Thankful for wide-open spaces

When friends proposed a Thanksgiving-weekend ride around the White Rim in Canyonlands National Park, I was reluctant. I'd already told my family I wouldn't travel out to Salt Lake City this year, due to the COVID surge that drastically increased the risk of spending time in close contact with people outside our households. Any travel, even a road trip, was dubious at this point in time. Still, if done right, the White Rim ride seemed even safer than my day-to-day routine. I could load up my car with all of the food and water I'd need for a week. The only businesses I would need to visit would be gas stations, and I could and pay at the pump. I could camp every night. Bikes and rough terrain naturally create at least six feet of space when you're riding, and my friends and I could make an effort to keep our distance while stopped. I recognize these are justifications for a bike trip that I really wanted to join, but they made rational sense. This may be 2020, but does that mean we can have absolutely no nice things? 

I wrapped up my weekly deadlines around 10 p.m. Tuesday, brushed away six inches of new snow from the Subaru, and packed up: Beat's Why Cycles Wayward that is just the perfect desert bikepacking rig, bike bags and repair supplies, eight gallons of water, a surprisingly small insulated grocery bag of shelf-stable, low-moisture food for a week, a cooler with cans of Diet Pepsi to ward off temptation, camping gear, and a small duffle of clothing. I set a painful alarm and hit the road at 2:30 a.m. under clear skies and temperatures around 5 degrees. There was a lot of black ice on the roads, but at least there was no traffic. I crested Vail Pass, where the snow-covered forest sparkled in the moonlight as the empty road rolled toward all-encompassing darkness. I felt like I was entering another world, another time, both far beyond the cloistered realities of the present. 

Although I had some confusion about our meeting spot and drove aimlessly on sandy roads for 20 minutes, I still managed to arrive for the planned 10 a.m. start. Betsy, Erika, Danni, and I all drove from our various corners of Colorado and Montana for this overnight ride. Although I see one friend or another from time to time, it felt astonishingly strange to find myself in a group. As we finished setting up our bikes, I sputtered through stilted conversations and inwardly laughed at myself for being so socially awkward. I felt the way I feel when I have to make small talk with cashiers at Trader Joes these days, but amplified — stumbling over my words and stopping mid-sentence to gather a fraying train of thought. 

"These are your friends that you've known for years," I chided myself silently. "After pandemic, you will need to relearn all of your social skills."

We made quick work of 11 miles on Mineral Bottom Road to the edge of the abyss, where the route plunges toward the Green River. From there, the rugged jeep road begins its meander along the White Rim, a sandstone shelf below the cliffs and spires that prop up Island in the Sky mesa. Like most routes in this region, the road was originally built to support uranium prospecting in the 1950s. It's since become an iconic jeep or mountain bike tour, encompassing almost exactly a hundred miles when traveled as a full loop. 

The first time I was here was back in the spring of 2002 — before I was any kind of cyclist at all. I had only recently purchased a Trek 6500 for $250 on eBay, and had taken it on all of one or two rides before friends invited me to join a large group riding the route over three days and two nights with a support vehicle. I was terrible on the bike — lagging behind the group, bruised from several crashes, and finally unable to make the steep climb out of Mineral Bottom. The driver of our SAG vehicle found me sitting dejectedly on one of the switchbacks, and loaded up my bike and its unfit rider for the rest of the ride to the highway. I remember feeling so ashamed and pretty sure I was going to list that mountain bike on eBay as soon as I got home. But somewhere in there, a taste for adventure cycling entered my blood. It was a definitive beginning. I would never be the same. 

Since that fateful first loop, I believe I've made four or five more ... it's easy to lose count. It's not nearly enough for two decades of a lifetime, in my opinion. But the White Rim has become more of an annual pilgrimage since friends planned a four-day, three-night trip over Thanksgiving in 2018. I made a solo overnight ride from Moab along Potash Road and back via Gemini Bridges last year, also around Thanksgiving. I suppose this has become my new T-Day tradition. The sandy doubletrack along the Green River held a warm feeling of nostalgia, which seems a reasonable consolation for missing out on my mother's cream pies. 

