Beyond the horizon, day two

 The Grand Staircase bikepacking trip nearly derailed before it started. Overnight, Erika had a medical issue that prompted her to seek out the urgent care clinic as soon as they opened at 9 a.m. I pondered whether I'd embark on the trip solo if she couldn't ride, and surprised myself with wavering motivation. Usually, I have no problems with solo travel in the backcountry. I prefer it, even, because I like to make all of my own decisions and do exactly what I want to do. My anxiety and trust issues mean I intend to be 100 percent self-sufficient and prepared for my worst imagined contingencies no matter what. (I was the type of person to run a supported 50K trail race with a full-sized backpack and three liters of water. Of course, I can also be surprisingly careless in truly dangerous situations. I am human.) 

As I see it, a partner isn't necessarily even a safety advantage, as this often just means you need to address the needs and solve the problems of two people rather than just one. The time all of that takes can cause more setbacks. On a leisure tour, dealing with group dynamics is usually simple and enjoyable. But on a "soft epic" such as this one, with terrain and distance that would likely demand 10-plus-hour days, strain can set in quickly. Still, I was looking forward to Erika's company. Also, I was genuinely frightened of being out there all alone in the fearsome desert. 

Erika, tough woman that she is, was in and out of the clinic in an hour and raring to go. We hit the road only about 90 minutes later than planned. I thought she might be in some pain, but she was cheerful and gave no hint of difficulty. We parked both of our cars in Escalante at the visitor's center, where I requested permission to park while acquiring the overnight permit for the national monument. The conversation with the ranger was fairly humorous. Among my many neuroses, I become extremely nervous around people with any sort of authority, even wilderness rangers. I walked into the building prepared to explain and justify every part of our plan. I expected the ranger would at the very least lecture me on our apparent intentions to commit suicide by desert. But instead, the woman shrugged through my entire spiel until I reached a section near the end called Death Ridge, where she said in a notably ominous tone: "That road is bad. We barely got our truck through the last time we were out there. You might have to carry your bike."

The horror. 

For all of my fretting, this first day was about as painless and enjoyable as a backcountry bikepacking trip can be. Granted, I'm in reasonable shape to pedal a loaded bicycle 75 miles in a day, and for this, I'm grateful for relative health as well as the time and freedom to invest in training. It really is an incredible gift — to exist in a body that can do these things. I take it for granted, and I shouldn't. 

But yes, it was a beautiful day. Temperatures ranged between 65 and 75 degrees with a light northwest wind that was often a tailwind as we traveled almost due south. Afternoon clouds arrived in time to temper the worst of the heat but didn't threaten even a hint of road-destroying rain. (Many of the roads in this region are composed of bentonite clay. Once wet, this clay clumps to everything so quickly it will stop even large trucks in their tracks. Hikers' shoes peel right off their feet. Cyclists have no chance. If you've experienced it, you know.) 

We traversed the rolling drainages of Kaiparowits Basin via Smoky Mountain Road. This unimproved path wends its way over miles of rutted clay, sand, and sandstone slabs. The region proved as remote as I expected. Over the entire stretch, we saw one vehicle — a motorcycle parked several meters down a side trail with a driver apparently tinkering with something on his bike. He didn't call out to us, so I figured he was probably okay — not that there was much we could do for a motorcycle if he was having a mechanical issue. But this did lead to more rumination on being solo out here, breaking down, and what I might do. 

I started the trip with eight liters of water — I wanted to have enough to drink comfortably, cook dinner and breakfast, and travel all the way to Big Water before needing a refill. There were two possible water sources before that — Last Chance Creek (pictured) and Lake Powell, where we planned to camp. I'm okay with filtering somewhat questionable water sources. In my relative youth, in middle-of-nowhere Nebraska, I ingested water out of a garden pump that tasted like straight gasoline and burned as it went down. I'm certainly more cautious these days, but I know you can drink a certain amount of alkaline water if needed, and Lake Powell filtered and treated with chlorine is unlikely to hurt me, even if one might taste bitter and the other skunky. Still, hauling water meant I always had it. Even if my bike imploded right here and I had to walk 30 miles out, I could probably do so without dying. Also, eight extra kilograms of weight is great strength training for the legs. (Did you know a liter of water weighs exactly one kilogram? I just learned that. So eight would be 17.6 pounds.)

