Return to the Whites

It was late March and the weather was a manic rollercoaster — 20 below in the mornings, sun, wind, heat. By the time Beat's plane landed at 4:45 p.m.,  the temperature was 19 above. Beat was fresh from balmy Colorado, bundled up, and giddy about the upcoming White Mountains 100. I had stripped down to the one T-shirt I owned in Alaska, torn somewhere in my travels. Worn ragged and weary. 

Forty-eight hours had passed since the avalanche debacle, and although my head was finally switching to its normal settings as hormones settled, I had no energy for much of anything. I'd slept in the car during a break from my commute between Denali and Fairbanks (30 minutes, alarm set) and dozed off again while sitting at the airport. Beat was a bundle of excitement and I tried to absorb some of that energy as we went through the usual pre-race motions. The WM100 is my favorite race of all. Even though I couldn't be a participant this year, I'd be in the midst of the excitement while volunteering at checkpoint 1. I wanted to support Beat as he tried to recapture his mojo after leaving the Iditarod Trail. 

All of this I reminded myself, but in truth I was just weary. I wanted to go home. 

"Home is in the Whites!" I reminded myself as I packed my bike with the same gear I'd been hauling around for a month. Pieces were missing after all of the back-and-forth: Some clothing, straps, an old Garmin watch. The bike — Beat's old 2010 aluminum Fatback — made its own long journey from Canada to Fairbanks with a kind French woman who was planning to run the White Mountains 100. The frame was still coated in grit from a sloppy thaw during a miserable commute through Whitehorse, several parts were creaking, and had its own weary feel.

The plan was to leave Fairbanks after the pre-race meeting Saturday, drive to the trailhead, and ride 17 miles into Moose Creek cabin, where I'd meet four other volunteers to set up our checkpoint early the following morning. I planned to spend two nights at Moose Creek, then ride out a cutoff trail early Monday to greet Beat near the end of the course. It was a low-stress trip of minimal miles that would allow me to spend two-plus days in my beloved White Mountains. It was great to have one last adventure in Alaska, I told myself. But I was weary.

Although the pulled quad muscle was improving rapidly, my right leg was still sore, and neither leg had any spark at all. At 7:34 p.m. I finally trundled onto the trail, balking at the steady incline, stopping several times to adjust things on my creaking bike. Trail conditions had improved quite a bit since I was here two weeks earlier, but there was still a layer of sugary fluff that had been stirred up by snowmobile traffic, and the base wasn't quite "late March bomber."

Churning and churning, I thought, "I'm tired of pedaling a bike in the highest resistance setting," and "I wonder who else is going to be riding out this trail at four miles an hour tomorrow morning?" Just as I pondered the speed of White Mountains cyclists, a friendly Anchorage racer who was out for a shakedown ride approached. I'd chatted with him at the trailhead; he seemed relaxed there, but here he sped past me as though I was standing still.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yes, just a heavy bike," I replied as I watched him race up the next hill.

"He'll do well tomorrow," I thought. Ultimately he would arrive with the lead pack at checkpoint one, then return two hours later to inform us that he'd blown up so he was heading back to the start.

After sunset, temperatures plummeted again. I guessed it was -10 or -15. Frost collected on the fuzzy blue fleece things that have become as much security blankets as they are cold-weather gear. I saw the tracks of the other checkpoint one volunteer who was riding out on a bike. He walked in many of the places I wanted to walk, which made me feel a bit better.

The trail undulated over steep hills populated by toothpick trees. Hints of green aurora swept over the northern horizon. To the south I could see the yellow aura of Fairbanks, and three headlights approaching me. The other volunteers were hauling gear out by snowmobile, and also told me they were getting a late start.

"Yay, I can catch a ride," I thought as I trudged up a mushy incline. The headlights disappeared into a dark valley and emerged again, seemingly on a different ridge. Minutes went by, miles went by, and they inexplicably never caught up to me.

"Maybe they're all riding bikes," I thought, imagining someone hauling out tables and snacks and 25 gallons of water via bicycle. Ultimately the lights were the three volunteers on snowmobiles, moving slowly across a deceptively expansive ripple of hills.

