Banff doesn't change

Six years ago, when I rolled into Banff three days before the start of the Tour Divide, I connected with two trail-angel types, Keith and Leslie. Although we were strangers at the time, they invited me into their home, fed me dinner, and then whisked me away on all the grand tours we could possibly squeeze into what amounted to a 48-hour period. Within about twenty minutes of my arrival, Keith drove me to an overlook where I believe Parks Canada filmed that infuriating earworm cute "Sheep and Goat" video. He stretched his arm toward the kingdom, complete with a massive castle they call the Banff Springs Hotel, and characterized Banff as "paradise in a bubble." Regulations from the National Park and other policies strive to ensure this little village nestled in the Canadian Rockies never changes. 

We've since become good friends, and we have a number of adventures behind us. For this reason, and also because Beat and Liehann just happened to be flying out on Friday night, I purchased a ticket to Calgary one week ahead of the Tour Divide start. I thought this would give me plenty of time for relaxing, visiting and meeting folks, tying up loose-end work, prepping my bike, and a couple of pre-race adventures, in that order. My flight out of SFO turned out to be something of a debacle. I've had relatively good luck with air travel and didn't see it coming, but Beat is cynical enough that he noticed a discrepancy on my ticket and prepped me for battle (it's one of those long boring air travel stories, but in a nutshell, I purchased an Air Canada ticket online that was actually handled by United, which has terrible bike policies and refused to put my bike on the plane even for their ridiculous $200 fee.) Well, it was a hiccup, but I made it here with a good amount of time to spare.

True to precedent, I awoke in this stunning paradise and was quickly whisked away on "low-key" adventures that have already involved 30 (!) miles of not-easy hiking, along with a couple of test spins on my bike. 

One aspect of Banff that has been stunningly different this year is the weather. Snowline is considerably higher than it was in 2009, and it's been well above 80 degrees and sunny the entire time I've been here so far. I know that can change in a heartbeat and I should be grateful for any time I spend near the Continental Divide not shivering or wallowing in mud. But even California-acclimated, I'm roasting up here at this altitude, and sunburned my forehead despite best efforts not to do so. Also, four years in California hasn't made me immune to northern summer mania, where getting out on a nice day feels paramount to rest and food and oxygen. 

My first day in town, I followed Leslie on an 11-mile jaunt up and around Sulphur Mountain. She just returned from hiking 600+ miles of the Pacific Crest Trail in California, and her hiking pace is fierce. Most of my training this spring has been either cycling or trail running, and Leslie's version of hiking feels harder than both. (Truly! It's not just taper anxiety phantom weakness, I swear.) I was a wheezy mess above 6,000 feet and fought to keep up, because I did not want to miss these views. 

My friend and home-based bike mechanic Dave put my bike together for me, tuning it up to near-perfection (or the best I can get for a three-year-old bike with many miles and some neglect.) I took it out for an easy spin on the first ten miles of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, then back. Out of the gate, the route follows a nice gravel bike path along the Spray River. There were more rolling climbs and descents along this path than I remembered, and I actually had a little freak-out about this ("I thought this first section was flat. It's hard!") Then I laughed at myself, because it's not actually that hard. I'm just truly going into panic mode at this point, and fighting it with every ounce of distraction I can find. 

Distractions, unfortunately, come with a bit of a price. In the evening, Keith and Leslie told me we were going out for a "stroll through town" to get ice cream, which was a trick because this "stroll" included a thousand-foot ascent of Tunnel Mountain. 

Okay, it's true, I would have gone anyway. The views are pretty fantastic at 9:30 p.m., which is still before sunset at this latitude. Downtown is full of fun people-watching, and I haven't even run into any obvious Tour Divide cyclists yet. 

The next morning, Leslie was going hiking at Lake Louise. It was again 80+ degrees and clear, so how could I resist? I asked her if she was going for a "long hike" and she said, "no, just a short one." Leslie's version of short is 13 miles with 4,200 feet of climbing that includes a dash of late-spring snow slogging. Just in case you were wondering.