November days are short, and we were off to a late start thanks to my and Erika's overnight drives. Even with our push to reach camp before dark, I stepped off the bike for every canyon overlook and lingered over vistas. My contentedness was at once familiar and strange. For most of 2020, since March at least, I've mostly stuck to my Boulder bubble, rushing through workouts while going more or less ... nowhere. Here on the White Rim, with unobstructed vistas stretching dozens of miles toward every horizon, I had everywhere to potentially be and felt as though I was standing still. It felt good — endless space to breathe. I'd nearly forgotten how much I enjoy simply being out in the world.

The weather on this day was cool and clear — low 50s for a high, heading toward the upper 20s overnight. Toward evening, a stiff breeze signaled a weather disturbance. The forecast for Thanksgiving Day predicted more snow to the Colorado mountains. I hoped it wouldn't bring rain to Southeastern Utah, as I still have nightmares about the death mud I encountered in the desert last year. Still, as the waxing moon climbed above Island in the Sky, I felt certain that good fortune would follow us through the rest of the week. 

As the moon rose, the sun set abruptly and all to soon, as it does this time of year. I will always happily trade the short days of November for its gorgeous light. I'm a night owl anyway and am just as content to be out for a midnight walk under a moon so bright that I don't even need a headlamp. The cool afternoons are a bonus as well — although I was regretting my decision to carry nine liters of water for the two-day trip. Since we were dry-camping and I wanted to make hot drinks to my heart's content, I erred on the side of bringing too much water. But I basically drank none during the day and had to hoist all of it up the punchy climbs as we neared Murphy's Hogback. My heavy bike was annoying me so much. I fantasized about drinking six hot chocolates and then tossing an entire bladder's worth of water in a sunlit fountain over a ledge (sadly, as it turned out, I forgot the hot chocolate. I had none at all. For the entire trip. This would prove more tragic as the week went on, but for now, it was less irritating than my heavy bike.) 

The final climb up Murphy's is a grunt and a half, but our reward was arriving at camp in the clear twilight. The spot is exposed to the hard wind and higher than the other campsites on the White Rim, so it's not necessarily the most comfortable place to sleep. But you can also see almost all of Canyonlands from the rim — Needles to the south, The Maze to the east. 

And somewhere, back that way is Horseshoe Canyon. So many places that I've never visited, that I'll likely never visit ... but I love to imagine myself there. I suppose that's the draw of wide-open vistas — to be a tiny human in a single pinpoint of space, traveling the universe in my mind. 

Camp with a view. The cold clamped down quickly as we set up our tents, and Erika and Betsy retreated to their sleeping bags as soon as it was dark, which came around 5:30 p.m. Danni and I sat at a safe distance, cooked up pre-Thanksgiving dinner in bags (with no hot chocolate. Sniff), and chatted away the bright moonlit evening in our puffy pants. I was exhausted after an eight-hour, stressful drive on black ice followed by a six-hour, slightly less strenuous ride on rocks and sand, and plunged into a deep and disorienting sleep that lasted until dawn. 

Day two brought many more canyon overlooks. I stopped at them all. Just when I thought my heart couldn't feel more full, the vistas would fill me with warm contentedness. I thought we had all of the time in the world for lingering, even though thanks to my sleepy-headedness, we still got a somewhat late start and our ride day only included about seven hours of daylight. 

Out of six trips around the White Rim, this is the only time I've ridden the loop counter-clockwise. I soon realized how ideal this direction is for riding the loop. For starters, there's Mineral Bottom Road, which is dusty, washboarded, high-traffic, and generally annoying. It's definitely better to spend less time on this road by descending it and getting it out of the way first. The route above the Green is filled with punchy grades that aren't easy as climbs or descents, so in my opinion, you might as well climb them. Beyond Murphy, there's a long, ramped descent that generally loses altitude for more than 15 miles — it feels tedious riding clockwise, and comparatively effortless in this direction. Finally, there's Shafer Trail. Shafer is long and grueling as a climb, and I think that's the reason why most people choose to ride clockwise. But if you like hard, slow, meditative slogging, and it's your favorite thing in the world, well ... the directional choice is obvious. 

