Things that last

The shortness and breath and lung congestion persisted, so I couldn't go snowboarding on Monday — as had admittedly been my hope. My mom urged me to take at least one rest day after the 29-hour fat bike ride that often left me winded to the edge of hyperventilation. She wasn't wrong, of course. 

"But I'm only in Salt Lake for a couple more days," I protested. I won't be coming back this winter. "These opportunities are rare."

Monday's weather made the right decision easy, with more than an inch of rain that reportedly fell as sleety snain up at elevations where I couldn't breathe anyway. I retreated to the basement to go through several boxes of old things. Since my parents both retired last year, they've begun downsizing. I needed to decide what was worth keeping. It was easy to cast aside the old books and toys, but I lingered longer on the photographs and news clippings, the high school artwork that still reflected dreams of becoming an illustrator, the earnest first newspaper columns, the concert tickets and binders full of angsty teenage journaling. I read through a few entries and thought, "Wow, am I lucky to have gotten through adolescence before the Internet really got huge." After all, the Internet never forgets. I zipped up the binders and carefully placed them back in the trunk. 

 A few of the items in the trunk were a complete mystery, and I lingered over these longer than anything else. A broken seashell, a pen shaped like a skeleton, a small bottle of sand, a tiny bean bag. "What are these?" I wondered. "Why did I save these? Why did they survive every other cull of my archives?" I scoured my memory but it was a blank wall. There were a few other items whose meaning I remembered distinctly — the plastic frog that the boy with whom I was hopelessly and unrequitedly in love at 16 won in an arcade game, and gave to me; the fern-leaf "fossil" I pulled off a mountain in the Wasatch as a young child; the gold accordion pin I was given when I completed accordion lessons in second grade. Each one of these trinkets sparked a rush of warmth to my fingertips, which made the forgotten pieces all the more irksome. "They were important at one point. And now, nothing."

It's an unsettling reminder — that everything gets replaced, and everyone gets forgotten, and time erases everything, eventually. Still we all spend our lives striving to find experiences that have meaning and moments that matter, and this in itself is a beautiful mystery.

 On Tuesday my dad turned 62, whose milestone, he bragged, was that he now qualified for a lifetime Golden Age national park pass. It's another perk of retirement that he seems to be enjoying immensely. He's as vibrant and strong as I've ever seen him, if not more. I had a few free hours on Tuesday morning before my deadlines set in, so we headed for a hike up Grandeur Peak. The mountainside was carpeted in more than a foot of fresh powder, and low-hanging branches rained continuous showers of snow down on our heads and necks. Otherwise the morning was quite warm and I was stripped down to "summer" wear — pants and a thin long-sleeved shirt, no gloves or hat — as I gasped my way up the mountain. Dad broke trail and I lagged many meters behind, wondering whether I should perhaps be more concerned about this raspy breathing. Was it potentially damaging to my lungs? The night before, I had dinner with my best friend from high school, and we discussed our "30-something" aches and issues. She still feels lingering effects from a serious car accident that happened more than 15 years ago.

"When you're young, as long as you survive something, you think it's over, it's okay. And then, when you get older, you realize that no, these things stay with us."

 I decided against extending my stay to snowboard with my sister on Wednesday. Although I wanted to spend time with my sister, my lungs were still raw and sore, and my congestion was getting worse again. Also, the truth of the matter is that I'm downright terrified about the prospect of snowboarding. It's been a lot of years and my balance seems to be getting worse. I'm not 20 anymore and can't go cartwheeling down a mountain with the same consequences I enjoyed back then, which were none. 125-mile fat bike rides are something I understand well now, something I can handle. Snowboarding is ... something in my past.

Still, the lungs issue was a bit disconcerting. There were times in the Fat Pursuit when it felt like a 500-pound man was sitting on my chest, squeezing out all of the air. A friend of mine who is a physician suggested that high altitude pulmonary edema was one possible cause. Even though 8,000 feet is a relatively low elevation for such a severe reaction, a combination of sea-level acclimation, a high rate of exertion, dehydration, and the cold virus I was battling, could produce an environment ripe for HAPE. Unless I get my lungs scanned, there is no way to know what affected my breathing, or whether it might persist in future efforts. What if it's the kind of thing that sticks with me?