But wow, Lake Louise. I'm not sure you could ask for a better bang for your mileage. It was worth it.

Climbing the Beehive.

Plain of the Six Glaciers. The trail climbs to the end of a valley, where we stopped and had lunch while listening to the thunder-booms of distant avalanches, and eyed overhanging seracs for evidence of calving.

PB&J bagel with a view.

Up there is the Continental Divide. Sadly, not part of any mountain bike route.

After we returned from the Plain of the Six Glaciers, we visited the Valley of the Ten Peaks. This place is unreal. It often feels like standing on a movie set in front of a massive blue screen — it just doesn't look like a landscape that actually exists. The scenery also doesn't translate well in photos taken under mid-day light. You should visit ... before it melts.

I'm working up a blog post on info for this year's Tour Divide, which will remain at the top of this site while I'm away. It looks like there will be well over a hundred cyclists lining up at the start on Friday morning, and between 10 and 15 women. I'm becoming more nervous as the memories come flooding back, but mostly I'm excited. It's going to be a completely different experience, of that much I'm certain. 

Letting go

It was the second to last climb of our long ride, a grunty 2,000-foot ascent with occasional 19-percent grades and a funny Strava segment, the "Pomponio Climbo." I never race it, but I usually feel faintly shattered, with invisible lead weights pulling on my calves and a sharp pain in my shoulders. Not this day, though. This day, like the rest of the day had been after a somewhat ragged 90-minute warmup, was just pleasant spinning. Late-afternoon light saturated the golden hillsides, the familiar half moon hovered over rock outcroppings, and that intoxicating sensation vibrated through my body — the one that flutters behind my eyeballs, slows my heart to a seeming murmur, and tells me to keep going, don't stop. Here, inside this tunnel of motion, it tells me, is peace.

As we reached the top of Alpine Road, I hinted at extending the ride over Russian Ridge or perhaps Indian Creek. But by the time we descended into Stevens Canyon, the guys could smell the barn at the end of 80 miles, and raced up Bella Vista away from me. I couldn't catch them in time to make my case. "That extra 10 percent effort costs too much," I explained. "But actually I feel really good. At this pace, I could keep going for another 80 miles." I can't always say that at the end of this route, and took this as personal confirmation that my "Forever Pace" fitness is in top form. "Then again," I thought as the urge toward motion continued to pull at my heart, "that's often the only element that differentiates our ability to keep going, and the need to stop. Desire."

It was our last long ride of this particular training season. This Friday, the guys leave for South Africa to ride the Freedom Challenge, and I will fly to Calgary to meet my wonderful friends Keith and Leslie. After a long spring of looking for someone or something to tell me no, I finally arrived at the conclusion, "Why not?" So on Friday, June 12, I plan to line up with the hundred-plus others at the Spray River trailhead in Banff, and start the 2015 Tour Divide.

For those who didn't follow my blog back then, the Tour Divide is a 2,700-mile, self-supported bike race from Banff, Alberta, to the U.S. border with Mexico in Antelope Wells, New Mexico on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. I rode it in 2009, in 24 days and 7 hours, and wrote a book about the experience, "Be Brave, Be Strong."

Why, after six years, would I return to such a time-intensive endeavor? The years have their way of both softening and sharpening memories. A lot of experiences happened and a lot about my life changed since 2009, but the Divide is a place I find myself going back to frequently — a place of fierce beauty, discovery, and moments of crushing weakness that pushed me into murky depths of my mind, only to discover strength I never knew I possessed. Also, the second half of the Divide was a place where I was truly alone, and no one was coming to help me, and I had to work through each struggle on my own. In sifting through these memories, I realized it's been a while — six years, perhaps — since I've experienced anything quite like that. A challenge where I had to think ahead in days. Where I made all of my own decisions. Where the parameters weren't rigid, but entirely of my own making. Where the only reason not to quit was my own stubborn desire. What if I could go back to that place? Would I rediscover deeply buried pieces of myself? What would seem different? What would look the same?

