The Great Hot North

I am in Fairbanks for a brief biking and lounging trip. I was hoping to do a three-day combo dirt/pavement bikepacking trip, but other obligations require that I stay within cell phone range. I decided to come up to Fairbanks anyway to visit some friends and check out the riding around town. My friends think it's a funny destination. "No one in Anchorage comes up to Fairbanks to ride bikes," they told me. It's true that Fairbanks has large, rolling hills instead of craggy mountains, and it's either dusty or boggy with great black clouds of mosquitoes. But then thunderstorms roll in from the south and fill the expansive sky with color, and the rich green birch leaves flutter in the breeze, and the hills roll toward the remote and wild horizons of Alaska's deep Interior. It's a beautiful place. It reminds me of my time riding the Great Divide through southern Montana. I like it here.

The first night I arrived in town, my friend and I sat near the deck chatting away for hours. The sun drifted lazily toward the horizon, casting streaks of bronze light over the tree branches in the yard. A bright sort of twilight followed and then, in an unnoticed span of time that felt like an instant, the hints of light returned. I glanced at the clock. It was well after 2 a.m. Night is a vague dream here, a nearly forgotten place, somewhere far away. It's summer in the North.

On Wednesday I headed out for what was to be a "short" afternoon ride. The temperature was well over 70 degrees, climbing toward 80. I wiped a layer of sweat from my forehead and smiled at the dramatic climate of this place. The last time I visited Fairbanks, it dropped to 25 below zero F, more than 100 degrees colder. That was only two months ago.

I coasted down the long hill from my friend's house and found the trail marker for the Equinox Marathon, a trail marathon that's held every year in the beginning of autumn. I followed the root-clogged doubletrack as it began to climb steeply up the Ester Dome, a deceivingly large "hill" that actually rises nearly 2,000 feet above town. I reached the rounded crest and noticed the rough jeep road dropped down the other side of the dome. I wondered if it connected to the developed road I could see in the far distance. I bounced and swerved down the loose, heavily eroded track, losing an enormous amount of elevation but hoping the road somehow went through to Goldstream Creek, which I envisioned myself crossing in a rush of cold, waist-deep water before reconnecting with the road on the other side. Instead the jeep road dead-ended a ways back from the creek. I pedaled over the berm and began to follow an ever-so-faint hint of singletrack that wended through the trees. The ground was carpeted in dry leaves and strewn with deadfall. After hopping over a minefield of dead birch trees and creeping around alder tangles, I knew that whatever I was following was nothing like a trail, at least not any kind of a summer trail. Still, it was exciting, riding my bike through the woods, letting my GPS make a digital bread-crumb trail to follow back as I pressed deeper and deeper into "uncharted" wilderness. I felt like a biking explorer. I held onto the dream of making my ride a loop for quite a while. But the woods thickened and the ground became more mushy and I was doing a lot more walking than riding. GPS showed that rather than cutting a straight line toward the creek, I had made a big, meandering S back toward Ester Dome. So I surrendered to the out-and-back, and turned to face the looming climb in front of me.

It was a rugged beast of a climb, much steeper and harder than the marathon side of the dome. I sweated and wheezed and really felt like I was somewhere back on the Great Divide, somewhere hot, dusty and difficult, and nowhere near cell phone range. I reached the peak and rocketed down the other side, because I was already running late for the "real" ride that I planned to do with my friend, an evening singletrack ride along a ridge above town. By the time I returned home, my face and arms were crusted in salt, my three-liter Camelback bladder was empty, my GPS had recorded 4,500 feet of climbing over 34 miles, and the sun was still hot and high on the horizon for the two hours of strenuous singletrack biking in front of me. It's manic time. It's summer in the North.

Weekend Olympics

Voluntary unemployment is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that you never have to work. The curse is that you always have to work. I spent the hours of 12:45 a.m. to 3:30 a.m. Saturday morning working on an article that was due "Saturday morning" because I managed to burn up the entire day Friday organizing belongings, chatting on the phone, and then going on a hike. Then, when my roommate asked me if I wanted to go see "Alice in Wonderland," I thought, really, why not? On my desk, I have a list of "actual assignments" followed by "definite goals" followed by "maybe projects" and the whole thing keeps getting longer. Meanwhile the weekend comes, and everyone is going out to play, and I feel so much guilt about joining them.