We continued rolling in and out of steep and chunky drainages cutting through the stratum of the Staircase. The Grand Staircase bikepacking loop establishes an almost perfect circumnavigation of the Kaiparowits Plateau, at the heart of the national monument. The features of this high mesa are perhaps less dramatic than the slot canyons carved into the escarpments to the east or the colorful redrock formations to the west. But the plateau has a dramatic, Mars-like quality, made more surreal by the almost total absence of civilization. 

We climbed onto a high shelf where the road was straight and flat for seven miles before again plunging off the face of the Earth into the Colorado River basin. This was a fun segment, the first time the road was smooth enough to ride side-by-side and chat. 

The plateau also offered sweeping views. I believe the mound to the right is Navajo Mountain, a 10,300-foot volcanic dome and sacred summit that stands alone in the vast basin south of Glenn Canyon. As the raven flies, it was probably more than 100 miles away. 

The view from the edge of the plateau. Through the moonscape, we could spot blue fingers of Lake Powell as well as Warm Creek Bay — our destination for the night, 20 road miles away. 

Then it was time to plummet off the plateau. This was such a fun descent, carved into the cliffs with seemingly impossible continuity. You'd think there was no way this dirt ribbon could possibly carry you safely off the mountain, but then you'd round another corner and the ribbon kept unraveling. 

It was after 6 p.m. and the light was otherworldly. I actually tried to color-correct these photos, but they came out looking so strange that I just put them back as they were. 

Erika and I chatted about how this road reminded us of descending from Canyonlands' Island in the Sky onto the White Rim on Shafer Trail. Sometimes it seems so random — which places become must-see destinations visited by thousands of mountain bikers and jeeps each year, and which remain so obscure that it's possible to encounter no other people over the course of a beautiful spring day. 

Near the bottom, we spotted a light blue cattle tank and found it completely full of water. Being a standing cattle tank, it also had flecks of dirt and floating moss, but the tank looked recently filled and the water seemed fresh. Erika eyed it skeptically and said something about cow feces. 

"There's likely not too much of that in here. It's above ground after all. But cows do put their faces in it. There's probably cow slobber." 

We both decided to grab a liter for cooking, reasoning we could both filter it and then boil it. Erika would also add iodine tabs to hers, for good measure. 

Once off the plateau, the wind shifted to a stiff southwesterly right in our faces. There's nowhere to hide from anything out here. Erika was slowing down near the end of a long day and a tough week for her. The sun set before we reached the turnoff and five-mile spur to camp. Even with the sun gone, it was warm down here — I would have guessed it was still close to 80 degrees at this low altitude. I looked at the altimeter on my watch and thought, "This is probably the first time I've been below 4,000 feet in more than a year." 

Erika and I reconnected at the Warm Creek spur, then began a fantastic descent into a sandstone canyon, wending through the narrow corridor between sheer walls. It was too dark for photos, but I committed to grabbing a few on our way out in the morning. By the time we reached the supposed lakeshore, it was fully dark. All I could see ahead was more sand, cracked mud, and a marshy flat. The "lake" has receded substantially. We knew there was water out there somewhere, but how far away, it was impossible to say. We decided to follow one of a maze of spur trails to the top of a bench overlooking the bay. 

Mostly we didn't want to camp in a mire of sand, so we were happy to find a gravel pullout at the end of a side road. But it was windy there — even windier than it had been on the shore — and we were becoming too tired and hungry to care. Still, I should have considered how difficult it can be to set up an ultralight backpacking tent in 20 mph winds, or the fact that I only had five stakes to work with. It was an arduous process involving more than a dozen small boulders both inside and outside the tent to brace the structure against the wind. Erika stayed patient and erected hers without drama. 

I spent another 20 minutes building a small wind shelter out of rocks for my stove. That seemed to protect the flame, but since the wind was blowing so hard and I didn't want to waste fuel, I decided to forgo my after-dinner hot chocolate. I actually dumped out the remainder of my cow slobber water (such wastefulness!) and instantly regretted it. I still had three liters but I knew it wasn't that much, taking into account breakfast, rehydrating through the night, and the 15-mile mostly uphill and into-the-wind ride to Big Water. I found myself looking ruefully toward the yawning darkness that held the distant reservoir.

Erika and I stayed up late gazing up at the night sky and speculating about which far-distant and spectacular city resided in the bright lights on the horizon. (It was Page, Arizona.) Finally, as the wind began to lose steam, we retreated to the blissful respite of a warm night in the desert. 