What I'm seeking is the edge of the galaxy — the sort of self-transcendence that results in intense and satisfying engagements with both inner and outer landscapes. Endurance racing fosters these experiences, by setting parameters beyond what I believe to be possible, forcing me to break through my own perceived limitations. Much has changed in six years, and to reach that far edge, I'm going to have to push these parameters little bit farther. My goal is to ride the route in 20 days. To do this, I'll need to cover between 130 and 140 miles per day. At my Forever Pace, that's likely to require 15 to 16 hours a day of moving time — meaning sitting in the saddle and turning pedals. Stopping to stretch my back, eating a snack, collecting water from a stream, chatting with locals — every moment of stopped time must be subtracted from the eight hours that remain. Sleep will have to be rationed, and often caught in naps inside my bivy sack. It's ambitious, and I don't know if I have it in me. The ability or the desire. But I won't know unless I try.

I still remember how hard it was in 2009. Time hasn't softened those memories. When my body feels spent and my mind is tangled in a whirlwind of emotions, I often find solace in repetitive mantras. In these moments, there's often nothing left of me but a scared little girl who has long been hidden away behind years of experience and convictions, only to be exposed when the walls are torn away in the storm. She's terrified to move forward, and I can feel the storm about to consume her, so I often start chanting, out loud, and it helps. During my first journey on the Iditarod Trail in 2008, this chant was "I'm scared, but I'm okay," sung as a lyric in "Going, Going, Gone" by the Stars. In the 2009 Tour Divide, it was "Be Brave, Be Strong" — a mantra that followed me for years afterward. During the Freedom Challenge in 2014, I'd repeat "Every day is a gift," when I felt frustrated or stressed. Although the 2015 Tour Divide has not yet started, this is the mantra I already have in mind:

Let go. Let go of your lonely thoughts. Let go of your hangry grumbling. Let go of your anger about the peanut butter mud. Let go of your angst about walking at two miles per hour through miles of snow. Let go of your fear of that big black cloud hanging over the mountain. Let go of your attachments to unnecessary comforts. Let go of your unwanted aches and complaints. Just let go.

I can't wait to get going. 

We all try harder as the days run out

For days the Santa Cruz Mountains were enveloped in a freight train of fog, as apparently thirsty inland winds sucked moisture from the coast. I climbed into it each afternoon, Tuesday through Saturday, in a two-dimensional world where I had to squint to discern the blurry silhouettes of trees from flickering clouds. There was no context or familiarity; vertigo pulled at me as I descended through gray tunnels. I would shiver, even with a puffy coat and mittens, which was such a treat here in California in late May. The cold makes me feel alive.

I had this goal to put some hurt in the legs. Seven moderate to long days, with at least 3,000 feet of climbing each day, on up to 9,000. I felt so strong on Wednesday, chopping a minute off my PR of the mile-long, 800-foot ascent of Indian Creek trail, without even breathing hard. On Thursday I attacked Redwood Gulch on my road bike and imploded in spectacular fashion, heart beating 195 while snot and tears streamed down my neck. Near the end of this mile-long, 800-foot ascent, the fog hit my searing lungs like water on a skillet. "I have no top end, no top end at all," I thought with a smirk. I knew that single mile was going be the only reason my legs hurt at all the next day. Friday had 5,000 feet of climbing, but I took it at a more reasonable effort, and was fully recovered for Saturday's 13-mile run.

As Beat and I ascended Black Mountain into a white ceiling, I listened to the new Sufjan Stevens and Lord Huron albums and imagined I was doing something relaxing, like laying in the sauna. Cold wind licked at my clammy skin and I settled into a soothing rhythm, a place of deep breaths and dreaming about riding a motorcycle across Africa (which is what I frequently imagine when I listen to Lord Huron.) I was happily sedate, and yet I was running up a mountain. "Resting in motion," I thought. "This is resting in motion." I wondered how effectively I'd be able to employ this meditative technique when motion really became difficult. The wind-driven clouds roared past, enveloping me in their paradoxical calm.