The drive home was uneventful, except for getting out of my car to walk three miles in the Ruby Mountains north of Elko. I just wanted to break up the drive to better my chances of staying awake, and kept the effort very low, but still fought with my lungs for oxygen flow. Still, it was a beautiful day and nice to get out; I was feeling triumphant as I hurtled toward Elko while dreaming about smothered burritos. A motivating song came onto my mP3 shuffler: the theme song from the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc. This song is an overwrought pseudo-latin march from a film about Christopher Columbus, appropriately titled "Conquest of Paradise." Beat often has me make playlists for him before races. I downloaded this song before the Tor des Geants specifically to annoy him, as this song is played incessantly at UTMB events.

So I downloaded the song as a joke, but admit I find it enjoyable for the memories it elicits. As I was singing along with the lyrics — which in my mind just go "Du-du-dum, dum-du-du-du-dum" — a text pinged on my phone. "Congratulations for getting into UTMB!" Beat wrote.

Even though I'm not sure what I want to do with my summer, I signed up for the UTMB lottery last month, because I badly want to try again to finish a full race in the Alps after one partial UTMB and two DNFs in longer races, and because at my current rate of ultramarathon racing, I may not qualify again for a while. When the news pinged my phone just as "Conquest of Paradise" was playing — and I promise I'm not making this up — it seemed like a sign, an important precursor to a meaningful experience. I turned up the music, pumped my fist triumphantly to the rhythm, sang the "du-du-dums" as loud as I wanted, and felt invigorated for the long drive home. 

Pursuit of experience

Between the high-pitched moan of the wind and the rasping of my lungs, I didn't hear all of the air burp out of the rear tire, again. It was sometime around midnight along the spine of the Continental Divide, amid blasting wind, dagger-like snow, and fog. The curtain was so thick and opaque that, when illuminated by a headlamp, it had the strange effect of making midnight look like a very gloomy, gray day. A dreadful place to have a flat. I didn't notice at first, either, while churning the pedals to propel my two-wheeled tank over a soft carpet of snow. The effort was always hard, and a completely flat tire made it only incrementally harder. Only when the dark spots appeared in my eyes did I think to stop, because I had to, because I couldn't breathe. When I checked the tire, as had become my habit over the day, I discovered that I had been rolling on the rim. 

Tubeless tires and snow bikes. It's an idea that could work, in theory, and that main reason I was here on the border of Montana and Idaho was to test that theory, among others. Problem is, the low tire pressures necessary to float on top of snow that had been softened by above-freezing temperatures, then churned up by snowmobile traffic, were too low to hold an air seal. Bouncing or mashing pedals would cause air to burp out of the rims until it was all gone. This had been an ongoing problem for much of the day, and I again chastised myself for holding onto optimism and not putting in a tube sooner. But now the weather was really inhospitable to a fifteen-minute chore like that.

"Bikes are so stupid," I grumbled as I knelt down with a pump that I had also grown to hate, because it screwed onto the valve and this was a difficult thing to do with cold fingers. This bike was a heartless taskmaster, making me work as hard as I was capable just to pedal at 3 mph up hills. Then, when I was no longer strong enough to keep pedaling uphill, the bike would push back on my shoulders and wrists until they ached. Sure, maybe I'm just not strong and that's my fault, but then then there are these mechanicals! My heart was still racing as I pulled on gloves and attached the pump. When am I going to learn to be better at these things, and why shouldn't I just take a sled and snowshoes to Unalakleet instead of this heavy bike, and where did all the air go, up here at 8,000 feet? When I faced the wind directly, it had a metallic taste, as though it was whisking all the oxygen from my mouth and injecting it with lead. 

My core temperature steadily dropped as I filled up the balloon tire with tiny gasps of deoxygenated air, then unscrewed the pump. To my dismay, the valve stem came out with it, releasing all the air in a loud sigh. I stood up, threw a small tantrum, and then screwed the valve stem back in after I calmed down. With fingers I could no longer feel, I tried to get it as tight as I could, then commenced pumping again. And again, I couldn't remove the pump without taking the valve stem with it. "This is impossible. I'm just going to walk to the highway from here. How far is it? Twenty miles? Bikes are so stupid." 

Obviously I wasn't thinking clearly, or I would have acknowledged that it would be simple enough to push the bike to the nearest wind-protected spot, put on all my warm clothing, and either put in a tube or try again with pliers to tighten the valve stem. But no, my head was reeling backward. My hands had gone numb and my core was shivering. "If I can't do this then I'll never survive the Norton Sound. This is easy stuff." Out of the fog, a headlight approached. I knew it had to be Beat, who left checkpoint two shortly after me. After an unsuccessful try with the pump himself, he suggested the obvious and chastised me for not even bothering to put on my down coat, let alone my poor choice to stop in worst spot of the whole race to pump up a tire. 