Beyond the horizon, day one

Since November I'd been itching to return to the Utah desert, but then there was this and that. Life in the time of COVID moves at a strange clip — a jerking sort of plod that hurls time into the void when you're not paying attention. Summer barged in as the April sun climbed over the horizon and it seemed that it was not going to happen. But then Erika e-mailed a few friends with a proposal: "Want to bikepack the Grand Staircase Loop?" As I zoomed in on the digital map, my eyes widened. This route cut through the heart of it all: the rough, waterless, and largely inaccessible land beyond the periphery of what I knew and loved of the desert. The Great Beyond.  

In the early aughts, when I was a 20-something living in Salt Lake City with nine roommates that included my then-boyfriend, I spent nearly every weekend in the Utah desert. Even in the winter when our Nalgene bottles froze solid, and often even in the summer when we'd while away 100-degree afternoons while lounging in Crazy Creeks in the shade. We'd follow our friends while driving a 1987 Honda Civic as far as we could up steep and sandy roads, park next to a sandstone outcropping, set up a small city of tents, and watch the Milky Way spin over our heads for a couple of nights. 

Sometimes, after nursing the Civic up chunky blocks of sandstone, I'd see a sign listing the distance to the next point of civilization. The signs would say something like "I-70, 70 Miles," and my jaw would quiver. Seventy miles of sand and rocks and nothing else? Who would even dare travel that far? What if you broke down? Even if you were somewhat prepared with a backpack and water, you'd still probably die of heatstroke before anyone found you. Anyone attempting the journey is seriously brave. (Granted, this was the early aughts when cell coverage was much more sparse and satellite messengers were not a thing. It is easier to be brave now.)

It's easier to be brave, but still not that easy. It seems to be a thing with me, that the places I love the most are also the places I fear the most. Utah's desert is the fire to Alaska's ice. Both are wide-open, remote, inhospitable and volatile places that can kill a person quickly. I may be from the Wasatch Front, and I may reside in a region with a nearly identical climate to the one in which I grew up, but I'm built for Alaska. My blood runs warm so I wither in the heat. I prefer long nights, I require a lot of water, and I have extremely sensitive skin that cannot handle sunlight. So yes, I am basically a vampire. A vampire who, perhaps unfortunately, has an insatiable thirst for wide-open spaces.

The Grand Staircase Loop is just one of an almost overwhelming number of user-generated routes listed on bikepacking.com. I clicked over to that site once, felt almost sick to my stomach with FOMO and desire to explore it all, and admittedly haven't been back. But because hot deserts and lack of water are two of my many fears, I spent as much time as possible researching the route in the week I had between deciding to go and embarking. From the town of Escalante, the route travels 180 miles on mostly unimproved dirt roads and jeep tracks, skimming the Arizona border before returning north. There is only one 100 percent reliable source of water on the entire route, and that's the town of Big Water, Utah ... a town that seems entirely devoted to the storage and repair of motorboats for Lake Powell, and offers little else. The route has about 15,000 feet of climbing, which seems a small number for 180 miles. But as I would soon learn, the total does not take into account that much of that elevation change happens on intensely steep and rocky pitches in and out of sandy washes. As I told Erika, "Steady 5,000-foot climbs look impressive on an elevation profile, but when your day is full of 5,000 feet of 14-percent grades over rocks and sand, it's at least five times harder." 

My trip preparations coincided with Boulder's first heatwave of 2021. Temperatures rose into the 80s for several days in a row, and I jumped full-face into the cauldron, hopeful that it was possible fast-track heat acclimation. On April 3 I took my road bike and four liters of liquid for a 100-mile ride through the foothills between Boulder and Fort Collins, with temperatures spiking to 85 degrees as I rounded Horsetooth Reservoir. 

That went reasonably well, so on April 5, I set out to run a double Sanitas after my monthly allergy shot. Since the appointment came first, I smartly stuck my two-liter bladder filled with ice into an insulated grocery bag, thinking I'd have ice water after three hours of sitting in a hot car. But three hours later, when noon temperatures spiked to 81 degrees, the bladder was still filled with only ice — those insulated bags are incredible. So I only got water in the tiniest sips as the ice melted. I pushed hard up the first Sanitas and continued the tempo pace for a second. About 200 feet below the summit, the heat hit me like a bag of sand. Suddenly I was extremely dizzy and so nauseated that I doubled over, retching but not quite vomiting. I had to crawl into a thin spot of shade for 10 minutes to wait for the world to stop spinning. It was all I could do to limp back to my car.

"I really am going to die out there," was a thought I had about the desert.

