Troubles on the headwinds, troubles on the tailwinds

The coughing returned for another round of midnight fits, and all I could do was prop open the bivy sack so I could dislodge whatever piece of lung was trying to escape this time. I drank all of my water trying to soothe the coughs, and fell back asleep with the bladder valve between my teeth.

Despite the coughing fits, I slept fairly well, and rose to beautiful light on the edge of my grassy clearing. While rifling through my backpack, I rediscovered the piece of chocolate cake I'd purchased at the market in Whitefish. It was another one of those items grabbed on a whim (as all Divide food is), and I'd completely forgotten about it. It held it in both hands for several moments, admiring the five layers of cake slathered in dark chocolate frosting with floral designs. It wasn't even smashed. I wanted to eat it badly, but no — this cake was too special, and mornings were too easy. I needed to have my cake for hard times. I gently placed it back in the pack after pulling out two protein bars. Then I sat in the sun gnawing miserably on the bars, without any water to help me choke them down. 

I pedaled up Yew Creek Road, scanning the hillside for signs of tributaries. In Canada and Northern Montana, there seemed to be creeks every few hundred meters, but here the drainages were bone dry. As I crested the 1,500-foot climb, my map indicated Yew Creek and that too was dry. Even though I understand on an intellectual level that a short dry spell won't kill me, I really dislike running out of water. Thirst ignites all these fear responses, and I felt sick to my stomach.

"You're probably the biggest water hoarder on the Divide. Why didn't you fill up in Ferndale?" I scolded myself.

Elliot passed with another rider and told me that he, too, was hunting for water. I understood on an intellectual level that we were directly above Swan Lake, and eventually we'd descend to a low enough elevation that one of these creeks would be running. But I was letting my phobias get the better of me, and raced after Elliot just in case he had a sharper eye. We did have to descend to the bottom of the hill to find water in Yew Creek, but it was there, running clear and cold.

Imaginary disaster abated, Elliot and I continued along a series of lower-elevation logging roads paralleling the Swan River. This 60-mile segment is fairly tedious, following short but frequently steep rollers through secondary forests with few views. There are some intriguing larch groves, and a whole lot of black bear scat to capture attention. But if you're here when the sun is bearing down, you've developed drinking water anxiety that heat doesn't help, and there's this piece of chocolate cake taunting you from your backpack ... it's not the most fun section of the Divide. (This photo is from the Holland Lake area, later in the day.)

Elliot was gracious enough to ride with me for a while and told great stories about the Arizona Trail Race — hiking his bike into the Grand Canyon, being offered a free steak dinner from tourists at Phantom Ranch after he'd already eaten a full meal, and then struggling to hike out in the dark with 700 miles of tough biking on his legs, 40 pounds of bike and gear on his back, and an extremely full stomach, plopping down for naps while trying not to appear asleep just in case a ranger caught him "illegal camping." I laughed and laughed.

Soon Elliot outpaced me and I settled into my late afternoon slump, which was happening far too early on this day. My breathing became rougher and the phlegmy cough came back with the afternoon wind.

My symptoms didn't entirely line up with past experiences with cold viruses. The mucus in my lungs, for starters, and the ragged breaths. I was starting to move away from my theory that this was a cold. "It's pollen," I thought. "It's allergies."

And then there were my legs, which seemed to be emptying themselves out by the pedal stroke. It wasn't normal leg fatigue — at least it wasn't like any fatigue I'd experienced before. They only similar experience I had to compare it with was last year's Freedom Challenge, when excessive lifting of my bike with weak little arms resulted in muscle failure in my triceps and forearms, as though I'd done one too many reps with a heavy barbel and could manage no more. On the Tour Divide, my legs were exhibiting this similar shuddering weakness. When I held two fingers against my quads, I could feel them quaking. I didn't know why.

I fought leg wobbliness on the gradual climb to Holland Lake, with the day's next huge objective — Richmond Peak — looming like a monster in front of me. At Holland Creek I stopped next to the river and pulled the chocolate cake out of my pack. I held the now-fairly-smashed confection in my hands, cradling it with smiling appreciation, but admittedly not the same affection I held in the morning. Now, this was just sorely needed fuel. I devoured the entire thing with my hands, ending up with frosting smeared on my nose and cheeks like a toddler, and a stomach ache to match. Despite the massiveness of the cake, I didn't feel the sugar rush I expected to feel. I filtered water out of the creek, acquiring about 12 mosquito bites in the process, and turned to face my monster with a churning stomach and no energy. Elliot's story of the Grand Canyon crossed my mind.

