Bold return to the Wasatch

I spent all day Friday driving from the Bay Area to the Salt Lake Valley. Eight hundred miles on a desolate yet crowded Interstate 80. I actually quite enjoy long solo drives, for many of the same reasons that I enjoy long solo runs or rides — I can retreat into my quiet personal bubble, ponder all of the deep thoughts that I don't mind forgetting later, view intriguing landscapes, listen to music, sing out loud if I feel like it, get worked up over news, and snack on junk food. I also dislike long solo drives for the same reasons I dislike long solo runs — some boredom is unavoidable, as is at least one segment when I struggle not to doze off on my feet/at the wheel. I can't always find good places to stop and pee. My legs cramp up. I eat too much junk food and then I feel icky. Then, once it's all over, I'm really tired and feel vaguely hungover. Yeah, that's endurance running driving. 

 But doing the whole 800 miles in one push was all worth it when I woke up early on Saturday morning to attempt a Twin Peaks summit with my dad. Not knowing what kind of spring snow conditions we would encounter, we packed all of our snow gear. Knowing the day's forecast called for 85 degrees, we also packed a ton of water. Heavy packs and a hike that starts at 6,000 feet altitude. I knew that no matter what conditions the day brought, it was going to be a big effort just to keep up with my dad.

We took the standard Broads Fork drainage, starting in the bright green foliage of early summer and quickly losing seasons as we climbed.

Late spring became early spring, with tiny green buds and lots of deadfall.

Continuing to ascend into late winter.

8,500 feet — the hard part begins.

I was a bit nervous about encountering rotten snow conditions and rockfall, but the bowl was filled with old avalanche debris and the resulting base felt solid. Both my experience and skillset in steep snow conditions are limited, so I try to be mindful of variables and extremely conservative in my approach. Still, I had some anxieties. Now that I live away from big mountains, I tell myself that what I miss the most is the beautiful scenery and challenging terrain. But I forget another benefit of mountain living — the opportunity to get out and do things that scare me.

The long climb up the bowl was fairly straightforward, but there were signs of rotten snowpack, at times sinking thigh-deep into jagged postholes. By the time the slope steepened, I was sucking so much wind I could hardly see straight. I've noticed that when I come directly from sea level, 9,000 feet is about my threshold of manageable altitude; beyond that, I'm going to struggle no matter how fresh I am. And of course, the more tired I become, the lower that threshold gets. This was one of my worries about the Bryce 100 and one of the reasons I wanted to take advantage of an opportunity to come out to Utah a week early. I hope to avoid this cross-eyed breathlessness if at all possible.


Things got steep while I was fixated on my own oxygen deprivation. On top of that, the avalanche-scoured snowpack had all the structural integrity of a tattered piece of lace. It was effectively a thin layer on top of a large boulder field, and much of the snow below the surface had melted and run off. We couldn't see the boulders, but we started to punch through the cracks between them, wrenching knees, bashing shins, thrashing to pull stuck feet out of holes. I experienced several anxious minutes when I wasn't sure if my dad was going to be able to pull himself out of a hole, and I hadn't found a spot that could hold my weight close enough to help (he was leading, so unfortunately did most of the deep hole finding, too.)

By the time the conditions really started to seem unworkable, we had nearly reached the saddle. I thought the descent would be okay because we could follow our own steps and pick our way around the holes. But there was some really sketchy stuff near the point were we had no choice but to climb onto the rocks — effectively crevasses between car-sized boulders with no way to gain purchase on the crumbling slush "bridges."


So we were both a little spooked when we reached the saddle, and it took us exactly zero seconds to call "no way" on the summit push to Twin Peaks. There was an even steeper and likely more rotten snowfield on the south face, and the other option is a Class 4 scramble on the exposed knife ridge that had its own razor sharp point of snow. A harsh and surprisingly cold wind nearly knocked us over, and we were happy to just look at the view and turn around.

Lovely view it was. Little Cottonwood Canyon and the Salt Lake Valley from 10,815 feet.

But we still had to go down. It was tough. In this photo my dad is trying to work his way around a hole where he fell up to his shoulder on one side. That was the hole where he solicited an adrenaline jolt to scramble out while I scouted for purchase in a spot close enough to pull him out. We descended most of this mountain slower than we climbed it — every step deliberately kicked many times before any foot was planted — and it was even more strenuous and wind-sucking at times. On the positive side, I effectively climbed the mountain twice — in both effort and position, so I don't have any downhill-induced shin pain to show for a 7.5-hour adventure.

Hokas and crampons. Not a bad combination. Usually when I wear my spikes with soft-soled shoes, I can feel the point pressure on the bottom of my foot. But with Hokas, all that cushioning does what it does best.

When we got down to the more stable snowpack, we were finally able to get off our feet for a few minutes.

