About a year and half ago I felt like the cage opened up and I was able to create this wildly, abundant, and exuberant life– knowing for the most part that it wasn’t sustainable long term. I kept saying that I got a pass, I could do whatever I want and figure out the things that mattered to me again. It was like going from total control to unfettered freedom. But I knew it wasn’t sustainable, at some point the pendulum would swing back and I’d find that equilibrium that was missing for so long. Maybe that’s what made it all the more sweeter, knowing how fleeting it would all be, still is.
Last year I had about 70 days on backcountry skis, which is by far the biggest season I have had considered I started in Winter 2020, had about 3 days, 2021 about 8 days, 2022 about 12 days. I thought about that number about half way through this season and realized my trajectory probably won’t put me to achieve more than that this year. Does it matter if we aren’t always on a positive linear trajectory with what we’re doing? Is it naive to think that each year will just be a stepping stone to the next level without any back steps, maybe, maybe not. I’ve talked about this with friends in terms of the healing trajectory like once you open up the door to the dark closet where all your shame is you still have to go through all the muck to get to the light and sometimes the current carries you and other times you’re swimming against it and losing ground. But as long as you’re still moving, right? Does it matter if it’s forward or if you’re moving how you can, meeting yourself with grace, taking a breath and figuring out the line down.
Despite me knowing that I was getting off the accelerated train from the past year I still signed up for some big races/events(tbd?). Which means that I have been skiing when I can and trying to build and maintain the fitness that I’ve acquired. On a more recent outing I went down to Turnigan with Charlotte and despite reading all the avy forecasts and looking at surface angles I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was amiss. On the skintrack up I had the feeling of what if I just tumble over the side, or the whole side of the mountain just detaches and that’s it. Every trip outside remains a meditation on mortality. Once on top I still couldn’t really shake this weird feeling. Misplaced anxiety is what I’ve come to call it. Charlotte skied down first and once she was at a spot out of the way I pushed off.
My anxiety was accelerated and any sluff that was coming off put me in a heighten state of all the snow just fracturing and carrying me down with it. I got to the bottom and we skied back to the skin track deciding to take another lap. On the way up I told her about my anxiety with the snow, she said she noticed as I kept turning to look up. It was a weird feeling but saying it out loud took away a lot of the power and the next run seemed a lot smoother, at least from an anxiety perspective but maybe also a helpful hack of singing Kesha to myself on the way down…
This is a bit of a weird post because I’m in a bit of a weird place. I was at yoga last night and the teacher said that if you’re wobbly and uncertain that’s where you can grow, figure out the wobbles and find your footing. I’m sure he was talking beyond me finding my footing in dancer pose and that’s what it feels like, figuring out the wobbles and where I’ll land, what will be certain, what am I creating that will be certain, or is it just the fact that there is no certainty and that’s all we get. The impermanence of it all is all the permanence we get.
I’ve had some really great days out too, mostly with Charlotte as we have similar schedules but long days with Hailey as we’re resurrecting our long slogs home, Ana and I have done some boot packing to burn off some excess energy, and team couch (Ana and Grande) got me out the door for my one fat bike a year ride. Sadly, no photo evidence exists of that ride as it was like like -7 and I was cold. And have done more skate skiing this year than years prior with the Hot Laps group and squeezing in the occasional lunch break with others.
I’m set to do the Last Skier Standing race this weekend in Maine but my skis are still in Canada and it’s been a bit of a cluster to sort through. I’ve been grappling with what to do all week– do I race on rentals and piece together the other equipment I would want or just scratch it and go do something else. I was convinced I was going to scratch yesterday, calling Rosie to gain perspective and mostly support my decision to not race.
Then the race director reached out saying they have skis ready for me and anything else I need to get to the starting line and then that’s it. The wobbles– where is the solid footing. What part of me is wanting to race and why, Rosie posed this to me. I hadn’t thought about that. I thought back to when I registered, the excitement of getting to explore more of me in a new sport, a new area. But not wanting it to be like this– but how often do we not want it to be like this and learning to adjust to bend before breaking. Wobbles. Flashbacks to being stuck in O’Hare and not making it to the bike race in Iceland, am I becoming the person who signs up for races and just is accumulating DNS? Or is it me ignoring messages again and again until I finally learn the lesson– is there any meaning to make from this mess. Wobbles.
A friend recently stated that they have limited free time so they try to be intentional with what they do. I thought back to my philosophy professor in college who always talked about when she was a corporate lawyer and from the outside it wasn’t viewed that her external values aligned with her internal values so she changed course, moved to Boulder, got a PhD and started teaching philosophy. Don’t we all have limited free time and where we put it and how we spend our time is our message to the world, to the outside. Do my external and internal value system align, do people know what I value by what I do? Wobbles.
I recently watched two movies, Earthside, a tribute to Hilaree Nelson (having watched it twice now, I cried both times) and the Maah Daah Hey Film that focuses on Kelly Magelky and his last time lining up for the race (unbeknownst to him at the time). Both of these athletes have inspired me in my athletic pursuits in similar and different ways. Kelly and I have talked over the years about the challenges in sometimes even getting to the starting line, finding the balance, going after big objectives while also balancing life– racing is easy, everything before it, well. Finding certainty in the things you can control and letting go of the things you cannot. Wobbles.
Besides these two individuals, I’ve found a lot of inspiration in my life from those I’m surrounded by and the grace that they show while navigate tricky situations with motherhood, careers, marriage/relationships, chronic and terminal illnesses, reinventing themselves after loss, big objectives, changing course, getting to the starting line with grace and going from there.
I guess this is me still trying to figure out the footing, the certainty, the optimal line down, the getting to the starting line with grace and going from there.
In November 2019, Grande told me about the White Mountains 100 and I put in for the lottery and got in. In March of 2020 the race was cancelled (for good reasons) and I never made it to the starting line. This past November a friend reminded me of the lottery and I put in. I got in, along with Grande, Ana, and Holly. In a lot of ways it feels like this year is the year I was planning on having in 2020 without the whole pandemic thing. It’s been weird to think about, almost like the past few years didn’t happen.
Rachel and I on a ride in January 2020–I have learned so much since then including how to dress on the bike now
But of course they did and certainly left wounds that have become scars and speaking from the scar is certainly easier than speaking from the wound. In a way this month has been one of the harder ones with memories coming back in pieces– the stark realization of how much my voice didn’t exist and the things that I took on, the sink I became for emotions, the projections that happened, the suspended space I lived in. I pointed out to some friends that I feel like I still bring things up that happened and they were like of course you do because you didn’t talk about it for so long, we had no idea what was even going on. My therapist says that it’s because I’m more out of the fight/flight mode and no longer in survival mode so have a different perspective. I mostly spent much of April getting outside with friends, going for big ski objectives, and surrounding myself with those that didn’t leave me with feelings of being disposable.
Annnnyways parts of April still felt like I was speaking from the wound realizing at all that had come out last year and at some point I’ll share more of the story, the dark places my brain took me but for now back to the Whites.
Grande, Ana, Holly, and I were all in for the White Mountains 100 which I was grateful to have others to help figure out logistics. We found a friend to stay with and Grande rented a u-haul van. Oh, that was easy now the part where I hadn’t done much (re: any) biking since October. I did a ride the week before the race with Grande and Lil’ snugs– reminding myself what it was like to pedal. I borrowed Dusty’s bike and boots for the race since I still haven’t bought a fat bike. Charlotte was able to come up for the weekend so we left on Friday afternoon, which meant I was able to be somewhat lenient with what I packed still not exactly knowing what I would be needing.
We headed up the Parks Highway and I was reminded of how long it had been since I drove that road, at least summer of 2021. The road in the park has had some erosion and has been closed for some time so in terms of biking it, there really wasn’t an appeal to go up for only about 15-20 miles of road. But driving back up, I was reminded of the first time I drove to the park and how captivating it was to see Denali so close. We got stuck in between a few military convoys but made it to Fairbanks without much fanfare. We stopped by the grocery store and then headed to the house.
I went to the airport around midnight and got Ana and Grande, despite my optimism we could not fit 3 bikes and 3 people in Charlotte’s car but Ana was able to find a truck that served as a taxi and follow us back to the house.
The next morning Charlotte headed to the local ski hill, Grande picked up the U-Haul and Holly from the airport and we all went through our things to be race ready— mostly building up bikes and laying out gear, another run to the grocery store to stock up on more food for the race. Later in the afternoon we headed to the race meeting. It’s a mandatory race meeting and if you don’t check in, it’s an automatic disqualification.
It’s also the only race meeting I’ve ever attended that had a PowerPoint. There was some good info about overflow and trail conditions, but I left the meeting feeling more like I hope I don’t die than any type of excitement for the race. I conferred with the others and they agreed that it seemed more doom and gloom, I lamented that I hadn’t even thought to pack my puffy pants and what if I had to sleep out next to the trail. I didn’t think it would be longer than 15ish hours at the most but now I was concerned that I would miss my flight that was schedule for Monday evening (36 hours after we started). The pre-race meeting was filed with information about the harsh elements that could meet us out there and a reminder that the most remote place in the lower 48 is 24 miles from a road (this doesn’t seem accurate) and the race is 27 miles from the road, and if people scratch it can be hours or days before a snow machine can get you. Lovely.
Ana and Grande had done it before and reassured me that it probably wouldn’t be that bad. Holly was on skis and depending on trial conditions, we could all end up having very different experiences. We made dinner that night and caught back up with Charlotte about the ski hill conditions. We filled her in on the pre-race meeting and then all settled into the familiar routine of catching up and dancing back and forth between life (houses, relationships, work, school, books we’re reading) and race conversations.
The morning of the race we all worked in harmony around the kitchen preparing a big breakfast and doing last minute adjustments, I put extra layers into a dry bag and stuffed it into my sack, along with my inhaler, inreach, battery pack, and emergency sour patch kids, all for safe keeping and stuffed it into the bottom of my bag. I had decided to run a camelback and knew that I would risk freezing the hose for the race but also planned on putting a small bottle into the pogie on the bike to keep that from freezing.