"I guess if worst comes to worst, I'll take a nap."

It was such a long way up. "It's just 2,700 feet," I told myself. "It's like Black Mountain at home. It's just one Black Mountain." But the legs didn't care. The muscles had turned to styrofoam, and pushing them only left me winded without any increase in power. "You love climbing," I reminded myself. The legs still didn't care.

With great difficulty and some whimpering, I managed to schlep myself to the trail intersection where the route begins to contour around the mountain. From here I half-hoped to see snow, because I just needed to walk for a while. Richmond Peak is well-known in Divide lore for being buried in snow at terrifyingly steep angles, where slipping in the wrong spot could actually prove fatal.


When it's not buried beneath a 60-degree snow slope, Richmond Peak is just a smooth, flowy trail cut into the mountainside on the eroded remnants of an old road bed. Not scary at all. I made an effort to enjoy myself but I was in a low place, struggling with efforts that should have been easy, wondering what was going on with my legs, my lungs, the coughing. All of these are fairly normal occurrences during an endurance effort, when I'm spending entire days and nights out in the weather, taking in the oxygen I need to keep my heart rate in zone two and three for 16-hour spans. But something just didn't feel right, beyond what I've come to expect from endurance-related fatigue. It was as though the air was attacking my body, gouging tiny holes into my lungs and legs and draining me from the inside.

I stopped several times during the descent to shake off dizziness, and ate handfuls of trail mix. I'd already resolved at my next resupply to just buy a bunch of candy, because this protein-focused diet wasn't working and if I had to cannibalize muscle to get through this, so be it.

I soft-pedaled up the next small climb and contoured around Cottonwood Lake as the sun was setting. The tips of larch trees reflected a neon shade of orange, and pink light filled the sky. I felt a surge of gratitude that I had the legs to reach this place at all. The ability to travel five hundred miles along the remote backroads of the Rocky Mountains is a beautiful privilege.

About seven miles from Ovando, I rolled across a bridge over Monture Creek, sparkling under intense starlight and a coal-black sky on the night of the new moon. I'd been aiming for town, which I heard had cyclist-friendly camping. But I realized then that I didn't want to go to Ovando tonight. This was where I wanted to be.

I rolled out my bivy on the bank, and then crawled over boulders to sit next to the creek, filling my Sawyer Squeeze filter with cold water, drinking an entire liter, then filling it again. The water tumbled down my throat and filled all the porous emptiness in my body with new life. I leaned back and gazed at the sky, splattered with the orange and purple light of the Milky Way. This was everything I needed.

Of course we just do not know

Approaching Red Meadow Lake. Photo by Dan Hafferman.

Several times in the night, I woke up coughing violently. "Well, here comes the hacking part of the cold," I thought. I blamed the air inside my hotel room, which was too dry and too hot even though I'd cracked a window. Coughing brought up some mucus, and I worried I might be developing mild altitude-related edema. But no, that couldn't be it. Eureka is way down at 2,600 feet. It's the lowest elevation on the entire Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. 

The morning of day three started out warm and calm. I went for a lovely spin through the hills along the Tobacco River, then launched into my favorite kind of riding — a winding, well-graded, 2,500-foot climb up a mountain. When I tell other cyclists that this is my favorite type of riding terrain, they look at me like I need a professional intervention. Nobody likes the fireroad climb, they tell me. Tedious, boring ... fireroads are what you endure to get to the good stuff. I can only shrug — "I don't know why, but, baby, I was born this way." Climbing gravel roads is simple and meditative, allowing me to explore the landscape of my mind while my body cycles through a wonderful elixir of blood oxygen and mood-boosting biochemicals. Of course I need a generous helping of glycogen and paucity of pain to continue enjoying these climbs, but when they're good, they're really good.

This is why I love the Tour Divide. 

I believe that's Alice on top of Whitefish Divide. Honestly ... I missed the snow.