We all crammed into the new but diminutive cabin — me, four dudes, and three dogs, one of which barked through the night. We stayed up until 2 a.m. chatting about races, laughing, and drinking beer (I had a virgin hot chocolate.) One guy had stopped by Sams Club to pick up an army's worth of breakfast foods — two pounds of bacon, 18 eggs, 40 tortillas, a gallon of orange juice, a pound of shredded cheese, at least five pounds of ground beef, and two big jars of salsa. There were five of us. I looked at my little bag of oatmeal and laughed.

We woke up at 6 a.m. and headed up the trail to set up our trailside checkpoint — this would be the first checkpoint racers reached at mile 17. We provided warm water, drink mixes, chips, cookies, granola bars, soda, and fruit snacks. There was a small tent for a bucket toilet, tables, five chairs, a propane heater, ten liters of Coke, and only 15 gallons of water for this checkpoint — anything more would have to be generated by melting snow. The minimal offerings at this spot necessitated a surprising amount of stuff. I managed to pull a muscle in my lower back while yanking a snowmobile trailer to a different spot. This injury ultimately proved more annoying and longer lasting than my pulled quad muscle.

I believe this was the first skier to checkpoint one — a Swede named Christian. I would see him again the following morning after he bonked and slept for 14 hours at checkpoint four.

The first runners, Teri and Brian. Teri holds the women's record for this course, and was the overall winner this year. Even though I don't think I'll ever have the ability to run the White Mountains 100 in less than 24 hours, that's what I dreamed about for the rest of the day. Running over the snow in the same way one might float on a cloud, with none of the weariness or pain that my body was currently experiencing. That's what I want to do, I decided, if I ever recover my previous abilities — run, really run, the White Mountains 100.

Beat approached with a big group of runners about 45 minutes later. They were laughing and seemed to be in great spirits. I didn't tell Beat that in the minutes before they'd arrived, we had nearly run out of water. We were frantically shoveling snow into the big pot on the cooker in hopes they wouldn't arrive to a dry checkpoint. The Coke wasn't much help — even though I buried it in the snow for insulation, all of the soda was mostly frozen. Temperatures were still in the single digits.

I gave Beat some warm water and a kiss and waved goodbye. After ninety minutes, everyone else had come through the checkpoint. We had one cyclist drop out with frost-nip concerns, and the Anchorage rider who bonked, but everyone else made it through. My back ached as we packed up, and I bid everyone else goodbye. For my second night at Moose Creek, I'd be alone.

Although I planned to ride a ways out the trail, weariness took over, and instead I went back to the cabin and napped for two hours. By 5:30 p.m. there were still several hours of daylight, so I attempted to rally for a ride. Snowmobiles with massive paddle tracks had torn up the trail again — it really was mashed potatoes, according to Beat, it wasn't just me. I gave up after three miles, which still took me nearly an hour to "pedal." It was both a relief and discouraging to realize that I'm really not in any condition to be racing anything right now.

Dinner with a view. I was a bit relieved to be alone again. Still processing thoughts, still uneasy. Still ready to sleep as long as possible.

At 8 p.m. I stepped outside for a satellite phone call with Beat. Just after sunset, the northern lights erupted. Beat had the best views from Cache Mountain Divide. Despite my overarching desire for sleep, I still went outside four times that night to view the light show — standing on the porch in my underwear and booties at 5 below as the wind howled. The final time I finally suited up in my down stuff so I could attempt to capture a photo, but it didn't turn out at all. I preferred viewing the aurora in my underwear, with the exhilarating tremors in my body as light dances in the sky.

The following morning, I took a cut-off trail to pedal ten miles between Moose Creek cabin and the final checkpoint, a trail shelter at mile 90. The cut-off trail had only been recently groomed and there was no base. I could see footprints next to tire tracks from a rider who just the day prior found it not rideable at all (turns out that was Matt, the WM100 cyclist who dropped out with frost-nip concerns. He strangely decided to attempt to ride this trail back, even though the route is four miles longer and clearly in worse condition.)

Churning, churning, but it was a beautiful morning. I may be weary, but I'm always happy in the Whites.

