This really is post 2,000

If this blog were a child it would be in middle school right now, so it's probably not surprising that it has managed to amass 2,000 posts. But it seems like a milestone worth noting. Every once in a while I start typing in this space and ponder what it is, after all these years, I'm still trying to accomplish. The reasons I started the blog — to post photos, to connect with people online, to keep in touch with family and friends — all fall into the realm of social media now. I still enjoy writing long-winded (we journalists like to use the phrase "long-form") adventure reports, so I'm unlikely to dump the blog anytime soon (at least not before its high school graduation.) And I do need a place to post photos, because I will never join Instragram, never never, don't ask me again. 

Interesting, I've recently received a steady stream of requests from random PR people for gear reviews, sponsored posts, even a junket or two. I'm at a loss for why these started now, when this blog  has never been a gear blog, is far less popular than it was eight years ago, and the medium in general is about five years dead. "Jill Outside" must have ended up on some type of marketing list. Although I have to say no, I find it amusing nonetheless. This just isn't a commercial blog.

(Also, buy my books.) 

 This weekend, most of the Front Range was slammed by a frigid storm that raged for much of Friday and Saturday. Because it's so late in April, everyone treated the snow like an anomaly, but I have Facebook's "On This Day" feature to remind me otherwise. This storm was reminiscent of our first week in Boulder, except for we now have actual furniture to snuggle into, and a huge stack of firewood in the garage (last April we scrambled to chop downfall in the yard.) Yes, it's just Colorado's boring-old, annual, "Nearly May Blizzard."

My fatigue rollercoaster, thyroid or whatever it maybe, has been on the upswing. I felt much more perky than I had earlier in the week. The only annoyance was my left knee, which I had so graciously slammed into a rock on Wednesday. After the crash, an odd goose egg rose out of the top of my kneecap, which had also been scrubbed of its skin. The whole joint was painful and didn't want to bend much, so I didn't bother bending it for a couple of days. I limped into my allergy clinic, and when the nurse saw my right arm — which also lost a fair amount of skin — she asked, "What happened to you?"

"I fell," I said with the upmost derision. "I tripped over a rock, and I went down." Then, to emphasize how disgusted I was with myself, added, "I don't take my falls so well. I'm not 20 anymore" ... forgetting, conveniently, that I earned the nickname "Gimpy McStiff" in my early 20s precisely because I couldn't take a fall then, either.

 I also remembered advice from my mom, which she repeated the many times I bashed my knee as a clumsy little kid — "If you don't bend it now, it's never going to bend."

"But it hurts."

"Well, it's going to keep hurting until you bend it. Now try."

On Saturday, as temperatures plunged into the low 20s, fierce wind and snow raged through thick fog, and more than a foot of snow covered the ground, I decided it was as good of a time as any to try.

 It was 23 degrees when Beat and I set out in the late afternoon for the usual route to Bear Peak. This is the most snow I've seen up there yet — despite climbing Bear well over a dozen times during the winter — and it's always fun to view the familiar in such drastically different light. I was limping, but as expected the swollen knee began to loosen up as we slogged our way up the snow-covered road. I put my snowshoes on to hike through the deeper snow on the trail. Beat did not; it was the only reason I was mostly able to keep up with him.

 The scenery just got better as we climbed, where the burned forest was covered in hoarfrost.

 Thick hoar near the summit.

 An eerie apparition of Bear Peak.

 Beat on the rime-coated rocks. The wind was howling and I'd guess the windchill was zero degrees, at best. It was quite the exciting place to visit on April 29. It felt like we were standing atop a jagged 4,000-meter summit in the Alps, not lowly Bear Peak.

 My knee took a bit of a beating while making the hard bends necessary to complete the steep, snowy climb, so I was rather grumpy during the descent. I was definitely in pain. But at some point you have to decide if something is "valid" pain — as in the kind of pain that warns you injury is inevitable — or "erroneous" pain — as in the kind of pain your mother told you to ignore, lest your knee lock up and never bend again. I decided it was probably the latter.

 According to the closest official measuring station, 14.5" of snow fell in our neighborhood during this storm. Despite the colder temperatures, it was heavy, wet spring snow, so there's a lot of water ready to soak into the grass over the next two days. This is good news for the fire season, although if we don't continue to see spring rain, it's going to be a long summer yet.

 After the hummingbird feeder froze solid, Beat brought it inside. On Sunday morning, he made new sugar water and returned it to the balcony. Since it's so early in the spring, we currently just have a pair of hummingbirds, a male and a female — as far as we can tell. But the two of them attacked the feeder the moment it was back. They didn't even wait for us to leave. I wondered where those tiny birds went to sit out that storm. Wherever it was, they sure did come home hungry.

 My knee wasn't much better on Sunday, but it wasn't worse either, so I set out to hike the Walker Ranch loop while Beat ran. I figured a foot of new snow that was rapidly turning to slush meant that neither of us would be breaking any speed records.

