I’m gonna make it to the place I need to go

Connecting the disparate cities of McGrath, Alaska, and Boulder, Colorado, in this tumultuous post-COVID era proved to be something of an ordeal. A lodge/coffee shop marked the finish line of the Iditarod Trail Invitational 350. The place was nice but disorienting — just so crowded, overflowing with bikes and constant activity. I arrived just after sunset on a Friday evening and set up a nest behind the coffee bar, only to be kicked out as the barista fired up the coffee grinder early the next morning (that I did not see this coming speaks to how befuddled I was after the race.) 

That's the Dalzell Gorge down there!

I couldn’t secure a spot on a charter plane until Sunday evening, which gave me time to hang around the lodge, drink coffee, put my head back together, and watch Beat efficiently check in and out on his way to Nome. I shared a six-seater plane with Forest, Jason, Jenny, and two pilots. The one-hour trip was the most gorgeous flight I’ve experienced, right at sunset and directly over the trail we’d just spent five-plus days traversing. 

There's Shell Lake! And Denali and Foraker!

Unfortunately, our bikes couldn’t find flights out until the Wednesday cargo run. Fur Rondy was in full swing and the last available hotel rooms in Anchorage were running $300 a night. Luckily, I’d spent quite a bit of trail time with a local woman named Bobbette, who offered to let me stay at her house even though she and her husband were actively packing to move to Ketchikan two weeks later. My four days in Anchorage were surreal. I seemed to be experiencing March 2020 all over again — but in reverse. I went for painful yet relaxing jogs along the snow-packed yet oddly congested Coastal Trail. I shared indoor space with people I’d only just met. We laughed over dinners and met friends at crowded restaurants that were all of the last restaurants I visited before the pandemic closed everything down. It felt so similar, but instead of shutting down, life was opening up again. It was as though the past two years never happened. It was all too normal. It was strange. 

Betsy on Niwot Ridge. It was a fun day bookended by difficult nights, and it a bit alarming how little of this hike I remember.

I finally made it home after 2 a.m. Friday, just under a week since I pedaled into McGrath. It had recently snowed and the roads were lined with deep snow berms. This is exactly what my return from Alaska looked like in 2020, except the airport and streets were no longer abandoned, but rather overcrowded, pulsing with anti-masker frustration and road rage. What was the same, though, is that I felt overtaxed and a little culture-shocked. Cognitive dissonance rang in my ears as I collapsed in bed and cried for more than an hour. I’m more of a crier than I used to be; when I really need an emotional release, tears just come out. 

But the emotional outburst seemed to sap the rest of my energy. I couldn’t find my bearings for days. Without looking at the records I keep — Strava, mostly, and other snippets of social media — I couldn’t really recall one thing I did that entire week. According to the records, I had good moments. I hiked Niwot Ridge with my friend Betsy. I tried to relaunch my running, but the toe I likely rebroke during the ITI caused too much agony. I also know I spent a lot of time reading about the war in Ukraine and refreshing Trackleaders to see where Beat was on the Iditarod Trail. I felt isolated in my house. 

Sunrise on March 16

My anxiety clamped down to an unmanageable degree. My one, unqualified memory from that week — one that I didn’t reboot by looking back through records — is lying in bed with every muscle clenched as my heart raced,  hyperventilating and looking at my hands as they shook. Panic attack. It happened more than once. 

Why is my anxiety so bad some days? It’s difficult to pin down, although I think it may partly be a reaction to the typical ebbs of middle age. There’s also likely a role from Graves Disease and the hormonal disruptions that caused even though I was able to bring my thyroid levels back to normal range. My breathing is still strained sometimes, and this is an instant anxiety trigger. 

Sunset on March 19 in a different world.

There’s also the reality of the modern age, this all-too-knowable Hellscape of war, cultural degradation, and climate change, that weighs heavily on my mind. I acknowledge that my personal position is deeply privileged and I am grateful and happy with most aspects of my life. But I mourn, every day, for the ongoing changes in this beautiful world and the fact that we humans — mean, selfish creatures that we are — are the ones in charge. I also mourn for human suffering. I can’t really help it. Most of my loved ones tell me to look away, stop reading the news, stop Doomscrolling, but I don’t see how my ignorance of important truths will change their truthiness. I also had a falling out with my last therapist that has left me leery of therapy. In short, the therapist was not all that helpful after my Dad died. Also, if I have to hear “be kind to yourself” one more time … (I’m all about self-care, no doubt, but how is this going to do anything for existential despair? It’s like handing someone a bandaid when the bleeding is internal.) 

Photo by Corrine Leistikow

I believe my March panic attacks were spurred by an irrational fear that I was going to lose Beat, which is less irrational when you take into account he was engaged in a reasonably dangerous activity far away in Alaska.  If I had access to medication during these episodes, I absolutely would have taken it, but I’ll be completely honest — I’m so leery about meds and their side effects that I’m unlikely to seek them out during more stable times, which means they’re not available when I destabilize. I will say that right now — mid-April — my mindset has been great, and I can’t recall why I was so upset last month. There’s always the hope that my brain will stay “cured,” but I should know better by now. I do have one coping mechanism that nearly always works, though — walking. 

Another portrait by Corrine

While I love other modes of traveling through the world, there’s nothing quite as meditative as moving my body in the most natural, sustainable way of all. During my difficult week at home, I thought about an offer from my Fairbanks friends Corrine and Eric, who had rented several cabins in the White Mountains over the weekend to celebrate their combined March birthdays. The White Mountains are one of my favorite places in the world. They’re also quite far from my home, and an expensive trip no less. But as I looked at a calendar and mulled the logistics, I thought … I could do that. Corrine and Eric were biking the classic 100-mile loop over four days. They thought I would want to ride my bike too. At first, I made excuses — I’d been through a small amount of hell trying to bring my bike back from McGrath and wasn't keen to box up that beast again. Then Corrine found a friend willing to lend me her bike, so I had to be truthful — really, I’d rather just walk. 

Corrine reminded me that there would be long days. One day was close to 35 miles. 

 “Even better,” I thought. 

 Corrine expressed concern for the semi-broken toe I had been complaining about. 

 “Why would I care about my toe?” I thought. 

Here's one where I fell off the trail while darting out of the way of my own friends like a frightened squirrel. 

