Restless rest stop

Wow, Friday night already. I don't have time for a Denali Highway trip report quite yet, but I dislike getting too far behind with my blogging (call it an irrational aversion.) Anyway, I'm in Fairbanks now, gearing up for the Chena River to Ridge 25-mile race. I was going to come directly here from Palmer, but on Thursday I decided to cut the drive in two and camp one night in Denali National Park. Because I'm going through one of my more extended bouts of insomnia right now, I hoped spending a night alone somewhere dark and quiet, curled up in my fluffy down cocoon, would foster a much needed night of sleep. And of course, I could go for some "easy" tours of the park while I was there. 

The weather was warm and extremely windy. Up here, they call this kind of storm a "Chinook" — temperatures were in the low 40s at the park entrance and the wind was blowing 30 mph with gusts to 50, according to the park ranger. She pointed out a few good trails where I could go for an evening walkabout on my snowshoes. After determining that all of her suggestions amounted to about two miles of meandering through spruce trees, I scanned the map and found the trail that crossed the most topographic contour lines — Mount Healy Overlook.

It was insanely windy on Mount Healy. The gusts were manageable in the trees, but above treeline it was a major effort to walk in a straight line rather than stagger about as the wind shoved my body sideways. Because the climb had the wind mostly at my side and back, I didn't quite realize the extent of the wind's force until I turned to face it, and couldn't breathe. Big gusts would hold me like a wall, and even when forward motion was possible, the gusts seemed to whisk all of the oxygen away before I could pull any into my lungs. I just trudged a few steps, then stopped and turned my head around to gasp for air. It was all quite exciting, and a little frightening, because it felt like any moment a gust strong enough to knock me off my feet would come and push me toward the steeper side of the mountain. Based on my experiences with Taku Winds in Juneau, I'd say it was gusting to 70 or 80 mph at that elevation. Later, the Denali Park ranger would agree with me.

This photo is blurry because I couldn't even hold my camera still in the wind. As I was removing the lens cap, a gust whisked it right out of my hand. It actually fluttered around in the air for several seconds before dropping onto a drift about a hundred feet away, then continued bouncing down the slope, never to be seen again.

The Mount Healy hike was only 5.5 miles round trip with 1,900 feet of climbing, but the wind made for an exhausting effort. I was in my cocoon by 9 and actually fell asleep, but Beat called around 9:45 with his own reports of intense wind and wetness, and amid the sympathy and anxiety, I couldn't fall back asleep. I eventually did, after seeming hours of scrutinizing the star-splattered sky for hints of the aurora, and reading my Kindle. It wasn't a fantastic night of sleep, but still one of my better ones.

Friday just had to dawn clear, warm, and gorgeous, tempting me out for another day of not resting. I didn't really want to go hiking in the wind again, but the ranger told me bikes were allowed on the mushing trails along the Denali Park Road. I expected poor trail conditions but figured it couldn't hurt to go out for an hour, maybe 90 minutes. After all, I had a race to taper for.

The trails were so much fun. The park doesn't allow motorized use during the winter, so many of the trails were created by dog sled alone. Apparently little dog feet pack a mean trail, because even the heavily wind-drifted sections were largely rideable, and the more protected areas were downright fast.

There was an incredibly fun segment that wended through a stream bed, swooping around tighter turns and skating across chunks of frozen overflow. I felt like I was mountain biking in a desert wash — blue ice instead of slickrock, wind-drifted powder instead of sand, huge Alaska mountains instead of redrock cliffs. It was all so grin-inducing, I ended up staying out longer than I intended. 

I continued riding the Park Road toward Savage River, to find that some sections were blown completely free of snow — bare pavement. It would have been more fun to ride if I didn't have my tire pressure down at 5 psi, but I bounced along happily with the wind at my back.

Of course, where the pavement wasn't blown free, it wasn't rideable at all. You think that would be enough to coax me to turn around, but I still persisted until enough clouds built up around the peaks to the south to convince me that a blizzard was moving in. That, and knowing I had 13 miles of grinding into the wind to get out of there. At least the return was mostly downhill.

Then I got to do this into a 25 mph wind. It wasn't a long walk, but just far enough to remind me that I wasn't mountain biking in Utah or road biking in the mountains. Snow biking just isn't snow biking without the pushing.

The ride netted 27 miles and 2,344 feet of climbing in 3:45. Going to Denali National Park was both a fantastic and not-so-great idea, as I'm feeling well-cooked already and I haven't even raced yet. Driving the rest of the distance to Fairbanks this afternoon revealed how overtired I am, with a full release of rapidly swinging emotions. One moment I was listening to Muse and driving too fast, and a few minutes later I'd switched to the soundtrack from "Once" and lapsed into tears as I thought about Beat. But for all of those reasons, it was a great two days. I ran wild with a spectrum of powerful emotions, from fear to anxiety to exhilaration to joy to love and sadness. I let it out and now I feel refreshed. Maybe now I can sleep. 

Back from Denali Highway

The awesome women of Pecha Kucha Mountain: Jenn Roberts, Sierra Van Der Meer, Jill Homer, and Jill Missal

Wow, the Denali Highway is an incredible place to visit in the winter. And, depending on how you choose to travel, incredibly strenuous.

I've been struggling with an extended bout of insomnia since I arrived in Alaska, and I'm nearing that point where everything becomes dreamlike and confusion abounds. In the midst of this I can't string my thoughts together effectively, so I won't attempt to write much about our Denali Highway tour quite yet. But yes, it was incredible. We rode lots. And by lots, I mean lots of hours.