Despite the soft trail, I found I really enjoyed this route — a scenic expanse of open hillsides and anemic spruce forests. Temps were again in the -10s, but warmed rapidly. Trail conditions also improved drastically once I returned to the main race course. I was able to ride six miles per hour, up gentle inclines! Then I hit the Wickersham Wall, the infamous ascent that gains 800 feet in less than a mile. At this point of weariness it didn't feel much worse than anything else.

I set up my "camp" at the top of the Wickersham Wall, boiled water for coffee amid the brisk wind, and walked around as it was too cold to sit still, even with a puffy coat. This photo is Christian, the fast skier who bonked, with his friend Patrick, who was one of the volunteers with me at checkpoint one. Because of his dismal performance, Patrick told him his punishment would be to double-pole all the way up the Wickersham Wall. I watched him do exactly this. I'm not a skier and don't even really know what double-poling entails, but it looked painful.

Twenty minutes later, Beat came up the hill, as limber and smiley as ever. He told me he saw temperatures as low as -28 overnight, and the northern lights were some of the best he's seen, which is saying a lot. This made me miss winter racing even more — the act of being up all night through that deep cold and darkness, watching the sky light up.

Six miles later, Beat sprinted into the finish. His finish time was 31:45, the fourth runner overall and third man. His mojo had returned.

We were both ready to return home to routine, comfortable beds, and springtime. I'm always grateful for the time I'm able to spend in Alaska. Even without the Iditarod, this March visit had been full of adventures, exhilarating highs and humbling lows. My body and mind were ragged, but my spirit was full, ready to pick up the pieces and sprint forward. 

Recover

Although I felt incredibly lucky that I wasn't literally flattened, the avalanche of March 22 left me deflated, both physically and emotionally. After hiking down Thunder Mountain in a daze, I checked into a hotel room and lay awake for most the night, running the experience through my mind again and again — the startling "whomp," the concrete blocks of snow tumbling down the hillside, the way my brain screamed to run but my body didn't seem to work, the slow-motion moments as a waist-high wall of snow came upon me. But at least I jumped on top, and stayed upright, otherwise I might have been buried just enough to never come out. Even in slow motion, I was able to run far enough to meet the edge of the slide, where there was less volume of snow. The avalanche stopping where it stopped was sheer grace — had it continued over that cliff, nothing would have saved me. I recognize both my complicity and fortune in the situation. It was an intense life lesson I won't soon forget. 

Wiser, perhaps, but everything else had been exhausted. It took an enormous amount of energy just to schlep my stuff to Juneau airport in the morning, trudging toward the terminal as snain pelted my face. I flew over the southeastern coastline with supreme indifference, landed in both Yakutat and Cordova without summoning the will to look out the window, and limped into the Anchorage airport in a surprising amount of pain.

After my right foot was buried in the avalanche, panic set in and I yanked at it violently. At the time I believed I would probably pull my sock foot out of the too-large shoe, and was prepared to walk away without it, fully believing that another slide was seconds away. So I was yanking hard, and the force must have pulled or possibly torn one of my quad muscles. Enough of the shock had worn off to reveal the injury.

With renewed pain came a long-overdue shot of adrenaline, or at least cortisol ... something caused me to start reeling and become increasingly jittery. I still wasn't ready to face other people — solitude is my coping mechanism during distressing experiences; it's just who I am and how I deal — so I didn't call Anchorage or Palmer friends as planned. Instead, I drove to Eklutna Lake, limped a half mile onto the ice, and sat on my fleece jacket to soak in the warm (22-degree) sunshine. I'm not even sure how long I sat there. My hat and gloves were off; I wasn't cold. I looked at my phone to acknowledge 24 hours since the guessed time of the avalanche (4:45 p.m.) Gratitude is what I wanted to feel — damn I got lucky. I'm alive, mostly unhurt. That in itself is incredible. But I didn't feel any sort of relief. Instead, that deep, dark side of myself — the one I battle frequently to suppress — clawed her way to the surface. My inner nihilist.

"It doesn't matter. None of it matters."