This gully was filled with the remains of a massive avalanche. At first I thought the slide was recent, but on closer inspection, it probably happened a while ago.

Still, the avalanche left its mark. Our 7.5-hour hike ended up netting my training log a total of 8.5 miles and just over 5,000 feet of climbing. The numbers don't even come close to depicting how tough the effort was. At one point I was gasping for air when my watch buzzed in a 102-minute mile. Impressive.

Proper taper? I might have to take an extra rest day to get over this one. It was still worth it. A grand adventure with what was really just the right amount of scary, careful management, and success, topped off with some jaw-dropping scenery. I do miss you, Wasatch Mountains. 

Alaskaversary

It occurred to me today that this week would be the tenth anniversary of the day I first set foot in Alaska. Of all of the moments in life to commemorate, this is one that stands out for me — a turning point, or point of no return, depending on how I look at it.

I had to dig through the very old archives of the Wayback Machine to find the exact date — May 30, 2003. Three friends and I had been meandering north for almost a month, living out of a 1990 Ford Econoline Van with a custom roof, retrofitted electrical wiring and the high luxuries of a television, cell-phone based dial-up internet connection (as in, we actually plugged our laptops into a phone) and a small refrigerator. Perishable food was hard to come by in the north, we were discovering, and the fridge stayed mostly empty except for foil-wrapped Dolly Varden and grayling that we pulled out of tiny streams in British Columbia, and cans of Pepsi that I insisted on keeping cool. After a month on the road I was only starting to conceptualize what a big continent North America really is, and the past week had instilled a sense of isolation via a bewildering expanse of black spruce forest, birch groves, and snow-capped mountains over the farthest horizons. Towns came in flashes of log buildings and gas pumps, and then they were gone. The sun wasn't setting until midnight. I thought I had experienced remoteness after days of backpacking into desert canyons in Utah — but when that feeling came via motorized transportation on a highway, I knew we were really out there.

But the place had a sameness to it as well — endless miles of black spruce forest, birch groves, and snow-capped mountains — and after a month I was starting to feel road-weary. "Everything moves slower out here," I wrote. "The sun, the time, the progress of life. The end of May. Everyone has hit a one-month lull. The novelty has worn off. This is our life now. Putting up tents and making pancakes is our job; the remote dirt road through this continuous expanse of wilderness is our commute. "

We spent much of May 30 lingering in Dawson, Yukon, where we camped on the edge of the Klondike River so Chris and Geoff could pan for gold. They used Frisbees from our kitchen stash — the same ones we used as dinner plates in camp — and were quite serious about the endeavor, squatting in the cold water and sifting through mounds of sand and gravel that they'd hauled from the hillside in stuff sacks.

"I walked up the hill and surveyed the remaining buildings – collapsed and corroded wooden cabins leaning over the steep slopes above the creek," I wrote. "The gold rushers once lived here. The people that traversed barren snowfields in the rigid cold of endless night, seeking a dream. I’d like to think I’d do the same, but I’ve never had a dream so intense, so overpowering, as to drive me into the glacial dark with only a faint glimmer of hope for success."

I smile now, when I read this, thinking back at the wide-eyed naivety of 23-year-old me. If only she knew.

"Chris and Geoff gave up on their dream after about 45 minutes, minuscule flakes of sparkling 'gold' still stuck to their legs and arms, mud dripping from their hands. Discovery is not preemptive. This is the frustration of gold panning. This is the frustration of traveling. At this moment we drive along the Top of the World Highway, across the Yukon River and less than 50 miles from the Alaska border. Our destination. And perhaps the cause of our discontent. We could turn the van around right now and never be the worse for it. There may be nothing on this horizon save the reluctant sun, but we’ll never know until we go."

There wasn't a bridge across the Yukon River this far north, so we crossed on a ferry, standing just outside the van as the boat plied across the silty water. On the other side of the Yukon was a narrow, dusty gravel road that spat rocks into our open windows as we rumbled higher into the mountains, truly the top of the world. Crossing the border was anticlimactic — just another tiny outpost lined with thick alder groves and more black spruce. Alaska looked a lot like everything else here in the far north. But we were back in the United States and there was a feeling of coming home. But not quite. I'd lived in Utah for most of my life, and the feeling of homesickness was strong in those final days of May. I remember daydreaming about redrock cliffs, missing the suburbs, and imagining the West Desert in November while we traversed a brown and white patchwork of tundra, still locked in winter in early June. I didn't yet realize that the roots of my homesickness would shift, and ten years later, I'd be out on a highway en route to Utah, daydreaming about those first days in Alaska.

"The landscape here is diverse and frightening; it commands joy but demands respect. Everything borders on extreme – daylight, temperature, seasons and life. Survival out here is also extreme, something I don’t feel adequately designed and conditioned for. My body is too weak and too susceptible to sun and bug bites, too unaccustomed to hunger and thirst and cold. Maybe this is the cause of my nostalgia for strip malls and suburbs. However, it is also the cause of an extreme respect and fascination with this place they call the Arctic Circle."