Sunday morning we were up bright and early to drive to Oakhurst for an overnight bikepacking trip that I planned. Oakhurst is a town near Fresno, in the foothills of the Western Sierras, which I effectively chose at random. I found a vague recommendation for a touring loop, and drew a GPS track over unknown squiggles on Google Maps. I had no idea how difficult this route would be, whether it would be scenic or bland, and what the percentage of pavement to jeep road to faint forest track might be. Most people would probably do more research for weekend tour where they were effectively guiding their friends through a new place, but that is not necessarily my modus operandi. I prefer a little ignorance in my explorations, with all of the surprises and disappointments.

 I warned Beat and Liehann that I knew nothing about this route beyond some interesting topographic lines on the map and the fact it was just south of Yosemite, and hoped they didn't set their expectations too high. The initial climb was a tedious grunt, climbing 5,000 feet in 18 miles into a gray pall of storm clouds that looked lightly threatening. Air is thin at 7,500 feet for sea-level-dwellers. Still, I felt peaceful and relaxed, refusing to hurry up the hill while I rested in motion. The guys seemed to interpret this as crawling, and based on their demeanors, I was worried they were going turn around and race back to low-elevation sunshine. Slowly, the paved road began to break apart and wind its way out of the dense forest, to more open views of granite domes and jagged spires. The Sierras.

 For lunch we went for a short hike to better views on a granite ridge. The guys carried their bikes part-way for Freedom Challenge training. The wind up here was almost winter-like in its briskness, and we huddled against boulders to eat lunch.

 After riding chunky dirt, climbing some more, descending a whole bunch, and collecting many liters of water from a stream, we climbed after dark to camp on a sandy knoll where we hoped the views would be nice in the morning. I was trying out my new Outdoor Research Helium bivy for the first time, as well as a new pair of nylon three-quarter running tights (I found the bivy cozy and slept well, better than I usually do when bikepacking, actually. I also decided I prefer no chamois during longer rides, and did not miss the wet diaper feel and occasional pinching on sensitive parts.) We used up four liters of water (which Beat carried) making multiple hot chocolates and dinner. Liehann raved about his Mountain House lasagna, declaring it as delicious as anything he could eat at home.

 "I challenge you to try one of these meals at home, and tell me what you think about it then," I teased him. Then we all told stories of the most amazing meals we'd ever experienced, which all shared the theme of mediocre food eaten after a long, difficult effort. The sky had cleared to a palette of stars. A thin film of flowing mist, illuminated faintly by moonlight, made the stars appear to wobble. It was strange to watch stars dance about. I imagined fiery orbs rocketing through outer space as planets spun around them. Rest is the illusion; everything is always in motion.

 Day two was a coaster of a day with mild climbs and lots of descending. We wove through a maze of forest roads in varying states of erosion, with almost no traffic on Memorial Day (a few motorcycles close to campgrounds.) Ah, relaxation. The guys seemed to enjoy this day's set of squiggly lines much better than the first, as I'd luckily chosen more dirt and more rugged terrain.

The scenery was not too bad either, even as we descended down, down toward the furnace of the Central Valley, where it was somehow, inexplicably, 90 degrees. (I'd almost convinced myself that we were having February in May, to match the May we had in February.) I thoroughly enjoyed the trip, but felt like I had failed in my goal to exact some punishment in my legs during this bulky training week. Still, when I think about my preferred state of fitness, relaxation and contentedness are better indicators than soreness and suffering. Isn't this how I'd want to feel, if I wanted to be nearly always in motion?

Week's totals: 227 miles ride, 13 miles run, 33,200 feet climbing