Still, sometimes a vampire just needs to slap on some SPF 100 and a sunhat and take the necessary risks. On April 7, I headed out early enough to drive eight hours to Boulder (Utah) and still have enough daylight to find a place to camp and go for an evening ride. Before the time of COVID, it had been a number of years before I traveled this way — loading up all of the food and water I need for a week and camping every night on undeveloped patches of public land. Dirtbag lifestyle. It's actually pretty awesome ... for a week or so. Then my legs are covered in an impenetrable paste of dirt and sunscreen, my hair is a big rat's nest, my lungs fill with phlegm from too much dust-breathing, and my joints creak when I get up to pee during the night. That's when I'm about ready to admit that I'm not 22 anymore. 

I found a nice spot on a ledge overlooking Death Hollow, at the base of a ridge called Hell's Backbone. Such fearsome names for such a lovely place. I also discovered I only had about five tent stakes left in the bag, which became ... annoying ... as the wind-blasted week went on. 

Hell's Backbone proved the perfect intro to the desert. Starting at 7,000 feet and climbing along the narrow spine of a mesa to 9,500 feet, it was 55 degrees when I started and just above freezing as the sun began to set near the summit. A stiff breeze forced me to put on my puffy jacket while climbing, which was concerning ... maybe I hadn't brought enough clothing for the bikepacking trip. I had the capacity to haul 10 liters of water, but only one puffy. Still, what a treat. Climbing through the bare aspen and ponderosa forest, I'd almost forget that I wasn't in Boulder (Colorado.) Then suddenly I'd round a corner to a jaw-dropping view of sheer sandstone canyons rippling off the side of the ridge (some views shown in the previous photos.) 

In 33 miles, I saw one jeep. Just one other group of humans in four hours. This definitely isn't Boulder (Colorado.) When I was 22, I really believed I'd grow old in this region. My then-boyfriend and I even talked seriously about buying a cabin in Teasdale, which is an even smaller town just down the highway from Boulder (Utah.) And yet I've explored so little of the area — just the perimeters, the places a young and inexperienced person can reach with a Honda Civic, not-yet-athletic legs, and a single weekend to burn. I've long thought of the central Utah desert as one of my soul places, so it's startling to return two decades later and realize I'm seeing it for the first time. 

There's still magic

I've been terribly sad since the mass shootings at a grocery store in South Boulder. I'm sad after every atrocity carried out because we as a society have decided that change is too hard. But this one, for obvious reasons, hit close to home. It was a foggy, gloomy Monday afternoon. I decided to burn off some stress with a threshold ride on the bike trainer, one of my higher-intensity efforts since my breathing deteriorated in mid-February. It went reasonably well and I was pleased, believing my latest slump is finally on an upswing. While downloading the stats to Strava, I mindlessly clicked over to Twitter. The first line on my feed was alarming. "Active shooter Table Mesa. Avoid South Boulder at all costs." 

I don't remember exactly who wrote that initial Tweet, but it was early in the incident. I went into a frenzied search for more information and found little. Where was the shooting? Who did I know in the area? Was anyone killed? Twitter is an amazing source for breaking news in the moment, but it's raw and unfiltered, and there's no way of knowing what's true. In my scrolling, I saw reports of multiple shooters spread across the area. I saw an alarming and seemingly authentic photo of a person lying prone in the parking lot of a grocery store I know well. I saw "At least a dozen down." As more reliable information trickled out, I watched aerial footage of a shirtless man with a bloody leg being led out of the store in handcuffs. The video panned as officers put the man gently on a stretcher. When I saw this video, I felt a surge of rage that I've rarely experienced. This man gunned down my friends and neighbors. The anger was so strong that I finally closed my laptop, resolving to leave it alone until an official report came through. I couldn't bear any more images of victims or killers. 

I walked out of the room in a daze, feeling as though I'd been injected with a powerful sedative — an exhausted mind's coping mechanism, I suppose. Beat mentioned that he'd marked us both as "safe" on Facebook, and I blinked in disbelief. Of course, messages from friends and family were already rolling in. As statistically unlikely as it is to become a victim in a mass shooting, even in this gun-loving country, the calculated and cold randomness makes the act particularly upsetting. Grocery stores are just about the only public indoor space I've visited in more than a year. King Soopers wasn't my main store, but I still dropped in from time to time, especially after a challenging run on one of my favorite segments up Shadow Canyon from South Mesa. Many of my local friends live in the vicinity. I wondered if anyone I knew was involved, and wouldn't be certain until the following morning. There were friends of friends, no one I knew personally, but still ... should that matter? Ten people were cut down simply for going about their daily lives, doing their jobs, just trying to get through another day. 