Despite the love, I was having a difficult time finding my rhythm. The sore throat was gone, but my breathing still felt raw, and my legs just didn't have any power. It would seem logical to blame fatigue from the 270 miles that came before. But usually, even when I'm tired, I don't experience this same sort of ... weakness. Muscle pain, sure, but leg emptiness? That's usually reserved for times when I'm sorely out of shape — like when I had a knee injury last fall and got back on my bike for the first time in eight weeks. Those were some empty legs. And this ... well, I just didn't know what this was.

I think most Tour Dividers would agree that after working through initial pains and other kinks, they feel themselves getting stronger every day. It's a sentiment that thru-hikers share as well. Sure, there are inevitable body breakdowns, and if you lose a bunch of weight, you're not going to feel strong. But if you take care of yourself and don't develop any acute issues, bodies are remarkably adaptable to this kind of effort. I experienced this in 2009 — by the time I reached Colorado, there was a kind of effortlessness to the big climbs, and a normalcy to the 120-mile days. I did experience big meltdowns in New Mexico, but I'd also lost 15 pounds and gotten quite sick outside Cuba. So this was my strategy for 2015: take care of nagging pains early, eat protein, be efficient but relatively generous with sleep, and wait for the strength to come to me.

For most of the day, I wrestled with this dynamic — loving the long, meditative spins, and fretting about this weird hollow feeling in my legs. Although I felt like I was crawling along, I probably wasn't doing too badly. I shadowed Alice for a long while, faltered some on the climb to Red Meadow Lake, and then was passed by several groups on the rolling hills into Whitefish. Red Meadow Lake was another section where I felt wistful tinges of 2009 nostalgia. Back then, there were five miles of snow to negotiate, and I remember stomping around downed trees with John Nobile while he complained that his little roadie booties did nothing to keep his feet warm in the shin-deep slush. Good times! This year, the road was dusty and campers surrounded the completely non-frozen lake, and I admit I missed the mystique of those snow-shrouded peaks. And the hiking. All biking all day is really quite taxing on empty legs. 

I didn't plan to stay long in Whitefish, but I did need to buy more chain lube, as I'd nearly used up the useless bottle of dry lube that I started with. The bike shop in town was kind enough to open up for Tour Divide riders on a Sunday afternoon, and had become this vortex of frenetic energy and time-sucking distractions. Somehow this simple stop for lube turned into two hours as I got sucked in, talking with at least a dozen others who were gathered around the shop, stealing glances at my phone to try to figure out where Beat was in the Freedom Challenge, hosing down my bike (it did need it), looking for spots to recharge my electronics, and eating pizza with Sarah Jansen. It was nice, but extremely draining for me to navigate all these chores and social interactions, and I left town feeling a bit of that deer-in-the-headlights, just-want-to-flee-back-into-the-woods reaction. 

It was in Whitefish that I resolved to avoid towns, to just do my resupplies and get out. I believed this would help me maintain a rhythm, be more efficient with my time, and hopefully gain strength. 

As I pedaled through Columbia Falls, I lapsed into much nostalgia about the day I met Beat. Our paths first crossed here at the finish line of the Swan Crest 100, where I was a volunteer and he was a runner. Beat's sweeping grin, the energy he exuded after 34 hours when even the volunteers were shattered, his confidently proclaiming that I, too, could run a hundred miles if I wanted to ... as the daylight grew long and saturated the Swan Range in golden light, I lapsed into these memories as though it were July 2010 all over again. I became so lost, in fact, that as I pedaled by the road to Strawberry Lake, I nearly turned off the GDMBR to go to the aid station where I doled out canned ravioli to shell-shocked runners all those years ago. The realization hit me as a surprise — that's not where I'm going. It's 2015. I'm on the Tour Divide. 

So instead, I continued pedaling south through the Flathead Valley, battling a headwind that only seemed to pick up strength in the evening. Tedium sank in, and I found myself listening to "Of Course We Know" from the new Modest Mouse album on repeat, singing the lyrics out loud:

"The streets are just blankets and we sleep on their silky course.

Covered up by them, why would we ever want to wake up? Oh no."

Eleanor passed me shortly after I'd really belted out the refrain: "Lord, lay down your own damn soul." After that, I felt too self-conscious to sing — but I sure did eat up a lot of miles with the ghosts of the Swan Crest 100 and Modest Mouse. 