Our 102 miles in three days amounted to almost 24 hours in (or near) the saddle. Right now I feel like I ran that far in that amount of time, on snow. The snowmachine trail was recently groomed over deep snowpack and only lightly traveled. The surface was soft and punchy; I had one of the heavier bikes and I occasionally ground the rear wheel into the snow until it stopped moving altogether. Pedaling was hard work; a very slogtastic snow bike tour. But everyone took the conditions in stride and it helped that the weather was ideal and the scenery was just ... incredible. We lost ourselves in a white expanse, set out at sunrise when the thermometer read 11 below zero, watched a herd of caribou run across our path, won a standoff with two moose, enjoyed the bemused but generous hospitality of the MacClaren River Lodge, gazed up at a seemingly endless horizon of huge mountains, all in fantastic company. In a string of inside jokes we've come to call our winter gathering the "Pecha Kucha Mountain Summit." Next year Sierra, Jenn, and Jill want to relocate to a sunny and warm beach. I told them I already live near sunny and warm beaches, but I will go just to hang out with them.

There's a great trip report lurking beneath the insomnia haze. But for now, I wanted to post an update on Beat, who is still trudging along the Iditarod Trail. While I was out of cell phone range on the eastern side of the Alaska Range, Beat checked in and out of McGrath and continued into the deeper wilderness of the route. His first messages out of McGrath were punctuated with apprehension. It's no longer about physical fatigue or pain at this point - the overwhelming challenge is the unknown, along with fear and loneliness. Happily Beat has found a companion in an Italian named Marco Berni, and the two have been traveling together. As of Wednesday night they were pushing toward a shelter about 14 miles outside the ghost town of Iditarod, which is mile 432.

Unseasonably warm weather continues to present unique challenges for ITI racers. Today temperatures climbed into the 40s and the snow was so soft and sticky that it clumped on the bottom of Beat's snowshoes and sled. He said just out of McGrath, he and Marco were keeping a steady 3.5 mph pace, but that's dropped to about 2 mph. Marco is also contending with severe blisters, but Beat said his feet have held up surprisingly well despite the wet conditions. The trail is not well-packed and they are running into frequent drifts. Weather is supposed to deteriorate in the region, with a storm system bringing freezing rain, high winds, and blizzard conditions. He and Marco are pressing late toward a shelter cabin tonight and may take a shorter day tomorrow depending on weather. Bivying in freezing rain is worse than 40 below.

Beat also saw the first Iditarod Dog Sled Race mushers go through, and actually stopped for a bit to chat with Lance Mackey - who at the time was in the lead - when Mackey stopped to attend to his dogs. The dogs suffer in the warm weather as well; they're built for cold and suffer in the "heat" the same way humans do when it's 100 degrees. Beat said he felt some solidarity with the dogs.

I'm headed to Fairbanks this weekend for the Chena River to Ridge 25-mile race. Hopefully I can snag some better sleep soon or I might lapse into nonfunctionality. I think my insomnia is partly caused by the continuous changes of traveling, and also by some mild anxiety about Beat's expedition. I worry about his physical safety, but I also wonder what the world will look like to him when this is all over. Even after a simple and comfortable three-day tour, when I close my eyes, this is what I see:

Headed north

On Friday I spent more than four hours arranging Beat's first two post office drop bags beyond McGrath, along with $287 on mostly junk food (some of this food was for me.) It was a chore, but a great sign, because it means he's becoming more committed to the full trek to Nome. I received a call from him at 10 a.m. Saturday morning from Salmon Camp, which is about 12 miles outside of Nikolai. He said he was enjoying a beautiful morning, with a bright pink sunrise over Denali, no wind, and temperatures near 10 below on the Farewell Burn. However, he's feeling extra sleepy this morning and said the trail has been rough across the burn, with snowmachine moguls and bumps. The tendon pain in his toe has started to level off, but now his hip flexor is giving him grief. "It's like my body keeps trying new things to see what will get me to stop," he said. But he sounds as determined as ever, assuring me that McGrath "is just a checkpoint." I expect he'll reach that milestone checkpoint by Sunday evening.

I was meeting with friends for dinner in the evening but couldn't resist a quick jaunt up Lazy Mountain on the way to their house in Butte. Lazy Mountain is a stairmaster of a hike, gaining 3,200 feet in about two miles. The trail is generally packed by other hikers, but the top 3/4 mile is always wind-drifted and results in lots of postholing without snowshoes, which I can't wear because the lower trail is too slick (I wore microspikes. With these icy conditions I'd even prefer crampons.) So it's a grunt, but I know I can do the out-and-back to the 3,700-foot peak in two hours on a strong day, which I was having. It snowed on and off all day and the mountain was enveloped in fog, but I caught about a ten-minute window when the clouds cleared out enough to reveal sunshine. It was a great hike — colder than it looks from the photo, but I was working so hard on the climb I couldn't wear more layers despite the icy breeze.

In about two hours I'm leaving Palmer to head north for a three-day bike tour on the Denali Highway. I'm traveling with the same three women who I toured the Dawson Trail with last winter, so I'm excited. Girls, snow bikes, and backcountry cabin/lodge debauchery is always a recipe for good times. Our trip runs Sunday to Tuesday and I expect I won't have any online access or even much cell phone access during that time. I'm bummed I might miss Beat's arrival in McGrath, but I'm hoping he'll be well on his way toward Nome by the time I return. Updates will be sparse during this time, but I'll be tracking my own trip so you can follow our progress at this link:

Jill's SPOT page

If I get out any mid-trip text updates at all it will likely be to my Twitter account.

Beat will be in a black hole of communication himself, but there may be snippets of information about his whereabouts at these links:

ITI Facebook updates

Nome Leaderboard

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