We still had plenty of ramped descents to enjoy before the climb commenced. I had regrettably consumed both of my sandwiches on the first day while ignoring the rest of my snacks. At least I had an abundance of bars to enjoy at every overlook along the rim. 

Here is another one of those punchy climbs. Betsy was able to clear a lot of them on her fat bike in impressive anaerobic bursts. I was a bit lazy and didn't really try, even after I'd whittled my water carry down to three liters, which I also barely touched during the ride. "Walk and conserve energy," I'd call out, but quietly I was envious of Betsy's determination. 

The daylight began to grow long again. How did that happen? Where do these winter days even go? Both Betsy and Erika had been riding long days before the White Rim and seemed eager to leg out these final miles quickly and be done. I greedily wanted to cling to every canyon overlook, and mused aloud about dropping into Lathrop Canyon to see what was down there. If I had been alone I probably would have done it, and then I definitely would have had to climb out in the freezing darkness. Ultimately I'm grateful my friends were there to keep me on track, as the remaining views were jaw-dropping.

An overlook of the Colorado River. 

As shadows crept down from the mesa, we finally reached the bottom of Shafer Trail. My heart fluttered as I gazed up at the imposing cliffs. Such a thing of beauty: You think there's no way a road could find a way to scale this wall. It's impossible. At yet you know such a thing exists — you've been here before. Somehow you'll have to climb this wall. You'll do it on a bike. You'll pedal the whole way. The whole idea is so preposterous yet so compelling. 

Shafer Trail finds a way, by threading a tight series of switchbacks through brief weaknesses in the cliff. It's smooth but steep and precipitous. Someday — maybe next Thanksgiving — I will attempt a White Rim in a day and climb this road as hard as I can right at the end of my dirt century. It will be gloriously painful. 

For now, I was grateful for easy breathing, ample photo opportunities, and gorgeous light. Ominous clouds sank low over the La Sals. I could see a white blur of snow extending along the Moab corridor, but the storm never touched us. Fortuitous indeed. I stopped at the top of the climb to layer up for the final ten miles to camp and enjoyed a coffee-flavored candy bar that found its way to me all the way from Canada, courtesy of Danni's "emotional-support Canadian," who is our mutual friend Dave. Dave wanted to remind us that even though life in the United States is a little bit insane right now, we can be grateful that there are still places of calm in the world, places to which we can hope to return if we remain vigilant. The coffee wafer bar with French ingredients was blissfully tasty — mostly because I neglected to bring much candy of my own on this trip (and no hot chocolate. Sigh.) 

The ride back along highway 313 was gorgeous, if somewhat stressful with traffic after two days on the isolated White Rim. The temperature had dropped into the low 30s by the time we arrived at our cars. Betsy and Erika packed up and headed out before Danni and I had even changed out of our sweaty layers, which I understood ... I'd hoped they'd stay to hang out and enjoy water-flavored hot drinks during the evening, but late November cold and darkness is just not conducive to relaxed car camping. Danni and I had another bike trip planned, so we stayed to heat up our Thanksgiving dinner (two Tasty Bites for me. Punjab Eggplant and Madras Lentils spooned straight out of the bags.) Then we retreated to our tents at an unconscionably early hour. My gratitude for this overwhelming abundance lulled me to another peaceful sleep. 