We loaded up with three bikes, one pair of skis, and all our gear in the back of the U-Haul van. We caravanned up to the start, grateful that with Charlotte’s car we all had seatbelts. Charlotte was going to head back to Anchorage at some point during the race- I figured out that even if I somehow finished in under 10 hours, driving back would put us into Anchorage super late for the Monday work day so I’d take a flight back Monday evening and Charlotte would head back in time to get to work on Monday. We arrived at the start– really the parking lot to the start as we all had to meet at 7:50 to cross the highway to the start. I shuffled back and forth between Charlotte’s car and the van putting on layers, debating things, and finally feeling ready.
Except I couldn’t find the water bottle I was going to put in the pogie. No matter, I had my camelback and would just put warm water in as I got into the checkpoints. Charlotte was a life saver by being able to take our puffy jackets from the start right before we lined up, meaning we could keep them on for another 9 minutes before we released them– I shivered anticipating the cold I would feel throughout the day.
I had slotted myself next to the others and when the gun started lost them all in the chaos as the wheels started to move next to me and realized I needed to go too. I followed a group up from the parking lot on the course, knowing it would be a mile or two of uphill to warm up. I was worried that I would get slung off the back but was able to hold whatever pace was being set in front of me. This wasn’t like the fatbike rides I had done before, there was no leisure happening and I was just hoping to not cause a calamity on the trail.
After the initial uphill there was a few miles descent which helped to spread the pack out a bit more. Grande and I were close but kept leap frogging and I could still see Ana in front of me. My main concern was that I didn’t want to be hours behind everyone and they would be waiting at the finish for me. As I figured, my hose froze before I had the chance to drink any water. My new plan was to drink as much as I could at the aid stations and not plan so much on drinking any in between. I stopped to adjust the seat height (I had never ridden the bike before the race– thanks again for the loaner, Dusty!), take off a layer, and rejig my hose to run under my armpit in the hopes that the warmth would thaw it a bit. I got behind Grande’s wheel but at the first aid station (mile 15 or so) she kept going and I stopped to drink something. This was also the last point where you could self bail and head back to the start without having to wait for a rescue. I noted it but didn’t think about it and drank some warm tang before peeing next to the bike and getting back on my way. I was mostly by myself at this point and my mind was pinging between thoughts, “should you eat something; oh wow, look at that; I wonder what skiing this would be like; how do people even run this; how did I get so lucky; I hope my body holds up; this isn’t what I expected but so much better”. I saw Grande in the distance and thought I would catch her shortly but then I saw something on the trail that stopped me, an antler. I got off the bike and went back to it, it was pretty cool and I figured when would I be here again to find something like this. Most of it fit in my bag and the remainder stuck out but was cinched down. I got back on the bike before realizing that the smell of death was literally chasing me. The antler gave on a distinct musk, dense and heavy, and when the wind blew just right a pungent smell would hit me and I’d be reminded that I picked up this dead thing from the trail to take home as a souvenir. Motivation to ride faster?
A few miles later I saw Grande in the distance and worked to try and catch her realizing that riding with her would be better than riding by myself, plus I hadn’t printed off course directions. I was able to catch up to her after a bit and sat on her wheel while we chatted, we would take turns in the front with me leading the on the descents and her leading on the climbs but coming back together on the flats. We rode this way to the next check-point, Cache Mountain Cabin (mile 40), both deciding that we didn’t want to take too long. We got to the cabin and they had boiled potatoes, I loaded mine with salt and bacon and ate it before pocketing two more potatoes for later. I filled my camelbak with warm water as the hose had melted out and I had been able to drink some water in between aid stations. We made small talk with the volunteers asking about trail conditions, where they snowmachined in from, and one commented about the antler in my bag. I grabbed some more tang and we headed out. The next section would bring us over a pass and onto the ice fields.
We wove our way into the forest to begin the climb up to the pass, Grande would relay what the section had been like the last time she had done it and how it compared to now. I was grateful for all the knowledge that had been passed onto me and the tricks that were given. Grande had brought extra trash bags for us to all grab and use for the overflow. I had stashed them into my pack with some ski straps making them accessible when I would need them. I joked with Grande on how we had both been in for the 2020 version of this but now we were doing it three years later. When I moved up to Anchorage, I met Grande and her husband Dusty on one of my first weekends in town. I joked that I paid for them to be my friends because I had signed up for a bike packing course that they taught and after that weekend we became good friends. When I was in the throws of it in January of 2021 we went on a walk and she reminded me that she knew me before I was dealing with COVID and in a relationship and assured me I would get my mojo back, I certainly didn’t believe her then but it was comforting to hear. Someone who knew me prior, it was like those who knew me prior knew I would return even when I had my doubts. I tell her this in snippets, half joking if it’s weird that her and Dusty are married since I think of them like older (wiser) siblings.
As we were about to start the real climb up onto the pass we ran into a biker coming the other way. Grande knew her so we stopped and chatted for a bit, they were doing the route backwards and had been bikepacking for a few days. After departing I said it would definitely be cool to come back and bikepack this and really take in the views.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
As we were about to crest the pass I turned around to see Holly making her way towards us. I yell ahead to Grande to let her know and we both got off the trail to cheer her on. We briefly chatted about her skis (she had been debating which ones to take beforehand) and quickly started following behind her. She was able to pull ahead of us on descent as the firm snow turned into loose powder and we both had one foot out to steady us as we descended. Grande had mentioned that in previous years she actually had to walk up and down the pass because of snow conditions and I was just grateful that we weren’t having to do much hike-a-biking.
We got to the anticipated ice fields that would have the overflow but were pleasantly surprised at them actually being ice fields and no overflow. We picked our way through and seeing a clear path, I was in front when my wheels lost traction and I went down, sliding along with my bike. I got up and did a quick assessment, bike was okay, I was surprisingly okay, not even really being able to indict what the first impact was (don’t worry it was not my head) as I seemed to just disperse the impact on my left side. I got up and we continued on, I was a bit more tepid and followed Grande’s lead when she would get off and walk on the ice. The ice lakes had no overflow and while we walked some spots we were able to move quickly through the sections and before I knew it we were back into the forest and headed towards the third check-point. The views here proved unlike any that I had seen in Alaska with dramatic limestone cliffs jetting out from the drainage we were in. We approached Windy Gap Cabin and headed in.
We asked how far ahead Ana and Holly were and were both excited when we heard Ana was in the lead and Holly wasn’t too far in front of us. I took some rice and then in current state decided to put some tang powder on it– after a few bites I immediately regretted it. I felt sheepish about asking for new rice so ate some of it quickly and shoved the rest into the trash. I grabbed a handful of other treats and we took a few extra minutes at this station than we had previously done. I still had plenty of food that I had brought and had been supplementing ‘real’ food with sour patch kids every few minutes to keep my sugar and energy levels up. We left the cabin and stayed in the drainage weaving in and out of trees for the next 10 miles and hugging the limestone rock. We crossed the intersection to another cabin which wasn’t on the race route but someone had set up a chair and bike as if they were spectating but we didn’t actually see anyone. After a brief little climb and descent, the course felt more enclosed and some of the view points were obstructed by weaving in and out of the hills. We saw signs approaching the last checkpoint and parked our bikes at the bottom of the little hill to walk up to the cabin. A high school ski group was running it and we ran into Holly here — we talked more about the race as we independently grabbed food and filled water. Woohooo! Almost done, right! We took a few photos, thanked those who were out here and took off again. Grande and I headed back down to our bikes with Holly out in front of us.
We got back on the trail and remained in the drainage with a few more frozen creek crossings. We caught up to Holly and I was jealous of how easily she was able to navigate the slick creek crossings on skis. Watching people who are really good at their sport is always really inspiring, there is such beauty and grace in how their bodies and equipment flow together. Holly and Grande are both two prime examples of this. After the creek crossing we jumped back ahead of Holly as she stopped to make and adjustment. We climbed our way up towards the final trail shelter, there is no support here except some water and a duralog if you need it. Seeing it meant we were close to the end but the Wickersham Wall loomed in between us and the finish line.
We had been able to see the Wickersham Wall for the past few miles, raising 600 feet in just over a mile above the valley floor. The crest of it would take us back to the finish line. We started up it and after a few pedal strokes both got off to push our bikes up. We laughed because at one point Grande had told Holly that she would just be able to fast feet up it (moving her hands and making a noise to denote how quickly she’d be able to ascend). I joked that I wish I was able to do the same mechanics now. We got to the top and then took pictures of each other (like a proud mom moment). Over the past few years one of the sayings that Grande and I have passed back and forth to each other is, “You’re doing great sweetie” (it’s a references from the Kardashians when one of the daughters is crying during a shoot or something and her mom tells her that).
We started the descent and Grande took out her light, I waited to take mine out as with the summer sun coming back there would be few opportunities left to soak in the darkness. I followed her tracks and settled into the feeling, the flow of being at ease with the movements, the stillness that comes from knowing your own body and mechanics. This didn’t last long as I realized I would be real dumb if I crashed because I didn’t have a headlight and stopped to dig mine out. I caught back up to Grande after she waited for me and then she yielded the trail for the descent. I ran into a guy I knew from the area who was out running and who had done the bike and he was like, “oh we all thought you were on skis” and I was like, “absolutely not”. The tracker showed that I was on skis for the whole race and for not being a known skier everyone was terribly confused by this. The confusion cleared up when he saw that I was on a bike. We followed the trail back down into the parking lot that we had started from, crossing the line together. Ana met us having been done for a bit (she crushed it, winning the race, her second year in a row!) and had moved the U-Haul van closer for us to have easy access. I went into the warming station to grab some hot water and then immediately when back out when I hear more cheering and Holly crossing the finish line. Grande, Holly, and I all finished around 13 hours– much better than the 36 I had started to expect after the race meeting.
We all finished relatively close to one other and a brief rest in the U-Haul van we got packed up and headed back to the house. Ana and Grande had an early morning flight to catch with Holly and I leaving later on Monday evening.