 I was rather grateful for the slush, as it necessitated a slow pace whether my knee was working or not. Still heavy, shin-deep snow requires some hard maneuvering. My knee will bend when I make it bend, but it's definitely not the happiest knee.

Despite the soreness, I was stoked to just be outside and moving through the world. Mid-morning bliss.


Mule deer were out and about, nibbling on all the fresh greens. The resident elk herd also bedded down near this spot last night, leaving behind an impressive mess. It was strange to see these signs of spring, even though they've been around for a while.

 My favorite view from Walker, looking through the window of Eldorado Canyon toward Denver. After 3.5 hours of knee-raising marches and trudging to cover 9.5 miles, my knee had loosened significantly and I felt no pain. But it only took five minutes of sitting to stiffen up again. I think the lesson here is to just keep walking. 

Another crash

My physical self has become a stranger to me recently; I don't really "know" my body anymore. I've mentioned the energy rollercoaster, the good days and bad, not quite knowing how much of this is adjusting to thyroid medications, how much is fluctuations of hormones, how much is psychosomatic, how much is just "me."

On one hand, I've struggled with real fatigue — feeling more sluggish in my daily routine, blinking against sleepiness at 3 p.m., sneaking off to take actual naps, and setting an alarm so I don't pass out for hours. This happens despite full nights of sleep and better morning alertness. I've learned that if I want to accomplish something mentally taxing, I'm better off attempting it before lunch. Jill one year ago would give a side-eye to this zonked-out person I'm becoming.

There have been other symptoms that one might ascribe to an underactive thyroid — I'm often cold in the afternoon and have to wrap up in my down comforter, as the thin couch blankets just don't cut it anymore. My fingernails are effectively falling apart, my skin is even drier than usual, and I've started noticing a bit more hair loss than before (not significant enough to worry yet.) Still, the numbers from April 11 wouldn't indicate hypothyroidism, so I have to assume this is just part of the adjustment.

On the other hand, I'm becoming stronger. Three weeks ago, I started back at square one with twice-weekly weightlifting, and I'm already ahead of where I was after four months of focused training over the winter. And I'm much more energetic when I'm in "active" mode. If I want to battle the afternoon sleepiness (and I've managed to resist the temptation to take a nap), all I need to do is go outside and start running or riding. On Monday I enjoyed a relaxing yet strenuous five-hour, nearly-50-mile mountain bike ride through the foothills. On Tuesday I stole an hour-long window between hail and snowstorms to jaunt up and down a 10K dirt road run with 1,100 feet of climbing. Running downhill through shoe-sucking mud, I managed to kick it up to that low-seven-minute-mile pace that feels so exhilarating. I could not run like that two months ago. No way. I would have been a gasping, dizzy, mucousy mess.

On Wednesday, overnight snow gave way to blazing sunshine. I had things to do in town, so I set out for a quick morning jaunt up Sanitas. My new thing with the steep ascent of Sanitas is to vie for new PRs in "all-hiking" mode, and see if I can keep up with runners in the process. (I've come close.) A friend had just sent me a nearly new pair of Altra Olympus shoes in the mail, and I was trying them out. After the breezy ascent (new PR! 26 minutes), I started down the winding, runnable descent feeling particularly light on my feet. Seven-minute-miles were fresh in my memory, and I picked up the pace to something just fast enough to necessitate total focus.

What happened next might seem inevitable to those who know me, but it all happened in such a strange fashion. I put my left foot down and something didn't feel right, causing me to lurch forward with my right foot and catch my toes on a rock. The terrain was a rock garden on a nearly level section of trail, so there was nowhere to roll, although I'm sure more graceful folks would have managed this. Of course I went down like a dead fish, slapping the rocks hard, really hard, and tearing up my right elbow and left knee in the process. Blood was gushing down my arm and leg as I crawled several meters off the trail into a cluster of trees, as I'm always terribly embarrassed when I fall and hope no one will see me. Then I curled up into a fetal position, writhed, and hyperventilated for at least five minutes, because I was in quite a lot of pain.

After I started to come around, I fished through my backpack for wet wipes, finding six (lucky break; I needed all of them just to slow the bleeding.) Instead of continuing in the direction I was heading, which would have necessitated a four-mile hike, I turned to limp back down the mile-long steep part. This proved incredibly taxing. Some trail runners seem to bounce right back from their crashes, but I am not one of those. Perhaps it's my dead fish landing technique, but I felt like I had been hit by a car. I managed the steepest parts by effectively crawling backward, trying to avoid putting any weight on my left leg, although that was unavoidable. The descent took 75 minutes (contrast that to 26 minutes of climbing.) My face was scrunched up in pain, my joints were still gushing blood, and it was just misery. I'm somewhat familiar with this state — the curse of a clumsy person who both doesn't get better and doesn't give up — but that never makes it any easier.

Now I sit at home on an early Thursday afternoon, with the afternoon brain fog beginning to seep in, and too sore to do much about it. Maybe happily, the rain is pelting down outside, and I can still curl up in my down comforter and attempt a blog post to see if that jogs the creative energy. Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow. 