I do love shoulder season

It took me a few years to realize this, but November really is a nice time of year in Colorado. All of the challenging aspects of summer — heat, smoke, pollen, thunderstorms — have finally faded, but there are still plenty of warm days to go along with the gorgeous late-autumn light and intermittent snowstorms. I have been feeling especially calm and content lately, and I'm not even sure why — world events are as harrowing as ever. Based on my still-prodigious daily news consumption, it seems like a time for my inner pessimist to shine. And yet, my outlook has become — dare I say — slightly rosier recently. I give at least partial credit to CBD capsules, which I started using on a regular basis again about six weeks ago. Even if it's just a placebo effect, I've felt noticeable relief from the relentless buzzing of low-level anxiety. I also credit the sheer amount of cycling I've indulged in during recent weeks. 

On Monday I embarked on my long ride for the week. I didn't have a route plan when I set out, so I chose my mountain bike to deal with the shoulder-season mixture of mud, ice, pavement, gravel, and snow I was likely to encounter. Early in the ride — around mile three — I decided to check out an overlook I'd never ventured up before. It involved a steep pedal up a rocky outcropping that I managed to clear, followed by a boulder scramble. For these efforts, I earned a lovely view of Gross Dam, the reservoir, and the snow-capped Continental Divide. I crawled down the boulders, hopped back on the bike, and immediately launched downhill, not noticing right away that I had looped onto a different rocky outcropping than the one I climbed. I realized too late that this drop was steeper and longer. Large, chunky boulders lined the edges of the rock garden. I didn't have the speed to clear the rocks at the bottom, slammed into them while grabbing my brakes even though I know better, and flipped forward. 

It was a strange over-the-bars type of crash. I must have lost a lot of speed before I hit the rocks because the entire thing seemed to happen in slow motion. I realized what was coming, decided how I wanted to land, and rolled sideways to touch down on my left shoulder blade, which was protected by a puffy-coat-filled backpack. That part didn't hurt too much, but while I was twisting my body to land on my back rather than my head, the bike became tangled in my right leg. It's difficult to describe. It didn't break the skin, but my entire leg is riddled with bruises, some deeper and more painful than others. The handlebars also got a good punch in on my left arm. Of course, the bike wasn't hurt. It never is. (And, for the record, I despise the question, "Was your bike okay?" in response to a crash. Bikes don't feel pain, and they're a hell of a lot cheaper to replace than bones. Rant over.) 

Okay, so I crashed. It was my dumb mistake and it wasn't a big deal. Nothing was broken, including the bike. I laughed off the pain as I sat up, shaking my head, and admonishing myself out loud. "You should not try mountain biking." The bruises on my leg hadn't yet bloomed and the limb was only mildly sore, so I continued on my eight-hour ride. The loop I devised while pedaling ended up climbing to 10,000 feet through several inches of sugar snow. Thanks to truck traffic, I could ride most of the climb, but the tracks stopped abruptly near the crest of the road. The descent into Gamble Gulch was a sphincter-clencher. Surfing the skinny tires through six inches of loose snow feels reminiscent of my early days of "snow biking," and is both exhilarating and terrifying. It's a matter of finesse — shimmying as the bike finds its own traction, shifting my weight ever so gently when the rear wheel begins to fishtail, and basically hanging on for dear life. Objectively these half-controlled plunges are considerably riskier than descending rocky outcroppings, but it's all a matter of perspective. At least I didn't crash.

Over the next few days, bruises erupted all over my limbs. I was sore. It's true, what they say — the older you become, the less your body can absorb a direct hit, no matter how well you walk it off. Every step jolted the tender flesh, so running was out of the question. But I could still ride a bike without too much pain. Colorado's typical third summer arrived just in time, with temperatures in the 70s during the middle of the week. I took advantage by riding the gravel bike up Sunshine Canyon, enjoying great conditions even as I battled a fearsome headwind. Any area exposed to direct flow from the Continental Divide was so wind-blasted that I had to pedal hard to maintain forward momentum downhill. But I was enjoying myself and feeling strong, so I continued to wrestle the air monster all the way to Brainard Lake. 