By the time I woke up to start work the next morning at 5am, Grande and Ana were gone. I worked most of the day and then packed up my bike and did a short walk around the river with Holly. I shared with her some of the parts of the panic attack, the anxiety, the intrusive thoughts, the feelings of OCD, the demise of my sense of self and relationship. And also talked more about female athletes and the culture that exists today to operate in, she was reading Kara Goucher’s memoir so we talked a lot about the issues women still face today in the sport, from the elites to middle school level.
What came out of the bike pogies
The weekend was really fun and it had been a while since I had done a race with other people. People asked if Grande and I planned to ride together and we never talked about it prior it just so happens that after 20ish miles we seem to be the same pace and riding with someone else is always better than riding by yourself (at least for me). I spent a lot of time during the race dipping in and out of my mind and processing all that had existed during the past year.
Dad, if you’ve made it this far, feel free to stop reading here.
It’s hard to find the words of what transpired over the past year(s), but the feelings certainly were there. I thought a lot about coming into the White Mountains with very little bike training, but I knew my body and my history enough to know what to anticipate for 100 miles and could be prepared for it. I think about the Tatanka 100 a lot—it was the worst race I ever had (in a lot of metrics). I loosely thought I’d be going for the course record and then everything went sideways, I got lost, I bonked, I had to hike-a-bike over so many boulders, I laid on a cardboard slab for an hour, I thought of pulling the plug so many times and I cried and I cried and I cried. I hated that course so much when I was done—it took me to the darkest places I have ever gone bike racing.
Because of that race I know so much more of what I’m capable of—if I have to hike for 50 miles during a race, I’ll survive, if I get lost, I’ll survive, if I spend 4 hours crying, I’ll survive. In a way it’s given me the confidence to be more sure of what I can sign up for and attempt. I think about this a lot now in terms of life—the trauma of the past few years—the perfect storm—thinking back to being asked “what will happen if you [I] have another panic attack”. That question no longer startles me with the potential tizzy it would send my life into. But instead, this place of acceptance of having some confidence that if I do go to those dark places again, there will be a trail of a light that I can follow to get myself out. Maybe that’s why I’ve written about it so much in my blog in case I need to find my way home again.
With the Tatanka 100, I realized that so much hurt came from this place of expectations versus what actually happened—the outcome that I was attached to. In life, this chasm exists the expectations of how things will unfold, how people will show up (or not). The timeline I had for healing the expectation that one more meditation, journal entry, yoga class, would be what healed me. But we never actually get to this place of arrival of enlightenment, we are constantly growing (or not). But I think that’s what keeps drawing me back to the various trails, they hold no expectation for you—they meet you where you are.
I heard someone say recently that they couldn’t tell a story until there was a happy ending—and I don’t think there is ever really this happy ending but this place of acceptance, of fulfillment –of learning to not get attached to the outcomes, the expectations, the behaviors of others and myself. I always found it strange when people would say that their goal is to be happy, happiness is a fleeting emotion, it’s not realistic. We’re all happy humans and none of us are happy humans and we get to experience it all, this full range, this joy of being human, of dancing with the darkness and re-finding the light again and again and again.
I was reminded of this while out skiing in New Hampshire recently, someone asked us if we were having a good adventure and Alexi replied that if you’re looking for adventure you can find it anywhere. I think for me in the past I was clinging so tight to what I thought this life and adventure should look like that I didn’t realize how much was beyond the walls I had built around myself. But isn’t part of being human learning to no longer seek out the homes that do not (cannot) hold us.
I had to do this exercise in therapy where I listed all the ways I have grown in the last year (from post-traumatic stress comes post-traumatic growth) and I told her that every day (if not multiple times a day) I have a realization of wow, I can do this thing and there is no problem and all the freedom that has come with it in deciding how to show up. In this exercise I went back to the writings from that time, reminding myself of what I used to carry in me. The writings from that time don’t fit anymore- they feel panic, urgent, chaotic, but they fit who I was then, this comet on her way to dissolving upon reaching the atmosphere, the fleeting feelings of almost arriving, of almost being whole, of almost being enough. That narrative doesn’t fit me anymore because I don’t fit in that tiny box anymore- the uncertainly still exists, as it always has but it’s more tempered, at ease, at realizing that burning up the mess of restrictions allows for reclamation– of my talents, my energy, my priorities, my values. They say you can’t heal in the same environment that made you sick— I remember writing that in my notes at his house, realizing the end would be coming soon, new soil would be tilled, different seeds would be planted, and I’d be allowed to bloom in conditions that were conducive to my growth and creativity.
Who knew this would be such fertile soil for me to bloom on
I sat on this post for a while and went through multiple iterations, sending a draft to Jane, talking about it with others, deciding how to share. In the end I edited a lot because those that know me probably have heard more than enough at this point and as a friend reminded me those that know me know what I’ve been carrying – so in a lot of ways it’s like looking at a result sheet and only seeing the time but no idea the story of how one got there (like obviously contact me if you want the tea and the dark places my brain went—I’m an external processor and always happy to share). Narratives don’t form in vacuums and in being able to talk about what happened during COVID has allowed it to be molded in the world outside of me—and the pain becomes something outside of me allowing new things to grow in what was holding space for the trauma. I think of it similar to the Tatanka 100, where it was just a perfect storm of having the rug pulled out from me and everything going sideways at once—and it’s hard to parse out what was what and what caused the foundation to crack—but it doesn’t really matter as they say the only benefit of looking behind you is to see how far you’ve come. Just like the Tatanka 100 when I got to the end, Barb greeted me with a big smile and congratulations and held space for me to tell her all about my adventures from the day. The tears dried quickly and was replaced with more of a “I cannnnnot believe this happened” and turning it into a hilarious bit of the worst race of my life. I was able to move to a place of acceptance rather quickly, put that race behind, and carry the lessons I learned from it forward. Grateful for all of those who have held space for me to process everything that has transpired– I think societally we have a larger reckoning with what happened during COVID, all that took place, things that emerged, how we’ve arrived after. And just like the White Mountains 100 it’s sure fun to be surrounded by a great crew to get you to the starting line and meeting you at the finish line of some of life’s biggest trials [trails].
Anyyyyyyways, I could probably write a book on all the ways the healing process is like an endurance race but will stop here because I’m sure my dad stopped reading paragraphs ago- ha. The White Mountains was fun and realized that it was the last time I rode my bike but headed to Iceland in about a month for a race so training looks little different this year.
If you have it made it this far, thanks for sticking with, I realize this post is a bit all over but welcome to my brain.
The gear scattered is similar to my brain scatter sometimes
In a way I’ve been completely unprepared for my life to return after trauma but thankfully my friends were prepared enough for me. I thought this the past weekend when I cancelled my therapy appointment because there was a weather window for one of the ski objectives Charlotte and I had this year. It’s been a year since I started working with my trauma therapist. I thought back to that first session– it was almost 3 months after my panic attack and the dark abyss I had been lost in was a lot. My therapist had her work cut out as this wasn’t a narrative I had ever envisioned having to navigate. The faulty narrative I was carrying around was holding me back, in that period I had no flexibility around the story and couldn’t see anyway it would ever be reframed. Now I figured a long day out in the mountains would do as much good as a 1 hour therapy session– plus the weather window. And if anything over the past few years Charlotte has seen me in most emotional and physical states of being.
Charlotte and I discussed the logistics for the day, we’d leave town at 7am and I decided to bring my heavy/wider skis. I’m still waiting on a replacement part for my race skis but also with the variable snow conditions that we’d potentially run into figured that would be a better bet. We headed out with our (Charlotte’s) Gaia track following the trail up to Gold Mint Hut. It was a mild grade and we chatted along the way and also making note of potential routes up and slide paths. I had never been back in the area in the winter and only once in the summer. The summer trip was in July 2020 when I was in the throws of it, I remember being out there overnight and sobbing in the tent because of how much uncertainty I felt– every time I went into the backcountry at that point I was always worried about what I would be coming back into when I gained service. The silence and solitude did not provide comfort then, instead only amplified how much noise I was missing out on. And then I cried harder for ruining the trip for others. That’s what I was bringing into this space.
We traversed the mild slope before reaching a point to start climbing up towards the Mint Hut. We talked about the different routes, opting to cut more to the left and to try and avoid extra time under a slide path and headed up. The line we took was a little icy and the side hilling didn’t provide for great traction. We kept space between us just incase something released. I was navigating up first when I saw a hole in the snow and looked in, some animal waste was by the opening– my mind thought to a bear den, is it too early, hopefully it doesn’t cave in and I wake whatever might be sleeping below me.
I know those of you outside of Alaska reading that are probably thinking what an irrational fear (like riding over a snake and having it get caught in my rear wheel and flung up on me) but this actually happened where a skier disrupted a bear den and the bear attacked him. I moved past the hole and waited on the shoulder for Charlotte to come up. We weaved our way up towards the hut and then stopped before we started our approach of backdoor gap to get some food and make some gear adjustments.
We kept our skins on and headed up but it soon became apparent that it was too steep and icy to skin so we’d have to switch to boot packing. I had been waiting for Charlotte to traverse so stayed put while Charlotte transitioned. Our plan was that only one of us would be exposed to a potential avalanche at a time while the other stayed out of the slide zone underneath some rocks. Charlotte started the first leg of the boot pack and I stood watch not wanting to transition too early in case something happened. She crested and was tucking back into the rock section when I had started to transition and looked up and didn’t see her– is that avalanche debris new or old, surely I would have heard something if it released. I transitioned quicker and called to her on the radio. No response. I got my skis on my back and crampons on my boots and looked up, she had popped back over the zone I couldn’t see her and was perched below a rock. I took a breath and started making my way up. Because she had put the bootpack in, my ascent was a bit faster and less laborious. I got to the top and we diagnosed the issues with our radios and got them working. I stepped out and navigated a route up towards another rock outcropping to take shelter in. I’m not great at boot packing and deployed all the tricks I had been working on, heel down, knees forward, push up, disperse weight over the polls. As I got near when I said I would stop, Charlotte radioed to see if I was still going, “yeah, almost to the spot.” I got up and radioed down to let her know it was clear. She came up and met me and we kept working towards the top with only one of us moving at a time.