One year in Colorado

On Earth Day 2016, Beat and I loaded up our Subaru Outback with our most prized bicycles (and not much else), then rumbled onto I-880 eastbound out of San Jose. We passed through heavy snow over Donner Pass, the verdant hills of central Nevada, 75-mph crosswinds across Utah's salt desert, then heavy rain and snow across Wyoming. The terrible weather ended almost the moment we crossed the Colorado border. The famous 300-days-a-year sunshine was out, hillsides were green and the trees were bursting with tiny green buds and blossoms. I remember smiling at Longs Peak and thinking, "I will climb you first."

I still haven't climbed Longs Peak. But we have enjoyed one year in Colorado, living in the forested hills behind the Flatirons — a home between the cliffy edge of the Great Plains and the towering Continental Divide. We love it here. Our "Ugh, Front Range" friends crinkle their noses, but really, anything that's not to love here, the Bay Area had times ten. With the exception of "people who are better than you at everything," of course. Boulder's sheer concentration of smart, fit, successful people is staggering. Still, the crowds are smaller, and traffic is negligible (of course it's still annoying.) Yuppies are prominent, but still greatly outnumbered by genuine, interesting people that you want to get to know. There are a lot of white people here. I rank among them so I certainly can't criticize. I do miss the cultural diversity of San Francisco.

Of course there are other things I miss about California. Sometimes I think back to my favorite places — the Marin Headlands, Black Mountain, Old Tree — and feel heartsick for all the days gone by. But I lived in California for five years, and I can't say I ever felt truly at home there. Our apartment always felt like the place were we slept between travels. The Santa Clara Valley was a place where I went to the dentist and the doctor, where I bided time until we could move back to Alaska. Now that I'm in Colorado, I'll probably still bide that time ... but I feel more authentic when I call this place "home." It does help to live in a beautiful house in the ponderosa forest, a place where I can both act like the hermit writer that I am at heart, and jet to town anytime to have dinner with friends, visit my cozy, locally-owned gym, shop at Trader Joes, steal a few hours of work at The Cup, eat a salad at Mad Greens (I love that place.)

It also helps that Beat is much happier in his work in Boulder. At home he has so much more space for his engineering, sewing, and gear-making projects. I feel like I should make more efforts in the gardening department (meaning, more than none.) But allergies are still a concern (I had a serious reaction last year while pulling cheat grass and never tried it again, although I can wear a mask and cover all of my skin.) Still, I can't let go of the conviction that any time spent outdoors is best spent on the move. Luckily, the daffodils returned again this spring, the columbines and humming birds are on their way, and the natural landscaping is beautiful.

Boulder has been good for my medical needs, which have become surprisingly many in the past year. I appreciate the medical professionals I've worked with here.

And of course there are the adventure opportunities. I haven't climbed Longs Peak, and sometimes I feel almost guilty for my relative neglect of the nearby mountains. There's just a lot to enjoy right outside the front door.

Similar to our first week here, the early morning greeted us with a skiff of snow. Beat wanted to go for a long run this weekend, and had designed a route from our doorstep that racked up 6,600 feet of climbing in 18 miles, on the kind of terrain where uphills are the easy part (for me at least.) Sunday was supposed to be 75 degrees and sunny. Saturday was forecast to be 55 degrees with morning showers. I lobbied for running Saturday. ("That's good running weather," I argued. "Sunday's going to be hot and the trails will be crowded. Wait and see.")

 I knew as soon as I woke up in the morning that today would be a "good day" for me. This perkiness surprised me, because I had an allergy shot on Friday and felt awful, truly awful, for the rest of the afternoon. I almost backed out of the long run before bedtime, but decided to wait and see. My pattern remains unpredictable; some days I feel mowed down; others, I feel like a bird set free. Since I take the same medications and do most of the same things every day, there's no way of knowing which it will be.

 Saturday was a "free day." On free days, everything feels relatively effortless. It's not that I can do anything amazing, it's just that the ordinary stuff isn't a battle. We set out in steady "frizzle" (fog-drizzle) with patches of slippery snow still clinging to the ground.

 The frizzle began to clear and we made our way to South Boulder Peak. Delicate ice formations still clung to the burned skeletons of trees.

 We made the steep, rocky descent into Shadow Canyon, which caused my only bout of grumpiness for the day. But I perked up on the even steeper, rockier ascent of Fern Canyon.

 In between the canyons, we made our way along a scenic stretch of trail neither of us had traveled before. The air was cool and humid, and Beat raved about the rich aroma of resin.

 The always-pleasing view toward the Plains from Bear Peak.

This was a rare section of smooth trail that made me nostalgic for California, although looking at this photo, I realize that these trees are quite small. After seven hours we were home again, soaking in the satisfaction of a hard, yet "easy" effort. It was a nice way to celebrate one year in this place. My continued physical rollercoaster means I can't reliably do any type of real training, but I'm all the more grateful for these great days.