 

It didn’t take me long to throw my sled gear together. Much of it was still in a pile from our Christmas trip. I’d dragged a sled all of … 40? … miles during that trip, which was my total sled training for the season. I was still fewer than two weeks removed from cycling the Iditarod Trail and reasonably fatigued from that effort. My legs were still sore and covered in bruises from a multitude of crashes during the race. There were almost endless reasons to consider this trip a bad idea, but as my flight descended into Fairbanks, I caught a song on my iPod that filled my heart with warm fuzzy assurance. Appropriately enough, the lyrics spoke to displacement and desolation — “I Don’t Live Here Anymore” by War on Drugs. 

 I’m gonna say everything I need to say 

Although you’ve taken everything I need away 

I’m gonna make it to the place I need to go. 

We’re all just walking through this darkness on our own. 

 In town I purchased at least six days’ of supplies (for a four-day trip, mind you) and spent the afternoon fumbling with sled assembly, repacking my gear, and practicing the sled-drag in my T-shirt in 25-degree weather. Corrine and Eric loaned me their car so I could get an early start the following day. The drive along the Elliot Highway was still bumpy and icy from the Christmas ice storm that wrecked our December trips. But it was bright now, glaringly bright, and springtime warm as I pulled into the Wickersham Dome at 9 a.m. 

Feeling small in big places among the matchstick forest — this to me is the whole, simple yet infinitely complex experience of walking through the Whites.

 

What is it about the White Mountains that I love so much? In a dozen years, I’ve logged close to 20 different trips, including seven finishes of the classic 100-mile loop during the White Mountains 100. I’d guess my total mileage on bike and foot in these mountains is well over 1,500. I’ve never even lived in Fairbanks. I’d barely given the region even a passing thought when an acquaintance emailed me about a new race he was organizing, about two weeks before the event, in March 2010. 

 “Everyone on the roster is from Anchorage and Fairbanks,” Ed wrote. “We need at least one from Juneau.” 

The shadowy limestone jags above Fossil Creek

 

I was technically a Juneau resident at the time, but I already had one foot in the door. I’d put in a two-week notice at my newspaper job and secured a temporary spot to live in Anchorage while I figured out my next step. I was still reeling from the dissolution of a long-term relationship nine months earlier and resolved to make big changes in my life. I was going to leave this rainy, isolated place, and I was definitely going to quit endurance racing, the source — I was convinced — of all of my woes. All of the time, all of the energy, so much useless striving. 

 Still, Ed’s offer was intriguing. With almost no training behind me, I signed up for 100 miles on a bike and recruited a Juneau friend to make the road trip to Fairbanks. We put his old Subaru on the ferry to Haines and spent two days driving across the Yukon and eastern Alaska. He had all of one cassette tape to play on repeat for 12 hours, but at least the weather was blessedly clear. We spent a night in a tent on the frozen Slims River near Kluane Lake, huddled in sleeping bags and listening to wolves howling through the 15-below night. He basically dumped me at Ed’s house — a melodramatic relationship story in itself — and Ed shuttled me to the start of his race, giggling as the outdoor temperature dipped to minus 20 along the Chatanika River. 

Near Moose Creek during my first White Mountains 100 in 2010 — so young, so innocent.

The 2010 White Mountains 100 handed me my own ass on a frozen platter. I dragged my Surly Puglsey through wind drifts and glare ice, across bumpy aufeis that seemed to go on for miles, into fierce headwinds, over the Cache Mountain Divide and into the breathtaking chill of Beaver Creek, where it was 25 below. In my desperation to reach the cabin, I ignored the deepening chill. My fingers tingled and my entire butt had gone numb. Borealis cabin, the 80-mile checkpoint, was packed to the brim and had become something of a triage center for other frozen racers. I lingered but still got myself out of there, up the brutal pitch of the Wickersham Wall, and to the finish line some 22 hours later. I was completely crushed. And I was … in love? 

Twelve years later, as I started up the now-familiar climb rising to the top of Wickersham Dome, my heart filled with this strange yet nourishing emotion. I felt peace, complete and uncomplicated, even as my body balked at the strain — wait, we’re doing this again? Yes, my mind replied. Shut up and sing me to sleep. 

I was lying in my bed 

A creature void of form 

Been so afraid of everything 

I need a chance to be reborn 

The first day of the trip was fairly uneventful, and in that way perfect. Temperatures hovered in the 20s and the brilliant near-equinox sun let me walk in my base layer for much of it. I slipped into a meditative flow and thought of little beyond each moment as it passed. If another trail user passed, the sudden disruption was so jarring that I usually plunged off the trail into waist-deep snow, including when Corrine and Eric passed on their bikes near mile 11. 

Crowberry cabin

But I quickly slipped back into flow state. There were lots of hills and my sled was unconscionably heavy, but it was all a small price to pay for this uncomplicated state of mind. I did strive to make good progress to Crowberry cabin, and despite the difficulties managed to maintain a 3 mph pace for 25 miles. Corrine and Eric had already been there several hours and completed all of the camp chores — gathering and sawing wood, melting snow, even knocking down the poopsicle in the outhouse. They would tease me about choosing to walk just so I could get out of helping with camp chores. This was a justified complaint. I wanted to do my share, really I did, but I will admit it was nice to simply walk all day and arrive at a warm cabin where all I had to do was inflate my sleeping pad and fire up my stove. We’d share stories, read the cabin log, recite the dad jokes from our dinner packets, heat water for hot chocolate and crawl into our bunks at a blissfully early hour. It was, for me, the perfect trip: I had all of the solitude I craved during the day, and good company to share each evening. 

 The next day was going to be a long one: 34 miles and 3,000 feet of climbing up and over the Cache Mountain Divide. I guessed the distance would take 14 hours and started at sunrise. The morning was gray and breezy. I did not feel strong. The previous day’s effort weighed heavily on my legs. My hips and hamstrings were sore from lack of conditioning. It was enough to tip my mind-body balance farther to the body side, and I spent more time ruminating on fatigue and pain. My sled shoved me down the steep descent into Beaver Creek and I managed to wrench my knee as well. 

 When Corrine and Eric passed I tried to put on a brave face, but there was an element of “oh shit, what have I gotten myself into?” The slog up the Divide was admittedly, just that. The sled seemed to have gained a hundred pounds overnight. The trail, while still well packed, was coated in a layer of spindrift that was weirdly slippery. Patches of sunlight occasionally broke through the cloud layer, casting silver light on the mountain tops. It was still incredibly beautiful. I reminded myself of this continually while my legs balked, and I’d stop for a break that I justified by taking photos. 