We crested the top and looked at the other side, a nice little cornice. We talked about the boot pack and the choices we made and then talked about the next section. I offered to drop in first, telling Charlotte the line I would be taking to another meet up point on the slope.
I pushed off after finding a small opening that didn’t seem like it was right on top of the cornice and cut left before turning right while trying to get out from underneath the potential area of snow fall fast enough. We regrouped and then party skied down the more mellow slope finding some nice snow and turns. We headed down but the slope was gradual and we tried to keep as much speed as possible to make it to the valley floor. It mostly worked with some awkward side stepping to get over humps but we made it down and then put our skins back on to head up to snowbird glacier.
The skin up was pretty uneventful, we had a track from someone who did it last year and just made sure that we were climbing towards the right ridge. We got onto the glacier no problem and traversed up to the ridge line to drop down. After transitioning we talked about lines and started skiing.
The snow was anything but powder and cutting through it proved cumbersome for turning. The views were incredible but hard to take in with all the survival skiing going on. We looked at the slope of what we’d need to go down and realized all the avy runs we’d have to cross. Fortunately, they had released at that point but the avy debris we had to cross made me realize how fatigued my legs were.
Going across the avalanche debris made me grateful that I had taken my wider skis, having to navigate around chaotic masses of snow, ice, and whatever else had been picked up during the slide. I always think about this when I’m out in the backcountry, if one releases (again, Mom, I’m never in those areas) and the turmoil of getting carried only to then potentially be buried under this massive weight (compacted avalanche debris will weigh in excess of 500 kg per cubic metre). It’s like the snow just settles and immediately becomes like concrete, something like 60% of avalanche victims who died whilst buried show something on the surface but it can take a large effort to extract them– and that’s if they survive the potential trauma. So at least there was some reassurance that they had already slid, until we reached a gully that had only had small tracks of avy debris in it. We stopped and talked about how quickly we could get across and which line. I went first and skied in and popped out as fast as I could hitting ice on the other side and traversing down the hill side to the next debris field where I turned and watched Charlotte. There is always a moment in these situations where you run through worse case scenario, if something slid. But worst case scenario didn’t happen and Charlotte popped up the gully and traversed down to where I was.
We both agreed that being in a gully in Hatcher is the worst thing and have deep reverence for the whims of mother natures. After that we linked up with Archangel road and mostly skated back to the car. We did it in about 11 hours, I ate 6 donuts among other treats. We talked about how we probably wouldn’t have gone too much faster on different skis and we were both really happy with the day and our set up. We debriefed on the spots that were worrisome and how we could have done things differently but some times you’re just responding and figuring out how to best move forward with the information you have.
A long day in the mountains did help and also when you’re out there for 11 hours lots of time to think about things—especially a stark contrast to the last time I was out there. In some ways I feel like my awareness has never been sharper and taking that to the mountains allows me to be fully present. I think about the COVID times and often think of it as my life was on pause—a friend recently corrected me saying it wasn’t on pause and showing up in that space how I did was just as authentic as I am being now. But in some ways I felt like my life was on pause because it didn’t feel like I was growing or able to. How I showed on that summer trek of the Bomber is how I was assumed to keep showing up– all these negatives assumptions piled up against me until I started to believe them too. I sat with that for a while because I think of how I show up now versus then and how different it feels, in all aspects. But that girl during COVID while in some ways felt like a shell of who I can be was still me—it’s like going out into the mountains and not having a blue bird day but still appreciating just being out there—or enjoying the darkness without having to contrast it to the light. And all this duality can exist and growth can happen, someone’s best day in the mountains can be your worst—I can hate a trail and then love it– I can be a shell of a human and still have light in me—someone can be a not great partner and still exist as a good friend– I can be upset that I had a panic attack and also so grateful for it shaking me into being. This growth exists in the mountains and in a way it’s easier to hold space for –the days that fall short of the objectives, leaning into the progression, the changes, the trails that I’ve come to love that once destroyed me—the spaces I inhabit that no longer scare me—the solitude that no longer comes at the expense of peace. And I’m able to hold all these dimensions together–I don’t assume a trail I’ve once taken will remain the same and instead meeting it each time where it’s at.
I think of the growth that has happened– the lens that I view things in and those that view me. For most of COVID I felt like my internal and external value systems were out of sync, what I valued internally wasn’t perceived externally. That’s been hard to stomach, like a coworker that told me she was startled when she heard me laugh for the first time (we had worked together for over a year before that happened)– or another unprovoked telling me how much happier I seem now– but harder to stomach is the conversations with friends, where things felt one sided, where I showed up with good intentions but my actions still caused pain. The negative assumptions that were held against me– if I hated this trail I will always hate this trail– if I didn’t enjoy something one day I would always feel that way– this growth that was paused, no new information was allowed. Realizing the friends that have extended grace to me in this period, those that allowed me to exist without ever knowing or suggesting I would return to my old (new) self– the darkness they invested in without knowing if there would be an endless summer to come. Now, figuring out how I can extend the same grace to others that fall short of my expectations or assumptions– I cannot anticipate the harm I will cause, we will cause, or that will be brought onto me, even with good intentions we have no idea what we are bringing into a space, what they are bringing into the space. Here’s the thing, you can show up in someone else’s story as the hero or the villain for the exact same behavior. We are neither the hero nor the villain in our own story but instead the narrator– and it’s our story to tell and rewrite, and edit, as we learn and grow and acquire new information. It’s like being on a long slog (more on those later) where you end up in a spot you didn’t anticipate and you can’t go back but only move forward, make the best decision for you in that time with the information you have but being flexible and adaptable as you make your way down the trail. At the end you look back and think wow, what a crazy story that is, but in the midst of the trail you can’t conceive how it will all unfold– and only when you get to the end do you finally feel like you can make sense of all the chaos in the midst. Anyways, thanks for staying with me on this one and for embracing the weird, chaotic amazingness that comes with being human– it’s my first time being alive (that I remember- haha!)
I’ve gained weight, I don’t know how much or really where but it’s palpable. At first I thought maybe it was because of the chips I was eating, or the absorption issues getting better (more on that later). But then I realized that my body finally feels like it’s safe. Let me explain, from an evolutionary standpoint when we’re hunted by a predator, we try to get small, like really small as if that will keep us safe. Our bodies and minds haven’t exactly caught up to the modern world so the fight or flight persists to manifest in maladaptive forms. Anyways, when I did a skimo race last year, my friend asked how she could get so skinny, I half joked, have a panic attack. But it was true, I remember some days getting to the end of the day and realizing I hadn’t eaten anything and then would eat chips to try and compensate. This later became an issue when someone mentioned how odd it was that I ate chips so late at night, I realized that they didn’t realize that sometimes it was the only thing I had eaten. Anyways, it was a foreign place to be, I had always seen food as fuel, something that could sustain me on the long endurance races. A necessity, when I was in grad school I weighed myself every day to make sure I wasn’t loosing weight. I thought about this recently as I lined up for the Gothic Mountain Traverse. A race I had signed up for last year but didn’t make it to the starting line, last year I felt too weak, too fragile, too small. Instead I spent that weekend not racing hanging out with Allison and Kati while pouring out the contents of my brain. But it was a much needed weekend with them.
A little sickly looking here Less sickly looking here
Fast forward to this year and I signed up for the race knowing that it would coincide with teaching in DC. Because I had left Alaska five weeks earlier I opted to not bring my race boots so I could just use the same boots for the Canada trip and this race (they required different skis, remember no skimo skis on the Canada trip). But by not bringing two pairs of boots I had more room in my suitcase to bring back Trader Joe’s to Alaska.
Texted a friend I had forgotten how big a medium was at Dunkin’
I took the bus to Boulder to get a car and pick up my skis (thanks again Dave and Neil for bringing them back after Canada). I finished up some work and stopped at Costco for the Crested Butte crew before picking Alexei up at the airport and heading to CB. We got in a bit late but Sam and Claudia (the cat) greeted us.
On Saturday morning, Zach made us crepes and we talked about a plan for the day. I told Sam I was down for whatever tour, as while I was there for a race wasn’t exactly prioritizing the race like I used to do. We headed out, only stopping to buy batteries as I had left my avy beacon on since leaving Canada and it was very dead. We headed up Snodgrass which I had only been on in the summer. Part of the skin track was on the race course so I just kept saying it was like a course preview.
We got up to the top and poked over the ledge in a few places to see the best line down, we backtracked a bit and then transitioned. I took my skins off and then decided to go pee, which was quite hilarious when I went to squat, started peeing, and started sliding on my skis. Fortunately I was able to somehow not end up with any pee on me and stop the slide before I got too far but lesson learned.
We decided I would go first because I didn’t have a radio, I told Sam my line and then pushed off. Except then I quickly tumbled and lost a ski, I heard Sam say, “what the fuck Kate” and reminded him I hadn’t skied in like a month. Alexei grabbed my ski as I had slid down and I put it back on— woof! Round 2! I pushed off again and immediately realized how much I had missed this in the past month. I cut down into the trees and weaved to a good stopping point. Alexei followed soon and then we cut over to meet Sam. Wow, this is nice, I might move to CB! The bottom half was even better with open glades for the taking. We got down to the end of the road and debating doing another lap, we realized where we had gone down didn’t exactly set us up for another lap and with a bib pick up cut off time decided to skin out.
I got my bib with no problem, running into friends from Alaska and friends from Boulder. We went to the store to grab things for dinner and last minute race provisions. No such luck on the sour patch kids though. We stopped at the gas station where we were informed “they have the best candy section in town, maybe the valley” and they did. I had actually only been able to get some flavors in different countries and thought they were specific to those countries. So we bought 4 bags to be safe of different varieties.
We got back to the house, made dinner, Sam adjusted my bindings for my boots and I prepped my stuff for the next day. There was a lot of discussion about going to karaoke but I was unsure with karaoke not starting until 9pm.