It could happen to anyone at any time. One of the worst things about it is that a seeming majority of public officials have decided it's not a problem worth bothering to fix. Let some madmen with guns kill a few dozen people. Let a virus kill a few hundred thousand. Who cares? Let's not summon even a modicum of goodwill and collective sacrifice to improve the wellbeing of millions. Now there are a hundred million Americans who are left to feel perpetually unsafe and apprehensive about going about their day-to-day lives, but that's okay because mask mandates and assault rifle bans would trample the teeth-bearing freedom of a few. 

"Should we just move somewhere?" Beat suggested whenever his question about what I planned to do with the day elicited an, "I don't know. I'm depressed." 

"Where is there to go? Everywhere has people," I responded. I was doing that thing where I daydreamed about building a remote cabin in Interior Alaska and saving up just enough money to pay a pilot to drop a year's worth of supplies every summer. I'd live out my days chopping wood, eating rice and lentils, reading books, and definitely not looking at Twitter. Ideally, I'd succumb to cold exposure before any real suffering endemic to old age got to me. There are a lot more details to this daydream. I spend too much time thinking about it, as I become more uncomfortable with the realities of being human in the modern world.

Beat suggested snowshoeing in Rocky Mountain National Park. He had a spontaneous day off on Friday, which also included a forecast for overcast skies, rain and 40 degrees in Estes Park. I was not inspired. But it's hard to say no to a day in the park, even when there were likely to be no views. We chose the Longs Peak trailhead mainly because it was likely to be uncrowded this time of year. Indeed, there were only three vehicles in the parking lot when we arrived. We met a ranger who politely asked whether we could straighten out our parked car to make room for the dozens of vehicles that would not be showing up that day, and a family from Oklahoma who asked for a photo, moved to pose in front of a pile of plowed snow, and then asked how to get to "the mountain with the restaurants and gift shop at the top." 

"Um, you mean Pikes Peak?" I asked.

"That's the one!" the man shouted.

"That's down near Colorado Springs ... more than two hours south of here."

"Oh. Well, then I guess we're lost."

You gotta love the national park. 

The sky was slate gray and graupel pelted the snowpack — the right weather to match my mood. We strapped on snowshoes and made our way up an increasingly faint ribbon of singletrack. Patches of sunshine glimmered on snow-covered tree branches. We continued climbing through the scrub pine and brush. The unobstructed views revealed a dramatic sky of dark cumulonimbus clouds billowing around intensely blue sucker holes — thundersnow weather. But we were lucky. The sucker hole seemed to hover directly overhead, bathing us in unexpected sunshine as snow squalls draped the surrounding mountains in mist.

Beat had woken up that morning feeling rough, and I was already thinking about devoting Saturday to a long fat bike ride that would demand as much energy as I could spare. But the call of those dramatic skies was too enticing. Beat, still the stronger hiker even at 50 percent power, continued breaking trail. I did my best to keep up as we picked our way across breakable wind crust and ankle-threatening minefields of hidden boulders. 

The snow squalls caught us near Granite Pass, 3,000 feet higher than the trailhead at 12,100 feet. In an instant, the balmy skies bore their teeth with bone-chilling wind and a brief whiteout. Beat bouldered his way up a rocky outcropping in snowshoes to "tag" a high point, then we turned around.

Within minutes, the squalls again retreated and brilliant sunshine returned. Beat's Ambient Weather app warned of thunderstorms in the near vicinity, and all of the surrounding skies looked ominous. It felt as though this sucker hole was reserved only for us. 

We stopped to coo at a snowy ptarmigan who had been scratching around this same spot an hour earlier. It seemed to have not a care in the world. Beat joked about adopting it since it would probably just let us reach out and grab it (not that we would, of course!) I wondered about the little bird's existence. Ptarmigans seem to have such a hard life, here near the bottom of the food chain in one of the harshest environments in the world, relying on camouflage because it can't afford to expend energy. And yet ... what a world in which to live. And what a triumph it is, to keep on living. 

Under the intense glare of the sucker hole, we stopped for one more gaze toward Longs Peak and Mount Meeker, now clear of the haze and towering over us in a majestic and seemingly eternal silence. The photos don't capture it at all, the feeling of standing in the midst of these mountains. Pure awe. No amount of effort or planning can conjure such a moment, either — luck, or providence, is still the driver of many of life's best moments. 

