylight hours on Blackerby Ridge. I followed my own week-old snowshoe track up the icy slope. There were a few bursts of sun through small sucker holes, but when I was above treeline and approaching the bottom reaches of the ridge, I was still encased in fog. I thought that was going to be it - just another gray walk in the clouds - but then, just above 3,000 feet, the most amazing thing happened. My head just sort of popped out of the inversion, and suddenly I could see the sharp, infinite horizon.

The rest of the day followed my long photo sequence in the previous post - awestruck, wandering, a solo journey above the clouds. The inversion hung above 3,000 feet, beyond the upper reaches of most of Douglas Island, which means I was likely alone or nearly alone in the region's sunlight on Friday - not a whole lot of people around here do mainland ridge walks or even skis in December. I hiked along the rime and hard crust to the backside of the ridge, the base of Cairn Peak, and gazed up at the looming monolith with its treacherous near-vertical pitches of mixed ice and rock that will keep me off of it until the snow melts. Winter had dramatically changed this fairly familiar place in a way that was both daunting and satisfying.

By the time I returned to the cloudline, it was 2 p.m., nearly the day's end. As the fading sun turned the mountains a deeper shade of gold, I lingered on the edge of the ridge, waiting for sunset. My hair and eyebrows were caked in frost, I was otherwise drenched in sweat, and it was impossible for me to stay warm in the freezing air unless I kept moving. So I danced. I literally danced, skipping and twirling in loopy circles on the snowy tundra. I had been hiking, hard, for nearly six hours. I still had two more to go before I would reach the trailhead. My body had to work even harder to stoke its own heat in temperatures that ranged from the low-teens to low-20s since 8 a.m.; I had only a frozen bagel and a chocolate bar to eat, and I was dancing as though I were trapped in a warm room with an endless supply of unchecked energy. It was an incredible feeling as the disappearing sun lit the deep-frozen world on fire. My prayer and praise to the powers that be.

My incredible day on Blackerby Ridge pretty much drained me, and I probably would have passed out before 10 if my friend Bjorn didn't call that night. The high pressure was set to linger at least one more day, so we decided to climb Mount Jumbo on Saturday morning. I shouldn't have had the energy for it, but I felt surprisingly strong. We followed the snowshoe track that my friend Shannon and I had worked so hard to punch out last week. It was well-hardened on Saturday, the "stairway to heaven," Bjorn called it. We climbed easy and free, nearly twice as fast as last Friday, and continued toward the peak.

At the top I struggled to fight back a huge grin, trying not to look too blissfully deranged because this kind of stuff is fairly elementary to Bjorn and he already thinks I'm a bit of an odd duck. But I've been to the top of Jumbo more than a dozen times and I've never seen it like that, coated in wind-carved ice. It looked like a frozen fountain, or an elaborate delicacy at the center of a wedding spread. I quietly said my prayers and started down.

I mulled the possibility of another trek today, but I was in all honesty beyond exhausted. As much as I want to take advantage of the last gasp of a long stretch of good weather, I couldn't drag myself out of bed until 10 this morning, so I went for a sea-level bike ride instead. Still beautiful, still fun, but missing that aspect of the sublime, that deep connection to something bigger than myself and everything around me. No wonder church is such a popular pastime. Juneau's weather is set to break tomorrow, and the first new snow will turn these mountains to avalanche central for a while, but I do hope, body and mind willing, to return soon.

There's no way to write it down

My day on Blackerby Ridge, Dec. 11, 2009