It didn’t take much to convince me to join karaoke and figured I would go for an hour and then come back and go to bed. I changed and then changed again when it became clear everyone was wearing costumes and dawned a banana outfit— any house that has a costume closet is my jam. I drove so I wouldn’t be tempted to stay out too late. It was well worth it, with the CB crew really showing off their voices and dance moves. One of the friends had a skinsuit as her costume, she asked if I wanted to borrow it for the next day, “it’s a kid’s x-large, I found it at a thrift store.” Ohhh maybe, that could be fun”, but was concerned about the weather and if it would actually keep me warm. By the end of the evening I was convinced I would wear it if I could fit my layers underneath it. I stayed out a bit later than I had planned but got a skinsuit and a top 10 at karaoke.
The morning of the race came early, the race started at 6 so I got up around 4:30, made coffee, ate breakfast, and toiled around a bit. I put on wool baselayers and then pulled the skinsuit over, oh wow, this is amazing.
I shoved the rest of my layers into my bag anticipating having to put them on at the start line as previous years it had been -20. I had almost left the house when I realized I needed my skis. I grabbed them and got in the car, leaving the house a little later than I had planned but fortunately everything is close. I looked at the temperature in the car, 20 degrees. That can’t be right. I got to the school, put some last minute things in my bag, my helmet and headlight on and headed to the start. In talking to people the night before it seemed like the start tactic would be to go without skins and skate. I’m not a fan of skate skiing but figured they knew best. I slotted into the start and made conversation with the girl next to me, it was also her first time. She said she thought I was very serious because of my skinsuit, I told her I borrowed it from a lady at the bar last night so not that serious.
We started and I started, pushing off to skate, okay this isn’t too bad, definitely faster than on skins, I can do this, I was kicking and gliding when something got tangled and I starfished face first onto the track, oh my gosh please don’t hit me. I scampered up, well at least I got that out of the way and was relatively unscathed, and because it was dark no one could see my bruised ego. I followed the headlights in front of me feeling the divide between the skaters and the skinners opening up. I got to the spot to transition and put on my skins and stepped back onto the course. The next section zigged and zagged over the Nordic trails, but we remained mostly in a congo line going up the single track. I wondered if those in front had to break trail and thanked myself for not being that fast.
I got to the first descent, transitioned and set off, convinced that I’d be able to make up time on the descents. I think of it similarly to mountain biking where I feel confident taking the B line to make up time (I’m sure my friends who have seen me ski are like, “plz Kate don’t ever take the B line, your mountain bike skills are non-transferrable). I was going down the groomer and feeling pretty fresh, I saw a little jump and took it which fed into the next transition area. I unlocked my heels to put my skins back on but one of my heels was already released, oh maybe I didn’t actually step in properly. Then I looked, oh that’s not right and the heel attachment was gone but the tower was still there. I looked behind me as if it would be there. I thought about bailing, I mean I was only 3 miles into the race but realized I didn’t really need a heel piece.
I decided I would keep going, there would be one more descent before Snodgrass and if it was sketchy I could bail and walk back to Zach and Mary’s. I sent a text to the boys with a photo and kept going. I thought of how it could have happened but it didn’t really matter and just hoped I could warranty it.
We climbed on the resort trails until reaching the first cut off point where it was another transition point. The guy behind me told me that was a tough time cut-off but we were in good shape. I had no idea and asked if he had done it before, a few times he said. I ripped my skins and locked my one boot in and took off. The descent felt pretty normal so I decided I would be fine without a heel piece (granted this was on groomers). I transitioned again and then headed up the Snodgrass track that we had taken the day before. The Alaska friends passed by me on this section, one having raced it the year before said they were just here to mostly tour and have fun. I felt similar even though I was in a pretty fancy skinsuit. I followed them for a bit until I fell off and settled into my pace. I made sure to occasionally grab a handful of sour patch kids. I got to the top of the next transition, the guy behind me was like “Oh wow, you’re missing your heel piece” And I was like “oh yeah, but now my ski is lighter!” The guy doing the checks asked if I wanted a ski strap and I said I had one but also like absolutely not was I going to strap my boot to my ski. I figured this would be the real test, as it was a little more powder and no groomers. I reminded myself that my right ski was stronger so to rely on that if I needed to. I started the descent and went skiers right looking for the flagging to tell me I was going the right way. I stopped as I couldn’t see the flagging anymore, I figured either way would end up on the road but waited till I could see another skier through the trees to my left and headed in that direction.
I got down to the road and debated putting my skins back on, some were skating so I decided to skate for a bit until it wasn’t worth it. The skate didn’t last long and soon I was putting on my skins, chatting with others on the way. I was familiar with the Gothic Road from the summers I spent riding in CB up to the 401 trail but the ski route went up the 403 trail. After skinning the road for a bit we turned off to start the climb– a guy near me told me that it was just 2,000 feet up and then you’re mostly done with climbing. With that encouragement I settled in and adjusted my pace. And up I went, a bit slow at times, some movements felt more laborious than others. I thought of my roommate Hailey’s instagram post from early that week, she talked about giving 100% of what you had in that moment and not just a blanket 100% (she definitely articulated it much better than I just did). I kept going up, and eating, and drinking. My mind kept wandering over the past year, the ridges and grooves that brought me back to myself– the absurdity of having gotten so lost in the first place. I got near the top and stopped to put on my shell and my warmer mittens. The wind had picked up and was blowing snow. I got to the top, called Top of the World, and took in the view, or what would have been the view if it wasn’t socked in, oh well next year. I ripped my skins and headed down. Someone told me that it was a straight line down to the next point and the last descent was the most technical. This was mostly true and while I didn’t exactly straight line, I did get down pretty quick. I stopped to transition again, I had my puffy gloves on and in the midst of it all it got caught in my jacket zipper and ripped, exposing all the feathers. They floated around and kept coming out, I don’t know how they fit so many feathers into such a small patch because a few miles later I still had feathers circulating around me.
I got to the final transition for the last descent. Another volunteer was directing where the line was. I looked down and while tracked out it didn’t seem like any powder at this point. I stood there for a moment and a guy came up behind me. “You’re the girl without the heel piece right?” I looked at him and said that was me, he told me to be careful on this descent. Sometimes I get annoyed when that happens but he had genuine concern in his voice as if he realized how easy it might be for me fumble this one. I let him take the first line so I could follow. I started going down and it was definitely a bit of survival skiing. I followed the tracks but the snow had gotten a bit more harder packed, I leaned onto my right leg to cut the turns. My legs were a little tired at this point and the hill down was pretty long, I stopped to release my legs and straighten them out. I noticed the guy in front of me would occasionally glance back, as if to make sure I was still okay in my descent. With a few more stops (it was a long descent) I made it to the bottom and the final check-in. They said there was an angry moose so a bit of a course reroute. But still about 6 miles from the finish but overall a net loss. In talking to people it also seemed like the best approach was to skate ski until you couldn’t and then put skins on. In all my winter skiing this year, I had done about 30 minutes of skate skiing total.
I started skating and I have terrible form but still managed to move faster than those around me with skins. Kick, glide, kick, glide, trying to channel all my physical therapy tools to keep my hips forward, upper body up, and channel my two roommates who actually grew up skate skiing. I got to the bottom of a big uphill, net loss my ass. The guy next to me took his skis off to boot pack. I opted for the same approach, realizing that transitioning twice would take longer and because I mostly penguin walk up hills figure it would be the same amount of time but just different muscles. I got to the top, put my skis back on and started back with the skating. I had no idea how much further I had to go, I opted to not race with my watch but did have the mileage on my phone but it wasn’t exactly easily accessible. I made sure to keep eating and drinking.
I was skating along when a snowmachine pulled up with Zach and Sam on it. I stopped and we chatted for a bit, offering them my sour patch kids, they told me I was close to the finish. I told them about the day and they told me where they were headed to ski. Sam said his machine had broken down about 100 yards from the finish so when I saw it I would know I was close. I thanked them and headed back on my way. It was around here that I thought about switching skis, my right leg had been attached to the heel piece for all of skating but my left leg was stronger so thought by switching maybe I would get a little further each time. I stopped and switched skis with my right heel being free now. I went to push off and it was like my brain stopped working, I could not go forward with any grace. I started laughing, how is this happening. I switched my skis back and wondered if anyone just saw the calamity. I started skating again and saw the course deviate a bit, I took my glove off to grab some sour patch kids and when I went to put it back on I couldn’t find it. I looked behind me and some lady said she would grab it, I stopped and waited offering her candy in exchange for my glove which she took some candy. I got up a short pitch and a woman on a fatbike rode by saying the finish was just around the corner and all downhill from there. I was skeptical but then I saw Sam’s snowmachine.
I got through the finish and that was that. I saw the friends from Alaska and chatted with them about the course waiting for the shuttle. I got on the shuttle and recognized the guy who had warned me about descending, I asked if that was him and he was like yeah I was worried you were going to blow a knee, I thanked him for his vigilance. Especially because blowing a knee had never actually crossed my mind.
I got back to the car and was feeling so fresh I thought I might go meet Alexei at the resort for a lap or two but decided to go home and shower first so I didn’t get cold. After the shower the exhaustion hit me and instead I laid on the couch catching up with Mary and waiting for everyone else to arrive and talk about their near-misses of the day. We all opted for an early bed that night.
On Monday, Alexei and I headed out to tour before heading back to the front range. We opted for a more mellow tour both being unfamiliar with the terrain but we found great little laps and the sun even making a few appearances exposing the valley, which would have been cool to see during the race, oh well, next year!
I spent the rest of the week in Boulder with Dave, Allison, and Ruby, catching up with other friends over dinner, going to Banff Film Festival, and getting an early morning lap in (where I forgot my skins but kind of made do).