Earlier in the week, one of my ideas for beating the blues was to boost myself out of familiar environs and seek out some quality solo time. Solitude, in its own paradox, has a way of helping me escape my own head and move more instinctively through the present, like ptarmigan. An overnight camping trip to the Ark Valley seemed justifiable. I had an idea for a big bike loop that seemed unlikely to work out on the unknown conditions of snowmobile trails. But if it did, it was going to need as early a start as possible. I set an alarm for 3:45 a.m., to make room for a 3.5-hour drive. I was glad to have an excuse to do this. I am by no means a morning person — not even in the barest sense — but I love driving when I'm the only person on the road. The coffee was hot and abundant. The music was loud and elicited tears with every other song. The nearly full moon cast silver highlights across the snow-covered landscape. Sunrise over the Sawatch Mountains drew audible gasps. 

The trail reports for Tincup Pass were sparse. It had been groomed at some point in the past two weeks, but also received "16 inches of fresh." As soon as I hit the trail, I knew the snowfall was the most recent event. There had been some traffic but not the quality kind. The trail was still a mire of paddletrack churn and lumpy mashed potatoes only partially refrozen on this 9-degree morning. Also, it seemed about 2 inches of fresh snow had fallen overnight. Oh, and the route gains 2,200 feet in six miles. Okay, this would be a slog. Maybe, probably, I was unlikely to make it over the pass to drop into Taylor Park and loop around to Cottonwood Pass. But I'd driven all the way out here. At least I could try to reach the pass. 

I enjoyed about two miles where the trail was mostly rideable with about 1.5 psi in both tires and an incredible grunt of effort. (This photo is a flat section with a view. The trail was usually much steeper.) Since I'm more or less incapable of willing myself to sprint, only fat biking can access this depth of strain from my psyche ... because to simply move forward at all demands a zone 5, all-out effort. I'd pedal for about two minutes and rest, pedal two minutes, rest. Repeat ad nauseam. Since I don't often engage my limited capacity for high-end fitness, I rapidly lost steam. That's when the snowmobiles started passing me. There were many of them. They gunned their engines to power through the mash, hopelessly stirring up snow in the process. Moguls grew before my eyes. Climbing grades topped 10 percent. Now I had no choice but to push. Even this seemed a Herculean effort. My heart pounded. My vision blurred. I slumped over my handlebars, desperate to flush the lactic acid from my shoulders and lats. Four steps, rest. Four steps, rest. 

As the landscape opened up, snowmobiles spread out in all directions. Yeah, good riddance. I continued trying to trace the semblance of groomed trail beneath the night's fresh snow. When I failed, my body disappeared into powder stashes as deep as my waist. I had to leverage the bike to climb out of these holes. At least it was useful in that sense. A 30-pound ice ax. 

The final pitch to the pass skipped the summer road by a half-mile and shot straight up the slope. Grades topped 40 percent; I measured. I didn't want to hurt myself — a 30-pound ice ax isn't that useful — and I already knew I wouldn't travel beyond the pass. This was the most miserable thing I'd done to myself since I read all of the New York Times articles about the shooting and promptly quit opening the NYT home page ever since. But I did drag myself all the way up here, so I should at least see the pass. I ditched the bike at one of the last trees on the route (you can see it in this photo if you squint) and literally crawled up the pass, kicking steps and punching my thinly gloved hands into the snow for leverage. 

This is the view from Tincup Pass, along with the wind-drifted trail that promised continuous suffering for as long as a person could endure. It was intensely windy, as it always is on the Continental Divide. I wallowed through knee-deep drifts just long enough to take this photo when a snowmobile came racing up from behind. The man had spotted me crawling up the pass. 

"Are you okay?" he shouted.

"Fine," I said. "I left my bike down there. I'm turning around. I just wanted to see the view." 

I could see a look of bewilderment in his eyes through his lifted helmet visor. "Okay," he replied and spun around, disappearing as quickly as he arrived. Even the snowmobilers didn't want to be here. 

The descent was even worse than the climb. The day had warmed to a balmy 39 degrees, and the intense March sunlight decimated whatever was left of any kind of crust or walkable surface. While wallowing down a reasonably steep slope, I passed a snowboarder who was doing the same — even he couldn't get any glide through the morass of lumpy mashed potatoes. Snowmobiles passed me at close to walking speeds, wresting their machines up and down slushy moguls that had now grown a foot high. Grim. So grim. By the time I returned to my car, more than six hours had passed. I had "biked" a total of 12 miles. Of that, I only sat in the saddle for 2.5, almost all of that on the initial climb. I couldn't remember the last time I felt so beaten, so tired. 