"But it was completely flat!" I protested. 

We pushed our bikes together along the ridge; I finally put my down coat on, and was struggling to get my core temperature back up. This pass was called Two Top Divide, because it crosses into Idaho and then back into Montana and then into Idaho again. I'd already lost track of whether we'd seen the first top yet, or not. The grade steepened, and I struggled more. Beat disappeared into the fog. I became irrationally terrified of losing him. I pushed harder, and my heart rate spiked, and then my airways closed up. No matter how many wheezing gasps of air I tried to push down my throat, my lungs stayed empty. Hyperventilating accelerated. "Asthma attack!" I panicked. I've never had symptoms of asthma before, nor an asthma attack, but this is what I imagined it must feel like. Regardless of cause, this was certainly what it felt like to not breathe, and not breathing was very scary. 

"Pressure breathing. Try pressure breathing. It helps," Beat said to me. He'd heard me wheezing. He'd been there all along. Black spots were appearing again in my eyes. 

"I'm over-exerting myself," I gasped when I finally had enough air to speak. "I'm sorry; I just can't work this hard." I was already moving about as slowly as possible within the definition of forward motion. Basically what I was saying was I had to stop. But I didn't do that. 

Jay P's Backyard Fat Pursuit was a 200-kilometer snow bike race put on by Jay Petervary, a well-known endurance biker and record-holding veteran of the Iditarod Trail. The race started in Island Park, Idaho, then traveled over the Continental Divide to West Yellowstone, Montana, before making its way back to Island Park on a series of snowmobile trails through the national forests surrounding Yellowstone National Park. 

Beat, Liehann and I all traveled out from California to race the Fat Pursuit, despite limited training in this specific regard. We were all just out here for "fun," to explore new trails scouted by an experienced rider who we respect, and enjoy a social reunion with several good friends and others in the tight-knit and inherently wonderful fat bike community. Endurance races are all about community; I think even the most competitive riders would agree. Plus, the impetus of 200 kilometers was appealing. I have an intimidating plan for an Iditarod Trail tour later this winter, and needed a good long ride to get my mind and body better tuned in to the reality of this plan. I needed experience. 

While I could certainly race a lighter bike with less gear, the loaded Snoots isn't *that* heavy. I didn't think I'd be competitive, but I also didn't expect to struggle for most of the distance. But with low mileage and limited high-resistance training these past few months, I haven't really developed my "snow" muscles. The trails were recently groomed, but above-freezing temperatures ensured this smooth surface stayed soft. And as soon as a group of snowmobiles zoomed past — which was not an infrequent occurrence — they whipped up the snow into a creamy mush. Pedaling on top of this required a lot of power output, and the mountainous terrain ensured consistent climbing and descending rather than more forgiving flat terrain. It was quite strenuous, and almost impossible to not venture into the high-intensity range, even while pushing. Remembering how I felt two weeks earlier after riding just 20 miles in difficult conditions out to Borealis cabin in the White Mountains, I thought, "Wow, this is going to be a long race." 

None of it was going to be easy, but in so many ways, spending an entire day (and sometimes more) on the move is still my favorite thing to do. The flow of forward motion calms my mind and quiets inner chaos. The physical aspect is both invigorating and soothing, even through the difficulties. I have the experience behind me to understand that discomforts are just discomforts, and negative emotions are often just a chemical response to physical deficits. The nagging pains and fatigue fade away quickly, but the satisfaction remains. 

Sometimes, when you give yourself enough time and distance, many hours will pass in a peaceful trance. The barriers between the snowy forest and your own finite body are blurred, and the landscape of your mind becomes as expansive and limitless as the universe itself. Time bends over itself, night opens amid the quiet murmurs of your heart, and the world narrows into a soft beam of light, a place of shadows and memories. It's a beautiful experience. I do not tire of the pursuit for this perspective. Unfortunately, my body sometimes does. 

 Not being able to breathe was a frustrating development, but not exactly surprising. Consistently over-exerting myself at high altitudes, when I was still recovering from a cold I caught in Alaska, was a sure path to physical breakdown. Up on Two Top Divide, I crossed a line from which I was not going to be able to return. My throat was on fire, my nostrils tingled, my head became light and my vision dark. There were 40 miles left in the race, and no way to slow down without stopping, so I'd just have to demand that my lungs keep sucking limited oxygen through a straw. Hopefully, I wouldn't lose consciousness before I finished. If nothing else, it would be a learning experience.