Darkness had settled by the time I pedaled sleepily along the streets of Ferndale. I found some Wi-fi near the fire station and ate all the fruit I bought in Whitefish (because I hadn't planned to stop for dinner) while I checked my phone to track Beat's progress across South Africa. This is usually all I checked on my phone: e-mail, text messages, weather, Freedom Challenge updates, and then I'd post an update to Facebook. My browser wouldn't upload Trackleaders, and I found that I didn't really care. I knew where I was in proximity to my goal, and I understood what I needed to do. 

I pulled into a nice spot in the hills above Swan Lake with 140 miles on the day. I'd ridden 150 miles the first day and 120 the second, which means I was holding onto the average I needed for a 20-day finish, but only just. I'd hoped to feel stronger than I did, especially since I wasn't logging any extra mileage, but I felt optimistic that my best days were yet to come. 

Settling in for the long haul

I woke up countless times in the night, shivering. The inside of my bivy sack was clammy, like the interior of a cave, and my sleeping bag was not insulated enough to ward off the damp, frigid air leaking in from outside. Each time I woke up, I decided enough was enough and it was time to move on down the road. But then I imagined the icy darkness outside, and the urgency of packing up when I was already cold. As I pondered and shivered, a thin layer of warm air enveloped my body — enough to soothe me back to sleep. 

The alarm rang out at 5:30 a.m., which at this latitude was after sunrise. I groaned as I rolled onto a stiff shoulder and opened my bivy to a clear, frosty morning. Hoarfrost coated the ground, and my wet shoes were frozen solid. My shirt and socks were still damp, and a light breeze hit my face like a freezer blast. 

I beat the frost away from my bag and rushed to pack up gear as my extremities went numb and shoulders quaked — which was probably why they were so sore. I smiled as I remembered feeling a similar urgency when I went bikepacking earlier this year in Fairbanks, Alaska — when the temperature was 35 below. Only then, it wasn't as bad because I just pulled on my expedition mittens and down parka and instantly felt so much better. Here, in the Canadian Rockies in June, I had only the clear-sky promise of coming sunshine to quell an instinctual panic. With the last of the dexterity in my fingers, I checked the temperature on my bike computer: -4C (25F.) 

I pedaled slowly up Corbin Road, trying to work up power from muscles that felt like freezer-burned meat, and berating myself for choosing such a poor camp spot. Low-lying valleys are prone to inversions, and sleeping right next to the river meant humidity and cold. The rising sun made short work of the frost coating the ground. As soon as I felt comfortable enough, I stopped at the river to wash my bike. Clay-based death mud is as good as cement when it dries, and there were still large chunks clinging to nearly every part of the bike. After twenty minutes of holding the wheels in a swift current and chipping away at mud, I removed what was probably five pounds of gunk. The bike was still filthy, but what can you do? A mile later, a pair of riders passed on sparkling bikes.

"How did you get your bikes so clean?" I asked.

"Car wash in Sparwood," one answered.

"Oh," I said, feeling deflated. Not stopping in Sparwood was probably not the best strategy. The rough night of cold sleep took a lot out of me, my food supply was a little on the low side, and my throat was now fiercely sore. But what can you do?

At least it was a gorgeous day, and already warming up substantially. A dozen or so riders passed me on Flathead Pass, which is steep and rocky on one side, and so badly eroded on the other that the creek re-diverted right down the middle of the road. I expected to see a lot of riders in the morning, as most cyclists prefer not to camp in bear country, so a large percentage of faster riders stayed in town. I kept pace with one guy for a while, trying to power some life back into my dead meat legs. I couldn't breathe hard without feeling a burning sensation in my throat, and I'd also developed a cough that left me fairly certain my body was battling a cold virus. Overall I felt frustrated about my physical condition, and trying to keep up with faster riders wasn't helping morale. But what can you do? I reminded myself it was the second day, which is always a hard day, and sang a Grateful Dead song that I always sing to myself on these multiday trips: "Well the first days are the hardest days, don't you worry anymore ..."

The valley surrounding the upper North Fork of the Flathead River is a remote place, teeming with wildlife. I frequently rode by fresh bear scat, enough to keep me calling out "Hey Bear" for much of the day even though I felt confident that a steady stream of riders would probably prompt most bears to steer clear of the road. I find the rampant ursaphobia surrounding the Tour Divide to be over the top. Yes, grizzlies are dangerous, and yes, the Flathead Valley is home to one of the densest populations in interior North America. There are still only an estimated 100 grizzlies in nearly a thousand square miles, and with little human presence, they're not habituated to associate people with anything they want. The odds of running into one as a matter of bad luck are low, so I don't feel uneasy riding in bear country. I'm respectful and I hang my food and make noise, but I don't view bears as the most urgent threat of the Tour Divide, by a long shot.