 I was almost in tears near the summit, though. The stiff breeze had strengthened to near gale force. Similar to my ride into Borealis all of those years ago, I’d neglected to put on more layers, reasoning I was almost there, almost there — and then suddenly I was wracked with shivering. I stopped, turned away from the wind, and added my thick fleece knee warmers, overboots, and a windproof fleece jacket, but the mild hypothermia persisted even when I started moving again. I’d let my core temperature drop too much — I know better by now. But I will admit, the White Mountains have become something of a distant home for me, a place of peace and to a certain degree, security. They’re familiar, and familiarity breeds complacency. But the White Mountains are still very much a real place, very much a wilderness of the Far North, and very much indifferent to my existence, no matter how much I love them back. 

 There was little I could do at this point but keep moving and hope I found my way to wind protection soon. I knew I wouldn’t find it until the far end of the Ice Lakes, a series of swamps that often hold glare ice. I remembered it being about a mile from the top of the pass to the forested slopes below the Ice Lakes. In reality, it was closer to five miles. It felt like 50. The gale blasted cold powder in my face as I skittered across icy patches, appealing to the universe to please not let me fall on my throbbing knee or my sore hips. My toe, my stupid toe, probably hurt most of all. 

 Finally, the trail crossed back into the relative protection of trees. After nearly three hours of feeling uncomfortably cold — never in danger, but certainly not happy — my shoulders finally began to settle. I hadn’t shivered the entire time, but my upper body still felt stiff from the aggressive motion. In the distance, the icy atmosphere refracted sunlight, creating vertical rainbows. 

The surrounding mountains were still shrouded in clouds, but through the mist, the setting sun cast unique shades of lavender and pink. It was so beautiful, and since I wasn’t cold anymore, I was perfectly content. All of the walking I’d done that day no longer registered in my brain. My legs were still invested in carrying me out of the cold, so they didn’t complain. Even my toe calmed down.

 Time surrounds me like an ocean 

My memory like waves 

Is life just dying in slow motion? 

Or getting stronger every day? 

Photo by Corrine Leistikow

I nearly beat the darkness to Windy Gap cabin, but I did need my headlamp for the last mile. Corrine met me outside and said something about how long it took me to get there. “I still took less than 14 hours,” I retorted — it had been 13 hours and 39 minutes since I left Crowberry. My pace-guessing skills were actually spot on. She clarified that yes, I made good time, but I will admit that I did feel some inadequacy as a walker. Corrine talked about the difficult day that took them seven hours — they also struggled with the headwind. I felt fairly toasted and probably could have passed out right there, but I was glad to enjoy another social evening of bagged dinners and fun conversation. 

Windy Gap cabin

The wind raged through the night — Windy Gap earns its name — and we woke up to an ongoing gale and a temperature of 10 below. I was trying to get another slightly early start and sat on the porch to heat water for coffee since my stove (MSR XGK) sounds like a jumbo jet about to take off. (Corrine and Eric were content to use the propane canisters left behind by previous occupants, but honestly I just wanted to use up my heavy fuel.) It was actually sort of fun to sit outside in this fearsome weather and watch sunlight spread across the limestone cliffs that surround this canyon. 

The wind had shifted enough to become a strong down-canyon tailwind. For the first mile, the trail followed Fossil Creek over a long ribbon of glare ice. I didn’t have great traction from my shoes and had to skitter while my sled bucked and wove. I couldn't generate much heat at this pace, so my shoulders began to quake again. I realized how sore they were from so much shivering the previous day because this motion hurt quite a lot. Ugh. I had started out wearing most of my layers because 10 below with windchill is not warm. But I couldn’t move any faster on the ice. 

 A big climb out of the drainage — a recent trail reroute to avoid the glare ice and overflow of Fossil Creek — was a welcome respite. Rich morning light enhanced a panoramic view of the mountains. The surrounding hillside was sculpted with sastrugi, itself a compelling work of art. Corrine and Eric passed and again I was alone, drifting back into flow state, the miles slipping away as effortlessly as water. 

 It was a 20-mile day to Borealis cabin, the classic triage center and final checkpoint of the White Mountains 100. On this day we were all there fairly early and had lots of daylight to burn. The afternoon had become warm enough for outside T-shirts, at least if you could stay out of the wind. I smiled at the memory of a single piece of advice longtime Fairbanks resident Jeff Oatley gave me before the 2010 race — “It’s always cold on Beaver Creek. If you’re cold at Borealis, keep going.” And to be fair, I don’t think I’ve ever had a White Mountains experience where this has not been true. 

 Sure enough, the temperature plummeted after sunset. By 2 a.m., it was 20 below. I wandered outside and caught a glimpse of the Northern Lights. They were faint, though, not easily photographed. I wanted to hold out for a better display, but even in my expedition park and puffy pants, I started shivering. I was pretty much done with shivering, so I went back inside. By morning the temperature had dropped to 30 below. Eric managed to keep the cabin warm by restocking the woodstove all night long. I have a sleeping bag that’s comfortable at 40 below, so left to my own devices I wouldn’t have made this effort, but I won’t deny it was a nice service. 

I took off only about an hour before Corrine and Eric on this day — I wasn’t in the biggest of hurries. The temperature held below zero but the wind had calmed. Frost collected on my face but I was finally warm. Peace returned. My legs had locked into forever mode, and I was eager to keep walking. I was a little bummed the trip was ending but hopeful I’d see Beat soon. Beat had been making his way along the Bering Sea coast while I was in the White Mountains. The day I left was the day he had to cross the sea ice — nearly 50 miles of absolute exposure in 35-45 mph winds and temperatures well below zero. An experienced skier who crossed paths with Beat in the opposite direction called this day the most exposed he's ever felt, and this man has climbed remote 5,000-meter peaks in Canada. 