Beat stuck with me, as we often do in races even when we decide not to, because we enjoy each other's company and quietly worry about each other. We arrived at a wind-protecting cluster of trees and managed to fix the tire, then continued toward a steep and jerky descent down the torn-up trail into Idaho. I was in too much respiratory distress to feel sleepy, and the long night stretched out indefinitely. I thought about the things I'd do differently in Alaska: Tubes in the tires. A flip-top pump. An extra pump. Always always put on my down coat when stopped. A better multi-tool. Maybe bring some thicker gloves rather than mittens. A better face mask to protect my lungs. Do some exercises to strengthen my wrists. Wish I could make myself stronger in general, but there's probably not enough time. Still, ultimately, most of my gear performed well. Despite projecting anger onto Snoots, it's a great bike — responsive and surprisingly agile for its girth, and as I mentioned, not *that* heavy. My only complaints were my rear tire and lungs, with their infuriating refusals to hold air.

Beat and I arrived at checkpoint three just before sunrise. When it's not a checkpoint, the "Man Cave" is a frequent respite for touring cyclists — a kind of garage with a corner kitchen and a giant bison head on the wall. We enjoyed sourdough pancakes, bacon and coffee while chatting with the friendly volunteers. I was feeling downright loopy — probably from sleep deprivation, although I suspected mild hypoxia. My brain hadn't been getting enough oxygen for many hours. I was mildly buzzed, drunk on the effort and a strong desire to just sleep it off.

I finally convinced Beat we had slummed at the checkpoint long enough. We were already close to the back of the race — which I admittedly found disheartening, because although I'd taken my sweet time in a lot of respects, I'd also been trying really hard. We had 21 more miles to get'er done. A woman from Fairbanks named Andrea joined us after her short nap at the checkpoint. She'd decided to stick with us for the remainder of the race, even though I was struggling mightily and slowing even more. Andrea is registered for her first Iditarod Trail Invitational in March. She wanted to chat about that race, and was a fun conversationalist even though I was often gasping too much to exhale more than a few syllables at a time. To Andrea: I'm sorry if I came across as terse or unfriendly. I enjoyed talking with you, I just was often too winded to speak.

We arrived at the finish line just after noon, which just happened to coincide with the after-race party under the arch. Because of this, there was a large crowd at the finish, and we received quite the reception. The final four miles of the course had been especially slow, torn up my heavy snowmobile traffic, and my head was spinning with the effort of just maintaining forward motion for that distance. Grunting over the final line took every last molecule of oxygen reserve, and I very nearly blacked out (I passed out and collapsed a few months ago after stepping out of a sauna, and I now know what it feels like right before you faint — the blood pressure crash and the intense dizziness.) The crowd was gathering around us and I could feel my knees weakening. I fought it, embarrassed, but eventually I had to lay down in the snow before my body did so involuntarily.

I spent the next hour feeling heavily buzzed, tilting my head to see things clearly and laughing at everything that was said to me, funny or not. I don't remember much about that time. I had to say goodbye to good friends who I don't see often, and congratulate the podium finishers who'd been done for twelve hours. It was a great group of folks. Jay P puts on a good event, well-planned and executed with just the right amount of checkpoint support. He told us that next year he might make Fat Pursuit a multi-day distance, which I wholeheartedly support. Let the fast folks experience what it's like to venture drunkenly into the next day, and the next, with only your own untrustworthy wits and past experience to rely on.

I still can't believe I had a near meltdown over a flat tire, or that I apparently need oxygen tanks to take a loaded fat bike above 8,000 feet. But I certainly learned a lot in my pursuit of experience. I always do. 

The magical land of Tolovana

Oh, these high latitudes and their irresistible magnetic pull. Hold up any compass and the needle will point where I want to be, at any given time. Sure, I appreciate that I am not a compass and can set my path in any direction I please, and value my freedom to reside in one comfortable place and visit many others. But there's something alluring about North. I have yet to define what continues to draw me up here, or capture the specific sensations so I can carry them home. But that something clings to these places like hoarfrost, with an enchanting sparkle that never fails to incite happiness. I feel it when I walk across the Styrofoam snow of a friend's driveway at 20 below, or pass by the heat-blasting fans in the entryway of Fred Meyer, or pedal through a boreal forest in the 4 p.m. twilight. I may not live here; I might not have ever lived here. But I'm home. 