It's always fun to bash out one of these big rides — 50 miles, 6,700 feet of climbing — in late November, and still enjoy ideal conditions. Honestly, it feels like cheating summer, because snowmelt helps pack these typically dusty and chunder-strewn roads into hero gravel (although that west wind will always be there to keep me honest.) 

The speed and ease of that ride to Brainard revealed a fun truth: I am in prime cycling shape right now. I can't do much with this, however. My 200K fat bike race in January was officially canceled this week — although Beat and I were already leaning heavily toward not racing due to COVID concerns. Soon enough, any hope of a fourth summer will fade and it will truly be winter, wherein I'll need to build up a completely different kind of strength and conditioning for fat biking and snow slogging. But for this week, these few beautiful days of the shoulder season, I could at least leg out some PRs. 

After convincing Beat to ride with me on Friday, the spotlight turned onto my neglect of the gravel bike, which was once Beat's bike, and which I've "borrowed" for close to 1,400 miles without doing any maintenance. The brake pads had worn down to the metal. The rear tire was almost completely bald. Beat rightfully admonished me but went to work immediately in order to fix the abuse. My gratitude for Beat's mechanical skill runs so deep that I put it in my wedding vows. I know, I shouldn't be rewarded for negligence ... but I'm so grateful I can keep riding despite poor attentiveness (hey, I didn't realize I'd ridden the bike 1,400 miles. I would have guessed a few hundred at most. But Strava keeps track of such things for a reason.) 

Anyway, on Saturday I had the boost of brand new tires and working brakes, so I decided to go hard at some of my favorite gravel segments. I managed to take back my home road QOM from the professional athlete who stole it last year (to be fair, she's a runner who probably only cycles on occasion for fun. Also, my home road is private, so not many people bother with this segment. Still, the QOM is mine, and I cherish it.) Then I carved six minutes off of my SuperChap PR. It's a hearty segment; 4.3 miles with 1,800 feet of climbing and an average grade of 7.8%. I managed to hold 6.1 mph for 42:45. It's not even close to the best time in Boulder, but I am up against a number of professional road cyclists here. To best my own self by six minutes was enough fun. I was chuffed. 

On Sunday, Beat and I wanted to try a more equitable couples outing, since I will not suffer his bushwhacking routes, and he doesn't want to be "crushed by wife" on a bicycle. I proposed a hike to Mount Audubon. This 13er has thwarted us a handful of times in winter conditions, due to the incessant gale that always feels like pushing into an impenetrable wall. For various geographical reasons, this mountain is one of those places particularly susceptible to the prevailing west wind. A July hike often means teetering on rocks amid 35 mph gusts while thunderheads streamroll in from the west. Winter months bring the temperature gradients that drive truly fearsome downslope winds — you're lucky if you're not facing a hurricane-force whiteout. Not that this mountain ever holds onto its snow for long.

Thus, we braced for an Alaska-like blowhole and packed for as much. Third summer was officially over, and temperatures dipped into the single digits as we drove to the trailhead. The Brainard Lake gate is closed for the season, which means walking three miles of road to reach the summer trailhead. Strangely, it was warm and calm here — probably because of an inversion, which is what happens on a rare occasion that there's no wind. We peeled off layers as we jogged, but we were still overdressed. It felt like July. 

Beat set a brutal pace. While I've been cycling all these miles, he has been doing a lot of off-trail hiking, exploring the quieter corridors of the Flatirons and foothills. So both of our fitness is heavily skewed right now. I'm not in the best hiking shape, which falls away quickly amid the ceaseless technical demands of these rocky trails. I started to feel grumpy about this activity that was my idea. I was postholing through shin-deep snow and chasing Beat up a sweltering mountain with far too many layers on my feet. Then we hit the barren rocks — most of the terrain above treeline was cleared of snow by the incessant wind — and I realized I was grumpy because my leg hurt. One of the bruises above my right knee went deeper than I had realized, and it felt like every step was pulling painfully at a quad muscle. I don't feel this strain when I'm cycling or even walking around the house, but lifting my leg over the relentless rocks aggravated what was likely mild muscle damage from Monday's crash.