The Friday hike: I slogged through slushy snow and soft tundra up the Rabbit Lake valley and then climbed up to Ptarmigan Pass. After looking at the map, I had wondered if Ptarmigan Peak (ahead) was climbable as a solo hiker in May. Ha! Once I reached the base, my knees got weak just looking at those super-steep, rock-lined snow slopes. But that pass was a beautiful spot to stop and have lunch, and contemplate life, and avoid writing my article.

Saturday morning I had tentatively planned to get as many of my preferred eight hours of sleep as I could post-4 a.m. and then buckle down and work on another "actual assignment." Instead, I received an 8:45 a.m. call from my friend, Brij, telling me about a plan he had to ride to Chickaloon for the annual "Chickaloon Olympics." (Um, yeah, Chickaloon is about 80 miles from Anchorage, and my knees were still burning after two days of long snow slogs.) Still, how can you turn down an event called the Chickaloon Olympics?

Because of the aforementioned snow slog pains and lack of sleep, and because my touring bike is currently falling apart again (yeah, one brake lever is broken) and because the two other women on the ride are actual Ironwomen with real road bikes who I figured would push the pace to something quite fast, I agreed to ride as far as Palmer (50 miles), where a friend was going to meet me and drive the rest of the way to Chickaloon. Turns out the ride was pretty mellow and quite enjoyable, right until the end, after I got a flat and only pumped my rear tire up to about 45 psi and we were running late and the girls threw down the hammer. Still, I shoulda just done the whole 80 miles. In my defense, the Ironwomen also stopped in Palmer and traded vehicles with a man who joined Brij for the rest of the ride.

The Chickaloon Olympics started off on a fine note, with everyone trying Megan's specialty, chocolate covered bacon on a stick. (Verdict: Gross.)

The Chickaloon Olympic events were very competitive and traditional, such as the "Ax Toss," where the gold medal went to a small woman who managed to stick all three throws, much to the chagrin of the many big males at the 2010 Games.

There was the "Partner Carry," adapted from the popular Alaska pastime, the "Wife Carry."

But the Chickaloon Olympics are a progressive event, and all manner of partners are encouraged.

Then there was the "Jandle Race," four people strapped to a board.

The Olympic Village, up on a bluff overlooking a 360-degree view of two huge mountains and a lake. And this is actual private property, owned by young professionals who live in Anchorage. Makes one wonder if being gainfully unemployed and transient is really the best way to go.

Brij won his own medal for being the only person to ride the whole distance to Chickaloon the day of the event. Two limes on a string. I wonder if they are supposed to represent anything?

Sunday I joined up with another group of cyclists for mountain biking in the Mat-Su Valley. The trails were dusty and dry, but well-built and fun. I don't love trail system mountain biking (I really like the purposeful feeling of "going somewhere" rather than pedaling around a series of small loops.) But I'm really hoping to do a lot more riding like this during the summer as I prepare for Trans Rockies. My technical skills could use a lot of work. But for now, I can still blame my former location ("We don't even have singletrack in Juneau," which is mostly true) and my high-mileage rigid mountain bike, which is falling apart in many of its own ways. (Are you sensing a theme here? I need new bikes but I'm unemployed. Boo.)

It was a completely unproductive weekend, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

The World You Love

When I feel I need space to reflect, I go to the mountains. It's not that I'm more perceptive or smarter in the mountains. It's actually the opposite - my quads are on fire and my throat is sore from breathing so hard and my feet are numb from hours of wallowing in slush and my eyes are fixed on this scary-looking traverse up ahead and these things fill out the entirety of my attention span. But it's in this head-spinning malaise that I occasionally look up ... at the sky, at the clouds, at the mountain, and say, "Ah, I see."

I'm looking for space to think. I pull out a map. Where can I go that will fill up the better part of an afternoon - a place secluded, and scenic, and even challenging, but not so challenging I either can't do it or succumb to blind anxiety while thinking about it? The map is a blank document to me. I don't know any of these places. They're all completely new, unknown. I feel a fluttering of excitement. I can go anywhere, but I have to make a choice. I could choose wrong. But I won't know until I go. This place looks good. At least, it looks good on a map. Bold Ridge. I load up my bike, travel to Eklutna Lake, and pedal beside the wending shoreline.