Strangely, I did not fret all that much about Beat once I was out on the trail myself, even though his tracker apparently stopped working at the worst possible time and I was barraged with messages from worried friends and family (I would not see any of these messages until later.) It’s not like I had less reason to worry. It is strange, the way our brains operate in perplexing and often useless ways. Indeed, as soon as I climbed up the Wickersham Wall — which was not nearly as brutal as I remembered, even though my sled had lost hardly a pound since day one — I caught a glimmer of cell phone reception and switched it on. And just like that, all of my flow came crashing down. The security company called because my home alarm had been triggered two days earlier. My mother-in-law was frightened because Beat's tracker had stopped working for a while. Now Beat’s tracker showed he was on the move from White Mountain, less than 80 miles from the finish. But my flight to Nome the following day had been canceled. And the war in Ukraine. And Twitter. 

Chatting with Eric, with the Wickersham Wall in the distance. Photo by Corrine

And what was I doing? I was still walking, still traversing the gorgeous ridgeline of the Wickersham Dome, still surrounded by an expanse of valleys and domes rippling across every horizon, and my nose was buried in my stupid phone. 

 Oh, White Mountains, I’m sorry. I am human and flawed. Can you forgive me? 

 I never took our love for granted 

You never left me wanting more 

But you’d never recognize me, babe. 

I don’t live here anymore. 

Doubtlessly I’ll be back — when winter solstice comes around again and these sun-drenched hills are again cast in muted lavender light. I don’t live here; I’ve never lived here. But in these brief connections, I never fail to find lasting grace.

And the world, still so wild, called to me

In March I had some incredible experiences in Alaska and intended to write them down, but it’s hard to pick up a lapsed habit. My writing has slowed to the edge of nonexistence since last June; even social media has become a struggle in concentration. Often I think I shouldn't force it and instead pick up an entirely different creative outlet, like music (doubtlessly I'd drive Beat crazy with an instrument I can barely play, but they make keyboards with headphones, right? I haven't played since I was 18.) Still, I do want to renew my writing practice, even if it’s just a daily gratitude journal. But I also intend to continue irregular blogging, if only to prevent months and then years of experiences from slipping into the fuzzy confines of memory. So I figured I’d record my latest adventure and work my way backward from there. 

 Beat and I had been home from Alaska less than 24 hours when the evacuation orders began. He wasn’t even four days removed from the Iditarod Trail, where he won the 1,000-mile foot race in his sixth and fastest finish to Nome in the sixth fastest foot time ever recorded on the route — 22 days, 22 hours, and 42 minutes — on March 22, 2022, no less. I went to excessive lengths to meet him there, including returning to Denver from Alaska shortly after finishing my race (my original plan) and then flying back less than a week later. But in the end, a single flight was canceled and I couldn’t get to Nome in time. Beat finished his journey just as my rebooked flight was descending into Anchorage from Fairbanks. He was mere seconds away from the burled arch when flight attendants insisted I stow my laptop and I couldn't refresh the Nome Cam any longer. I missed it. I’d see him in Nome that night, and for the next two days as he ate and slept while I wandered along the edge of the frozen sea and wondered what was real and what was a dream. 

Two days after the fire, snow and frost returned. The mist wafting from the dry ground looked like smoke. It was especially beautiful because it was not.

 We returned to Denver on March 25, with Beat still very much in a daze and me deciding that yes, the past month was probably all a dream. The following morning I set out for a trail run, unacclimated to both spring and altitude and wilting in the 75-degree heat. I’d barely cooled off and opened up my daily dose of Hellscape (Twitter) when I caught news of a fire in the open space west of Boulder. Winds were gusting to 50 mph and humidity was in the single digits. Echoes of the Dec. 30 Marshall Fire rang in my head, and sure enough, within the hour nearly all of South Boulder had evacuated. Things looked grim enough, but then the winds shifted from north to northeast, and suddenly Eldorado Canyon was in danger. It wouldn’t take a lot for flames to race up the canyon toward us. And sure enough, our neighborhood ended up on the edge of the evacuation zone. Beat and I hadn’t even unpacked our Alaska bags yet. We had to grab items to repack into wildfire escape bags. 

I don’t have words to describe how much I dread the coming summer. I used to feel about summer the way I imagine most people feel about winter. I'm heat-sensitive, fair-skinned, and allergic to many types of pollen and bug bites. For me, summer used to mean a few months of discomfort and more preparation when it came time to recreate outside. (Seriously; I can just throw on a shirt, tights, hat and gloves for a two-hour run when it’s 25 degrees. If it’s 90, I need a backpack with 2-3 liters of ice water, sun sleeves for arms and legs, full neck covering, sunscreen, sunglasses, allergy medication, bug spray, blah blah, etc.) 

That was all fine when it was all there was to it. But these days, I can’t help but view summer as an approaching apocalypse. Will the air fill with wildfire smoke and trip my asthma in a way that leaves me fearing for my life when I’m hours from help? (This happened to me in Utah in August 2021.) Will all of the public land surrounding me be closed for weeks? (This happened in Boulder County in October 2020.) Will my house burn to the ground? The fact that this region has already seen one catastrophic fire and one (now two!) near-misses in a season that effectively counts as winter does not inspire confidence that summer won’t be a disaster. 

 It is heartening that the NCAR Fire was a near-miss. Having learned a hard lesson from the Marshall Fire, the mobilization of firefighting resources was quick and extensive. Air tankers arrived from Texas and firefighters on the ground attacked the advancing flames, preventing them from consuming nearby neighborhoods. The shifting winds were also a blessing, even if they made for an anxious few hours for those of us in the western foothills. When another fire erupted in a similar spot one week later, everyone in the county collectively wondered if this is just what life is now — choking on smoke amid a year-round fire season, packing our go-bags in backpacks in case the flames advance so quickly that we need to escape on foot. 

 All of this is to say that I was already near my anxiety tipping point earlier in March, and in one hazy swoop, this fire undid all of the good meditative work I’d managed by racking up Alaska Air miles and dragging a sled for 100 miles around the White Mountains north of Fairbanks. I recognize that I need to find more sustainable coping mechanisms than expensive travel and physically draining endurance efforts, but I immediately looked toward a potential chaser for early April. I’d been wanting to visit my Mom, so what could I do in Utah? 

The White Rim: 100 miles of rugged jeep roads around the perimeter of Island in the Sky in Canyonlands National Park. It’s become a popular multi-day route for mountain bikers, as well as a single-day blitz for racer types. I’ve never fully understood the urge to ride this route as fast as possible, even though I understand the thrill of racing. It’s just that White Rim is so difficult to access to begin with, and it’s so gorgeous. Why travel all the way there just to stare at the ground the entire time? (And don’t tell me this isn’t what you’re doing when you’re trying to pedal semi-technical rocky and sandy terrain as fast as possible.) For this reason, I only tried to ride the route in a day once, as part of a three-day trip along the Kokopelli Trail and then White Rim while I was training for the Tour Divide in 2009. I ran out of water and had a terrible experience. Perhaps that’s the actual reason I’ve embraced multi-day tours ever since. 