I’m back in Alaska but for a work conference in Fairbanks and next week back in DC for a bit more work but then will be back in Alaska for a good chunk. Arriving back in Alaska no longer brings a sense of uncertainty with it and instead this immense gratitude for all that has grown around me. The past few weeks with traveling and reconnecting with friends has made me examine my value system, the standards I have for myself and how I show up in relationships and the expectations that I have for others. It made me think of the race because during it one guy made a comment to me “skimo skis aren’t great for skiing, huh?” and I was like why are you telling that to me, of course I know they aren’t great for skiing but like I’m not here to ski well, obvi. But realizing he was probably going through some shit and was projecting whatever onto me. Instead I try to think of all those around me during the race who were cordial, gracious, and vigilant towards me. This is somewhat related to my personal life as I had a very abrupt rupture happen recently and trying not to dwelling too much on that point of inflection, instead remind myself of all the others that continue to surround and inspire me with their actions and words. Don’t worry the story is bonkers and it’ll be in the book but I no longer feel like I have to become small because of others (cue eating all the Trader Joe snacks I brought back).
After I left Alaska (like a year ago), I traveled around a bit, went to the Grand Canyon (will write about that some day). And then 2 months after thinking I would be gone for good, returned. Leaving Alaska in that moment didn’t feel right and I was determined (albeit stubborn) to figure out what the pull back was. As I got on the plane in Seattle I wrote Molly a postcard musing if by my returning I would make a mess or find meaning of my life. I found both and neither.
At the end of December, on the third anniversary of getting a notice of a novel pathogen causing pneumonia like symptoms in Wuhan, China. I experienced a panic attack– traditionally the third anniversary is suppose to be leather.
The panic attack fractured my sense of self, cutting off any narrative in my head. I didn’t even know that I could have so many pieces of me laying in a disarray. It dismantled a lot of the scaffolding I had spent my life building. After what felt like drowning in the abyss I was able to fashion a life jacket and start swimming to shore but remained unsure of what that shore would look like upon arrival. Six + months later I feel like I’m finally standing on solid ground but still some days feel myself getting pulled out by the tide. I spent most of the months that followed trying to piece back a sense of my life, this goes here, that goes there but sometimes the pieces didn’t seem to fit and I stubbornly kept trying to shove things back into place. I spent part of the winter in DC where I carried skis and a bike around both rarely getting used but thinking if that girl inside of me was to re-emerge she would want them. I had already signed up for the Maah Daah Hey 150 this September and was continuously texting my coach to say I wasn’t ready and would keep doing what I could, she responded always very kind and gingerly supporting my “pivoting”.
I stopped making plans unsure of what waking up each day would bring. Friends talked about doing a trip to the Grand Canyon in July when I saw them in February but July felt too far away and I felt too unstable, what if my brain never recovered, what if I felt like this forever. I couldn’t commit to anything because I didn’t trust myself enough to be able to handle what came my way.
I arrived back in Alaska in mid-March just in time for a skimo race, not even deciding to do it until the night before and even then after signing up resigned to calling it off at the last moment if I wasn’t feeling it. I mostly went for the costume contest but feeling getting a trickle of racing back into my veins helped, even it it was at max VO2. I didn’t win and didn’t win the costume contest either, getting beat out by a Chewbacca and Avocado (those things are so political anyways).
I started volunteering with the GRIT program, which stands for Girls Riding Into Tomorrow, it’s a program for middle school girls where we ride around town going to different workshops and places for them to learn more bike skills (they are pro at First Aid needs) and different community spots like the Botanical Gardens. The program ends with a 40 mile bikepacking weekend. All the girls were troopers during the weekend and they definitely showed a level of tenacity that I’m not sure I had at that age. It also helped to provide some stability and grounding with a fixed schedule of activities.
During a GRIT session, Ana was like hey I have a weird question for you and given the past two years figured it was going to be some strange probability of COVID exposure and what she should do. Instead it was, “want to bike 600 miles”? I was most relieved and didn’t find it that strange. I immediately said yes and then asked what dates and then asked why and then followed up with let me double check with work but I’m in for the most part. I was mainly surprised at how fast I committed but took it as a sign. Since the panic attack I was trying to slowly gain pack parts of me through familiar things and biking had not really happened. I thought maybe just a long ride would help reset and remind my body of who I used to be and who I could be. We also talked to Grande about going but she had a work conflict but decided she would bike the first two days with us and then turn around and bike back.
We only do rides that are 100+ miles or with middle school girls
Because of the GRIT campout we decided to drive to Glennallen on Tuesday and take off to Haines from there. Mainly because we were on a deadline, Ana had to get to the start of the Tour Divide Race in Banff by June 10 and we’d have to catch the ferry in Haines. She joked that it was her way to get into shape for the race. I had a little trepidation, it wasn’t the physical part that scared me, more the mental, how would my brain handle being alone for that long with my thoughts– where would it go. When I had the panic attack I thought I was dying and/or would be stuck like that forever in this state of what felt like dementia and couldn’t remember who I was– making me question if I was living an authentic life (and like what even is that). That didn’t go away when the panic attack ended and instead released all the anxiety from 2.5 years of COVID research into my body. When the panic attack started all the adrenaline was getting ready to fight an external threat and instead released it all back into my body to fight itself. But I knew there was only one way to find out and it wasn’t going to be sitting at home wondering how I would handle something. I’d have to slowly start rebuilding the trust I had. Plus with Ana and Grande I knew that if shit did hit the fan, I would be in good hands– just did not tell them all this before we departed.
We left early Tuesday morning, double and triple checking that we had passports and things to cross the border. While we had a few weeks to prep for the trip the only decision we figured out before we left was if we were going to sleep in tents or bivy. We decided on tents for luxury living. A few people asked where we would sleep and stop but we figured it didn’t matter to do much planning, we knew when we had to catch the ferry and the rest we would just figure out as we went.
We departed Glennallen after getting some groceries, changing, and figuring out where to park the van. Only 600 miles, woof. We turned left, heading north as only a few roads out of the state meant we had to go north in order to eventually go south. We loosely planned on getting to Slana about 80ish miles away and camping there because it seemed like there would be some resources. We were met with very little traffic and chatted about everything and nothing of consequence. We relived moments of the Kenai 250 and the GRIT campout, and about bigger adventures to come. I let them into more of my personal struggles and in doing so learned as I often do that I’m not alone.
We rode on and stopped at Christochina, arriving a few minutes before their small store shut down. We warmed up, got hot coffee, a few resupplies, and chatted for a bit with the individuals in there. In our state, we seem to lend ourselves to conversations, where did you come from, where are you going, you’re biking all that way, which soon dissolves into more information about the area, the weather they’ve been having, how busy they are, how often people stop. We only had about 30 miles left to Slana when we left but bundled up as the temperature started to drop. We arrived in Slana only to find what seemed to be a dead town, I had never been there before but it’s the launching point for a lot of adventures that happen in Wrangell National Park so thought there would be something. The temperature read about 30F and we made our way off the highway onto a gravel street following our maps to what looked like something. We saw a post office and I stopped, “hey these are usually open at night” I got off my bike and opened the door feeling a rush of warmth overtake my body, “It’s open and it’s so warm!” Ana and Grande thought maybe we should try the inn next door before violating any federal laws. We went up after seeing the open sign and knocked on the door, a woman rambled down the hallway and confusingly opened the door, “hi, we’re biking through and wondering if you have any rooms we can get for the night.” The lady, seemingly not realizing that she was standing in the door to a place that say “Inn” and “Open” very clearly said they weren’t open, the rooms weren’t ready, winter had stayed longer and they had flooding they had to deal with. As if we should have known all this. She almost lambasted us for being out in the cold, as if we didn’t know. I hesitated but then asked, “Do you think we could sleep in the post office.” “Oh absolutely not!” As if it was the most absurd thing she had heard.
We left, debating sleeping in the post office but opted not to as her house was so close and figured she was the postmaster. We rode back to the highway knowing there was a store just a mile or two down the road that we thought maybe we could try. There was a sign that said while they were closed we could ring the bell and they would come down so we did, and then again, and then again. Nothing, we weighed our options, the ground was pretty saturated from all the run off and we’d need a dry spot. We saw a gravel pull out across the road and made our way there opting for the spot that we thought would shield us best from the highway. We made camp and because of the cold opted to fit all three of us in a 2 person tent. We ate, changed into dry clothes, I shoved my riding clothes into the bottom of my sleeping bag and went to bed barely fitting all of our sleeping pads into the tent without overlapping. Fortunately, when I sleep I don’t seem to move and found myself in the same position when I woke up. We all stayed mostly warm throughout the night and packed back up, joking about how much easier it is when you’re not packing up middle school girls’ gear as well. Our plan for the day was to go past Tok.
Our aim was about 100 miles for the next few days to get us into Haines on time for the Ferry, with less focus on reaching a certain destination as more just acquiring mileage. Doing less mileage in one day only meant we’d be doing more mileage the next day. We had about 60 miles to Tok and it’d be our last big stopping point before we reached Haines so we planned on stopping at the grocery store and loading up. We only really figured we would need to make sure we had breakfast for the following day but I realized the further interior we got the less dietary options I would have for my restrictions. We rode on trying to identify a curve in the road that was a result of an earthquake not too long ago and that someone had told us about the day before but missed it if it even existed. The sun came out for a bit and we delayered, still commenting on the water that was almost breaching the highway from all the snowmelt. We started a descent and saw a moose on the side of the road, we all stopped as it looked at us. It seemed curious and instead of running off like moose in Anchorage do, it turned around and started up towards us, we turned around too. Ohhhh no, it started trotting up and we started riding up pulling our bikes back up the descent we just got down. Not a moment too soon an RV crested the hill and came down alternating the course of the moose and it ran off the side and up into the woods. We turned around commenting how moose out here probably don’t see many bikers but still for little traffic on the road the timing was perfect from the RV.
The only thing we really knew about Tok was that it had a Three Bears Grocery and an electric school bus. Ana had shared that she had read about the electric school bus that can operate in -40 degrees which it does because it gets that cold. Ugh, I don’t even operate in -40 degrees. As we arrived into town we saw a school bus and wondering if it was ‘The’ school bus but upon further inspection it seemed that it was gasoline fed. We rode through town seeing a Three Bears small shop that was closed, surely that was not it and plugged in our google maps to realize there was a larger one around the corner. We parked on the side and I stayed out with the bikes while the other two went in. Have a brief spot of service I sent off updated texts to my family and Kevin letting them know where we were and our plan.