I stash the bike where the sign says "No Bikes," about five miles in. I can't believe how far summer has come since I was here last, just a week ago. Today there are baby leaves on all the trees, and the ice is gone, and the sun is burning an orange glare in my retinas. Hot day. But summer's not yet far along enough to kill off the snow, which starts about 1,000 feet up the mountain. The snow's rotten - knee to thigh-deep, and for weeks it's been churning in a melt-freeze cycle until it's no longer snow. It's shaved ice, like a snowcone, collapsing and solidifying with every knee-torturing step. I wasn't really expecting this much snow this low. I don't have much to fight it but this ice ax, which I use even on low-angle ground, driving it into the shaved ice and pulling back until the ax catches, so I can leverage myself out of my own body hole. Every step is exhausting and slow. I think often about giving up on Bold Ridge. Then I just laugh at myself. What I'm doing is ridiculous and pointless. But sometimes we have to do ridiculous and pointless things to make the rest of life more meaningful.

Finally I claw my way above treeline, still wallowing in slush, but now purpose has arrived. Time to traverse this ridge, moving forward until my fragile, clumsy body and its many limitations won't let me go any farther. And in the meantime, I'll travel through a limitless maze of thoughts.

I wonder if Bold Ridge has any insights. This place feels comforting to me, familiar, so much so that I have to keep reminding myself I'm in the Chugach, not the Southeast. "There was this ridge in Juneau I used to have conversations with," I say, not out loud, but the mountain's listening. "It's called Thunder Mountain. It's a great ridge, L-shaped, and if you stand on top of its hinge, you can see all of Juneau, all the way from the tip of Thane to the edge of the Mendenhall Valley, and all the places beyond. It's a good place to get a sense of where you are and where you've been. And the wind never seems to blow there, even if there are gales downtown. Everytime I went there, I never wanted to leave."

Bold Ridge responds in a gentle gust of wind and a the low throat-singing of a ptarmigan. There's a roar in the distance - too close to be a plane, too far to be Bold Ridge. I meander through my thoughts. "What do you think?" I ask the mountain. I listen to a thick, echoing silence. "Yeah, Thunder Mountain never answered, either."

I reach the place I'd been searching for, the point of no return. From here the ridge sharpens to an almost impossible knife before cutting a razor-edged ramp to the sky. That's Bold Peak. Not the place for walkers, and not the place for me. I sit on the tundra and let the mountain's silence surround me. It lasts only a few seconds before a thunder crack pierces the air. I jerk my neck back in time to catch a curtain of powder cascading down the face. The thin-ribbon avalanche continues to pour over the rocks like a waterfall, tumbling small boulders along the way.

I watch the avalanche for a while, small but persistent - as though the snow had been transformed to water, gushing and flowing in an unstoppable quest for gravity. Another forms along the west face. Bold Peak is angry today. I smile with new understanding. It's summer. Things are changing. They're always changing. I pick up my array of hiking weapons - my ax, my bear spray, my Kit-Kat bars, and turn around.

Sometimes, when I am uncertain which direction to go, I ask the universe to weigh in. Mountains never answer, and even if they do, they're never specific. I pull out my iPod. Like opening a book to a random page, sometimes I put my settings on "shuffle all" and wait for the wisdom of one in 1,687 songs. iPod opens with "No Cars Go," by Arcade Fire ...

We know a place no planes go
We know a place no ships go
Hey! No cars go.

I laugh. "That's true, but, I'm just not sure what you're trying to say." I hit the next button. One more try.

And then, "The World You Love" by Jimmy Eat World.

I fall asleep with my friends around me
Only place I know I feel safe
I'm gonna call this home
The open road is still miles away
Hey nothing serious
We still have our fun
Or we had it once
But windows open and close that's just how it goes.

Don't it feel like sunshine after all?
The world you love, forever gone.
We're only just as happy, as everyone else seems to think we are.

I find myself singing along. I drop back into the slush slog. I drag myself on my butt when I get tired of postholing. I'm panting and my head's spinning again. I forget all about interpreting my song, and all the other songs after that. I just want to get down, find food, something that's not a Kit Kat bar. I stumble onto dirt and descend back to bright green summer. It's evening now, and the mosquitoes are out with a vengeance. I start running, and transition to the bike without even taking the time to stick my ax back on my pack. It dangles from my hand as I hammer toward home. Then iPod hits a glitch, and even though only about a dozen songs have passed, the song comes on again - "The World You Love." I glance back at Bold Peak, washed in peach light, and there it is - the world I love.

Maybe it all really is just random.