I do love the White Rim, and logistically one day is the simplest way to experience it. The permit is easy to obtain and you don't need to plan and pack days' worth of water and food. My post-Alaska endurance was solid and it seemed a shame not to use it before the pollen and smoke of summer whisk all of my fitness away. My experience on the Iditarod Trail proved I could manage long days in the saddle without debilitating back pain, although I’d still need to carry a lot of water for 100 miles of pedaling in the desert with only winter conditioning behind me. As I drove west on March 31, another brilliant idea struck. I’d probably have enough time to hike down to the rim from Island in the Sky that evening. 

I purchased two 1.5-liter bottles of water from a gas station and arrived at Gooseberry trailhead just before 5 p.m. The weather on the rim was somewhat harrowing — fierce wind, rain, even a little sleet. It was 37 degrees. I was still banking on perfect weather for April 1 — indeed, the Moab forecast called for lows around freezing and a high of a mere 65 degrees under clear skies. In weather like that, I wouldn’t even need the 6-7 liters of water I’d planned for, but I am far too frightened of the desert to give it any benefit of the doubt. The effort to cache three liters on my route was a decent grunt, though, descending more than 1,500 feet in just a mile while switchbacking along a precipitous cliff that looks vertical from afar. 

I trudged another mile and a half down a sandy wash until I reached the road, then found a nice rock outcropping that I’d doubtlessly recognize, but also marked a GPS waypoint and took a bunch of photos just in case because, again, the desert deserves the height of doubt. A couple of jeeps drove past just after I hid my cache. I smiled and waved as the passengers gawked at me like I was an alien beamed down from above. It was an hour before sunset and I was dozens of miles from the nearest exit point on the road. If you didn’t know about the hiking trails from the rim, you’d probably assume hikers down here were very lost. 

I barely slept at camp that night. I was so excited. At one point I stumbled out of the tent in my sock feet to marvel at the night sky, the stars upon stars and the swirling Milky Way, rendered in that startling clarity I have only witnessed in the desert. As I made my way back I managed to step directly on a tent stake, all but impaling my foot. The cut wasn’t deep but it did bleed, and for the next week, a deep bruise burned with pain, similar to having a sharp rock in my shoe that I couldn’t remove. Well. It just wouldn’t be a proper Jill adventure if everything about it was perfect. 

 Of course, I finally managed to fall asleep just before my 5 a.m. alarm buzzed. The morning was deeply cold, well below freezing. I stuffed hand warmers in both shoes and mittens even as I packed four liters of liquid fear in my bike bags. Ah, the desert, the simultaneously frozen and thirsty land. Coffee and oatmeal boosted me forward, although my legs were wobbly at first. I hadn’t really been back on a bike since I left the Iditarod Trail in McGrath, what was it, three weeks ago? Four? Did it even happen? 

My stake-impaled foot burned and my cold leg muscles balked, but eventually, I got the pedals turning. Soon I was flying down Mineral Bottom Road, the stars upon stars burning overhead, singing at the top of my lungs to “Wild” by Spoon. 

And the world, still so wild, called to me. 

I was lost, I’d been kept on my knees.

I plummeted toward the Green River just as the first golden strips of light crept down the canyon walls. It would be a few more hours before the morning warmed enough to remove my puffy jacket, but I was already sucking down water because, well, I had a lot to consume. I crossed the national park boundary at mile 20, finally beginning to feel warmed up. The road along the Green River is narrow and sandy, undulating with short but steep pitches in and out of washes. I watched my power meter regularly spike above 300 watts, but then my legs said no more of that, and I had to walk on my sore foot. 

Still, I felt nothing but pure, exhilarating joy. I was riding my bike in a place that I loved. There was no agenda. There was nothing to fear. There was only motion and breath, time and space — the simplest, purest way to be. The long, undulating climb toward Murphy’s Hogback took me deeper into this flow, reflecting on the ethereal nature of time and space. Here, time seemed to slow, stop, and bend back upon itself. I was a terrestrial body existing in this space, but what if it could simultaneously be another time? I remembered the stories my father told me as a child, about riding his motorcycle around the White Rim with his father and brothers. My imagination conjured a vivid image of this space in 1985, my father as a young man, my grandfather in his prime. Dad was smiling, that brilliant, heart-breaking smile. His hair was a wild mop of blond as he removed that ridiculous thrift-store helmet he used to wear. Dust settled around the knobby tires of their Honda dirt bikes as my grandfather and uncles pulled up beside him. They were laughing. They were so happy. My heart swelled as I imagined this, as though these were my memories, as though we were here together. Right here, right now. 

 “He was here, and all that’s separating us is time,” I thought. “That’s all. Thirty-something years. It’s most of my life so far, but relative to the timeline of the universe, it’s simultaneous.” 

The more I envisioned myself as an infinitesimal speck swirling through infinite space, the more I marveled at the incredible chance that I should end up as a human in this world with the father that I had. My heart swelled with gratitude, and then the fearsome final pitch of the Hogback jolted me back to reality. The final climb to Murphy's is one mile of truly impossible grades, but the racer-types can clean the Hogback, so maybe I could. I laid my sore foot into the pedal and spiked my power meter to 300 watts, 400 watts, higher than I can even go on my trainer when I’m trying to win a virtual sprint. My swelling heart all but exploded, my vision when dark, and I practically toppled over before I gave into my truth and put a foot down.

The remaining push was more grueling than I remembered, and I felt fairly toasted at the top of the Hogback, just 50 miles into my 100-mile ride. I limped to a campsite outhouse and then toppled next to my bike, checking my shoe just in case there was a real rock in there (nope, still just an open wound.)

“Way to burn all your matches early,” I thought with a smirk, but I wasn’t worried. I had drinking water. I had trail mix. I had the otherworldly red cliffs and deep blue sky and shimmering ribbon of the Green River far below. I had time. I had an overabundance of time. And while none of us know how much time we ultimately have, I can tell myself a story about the fluidity of time and almost feel free of it, almost believe I’m motorcycling with my father in 1985, separated only by a thin veil of consciousness. 