Horseshoe Lake 50K

Heat training and Oreo lips

On Sunday we did our last long run before the Bryce 100, the Horseshoe Lake 50K. It was a beautiful morning, with saturated light at clear views over the big blue Pacific. The race was sold out and I think there were close to 200 people at the start. I was drawn into all the excitement of "yay running" and went out too fast on the first climb, which resulted in being caught in a faster group for the punchy descents. Not wanting to get mowed down on the singletrack, I did my best to keep the pace by resorting to toe running.

I've done a bit of research on common causes of shin pain. There are a lot of different theories about which motions and/or tight muscles lead to tibial stress. My experiment of one so far shows that braking or landing hard with my forefoot, which is my tendency when descending or accelerating, seems to exacerbate the pain. Subsequently, slowing my downhill pace, shortening my stride, and deliberately engaging full foot strikes (trying to get that heel on the ground) brought quick relief. I was unhappy at mile six and suspected I would need to stop once I reached the first return to the start at mile 13. But at the half marathon point, after seven miles of mitigation efforts, I felt considerably better. I decided that continued experimentation with shin pain management would be more beneficial for my upcoming race than quitting early and hoping this will somehow work itself out in ten days. If it was a full-blown injury, I would certainly be more cautious. But this still qualifies as a minor nagging pain, and it doesn't seem to be worsening. Most sources I found say that shin splints typically take three to six weeks to go away, but it's possible to continue training during recovery as long as pain doesn't get worse.

Beyond that, the run was fairly uneventful. It was warm — probably into the mid-80s — but there was a nice breeze whisking along the ridge to take the edge off the heat. I felt strong, so my purposefully slowed pace caused some frustration and dissatisfaction ("I feel good. I can do better than this. But I shouldn't. But I can. Grrr.") In the aftermath, I feel my stride experimentation was beneficial, but there were plenty of points during the race when all I really wanted was to run faster — or climb faster, because a determined power-hike up a steep grade also involves getting up on the toes. But I dialed it back and finished strong, happy, and essentially pain-free. One week after the 50-miler, the Horseshoe Lake 50K was a good confidence boost in my endurance ahead of the Bryce 100.

I finished in 6:32. I raced this same course back in October and felt compelled to look up my former time, to see how it compared. Also 6:32. Apparently, getting stung by a wasp and minor shin splints cause me the exact same degree of pain-induced slowness.

I'm not planning to do any more running before Bryce. I'm headed out to Utah a week before the race to visit my family, and my dad and I are going to go for a few hikes in the Wasatch this weekend. The whole course is between 7,000 and 9,500 feet, so I could use all the pre-race acclimation I can get. My friends claim this is an unfair advantage, and they're right. But they're also all stronger runners than me, and the 34-hour cutoff looms.

I'm really looking forward to the Bryce 100. These 50K and 50-mile efforts are fun, but there's something intimately engaging about pressing through the night and emerging into a second day. Hundred-mile runs and multi-day bike races have their own life spans, and they always linger in my memories long after these smaller adventures fade into the distance. In a sense, long efforts are my way of extending my own life, because I live so intensely and experience so much in a relatively short time span. I often emerge feeling like I've made weeks, months, and sometimes years of individual progress. Many will argue that these efforts are inherently unhealthy, and they're not wrong. But in my opinion, the benefits of hundred-milers could never be quantified in any tangible way. From an outside perspective, they're nothing but stupid ... but inside, they're an integral part of an invaluable education.

And with that, I missed a week but I am still trying to keep track of my training for the summer. Blogs are good for that kind of tangible nonsense.

Week May 6-12
Monday: Trail run, 6.5 miles, 976 feet of climbing
Tuesday: 0
Wednesday: Road bike, 17.5 miles, 2,553 feet of climbing
Thursday: 0
Friday: 0
Saturday: Trail run, 50 miles, 8,799 feet of climbing
Sunday: 0
Total: 56.5 miles run, 17.5 miles ride, 12,328 feet of climbing

Week May 13-19
Monday: Road bike, 16 miles, 2,143 feet of climbing
Tuesday: 0
Wednesday: Trail run, 9.1 miles, 1,327 feet of climbing
                     Mountain bike, 8.9 miles, 1,844 feet of climbing
Thursday: Trail run, 7 miles, 1,675 feet of climbing
Friday: Road bike, 17.5 miles, 2,535 feet of climbing
Saturday: Mountain bike, 20 miles, 2,740 feet of climbing
Sunday: Trail run, 31.1 miles, 5,671 feet of climbing
Total: 47.2 miles run, 62.4 miles ride, 17,935 feet of climbing