I also had my inreach tracking us the whole time so people could see our progress and keep tabs on us. They came out and I went in, what to get, what to get, I got some frozen bagels, frozen donuts, bananas, apples, a tube of peanut butter, and some gatorade. After going outside to eat a bit and repack, upon going back in again I found not frozen bread and some neoprene gloves incase we ran into bad weather. Thinking my load would get lighter as we went and I worked my way through the three pounds of sour patch kids I realized this would not be the case as I put denser food back in my pack. At this point I had almost over done the sour patch kids and was developing sores in my mouth from all the sour, which if you think that stopped me from continuing to eat them you don’t know me at all.
We left Tok and after about 30 miles decided that when we saw a good spot to camp we would pull over. On the slope of a hill we saw a spot we could climb up to that would overlook the highway but shield us from being seen. Perfect, we pitched our tents deciding it was warm enough to sleep separately, ate dinner, and went to bed. We got up in the morning and was greeted by sun instead of clouds. This is where Grande would turn around and Ana and I would keep going. We ate breakfast and then packed up and parted ways after figuring out how to connect our InReach so we could update each other with our destination for the day.
Ana and I had loosely planned on again riding as far as we could and seeing where we ended up. We rode without any mishap until we saw a bear in the road. Then we stopped debating what to do, we could go by it, low risk that something would happen but high consequence if something actually did happen. We rode off a gravel road to see if there was a loop around, we talked about bush whacking around it but without eyes on it was worried it would run our direction and finally opted to wait for a car. So we waited, and waited, and then waited some more and talked about our options. I sent people updates from the inreach mostly because I was bored and not because I was worried.
Then finally a car approached, followed by another car, we waived them down and they stopped.”Hi, there is a bear up there, could we follow behind your car while you drive by?” “Oh yeah sure, do you want a macaroon?” “Um, yes absolutely, would like some sour patch kids?” They passed on the kids but we got into formation with the jeep behind them realizing what we were doing, they were between us and the bear and what seemed like a little too close when the car finally reached a certain point the bear scuttled off into the woods. We got over to the shoulder and waived goodbye. We continued on discussing what we had done and decided that it’s better to be safe than sorry.
We reached the Canadian Border and got through with no real issues having our passports and vaccine cards. The border had only opened up about a month earlier otherwise we probably wouldn’t have been able to ride through. We had to fill out information about where we would quarantine and put down a random hotel in Haines Junction.
We arrived in Beaver Creek around 7pm and stopped at the gas station, again it being the only spot to get water and food for another 100 miles. We both opted for frozen food that we could heat up and resupplied. I didn’t realize then just how much the warm fried rice would carry me through the night. But it was nice to eat some what real food. The owner of the gas station made a lot of conversation with us and we heard all about the drama between that store and the next store the town over in Destruction Bay. And like most people gave us a fair warning about all the bears around Destruction Bay. We left after taking a break, charging up our electronics, touching base with people and buying more fruit roll ups and coffee. We talked about how good we felt riding and how we would just keep going until we decided not too.
I think some of the push to keep riding was not only our timeline but the fact that we were in proper bear country, it’s one thing to think about sleeping with bears abstractly and a whole another thing to realize that it’s still early in the season, they’re hungry and close to the roads right now for the dandelions. We kept pedaling and never really discussed stopping until it was midnight and we were descending down a hill. I have a terrible eye for animals and from behind Ana yelled out “Bear!” I slammed on the brakes and at the bottom of the hill was a grizzly on the side of the road. We got over to the side and waited, maybe it would leave. We knew our chances with a car at this point were slim. We watched it walk across the road and sit down on the side we were on. Okay that’s annoying, we decided to wait a bit and the could backtrack and camp if we did. Within a few minutes we heard the low hum of what seemed to be a semi-truck approaching on the other side of the hill. We put on our bright jackets and got into position to wave it down. It crested the hill and was just a large lifted truck, not a semi.
They stopped and we explained the bear pointing down the road and then asked if we could jump in their bed. It was three guys and they moved stuff around to put us in their cab and said it would be warmer in there. They did have a point, but this is also how a lot of bad Lifetime movies start. Ana and I put our bikes in the back exchanged quick words, I grabbed my inreach and we got into the cab. I offered up fruit roll-ups or sour patch kids. They were drillers headed back to Whitehorse after being in Fairbanks for work. We drove past the bear and the roar of the truck sent it down off the side of the road but we still decided it was best that we didn’t try to go around it given it’s size. We made small talk with the guys, in situations like that were it’s evident that I could be easily kidnapped I try to give enough information that they know people love me and would miss me without too much information. It’s a fine line but I’ve perfected it over the years. Plus we knew that our GPS was tracking and they would have to stop at some point so even if they didn’t immediately let us out we could navigate that.
Really need to do a better job of getting outside pictures of vehicles
We originally thought we would just be going around the bear but they also told us that they had seen a bear right before they saw us, reminding us of how many bears were there. We thought if we saw a good camp spot and/or a spot with another vehicle that might work but the night wore on we stayed in the truck. We reached a point where we decided to just catch a ride to Destruction Bay about 40 miles away so we wouldn’t have to deal with bears at the moment. We continued making small talk about their work, the wildlife, living in Deadhorse, and their music choice (a lot of Nickelback) for being like 20 years old. Gus messaged Ana to see why we were going 50mph so we at least knew people were watching us when it maybe mattered the most.
We arrived in Destruction Bay and got out of the truck around 2am, thanking them for the lift and telling them we would be fine. We thought about getting a hotel but the hotel was closed and not answering their phones. We debated sleeping in the door way that was open and slightly warm. We stayed in there while making a plan, there was a campsite just back and it seemed like it was open so we rode over there. There was a lot of trash piled up on the edge of the campground which didn’t exactly bode well for pitching our tent with bears. We saw a covered deck and thought about pitching our tent in there and then we saw a man inside the house (that seemed to run the campground) on his computer so we thought we would knock and ask him about camping. We did and when he answered we were greeted with, “Do you know what time it is?” Looking at us in bewilderment. Yeah, obviously that’s why we’re here. We told him we were just looking for a place to camp and for someone who owns a campground seemed angry about it but said we could camp. After that interaction we decided not to and rode across the highway and found a park with a pavilion where we pitched our tent at least getting some shelter from everyone. It was 3am by the time we went to bed and I was shivering myself to sleep as the mountains and water cast a cool blanket over the land.
We woke up around 7 and were still cold so we packed up and went over to the dinner in the hotel to get coffee and hot food. We stayed there for a while, almost 3 hours. So long that my mom texted Kevin to ask why we weren’t moving and having already checked in with him he said that I had service and could call. I Facetimed my mom to let her know we were still alive. After warming up as much as we could we made a plan of getting to Haines Junction, refueling and then riding on. It was Friday so the more we rode today the less we’d have tomorrow.
We left town with the sun finally cresting from behind the mountains and not even 10 miles out we wee greeted with cars coming the other way stopping to let us know there were two grizzlies on the side of the road about a mile up. Times like these make me realize how terrible people are at gauging distances. After we had gone 2 miles we thought we had changed our luck and the bears were off the road, not so as we turned a corner and were greeted by what seemed like yearlings hanging out on the side of the road. Completely unfazed that cars were driving by- this meant two things they would completely ignore us as we rode by or they wouldn’t (as is often the case). They were closer than we would have liked and again opted to wait for a car. A truck soon pulled up that was a member of the Canadian Parks Department and he let us load our bikes in the back but for safety reasons we had to get inside.
We drove past the bears and he drove us a few miles down to a good stopping point. We got out, reloaded up and took off. The sun was shining and the fatigue was starting to set in at least for me. I was pedaling but the slight inclines felt a little harder than the day before. I put in an audio book to distract me. I had been listening to When Breath Becomes Air, about a young surgeon who on the cusp of finishing residency gets diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. It’s beautifully written and while I don’t have cancer a lot of the themes seemed to resonate with me, the turmoil in his personal relationships, the losing the sense of self, the questioning of what you should be doing with your life and given the time what’s really important. All things I had struggled with since the panic attack. And after I had some distance from Ana and as the ending came to a close my tears flowed, like they haven’t flowed since before the panic attack, big heaping sobs of the trauma, grief, and pain of the past 2 years and what had been brought on from the panic attacked. I cried for it all, for all the loses, collectively and individually, the pain I had caused and the pain others had caused me, the injustices that exist– it all came flowing out. The tears burned my face as they rolled down having been caked in the sun, wind, and rain the past few days. It took a long time to get here and only 500 miles of pedaling but I was finally releasing what felt like would never get out. I took a few deep breaths wondering if this was the ending or just the beginning.
Ana and I got together again and rode in tandem for a bit stopping before a long descent into Haines Junction. I told her about the book but stopped short of reliving my sob fest. At this point both her and Grande knew about the panic attack, I mean there is a lot of silence to fill, but this felt like mine to keep to myself, the grief that can’t be shared, and if she noticed she didn’t say anything. We sat on the side of the road, me laying down more, and talked about how tired we were. I told her I was tired but not as tired as the 250 but more tired than a normal ride of only 40 miles. The cold night before and lack of sleep really took a lot out of us and we were feeling the miles catching up with us today. We ate some food and didn’t really talk about anything other than making it to Haines Junction before the bakery closed.
We got back on our bikes and pedaled on. We descended down and arrived in Haines Junction opting to go to a grocery store before it closed. We found bagged salad kits and were gleeful at the prospect of fresh veggies after 4 days of commodity food (cue scurry).
We grabbed a few more things and then made our way over to the bakery where we ordered more food and sat outside planning to carry on for a bit longer before making camp. As time ticked on we slowly changed our plan, we had only gone 70ish miles so the need to do more was certainly there. But the bakery was so nice and we were so tired.