Murphy’s dipped into a few more rollers before flattening out to a line that traces to the true edge of the White Rim, skirting mere feet from sheer cliffs along a sandstone bench that can be difficult to navigate. Afternoon had arrived and I began to see other humans, mainly unladen mountain bikers traveling with vehicles, and a few independent jeeps. I was a little annoyed at the broken solitude. My long morning reverie faded and I couldn’t quite retain my gorgeous fantasies, but perhaps that was fatigue setting in as well. The temperature stayed comfortable, even cool with a stiff breeze out of the north. I came upon the Boulder group of five traveling clockwise, including Beat’s co-worker Dale. They had the same idea as me the previous day, to hike water in from the rim, which is how I knew they were going to be out here. I asked Dale if they found their cache. 

 “Yeah, but all we needed was the beer,” he said. 

Both of our water fears had been unfounded. The desert was going to allow easy passage today. Of course, 100 miles on a mountain bike is never truly easy, thus the wisdom of stashing beer. 

 I located the cache at mile 66. My ongoing flow had been so satisfying that I felt reluctant to stop pedaling and hike up to the rocks where I’d left my water, but of course, I wasn’t going to leave plastic bottles as trash. I sat beside the rock outcropping and tried to guzzle as much as I could because I didn’t want to waste this hard-earned fluid but I also didn’t want to carry it out. I laughed about my human fragility that drove me to cache my fears, even in my own body. Soon my stomach was heavy with sloshing liquid. That didn’t seem great either, but I wasn’t worried. For the first time in seeming months, I was entirely free of pain. 

Still, my legs continued to become more sluggish for the rolling climbs to Shafer, which culminate in a grueling grunt of a three-mile climb that starts at mile 90. The road switchbacks up another impossible cliff, not unlike the Island in the Sky hiking trails, necessitating double-digit grades for most of the climb. It’s so narrow and precipitous that if you were in a vehicle you’d probably believe you were about to plunge off the edge — at least this is what I’d believe. On a bike, all you feel is the up, seemingly endless up. 

I no longer had the oomph for 400 watts, but at the same time, I didn’t feel pain. Sure, my legs were heavy, and I still hadn’t expelled all of the excess water that was now causing serious bloat, but my back didn’t hurt. This was a revelation because my back hurt a fair amount on the Iditarod Trail, and I hadn’t tested it since. It was as though I was being carried through my own imagination, as though this reality was actually a story I was telling myself — all beauty, no pain. 

And then I was on the rim, with the snow-capped La Sals framing an expansive horizon, and the sun-drenched red mesa of Island in the Sky stretched out in front of me. It was still before 5 p.m., which meant I was going to wrap up my ride in less than 12 hours. To be clear, this is still about double the record. But it was quite a bit less time than I was expecting, given I’d planned to ride comfortable and take a bunch of photos — which, with the exception of my failed effort to clean Murphy’s Hogback, is pretty much what I did. It had been a full, satisfying 12 hours, but it had also been a blip, an instantaneous flash, and it was already over. Time. What even is time? 

I arrived back at camp with plenty of daylight to spare. I was almost disappointed, as I’d looked forward to bookends of stars upon stars. I was beyond grateful that I’d embarked on this adventure, that the universe saw fit to make April Fools Day the most perfect day possible, and that my body cooperated with the wild machinations of my mind. If the desert can be gracious, perhaps summer can pass in peace as well. Of course, the anxiety didn’t end for me, it never does, but a more expansive perspective is always a good thing.

Making plans in the sand as the tides roll in

I am having a February. I think many people in the Northern Latitudes will agree that February is a most gloomy month, depicted well in the movie “Groundhog Day” and summed up by Bill Murray as Phil Connors: “It’s gonna be cold, it’s gonna be gray, and it’s gonna last you for the rest of your life.” 

Even though I personally love winter weather, and even though I live in Colorado which is glaringly sunny about 96 percent of the time, and even though it’s finally snowing again after too many tinder-dry months brought a fiery, apocalyptic end to 2021 … there’s just something about February, isn’t there?  

“Why are you so upset?” 

This is a question I ask myself often these days, wiping tears from my eyes when I have no direct reason to be sad, cursing the rerouted wiring in my brain. My mind feels like a jumbled mess, cables frayed by the cuts of little traumas, permanently knotted behind accumulating losses, no longer leading to the self I once understood. Meanwhile, my body finally started coming together. Three months of sharp back pain abruptly changed when I slipped down my stairs at home late the night of January 17. I injured two toes in the fall — likely broke the little one — and bashed my lower back. This forced me to stop hiking, rest some, and then actually get back on my bike. I’d more or less avoided riding outdoors since my back started hurting (and I developed a bit of road anxiety) after the truck collision in October. The stair fall resulted in new core issues that manifested in my left hip, but once I dealt with those, the biking felt — dare I say — good.

By February 7, it was time to start walking again. I’d been limping around in a medical sandal and had successfully kept weight off the right side of my right foot for three weeks. I carefully slid on stiff-soled hiking boots then hobbled out the door while admonishing myself to stop hobbling. It was a nice afternoon, sunny and 40 degrees. It felt cold. My steps were weird and tentative. There was ice on the road, prompting painful shimmies from my still-stiff hip. I neglected to bring a jacket and had to beg one off Beat as he returned from a run, as I was only able to move at a frustratingly slow pace of 2.5 mph. I hated feeling so weak and vulnerable. 

I’d started listening to the audiobook of “Nerve” by Eva Holland, which was supposed to be about confronting our misbehaving neurons. First, the author dealt with the death of her mother from a stroke at age 60. In visceral detail, Eva described what happened after the family removed life support. 

 “No,” I whimpered, and then more loudly, “NO NO!” as Eva watched her mother’s unconscious and dying body gasp for air. My toes ached. My weakened right leg shook like a baby lamb as I staggered and sobbed. After a minute I pulled myself together, shut off the triggering audio, and limped home. 

Beat met me at the door. “Tim had to be rescued,” he announced. 

“What?” 