I thought about turning the car around and going home. I hadn't come up with any better ideas for the trip, and I certainly didn't have the energy for anything else. I'd chatted with a friend about meeting up in Leadville on Sunday, but it already seemed unlikely she could come. Still ... I brought my bike out to this mean valley. I was going to ride my bike. Temperatures topped 50 degrees in Buena Vista ... Breakup is here ... but Leadville trails are usually reliable. 

I arrived in town around 3 p.m., parked my car in the Dutch Henry parking lot, and promptly fell asleep in the driver's seat. I woke up around 4 p.m. feeling awful — really awful, as though I'd come down with the flu. I stuffed down some crackers and slices of provolone cheese, eating three before I realized the cheese was actually quite moldy. O. M. G. Just get me out of this place. I stepped out of the car into a mire of mud, wrestled the bike out of the back, and maneuvered my surprisingly stiff body over the saddle. I bruised my left shin quite badly while postholing up to Bear Peak two weeks ago, and the Tincup bike wrestling had reignited the worst of the pain. My quads felt like they had been pounded with a meat tenderizer. My shoulders — ouch. Well. I came here to ride. Time was short, the days of winter numbered. Winter is already over. But the Mineral Belt Trail was surprisingly firm despite the heat. After three miles, I finally stopped to pump up my tires from their nearly flat status. The bike started to roll amazingly well. 

I even surprised myself by climbing all the way to 11,500 feet, near the cusp of treeline. It was such a nice evening. Skies were clear, the air was warm, the views were expansive, and the riding was demanding but doable. That's one thing endurance racing teaches you. There's always something in the tank, at least something. Whether or not it's worth it is the question. This was worth it. I rolled past the Ibex Mine site as a skier headed higher for a moonlight tour. I wanted to follow him, but the trail looked very steep, and I still needed to find a place to camp for the night. I vowed to return the following day. 

The moon rose as I descended the ever-fun Mineral Belt Trail. I wasn't in a position to get a great photo, but the contrast of subdued sunset light against the moon was stunning. 

I headed out to Turquoise Lake and found a great campsite near the shoreline. Although breezy near the dam, it was perfectly calm here. Moonlight reflected off the open expanse of snow in a way that resembled a surreal sort of midday — bright yet colorless. Temperatures again dipped into the single digits, but I'd brought a -40 bag to snuggle up in. I was as comfortable as I've been in the nicest beds. Mainly I was happy to rest my tired bones, even if I offset a day in the high-altitude sun with a half-gallon of water, and thus had to get up four times to step out into a surprisingly frigid night. 

The first hints of dawn arrived when the indigo sky turned violet.  I ignored it for about an hour until my bladder left me no choice. As I rolled away from camp, I noticed that somebody had groomed the trail overnight. It was pristine, perfect corduroy. Although I'd planned to return to East Leadville, the Turquoise Lake trail conditions were too good to pass up. 

I've walked and ridden around this loop in winter conditions four times now, and I know it to be a popular route with novice snowmobilers who like to gun their machines at random and tear holes into the trail, especially on a beautiful Sunday morning such as this. I knew the pristine corduroy wouldn't last, so I skipped morning coffee, stuffed down a piece of banana bread as breakfast, and set out within a half-hour of waking up. 

But the strangest thing happened, on a beautiful Sunday morning in Colorado. Nobody passed me. Not one person or machine, in more than two and a half hours. Silence reigned. Wheels rolled free, or at least as free as they could on the flattened remnants of snowmobile mash, warmed-over and refrozen. Resistance was still high, the work still hard, but the morning was incredible. The wide trail was forgiving; no thinking needed to happen. I slipped into flow and pedaled mindlessly, feeling only peace and yes, maybe some pain. At the top of an 800-foot climb, the wheels let loose and seemingly floated over the snow, making no noise as we coasted effortlessly toward the lake. I had called my fat bike many mean names the previous day. But here, on Turquoise Lake, all was forgiven. 

I wrapped up the ride around 10, and I was quite tired. But there's always something in the tank. I still wanted to return to the high country, and I hadn't yet had my morning coffee or a real breakfast, so perhaps I could combine the two. I packed up my stove, Cup Noodles, tuna, and two packets of instant coffee. With what felt like Herculean effort, I pedaled my bike up nearly 2,000 feet of steady elevation gain in four miles to reach the base of Ball Mountain at 12,000 feet.

It was windy up there; not really cooking weather. I had to stamp a three-foot-deep hovel into a tree well just to coax my stove to light. But I did boil enough water for Cup Noodles and a full camp pot of coffee, which I took for a hike to the top of Ball Mountain. 