I again slept fitfully and briefly Thursday night, tossing as I churned through the unsettling memory of my initial reaction to the avalanche — my failure to run. I was disturbed by the realization that I felt no surge of adrenaline — as though on that deep, dark, inner nihilist level, I didn't so much care if I lived or died. That's not how I operate normally. Logically I know this, but it's a disturbing idea to chew on, nonetheless.

First light came, and it was time to drive to Fairbanks to meet Beat, who was flying in that afternoon. I really looked forward to seeing him; had I kept to myself much longer, no doubt my jumbled emotions would have whipped into into a full-blown existential crisis. Outside the distant peaks were bathed in almost neon pink light; it was a stunningly clear morning, and cold — 13 below in Wasilla at 6:30 a.m.

A few hours passed on the winding highway as my thoughts continued to churn into a nauseating lather. Just before 10 a.m. I approached the entrance to Denali National Park and robotically turned left, without having made a fully conscious decision to do so. As I drove up the park road, I realized that I had a few extra hours to burn on the timeline to meet Beat at the Fairbanks airport. Those hours in Denali could do me some good. When I stepped out of the car, my right leg was still stiff and sore, but felt notably better. The temperature was still deeply cold, -16, but the sun felt warm on my face. I limped into the visitor center, where I found a ranger to ask a dozen questions about a familiar trail.

"What are the trail conditions like on the Mount Healy overlook? Have people been up there recently? Is there avalanche danger? What's the weather forecast? Wind? ... "

The ranger was gracious with information and seemed to smirk a little when I grilled him some more about avalanche conditions. Here was a frequently traveled trail to an exposed, wind-swept ridge that hadn't seen fresh snowfall in several weeks. The risk wasn't zero; it never is. But he was clearly unconcerned about my chances.

I won't pretend it was a good idea to hike up a snowy mountain less than 48 hours after the Thunder Mountain debacle. My right leg still ached and my energy levels were close to zero. I could have taken a nap and probably would have been just as happy in the peaceful oblivion of badly needed sleep. But something deep inside deemed it necessary to climb that mountain. Deep inside I needed to acknowledge that I was afraid, but I did care. Up the well-packed trail I trudged, feeling more at ease with each switchback. I watched three unconcerned moose nibble on alder branches a few hundred feet from the trail. I thought about turning around because, you know, moose danger — but it really felt right to be there. The moose acknowledged me with a sort of bored nod and went back to eating.

There was a thick inversion over the valley. Just a few hundred feet higher, the air felt significantly warmer. My cluttered mind began to clear. The strained quad muscle loosened significantly. I was able to walk normally, almost briskly, as I traversed the wind-swept ridge. Incredibly there was almost no wind up there. It was warm enough to melt the frost from my face and hat.

You know when you're finally feeling happy after a few rough days, and you take a selfie in which you believe you're smiling, but it comes out as a pained grimace? Yeah.

When I turned around, my mind and body were filled with more energy and life than I expected to feel for a while. I noticed Denali peeking over the skyline to the south.

Sometimes when I'm walking in the mountains, I emerge from those disjointed places deep inside to realize there's no barrier where I end and everything surrounding me begins. It's just this, here, now. Everything as one.

It seems appropriate in those moments to say "Thank you."

Pecha Kucha 2017

Photo by Jenn Roberts

This trip feels like it was a long time ago, but I like to put these things on record. "Pecha Kucha" is an annual tradition that in actuality has only happened twice — in 2012 and 2013 — wherein Canadian friends Sierra and Jenn, along with Americans "the real Alaska Jill" and I gather for a winter bike tour. As these things go, the reason it's called Pecha Kucha is an inside joke that no one really remembers, and we all have nicknames that we never use at any other time (The other Jill only this year figured out that I'm "Jilly-Ho" because my name is Jill Homer.)

After my Nome plans unraveled, we decided to make it happen again, despite the lot of us being somewhat to far more decrepit than we were four years ago.

We planned for a two-night bike tour from Whitehorse, Yukon, to Carcross and back. Although the total distance was about 80 miles spread across three days on well-used trail, I was admittedly nervous about the physical demands of the tour after my poor performance in the White Mountains one week earlier. Jill also was a bit apprehensive, having recently had neck surgery and cancer treatments in short order. She invited her friend Morgan from Colorado Springs, who is a partially disabled veteran. Sierra is a high-level Yukon government official with a toddler at home. Jenn was probably in the best shape of anyone, but didn't seem to mind when a relative snowpocalypse slammed the region and buried any hints of trails. With nowhere to ride bikes, we shifted to a "hiking and skiing Pecha Kucha" from Sierra's cabin in Carcross.