The backstory: The previous afternoon, our friend and Alaska adventure mentor Tim Hewitt started a solo journey in Nome, planning to walk upwards of 2,000 miles to Knik and then back on the Iditarod Trail. With such a great distance, he had a tight schedule to keep. The weather in Nome had been dangerously windy all week; I’d been following the Strava reports of Nome biking friends, and wondered if Tim would have to postpone. When the North Wind blows, the narrow drainage along Solomon Creek will funnel the gusts until they reach hurricane force, sometimes over 100 mph. But Tim has dealt with The Blowhole before. He did not expect the North Wind to lift his sled off the ground and whisk his entire duffel into seabound oblivion. Suddenly he had nothing but the clothes he was wearing — no water, no extra layers, not even a headlamp. He had to pick his way through the darkness for miles, goggles removed so he could simply see through the blowing snow, and still falling over continuously on glare ice. He made it to a shelter cabin, but a Nome SAR volunteer reported that he was “super frostbitten with a swollen shut eye.” 

That was all we knew on Monday night. (A report and follow-up about Tim's condition are linked here.) I limped to the shower, where I no longer had to fight back tears. 

 “Tim is okay. He’ll be okay. Why are you so upset?” But I couldn’t stop crying. 

On February 9, I knew it was imperative to teach myself to walk again. I planned a five-mile loop from my physical therapist’s office in Louisville. I already had an appointment for PT on my back, and Louisville offers well-developed pedestrian paths with less ice and fewer hills than home. I wore normal shoes. My steps felt better. My gait was more controlled. My speed was a breezy 3.5 mph. The temperature had spiked to 58 degrees; even in a T-shirt, it felt hot, uncomfortably so in February. The Coal Creek path wound through a cottonwood grove and emerged in a neighborhood. The streets were abandoned: no people, no cars parked in the driveways, only the occasional sound of a pounding hammer to break the eerie silence. 

Then I turned another corner and met the devastation — full city blocks leveled by the Marshall Fire that roared through here on Dec. 30, destroying nearly a thousand homes. Driven by 100 mph winds, the fire burned a patchwork of grassy hills and suburbs. The lines of delineation between what burned and what was spared were nonsensical. Hotels and shopping centers disappeared but little parking lot shacks were left standing. Entire neighborhoods were torched but there would be a single home somehow unscathed in the midst. And all of this happened in the middle of winter, miles from the nearest forest, to homeowners who lacked adequate fire insurance because no one in a hundred years would have expected Louisville to burn in a wildfire. Amazingly the loss of life was minimal, but the damage is sobering. It feels like a window into the apocalypse, a glimpse of the climate change future that awaits us all. And I know, I know, none of us can know the future. It does no good to imagine catastrophe. But how can I not imagine it, when catastrophe is already here, hiding in plain sight around seemingly benign corners? 

February 10. I needed to decide once and for all whether I’m going to ride the Iditarod Trail Invitational. I mean, I can’t decide and probably won’t decide. It will just be another one of those years where I show up at the start undecided, or maybe I’ll surprise my past self and let my rewired brain make a completely different choice. But if I’m going to slump my way to the starting line, I need to be prepared for any and every catastrophe. So I took my fat bike to Brainard Lake, where the West Wind was cranking. The biking was pretty crappy. I’m out of practice, and riding atop drifted snow is like balancing on a thousand tiny and slippery ball bearings. I did fine on the foot-packed road, where a wider path didn’t hold me to a tight line, but I crashed several times on singletrack. I’d rip through the woods only to cross into an open meadow where the trail had disappeared entirely beneath windswept snow, and down I went. 

A little frustrated, I decided I’d just push my bike up to Lefthand Reservoir, a path mainly packed by alpine skiers because it gains a thousand feet in just over a mile. Just three days earlier I hadn't felt competent to simply stroll down my road, and now I was wearing my big boots while hoisting a heavy bike up a steep trail that had been scraped smooth by metal ski edges. A 50 mph headwind roared from the Divide. Blowing snow cut through my buff; the taste was sharp, almost metallic. The right lens fell out of my sunglasses and I didn’t even notice. Eventually, I thought, “my eye hurts; what’s wrong?” Then I put my hand to my face and realized the lens was missing. I found and replaced it, but even after just a few minutes of wind exposure, my eye continued to hurt for days. I thought about Tim Hewitt and how painful his injuries must be. 

As I approached the dam, I could tell I was walking into the heart of the tempest. I couldn’t even see the Continental Divide beneath of wall of wind-whipped snow. The photo makes the gale look like fluffy low-lying clouds. I assure you it is not. Still, gaining experience is good, so I pushed to the top of the dam. I hoped to continue just a few hundred yards, pushing my bike while exposed to the full fury of the West Wind. It was blowing at least 70 mph according to a weather station one ridge over. Gusts shoved me sideways when I tried to push into the wind, then grabbed my bike and lifted both wheels into the air. The entire 30-something-pound fat bike was blowing like a flag in the wind as I desperately clung to the handlebars, feet skidding on bare gravel as gusts threatened to shove me off the dam if I didn’t let go of my bike. 

I wrestled the bike to the ground and crawled off the dam, filled with exhilaration and wonder. I thought of those famous words that doomed British explorer Robert Falcon Scott wrote in his journal upon reaching the South Pole on January 17, 1912: “Great God! This is an awful place!” 

I thought about Tim Hewitt, who lost his gear to such a wind and had to battle for miles afterward. What would I do if I couldn’t just blaze down Lefthand Reservoir Road and leave this awful place? It would be a catastrophe. 

February 13. Two weeks to go until the ITI, and thus my last shot at a training ride. I loaded my gear in the car and left at 5 a.m. to crawl through Sunday ski traffic before crossing back over the Divide to Leadville. The forecast called for a warm day, 33 degrees. Under direct sunlight at 10,000 feet, that feels like something closer to 80. I’ll sweat in my base layer until I hit the shade or a wind-exposed slope and then freeze. Repeat. 

My bike was heavy. It was likely even heavier than my bike when I first rode the Iditarod in 2008; since then I’ve developed more experience and thus fears that I need to pack. I’m going to side-eye anyone who insists I don’t need my stuff. They don’t have to put their own safety and comfort in the trust of this less-than-trustworthy engine (by which I mean my brain, but also my under-trained legs.) 