What is scary for me on the Tour Divide? Lightning, first and foremost. Next, I fear running out of drinking water — with a filter, I was frequently topping up my three-liter bladder, just in case there were no streams for the rest of the day (water isn't exactly scarce in the mountains of British Columbia.) Third on the list is heat and heat exhaustion. Then drenching, cold rainstorms that last most of the day, far from shelter. Then stranger danger — there can be some odd creeps on these remote back roads. Of course there's injury — I have a lot of speed-inefficient habits I employ to keep body parts comfy on the bike. Then there's crashing, mechanicals that I can't fix when I'm a long walk from anywhere, running out of food, GPS death (I carried a spare eTrex 20), camera death, iPod death (I brought four Shuffles), sleeping pad death (I don't understand people who don't use pads. The ground is cold), suicide squirrels getting caught in my spokes ... well, you get the gist. There's plenty to be wary of on the Divide. I suppose fixating on bears is at the very least a helpful distraction.

Illness hadn't been anywhere on my fears list, or my radar. It was mid-summer, and I've long relied on a relatively robust immune system. So as my throat continued to burn, I just wrote it off as another one of those early-days issues I needed to work out, like my squeaky Achilles. Achilles tendinitis is perhaps the number one overuse injury in the Tour Divide, and I often experience minor Achilles pain after just one long day in the saddle. My strategy to ward off tendinitis is to change the position of my feet at regular intervals. It works for me, and is one of the main reasons I ride platform pedals (though not the only reason.)

I rolled through the Flathead Valley, then climbed and descended Cabin Pass without seeing anybody else. Elliot caught up to me on the Wigwam Road — a segment I've come to regard as "the most horrible rollers" — while I was battling through a slump that I would later come to think of as my "6 p.m. meltdown." Late afternoons were always the hardest time of day for me. My body was craving a hot meal and a nice evening wind-down, and I was telling her we had to eat dirty handfuls of nuts for dinner, and then keep pedaling until midnight. Nobody was happy.

But Elliot's a cheerful guy. We chatted long enough that I perked up, and then we arrived at the "singletrack" connector, which perked me up even more because I could hike for a while. The faint, mile-long trail between two abandoned logging roads follows a deer trail along the Wigwam River, then skirts a bend by shooting straight up the mountain at a rate of 400 feet in 0.2 miles. It's one of the infamous segments of the Tour Divide — a grunt of a push in dry conditions, and often a bike-dragging portage when it's wet and the "trail" becomes a waterfall. It was fairly dry this year, and I was grateful for the chance to stretch my legs and back, and give my wee little arms a bit of a workout (all while feeling grateful that I only had to do this for 0.2 miles, unlike Beat on the Freedom Trail.)

I'd planned to camp on Galton Pass, but the stubborn northern sun was not even close to setting. Also, I was nearly out of food. Everything I had would make an adequate dinner, but I'd be setting myself up for a hungry morning into Eureka. I was fairly disgusted with the mud crusted to my tights and legs — even though I promised myself I wouldn't let griminess bother me — and I'd become fearful of another cold night out (add that to the list of fears.) I'd just told Elliot that I intended to camp that night, and hopefully most nights, because Tour Divide was "a camping ride." Now I was already talking myself into spending the second night of the race in a hotel room. Oh well. What can you do?

The late-evening descent from Galton Pass was worth throwing away my willpower. Orange and red light glowed on treetops as I screamed down the narrow canyon, breathing fire as cold wind hit my raw throat. After descending 3,500 feet in just over seven miles, the loose gravel road spit me out into the pastoral Kootenay valley, four miles from the U.S. border.

The border patrol guard asked me more questions than I was expecting, given he'd probably seen at least thirty other cyclists that evening. After the guard let me back into my own country, I followed a farm road next to a three-foot-high wire fence strung right along the border. It would take no effort to jump right back into Canada there, and if it were later, likely no one would know. Ah, security theater. But I was thrilled to be back in the USA, already ahead of my 2009 pace, and maybe if I could kick this cold, I could really start flying.