I was never going to catch Beat, yet I continued straining beyond my comfort level. The weather was unreal. Every time I've reached this saddle in the past — all during the months of June, July, or August — I've needed to pull on several layers while bracing against the gale to avoid being blown off my feet. On this day there was still a decent breeze — probably around 15 mph — but expectations made the air feel eerily calm. I continued shedding layers, marching past another group of heavily bundled hikers as I went hatless and gloveless with sleeves pushed up to my elbows. Every so often I would catch my toe on a rock, which would pull sharply against the seemingly injured muscle. Such missteps are almost impossible to avoid, but each time it happened my eyes filled with tears. This really hurt. Could this possibly be just a bruise? A few days have passed, and I really do think it's just a bruise. 

For the rest of the afternoon, however, I wondered whether I was facing a more persistent injury. Not much I can do about it up here, so I continued climbing. It was satisfying to reach the summit, my first "winter" ascent of a Colorado 13er ... even if it's not technically winter ... and even if the weather was the best I'd experienced — during any month — on these peaks that outline the crest of the continent. Sunny, storm-free skies, smoke-free air, gentle breeze, and no crowds. And to think there was a time that I believed November was just a throw-away month. 

Beat helped me get my leg back in order by forcing my knee into somewhat painful stretches and then massaging the area below the bruise. That actually did the trick. It stopped the sharp pain that was radiating up my leg and returned to that low-level soreness that isn't nearly as alarming. Beat fixes bikes and legs. Could I ask for a better partner in life? Just as long as he doesn't demand too many bushwhacks or otherwise ridiculously challenging mountain miles. Hiking is hard. 

Into the lonesome season

Evidence points to a long and lonely winter in front of us. Given the scope of pandemic fatigue and willful acts of defiance, there's just no way COVID numbers are going to improve in the next few weeks. Collectively we seem unwilling to act, so anyone who still wants to reduce exposure for themselves, their families, and their communities will need to make a hard retreat from society ... if they can. That's the hardest thing about it; most people can't. Our "let it burn" policy is going to reap a lot of collateral damage. It's all so heartbreaking. As individuals, it seems the best we can do is join the bucket brigade of those who can afford to minimize indoor mingling and human contact. Right now I am thinking I will need to give up any hope of spending time with my family over the holidays. Or participating in my bike race in January. Or traveling to Alaska in March 2021. I acknowledge such sacrifices are minimal in the scope of the terrifying outcomes should the curve continue to skyrocket. Still, it does look like a long and lonely winter ahead, either way. 

As I mull this long and lonely season, I feel a paradoxical desire to distance myself even further from everything. Last week marked the third week of region-wide public land closures put in place to mitigate wildfire risk. That combined with unseasonably warm weather funneled thousands of people into a handful of outdoor spaces still open to the public. Trailheads were mobbed; my home road was as clogged with traffic as it was in the spring. It began to feel suffocating, even as I spent most of that week riding my bike along quiet back roads with surprisingly low traffic. This week, we earned a breather as cold and snow returned. 

On Monday it was 33 degrees with a misting rain that coated the roads in ice. We have yet to install winter tires on the Subaru, so I crawled along the road to a popular trailhead where only two other cars were parked, put on a hat and vest, and set out toward South Boulder Peak. As is my tendency in the early season, I was underdressed for the "feels like" reality of the cold. I hiked hard to mitigate the creeping chill as my clothing soaked through. As I climbed, the rain turned to snow. A stiff breeze prompted me to put on a jacket and mittens, but it wasn't quite enough. I could only briefly tag the peak before starting down the mountain. The rocks were slick with ice and snow, so I could no longer maintain a hard pace. I shivered most of the way down. My legs had become too numb to run by the time I hit the smoother trail. In short, I was uncomfortable ... yet pacified. Alone in this black-and-white landscape with no one else around, I felt a soothing sense of calm. 