I have a wonderful, accepting family in Utah, and I think they understand why we go "home" for Christmas every year. We flew into Fairbanks late on Dec. 23, and arose not-early before the crack of dawn to organize our gear and head out to the Goldstream Valley to spend Christmas Eve with our friends Corrine and Eric and their young-adult children. Before dinner, Beat and I borrowed their fat bikes and set out for a five-hour excursion up Eldorado Creek and along the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Temperatures were around -10 when we set out, and Beat had all sorts of new gear he wanted to try, so he loaded up his pack.

We didn't really choose to ride the pipeline; it's just where we ended up, having not done a whole lot of trail research before the trip. Although not exactly beautiful, the pipeline has its own interesting aesthetic, given you're riding along this 800-mile-long apparatus that carries crude from the North Slope to Valdez. You start to think "Wow, I could follow this all the way to the Arctic Ocean!" And people have done that, but it is not the most travel-friendly route. No, TAPS takes the most direct way possible, cutting straight down and then up every tear-inducing steep hill.

Oh, the gentle silence of Christmas Day. This quiet resonates through my childhood memories of the holiday. There was always that manic presents-and-food frenzy on Christmas morning, followed by the annual trip out to the grandparents' houses along quiet streets and shuttered businesses. Christmas is a wonderful time to be out and about, and Beat, Tom and I encountered close to zero traffic — save for a couple of North Slope-bound trucks — on the two-hour drive out to Manley Hot Springs Road. We'd hoped to gather a group of friends for an overnight trip to Tolovana Hot Springs, but only Tom was available to "ride out Christmas" far away from the grid. He skied in, and Beat and I packed sleds for the 11-mile hike.

As we descended into the Brooks Creek valley, a dense cold swept over my face and legs. Temperatures were actually quite nice for this time of year — 7 above with no wind  — but I'd dressed for "this is really warm" and it really sort of wasn't. One thing I am learning about myself is that I struggle to regulate my body temperature evenly when I am walking and running in sub-freezing conditions. Although it defies logic, I've actually had more success maintaining a comfortable equilibrium on a bike. On foot, different body parts are either too hot or too cold, often simultaneously. On this trip I battled cold knees and a completely numb butt (I had a pair of primaloft shorts in my sled, but I was being lazy about stopping and putting them on when there was a big climb coming up. As it turned out, my butt didn't come back to life until we crawled into the hot springs a few hours later.)

The climb up Tolovana Hot Springs Dome is often an ascent to the pinnacles of Hell. Last year, we experienced 25-mph sustained winds with a temperature of 25 below, for a windchill south of -50. These are typical conditions for Tolovana. For this reason, there's a special mystique to this place. Frost clings to alders, and rime builds in sparkling crystals on skeletal spruce trees. This delicate beauty contrasts the violence and austerity of the landscape — wind blows incessantly, streams of snow tear off the ridges, and burn zones reveal an unbroken expanse of equally inhospitable valleys and windswept mountains. Because my travels through the North are still limited, Tolovana Hot Springs Dome is one of the worst places I have ever been. The kind of place where if I stopped walking for even a moment, icy fingers would wrap around my neck and squeeze exhaustive gulps of warmth from every breath.

It was gratifying, although perhaps less exciting, to visit Tolovana on a day where I didn't think it was going to kill me at any moment. It was overcast, calm, and pleasant. Even with a cold butt, being able to stop and look around without turning my face into a powder blast of wind was nice. The trail was in great shape, with minimal snow drifts. Beat and I ran as fast as our sleds could coast down the steep descent, feeling weightless. We dropped off the inhospitable dome and into the valley where a magical spring draws warmth from the depths of the Earth. It was my fastest-yet trip into Tolovana, and I was surprised when we arrived at the cluster of three cabins — ours would be the only one occupied — well before dark. We exploded the generous contents of our sleds all over the tiny Frame cabin, and joined Tom for a pre-dinner soak. Sausage and couscous was our Christmas feast, followed by a post-dinner soak and hot chocolate before bed. Who could want anything more?

A thick fog settled in for the hike out, almost to the point of sensory deprivation, although I could feel a sharp burning in my hamstrings from pulling the sled up ~3,000 feet of climbing on this more difficult direction. The drive home fully broke the spell, with heavy snow and white-knuckle driving at 30 mph on the Elliot Highway. By the time we returned to Fairbanks, we'd have to unpack our gear, shop for resupplies, and re-pack what we needed for the White Mountains the following morning. It can be exhausting trying to cram all of my Northern love into a week here and there, and the trekking parts are often the easiest parts. But it's always worth it, always.