The views up there were ... wow. This mountain may be diminutive compared to the 13ers of the Mosquito Range and the 14ers of the Sawatch Range that surround it, but the 360-degree vista cannot be topped. I stomped through intermittent bulletproof wind crust and knee-deep sugar to circle the perimeter of the broad summit. Variable surface conditions kept me on my toes, and it took quite a bit of coordination not to drop my coffee. I was amazed I managed this, but I do love my coffee.

I stood in the wind and traced hiking routes through the Mosquitos that I want to try this summer. Ridge walking for days! 

Maybe I could try it today! If only I had crampons and an ice ax. A better feel for the avalanche risk. A backpack in which to carry supplies. All right, I can't have it all. But I didn't want this magical weekend to end. 

 I decided to take my bike for a few more explorations south of the mining district. The problem is, I don't actually know the area and had no firm route in mind. Many of the roads on the map don't necessarily become snowmobile trails in the winter; in fact, they often don't line up. A trail I was certain existed simply wasn't there. I thought I'd find it under fresh wind-drifted snow, but instead, I wallowed up to my hips in virgin powder. I again had to use the bike as an ice ax to pull myself out of deep holes. I spent nearly an hour in this mire of pointless wallowing before I gave up and backtracked to Breece Hill. Still, I wanted more. 

I followed a well-tracked trail down a steep hill. It was marked with arrows, so I decided that meant it was one of the routes for the virtual races that Leadville's bike club sponsored, and it would definitely lead me back to Mineral Belt. I told myself the stories I wanted to believe were true. I followed the arrows up another steep hill, again climbing above 11,000 feet and into another drainage, and well ... duh. But I still thought it reasonable to lose another 700 feet on this trail, descending into a mire of ankle-deep Slurpee slush and finally mud because apparently, Leadville exists in this magical bubble of winter inside the Ark Valley banana belt. Finally, I arrived at a gate, where a woman was about to get into her truck. I asked her whether the road descended "to town." She looked confused, and I had to clarify, "Leadville." 

"You can't get to Leadville from here," she said with a kind apologetic tone. "I mean, you can. It would be okay to ride through the village. But it's ten miles to the highway, and then another 15 on the busy highway."

I did not believe her. But later I looked at a map, and what she said was true. This new drainage took me completely off course in the precise wrong direction. She suggested going back the way I came, and as much as I dreaded the slush slog and wet feet that were sure to ensue, I knew she was right. She suggested I try the "footpath" instead of the motor path I came in on. After 300 feet of climbing through soul-crushing mud — all too late in my opinion — I realized her recommended route was unbroken singletrack. It felt like it was 100 degrees under the afternoon sun. I was drenched in sweat as I slogged into what promised to be a hard hike through a half-mile of steep, knee-deep slush. 

While pushing, the coat dangling around my waist became lodged in the bike's cassette. Rage coursed through my blood and I stopped to compose myself. "Be patient, be patient," I chanted. I wanted to rip the entire thing apart, bike included, and may have found the adrenaline-charged strength to do so if I didn't will myself to be rational. It took at least 15 minutes to work the coat away from the cassette — the zipper being the linchpin. Meanwhile, slush soaked into everything I was wearing. Within minutes I was cold, but I didn't put the coat back on, because I had already worked so hard to stuff it into an overstuffed seat post bag. It was too much effort to remove. 

When I finally reached the "motor trail" that I rode in on, I had nothing left in the tank. I was sure of it. It was that moment in the adventure where you wonder if just sitting down in the snow and waiting to die might just be the way to go. I'd already had a little cry about the coat and seized-up wheel, before reminding myself that I was crying over a bike when hundreds of lives were irrevocably changed by the Boulder shooting, and don't these kinds of terrible things happen every damn day? No, get your sad self up and keep walking. Life is hard in its own ways for each and every one of us, but what a triumph it is, to keep on living.

Needless to say, I got my sad self up and completed the multiple climbs back to my car without further incident. I texted Beat to tell him my adventure went, you know, a little long, as Jill adventures usually do. But I was on my way home. The day was ending. Evening drenched the mountains in magic light as I listened to music and cried for every other song, mostly from happiness and nostalgia, this time. 

Sunset kept getting better as I drove east toward the high winds across the Divide and the alarmingly large moon rising over the mountains. Life as a human in the modern world can be sad and full of drudgery. But then sometimes, in the midst of these low moments, the universe returns with a barrage of magic so astounding you can scarcely breathe.