I wanted more. The next day I was able to get out of the house was Thursday. Another storm moved through the region, and the forecast called for intensely high winds. Meteorologists say this will be the pattern all winter long, thanks to a strong La Nina impact: mountain snows, ceaseless blows. But at least wildfire danger lessened and a few corners of Rocky Mountain National Park reopened to the public, including Old Fall River Road. I figured it would be snow-covered, but fun to squeeze in one last high-altitude ride for the season. I started out from Lawn Lake trailhead, where it was 16 degrees with a steady 22 mph wind, gusting to 50 mph. My weather app indicated the "feels like" temperature was -1F at this temperate altitude of 8,000 feet. What would it be at 12,000 feet? As I pedaled up a few miles of paved road, blowing snow completely obscured the higher peaks. It looked ominous. 

It was my first trip on the fat bike in several months. Beat installed studded tires the night before. The combined effects — riding a heavy bike into a highway-speed wind tunnel through several inches of snow — made me feel like I was pedaling a tractor. So much work. I almost forgot that Old Fall River Road ascends at a 7-9 percent grade because I had my chin buried in my handlebars, bracing against the headwind. Climbing was just an afterthought. I passed the last hiker only about two miles into the gated part of the road. A fearsome gust hit and we both dug in — me with both feet planted on either side of the bike, and him leaning forward with both arms thrown over his face. 

"Going to the top?" he asked as the blast quieted slightly. 

"Doubtful," I replied. "It's pretty windy."

"It's very windy," he shouted as another gust gained strength. "I'm turning around." 

There were still six unbroken miles to the "top." I knew if I continued, I wouldn't encounter anyone. 

Shortly after I passed into untraveled territory, I started encountering what turned out to be a few dozen downed trees. Most of them were large, formerly healthy trees with thick branches that snagged my jacket as I wrestled with the bike. Hundreds more were piled like toothpicks in the gorge below. It was strange to see this destruction, as I'd been here several times this season and hadn't noticed the blowdowns before. But when I put the timeline together, it made sense. I was last here Sept. 4 when we shuttled our Mummy Range traverse. Sept. 6 was the day the Cameron Peak Fire blew up and they closed this side of the park, including the road. Sept. 8 brought the straight-line winds that flattened entire drainages in this region. Then there were two more months of wildfire closures. The few who braved the wind and snow this week are probably some of the first people to travel Old Fall River Road since early September. 

As I climbed the snow became deeper. The lower miles were wind-blown, but the switchbacks above the gorge were more protected by thick forest. I let most of the air out of my tires and could intermittently ride, but pedaling uphill through the mire often demanded more strength than I had to spend. I held some hope that I'd find more wind-scoured patches up high. But with four miles to go, it was becoming clear that I'd be walking most of the rest of the way, probably up and down. Still, the scenery was enjoyable and I had ... I did the math in my head ... maybe two more hours before I needed to turn around to avoid being caught out in the dark with only my tiny emergency headlamp. 

"If I was racing the Fat Pursuit, I would certainly need training like this," I reasoned as justification for the ridiculousness in which I was about to engage.

The snow deepened. Wind had carried away most of the surface powder and left only hardened crust over a thick, Styrofoam-like base. It was occasionally solid enough to hold my weight and I could pedal three or four strokes, but usually, I broke through. I felt like I was pushing a bike through knee-deep quicksand. It was strenuous. Amazingly strenuous. 

After having my ass handed to me on the Iditarod Trail back in March, I'd managed to delude myself into believing that I'd regained some semblance of strength. After all, I spent the summer ascending difficult mountains and took to riding long miles on my bike in the fall. But none of that seemed to mean anything. In an instant, it was March in Alaska all over again. I was hunched over an energy-sapping abyss of snow, trudging as though Earth's gravity had suddenly become ten times as strong. I'd count ten steps to put myself in a rhythm, but sometimes I couldn't even take that many before feeling so winded that I needed to stop and catch my breath. Then came the chest-high drifts, more deadfall, and dangerous flirtations with gravity while tight-rope-walking a razor-thin strip of dirt between a snowdrift and a precipitous slope. 