Obviously I was in the hiker camp. While the other three went cross-country skiing on Bennet Lake, I conned Jenn into joining me on an unbearably slow snowshoe slog. It was a late afternoon start in temps around 0F with a fierce wind (from which we were mostly sheltered, thankfully.) We climbed toward Montana Mountain, skirting the relics of an old tramway from the Mountain Hero mine. Jenn described mountain biking this trail in the summer, descending tight switchbacks at breakneck speeds. She said she'd never really noticed the features — thick iron cables strung across the trail, rusted mining carts, and two-story tall wooden towers that were in incredible condition for being more than a hundred years old. It was a lovely afternoon, with hints of turquoise light escaping through sucker holes in the clouds. We watched snow swirl through sunbeams as the forest thinned and views opened to the wind-swept lakes below. I am an advocate of sub-2mph travel.

Photo by Jenn Roberts

Eventually I was breaking trail through knee- to thigh-deep heavy powder. It was real thirsty work, but I love this type of physical activity because it's satisfyingly strenuous without too much strain on my heart or lungs. Jenn didn't seem to mind too much, but I don't think she realized that we'd slowed to something closer to one mile per hour. She'd describe a place that she was certain was a few minutes away, and we'd slog and slog while it never arrived. We'd long since lost the "trail." Finally she casually mentioned that it was 6:30 p.m. I was stunned — we'd been at this for three hours, going almost nowhere. I suggested we turn around so as to not get stuck out after dark, seeing that we'd already secured being late for dinner and possibly worrying our friends. The irresistible draw of the slog strikes again.

The following day, Sierra joined us for a less deep but incredibly steep hike up a wind-swept ridge on Caribou Mountain.

Views of the Klondike Highway.

Beautiful scenery sucked me up ridge. I ended up a few pitches higher than my friends, who decided they wanted to stop at 3 p.m. (again, I wasn't watching the time.) So I had to rush downhill to meet them.

Views of Bennett Lake. Carcross was a fun spot to spend a weekend, even if we weren't riding. Sierra cooked a big salmon dinner at the cabin, and we stayed up late making more inside jokes that no one will remember.

 On Sunday we finally pulled out the bikes for a slow but enjoyable ride on Fish Lake.

The wind was wicked out on the lake ice, but this was the warmest day of the week — nearly freezing. After spending two weeks in the frigid interior, this felt downright tropical.

 The trail kept going but again it was time to turn around. Without a wilderness trip to keep us anchored, everyone made different plans for the time surrounding our short outings, so PK2017 ended up feeling rushed and disjointed. I decided I need to return to Whitehorse as soon as possible.

 On Tuesday, Jill and Morgan left for Anchorage without me. This was a result of poor communication and planning on my part, but there was no way I could spend 14 hours in a vehicle away from the Internet on a Tuesday. Our friend Ben helped me work out the Skagway-Juneau-Anchorage flights for not a lot more than the cost of gas, but the miscommunication continued regarding the transport of my bike. I was disproportionally stressed about the whole thing. Eventually I worked out bike transport with a woman from Whitehorse who was racing the White Mountains 100, and could drop it off in Fairbanks. So all was fine. But I was not.

I couldn't even figure out why I was so stressed out; I was just so upset. My whole body was reacting negatively with a racing heart, tremors, and blurred vision. I tried to work through it with a short ride on the local Whitehorse trails. They were barely broken out — often only a tire-wide ribbon with soft and deep edges. I crashed a couple of times, which only made things worse.

I feel there's nothing to blame but my weird hormones, but this was the beginning of a physical unraveling that hasn't gotten better, despite a long string of "good days" prior to March 22. I took this photo of White Pass during the drive to Skagway that morning. It's one of those photos that isn't good, but it's meaningful to me as a harbinger of the murkiness that followed.

Still, it was fun while it lasted.