Anyway, I was slow starting out but at least trail conditions were great — that is until I climbed to the more obscure old mining roads where snowmobilers on deep-track mountain sleds had gouged the soft trail into a morass of mashed potatoes. The West Wind was cranking — less harrowing than it had been at Brainard Lake, but still a stiff and shockingly cold breeze that added dissonance to the melting trail. I mashed pedals and swerved, drove my heart rate up to 170 bpm, then oozed off the bike to hike. Repeat. Nine hours later I was exhausted. Way more exhausted than seemed justifiable after a mere 35 miles, even if it did take nine hours.

The sun set over the Sawatch Range as I pedaled across the highway toward Turquoise Lake. The plan was to ride around the lake and then camp near the dam. The loop is 16 miles and I thought it would take four more hours. But as soon as I hit the lake track, my tires bogged down in some of the deepest snow chunder I’ve encountered. It had been warm all day and snowmobiles had churned up chunks of snow, impossible berms, and deep ruts. 

 I couldn’t find a rideable line. That was it. It was not a big deal. I had everything I needed and could camp anytime I wanted; it’s not like I had to push through exhaustion for 16 miles before stopping for the night. Still, I tried to keep my meager goal, flailing for three miles before the trail pitched steeply uphill. With my heart rate again near maximum capacity, I swerved and tipped off the bike, landing sore foot and then face down in the snow. 

That was it. It was not a big deal. But a dark shadow swept over my mind and suddenly I was crumpled in the fetal position, sobbing, wracked with chest pain. This sharp pain I recognized as an acute ache that I first experienced following my father’s death. Now, eight months later, it's broadened, sweeping over a larger range of thoughts. A soft trail is not a reason to give in to despair, but there is something about the combo of frustration and fatigue that crushes the scaffolding I've built around my grief, subsequently collapsing all of my emotions. The more fragile my body feels, the more vulnerable my mind becomes.

I promised myself I’d walk for one more hour after the meltdown, to relearn my old strategies for pulling myself together. But I couldn’t stop crying. Finally, I found a nice spot to camp, high above the frozen lake, beneath ice-tinged spruce trees glittering in the moonlight. The temperature plummeted quickly under clear skies, dropping to near zero. I was perfectly cozy in my big coat and enjoyed a leisurely dinner and hot chocolate, gazing at stars in the sky. This, I thought, would surely make me feel better. But as soon as I crawled into my warm and cozy sleeping bag, the tears erupted all over again. 

 Why was I so upset? Genuinely, I couldn’t parse it out. When I closed my eyes and let my mind relax, my thoughts trickled back to upsetting memories — the burned Louisville neighborhoods, the black sky during the 2020 East Troublesome Fire, the early pandemic, the eerie ghost town that was Sea-Tac Airport in March 2020, the Iditarod Trail ten days before that, huddled in my sleeping bag and strung out by exhaustion when it was 45 below. 

Finally I dozed off, only to wake up startled by vague nightmares. One finally stuck: Beat and I were in the Iditarod together, inside a large unfinished building that had been a checkpoint in 2014. It was crowded, lots of familiar faces, and everyone was getting ready to go. My camp stove was in pieces and I couldn’t put it back together. Beat was frustrated with me; the fix should have been simple. He wouldn’t wait anymore. He stormed off. I stood just in time to witness him trip and fall down a set of stairs that were exactly like our stairs at home, only four times longer. He was somersaulting. He was going to die. I awoke gasping in my bivy sack. I couldn’t breathe. I had to push out of the sleeping bag and lay in the snow in my base layer, unprotected from the zero-degree air, still gasping. 

 Finally, I pulled myself back together and sat up. It was a beautiful night rendered in dramatic detail beneath a nearly full moon. Still, my mind couldn’t break free from its shadow. What is the point of seeking beautiful places if we can’t even step outside of ourselves? 

 “Great God! This is an awful place, and terrible enough for us to have labored to it without the reward of priority.” 

After the terrible anxiety dream and subsequent panic attack, I managed to sleep until sunrise. It was a beautiful day. I was feeling better. I made coffee and headed out. My plan had been to just head home, but I decided to embrace a 4 mph average pace and explore the more obscure trails around Turquoise Lake: A ski track leading high up to a mountain hut on the wilderness boundary; a summer boat launch where a faint snowmobile track wended along the shoreline for some distance; and finally, Hagerman Pass Road. The road was reasonably well-packed but discovered a little too late to explore for long. 

The only snowmobilers I met all day passed me around mile four of Hagerman. Two men that looked and sounded like Alaska Natives, but I didn’t ask, stopped to chat and have a smoke. They told me the trail had been groomed to a “cabin” near the pass, about three miles farther and a lot of feet higher. Because of wind-drifting, conditions could be treacherous for their machines. They didn’t want to get stuck, but they were going to check it out anyway. They continued smoking, seemingly in no hurry.

 I wished them luck and stopped to make a late lunch. The West Wind had kicked back up and there was nowhere all that protected from it, but it seemed a good spot to practice using my stove in the wind. I heated up Cup Noodles with coffee and sat in the sunlight, taking in a sweeping mountain vista and grinning. This felt more like the old me. The one that found joy in hard things. The one that got knocked down but could always get back up.  

Still, my night had been … disturbing. I acknowledge that I need to be more proactive with my mental health. There is a combination of mild but ongoing anxiety and depression that I am not managing well. Wishing it away is not going to work. Crying, panicking, and being generally terrorized by my own mind while out in the middle of nowhere is also, frankly, an alarming prospect. And yet, I have self-care and coping mechanisms in my arsenal. I now have a better awareness of triggers and ideas about heading off the monster before it tackles me. 

I certainly don’t want to give in to the monster, to let it control my life, to let it deprive me of the soaring joys of Cup Noodles beneath the Continental Divide, or all of the joys I could potentially find on the Iditarod Trail. It’s not like I have to be fast in Alaska, just persistent. I have no ego invested in this game, not in my current state, so I’ll quit if it’s too hard. I finally broke free of the worst of my back pain. My foot is sore but better. I can walk. I can push my bike. I’m healed! And yet, I’m still broken. 

How does one decide? What is an irrational fear and what is an acceptable risk? What is a punishment and what is a reward? Aren’t we all a little bit broken? Don't we all face an unknowable future? Aren’t we all susceptible to loss? Do we have any other choice but to hold onto hope? 

“Great God! This is an awful place and terrible enough to have labored to it without the reward of priority. Well, it is something to have got here, and the wind may be our friend tomorrow. Now for the run home and desperate struggle. I wonder if we can do it.”