Meanwhile, even in this relatively protected bowl, the wind continued to rage. The chill cut so deep that my nose was an ice cube, even protected by a fleece buff. But the rest of my body was a furnace of effort and purpose. The purpose? Relentless motion, I guess. That paradoxical state in which physical distress brings a direct proportion of mental peace. 

Finally, I cleared treeline and found a few more wind-scoured patches to ride, but mostly the roadbed was filled with snowdrifts. I found even where I could pedal, I was too exhausted to manage more than a few strokes. My back and hamstrings ached. I hadn't felt this weakened in a while; probably since March. As I neared the final switchback, my watch buzzed to indicate I'd finished a lap. In cycling mode, a lap is five miles. My virtual training partner used to think these should take 20 minutes, but since I trended toward ridiculousness and steep Colorado terrain, it's long since given up on this goal. This five-mile lap took 2 hours and 57 minutes. I laughed because I'm sure that's my slowest lap ever. Even in hiking mode, three hours would be a painfully slow five miles. I'd managed only ten miles in four hours. It was time to turn around. 

I turned my back to the wind and started hiking down, wobbling like a baby giraffe on exhausted legs. Wind gusts ripped the bike out of my hands but still failed to knock it over in the deep snow. I breathed heavily and counted steps. I didn't expect to need to count steps for the descent, nor did I realize how fatigued I'd become. Four hours is not that long of a workout compared to some of my summer mountain epics and recent ten-hour rides. Even still — winter has a way of demanding everything upfront and leaving me with little to spare when the afternoon shadows grow long. The cold seemed to deepen, and I had little left in my backpack to buffer the chill. I always feel nervous when I'm wearing all of my spare layers, even when I'm comfortable. 

It's a place I've been many times: Cold, exhausted, hounded by wind and the coming night, and the only recourse I have is to keep walking. I gazed up at the jagged skyline with spindrift peeling off the peaks like smoke. I briefly thought about the East Troublesome Fire and how these terrible winds could fire up hot spots and reignite flames ... but no ... it was 10 degrees. There was more than a foot of snow on the ground to muffle the still-not-fully-contained wildfire. That's just wind-driven snow. Peaceful, benign snow. 

I felt blissful contentedness, and also bemusement as to why these awful snow slogs have this effect on me. I thought about the basic principles of Buddhism, that the root of all suffering is desire and the end of suffering is self-transcendence. In most of my waking hours, I am filled with desire: I want to see the world, to experience all the sensations, to understand the unknowable truths about the universe. But desire also fuels sadness and anxiety: the world is a merciless place, full of greed and sickness and death, and I don't understand anything at all. It's a constant push and pull of joy and despair. It's emotionally exhausting, but in my zeal to experience life, I wouldn't trade it for Nirvana ... at least not yet. I'm not nearly so enlightened. 

But every so often, I seek out a mountain scoured by freezing wind and buried in snow. Up here, there's nothing about me that matters. All of my desires and hopes and dreams are housed in a fragile body that any number of natural phenomena could end in a heartbeat. I feel this in my core and know that the mountain doesn't care. It's exhilarating to briefly see my place in it all — an infinitesimal human in an infinite universe — and experience liberation in this nothingness. I feel as though I could throw off the shackles of my humanness, all of the selfishness and despair, and dance into the wind, become the wind. It's beautiful but fleeting. Once I'm again safe and warm, my ego comes roaring back to stoke desire. 

Since this little adventure, I've been thinking about how these flashes of enlightenment will help me find my way through a dark winter. I don't really need a big race or exciting adventure on my horizon, although of course I still want these things. But if I can tip-toe toward the edge, gaze into the void and then pull back with the renewed realization that I'm alive — that's enough ... for now.