Okay, what if we stay in Haines Junction, actually get some sleep and then can do the last 150 miles tomorrow. We looked up a Hostel. I told Ana at the start of the trip that while I support her dirtbag lifestyle (I was young once) if needed to I would opt for a hotel and she could stay with me because what’s the point of having a good job if you can’t credit card bikepack sometimes. We rode over to the hostel and got a room with bunk beds. We pulled our bikes inside and put some food in the fridge. I baked some sweet potato fries that I had found frozen (the upgraded version of just letting them dethaw in your bag before eating). We were also able to shower which was a game changer as the grime of the past 4 days required some deep scrubbing and the occasional realization I’m scrubbing a bruise. I got into somewhat clean pajamas, put my legs up on the wall, and soon fell asleep. We woke up in the morning and packed up enough to ride to the bakery for when it opened. We ate breakfast and stayed there long enough for me to realize I forgot the sweet potato fries back at the hostel. After I returned I got another sandwich for later in the day and we took off to Haines.
The ride was mostly uneventful but we were warned there would be traffic and bears, which spoiler alert there actually wasn’t a lot of either. We rode for about 5 hours and then pulled off into a campground to see the Million Dollar Falls and maybe get some water. We thought even about putting our legs in the water but that was soon thwarted as it was linked off with the falls raging below us.
We wondered if you could run a kayak through it but neither us actually know that much about water so just figured someone had done it. We went back up and found a picnic table in the sun and ate some food. After eating, Ana laid down on her bench first and then I followed and we both fell asleep in the afternoon sun. And we slept so long we missed the ferry. Just kidding but that would definitely happen, we woke back up about an hour later saying we didn’t really have anything else to do and probably needed the rest and then rode around looking for a water faucet. No luck so we went back out on the road and figured we would filter when we found a good spot.
After getting some water we climbed up to what would take us to Haines Summit but it’s not a continuous climb instead you climb and then you are elevated for a while before reaching the actual summit. It’s surreal to be that high and surrounded by peaks. We saw what seemed like a weird public use cabin but there were two girls outside so we decided to stop and chat. The cabin is somewhat public use, a researcher built it and now it’s a first come, first serve type of thing but with it being so late in May they figured they wouldn’t have an issue. They talked about what they had skied and asked about our trip. They gave us some more water and they were the first ones who finally took some sour patch kids. As we rounded one of the last corners an avalanched released, I have never seen one in real life but it was a lot more subtle than I imagined it would be like.
We continued on our way after they told us we were close to the summit and then we would drop down to the Canadian Border. We reached the final actual summit and stopped to layer up. After that we dropped about 2,000 feet in 10 miles and it was a nice change from just pedaling.
We stopped at the border where it told us to stop but as we weren’t a car it didn’t seem to alert anyone and we debated what to do. I always get a little nervous about not doing exactly what they want but we decided we would slowly move towards the window and see if we could get anyone to notice us. The agent came out and was friendly enough taking our passports and asking if we had any guns or cash– welcome to America. It was almost comical with how little we were carrying to think we had some how stashed $10,000 in cash on us. I also wanted to ask how many people actually say yes to those questions but I realize sometimes it’s best to remain silent. The agent told us we only had about 40 more miles and we would descend for 20 of those and then it’s pretty flat for the last 20.
Grande had a friend in Haines that she had put us in touch so I sent her a message. We never try to presume anything so we asked her for campground recommendations, she responded with campgrounds but also said they had an off shoot in their house that we could sleep in and gave directions. Alright well she offered. We let her know we’d be coming late to double check and she said it wouldn’t be a problem at all.
We descended the 20 miles and then we were greeted by the flat pedaling coming into town. It was similar to the Valdez ride where you descend the pass and then all of a sudden you still have 20 miles to town. We pulled over at one point to delayer and two cars pulled over to ask if we needed rides, oh no we’re almost there and we should probably finish this section. Plus Grande told us her trick of counting mileage, once you hit 10 miles it’s basically like nothing and you’re there. So we figured we had two 10 mile segments and really that’s like nothing. But the flatness wore on and we realized just how far 20 miles is even if it seems like nothing after having gone 580 miles. We talked about how cool the landscape was with the big trees and even seemingly bigger mountains.
Neither of us had been to Haines but it was on my places to check out. The darkness came quicker with the canopy of the trees blocking out light and we put on our lights just to be safe. We put the address into our GPS to figure out where to turn as it’s just before the main part of Haines. The miles ticked by and we kept joking how we really had nothing left (clearly delirious at this point). We made it into Haines and turned to be greeted by a large hill to get up to the house, after some tricky navigation we found the house and followed the directions. We ended up sleeping in an office and bathroom that was separate from the rest of the house so we felt less bad about coming in late.
Two nights in a row of showers, what a treat and no having to set up the tent was even better. We showered and went to bed with no real plan for the next day other than to catch the 4pm ferry. When we woke up we saw one host outside, the other had to take off for a guiding trip, and chatted with him for a bit about Haines and the area, they had been crust skiing the day before at Haines Summit for 7 hours.
We made our way into town to the one shop that seemed to be open for breakfast and got coffee and breakfast burritos and sat outside to kill time for the next few hours. We had arranged for bike boxes to be ready for us in Juneau but the bike shop called and said that would no longer work so we were trying to figure out another option as we need to have them boxed for the flights the next day. Grande once again had the hookup who put us in touch with the guiding company in town who had boxes we could come get around 1. From there our hosts would let us use their van to transport the bikes and boxes to the ferry and then Ana would drive the van back and ride back to the ferry where we would box our bikes up. This was a great plan it only threw a wrench in the fact that we needed to ride our bikes from the ferry to the house in Juneau we were staying at. We hoped we’d be able to hitch.
We caught the ferry no problem and sat out on the deck before moving into a more sheltered enclave as the wind picked up. We got some food, snoozed, and read to pass the time. We made a plan of trying to get off the ferry first so we could grab our bikes and hold up a sign for ‘Douglas Island’ to try and catch a ride. We made our sign and upon docking went to get our bikes and make our way towards the cars. In what could have been out of a movie scene we grabbed our bikes, turned around and all the cars seemed to be gone. What? How did that happen. We made our way to the exit and held up a sign. A box truck stopped, “You girls need a ride?”
“Yeah, but we’re going to Douglas Island, are you?”
“I can take you, no problem.” We put our boxes in the back and Ana went there too as there was only one seat up front. I got up front and immediately texted Kevin, got in a box truck with some guy who is going to take us to Laura’s just in case something happens. He responded asking for a license plate number– too late I’m already inside. I again made small talk to let him know that people would miss me. But we were delivered unharmed and he was just a nice guy who had daughters and understood our problem. The final spot we stayed, another hook up by Grande was a house on the water in Juneau. It was so nice that it almost seemed like the past 5 days weren’t real as we both go our own king beds with sheets to sleep in. Our bikes had been packed so there wasn’t much else to do and we headed to bed after FaceTiming our boyfriends to show them our lux accommodations.
We woke up the next morning and Ana caught a taxi to the airport before I did as her flight was earlier so I just hung out and drank coffee and watched the massive cruise ships dock across the marina. I made my way to the airport, leaving our bear spray and extra fuel for Laura as they don’t allow them on the plane.
I arrived back in Anchorage and Kevin got me from the airport, in true summer fashion I already had a trip planned for the next weekend and it took me another 7 weeks to even reassemble my bike. I spent a lot of time on the trip in my own thoughts and I didn’t make any headway to knowing or figuring anything out. I try to making meaning out of meaningless things. Maybe the meaning of it all is that it validated my most exaggerated fears and in doing so I can be released of them or face them or deal with them now. Maybe it’s just in accepting the arbitrariness of what happened, in a moment a spasm of random damage in time and space, that just as randomly, a small number of humans got the opportunity to help me repair. I spent most of the months before this not trusting anything in my brain or my body as if in one fleeting moment it could all be gone the ground crumbling underneath me. I kept waiting until I felt better to make plans unsure of even what tomorrow would bring as if making plans for the future was something that I would get to do when I was better, when I was back to baseline and could rebuild from there. But at some point my body got tired of waiting and decided to act. I’m not back to baseline or maybe I am or maybe it doesn’t matter but I have a lifejacket on in case I ever need to start swimming again.
Anyways, it’s been a long while since I wrote, my narrative got cut much like Meg’s soul in Hercules and it took me a while to find it, like a long while. It caused so much pain for myself and for those around me that it’s still taking a while to sort through. But in this pain I’ve also found joy and learning that these can coexist–that shutting off joy doesn’t prevent the pain and feeling the pain only heightens the joy. Anyways I feel like I’ve spent the past few years running from the fear and not running towards the joy. Maybe it’s all the same. And maybe it’s just in the running that will lead you to where you need to be. 600 miles to no particular destination seemed to be a good place to start.
Grande, Ana, and I are back at it tomorrow but riding less than 100 miles and with no middle school girls– a first for us! Ha
Oh and if you’re wondering after departing Haines we took the ferry to Juneau where I flew back to Anchorage. Ana flew down to Seattle rode to Banff and then won the Tour Divide.
The feeling in my legs has almost entirely returned, my cough has subsided, my bike is finally clean, my bum has totally recovered and the Kenai 250 is starting to feel like a distant memory where the details are still fuzzy and you’re not entirely sure what was real or what wasn’t– that’s probably mostly due to the lack of sleep over 47 hours. A lot happens during an endurance race/ride/survive and long endurance event = long write up (#sorrynotsorry). Not sure what took longer riding or writing the Kenai 250. And to that point, a lot happened, some graphic information will be shared and not sure who this is entirely suitable for. But you’ve at least been warned.
When prepping for the 250 I had no idea what to do, 250 miles self-supported. I’ve never done anything like that. One year when I raced Leadville, even with a mechanical I only had 8 minutes of stop time and that seemed like a lot but that’s with bottle hand ups/food passed off, no real stopping to get things and knowing that if things really go south you can limp to the finish line (as has happened in previous races). I wasn’t sure exactly what I would need so was maybe a little over cautious in my packing but I ended up using everything I brought (except my bike repair kit–thank you Chain Reactions for the pre-race tune!). I was also unsure of food and what would be available so packed rice cakes, meatballs, sour patch kids, maple syrup, coffee and potatoes to at least get me through the first 70-100 miles.
Not pictured the 5lbs of Sour Patch Kids
Thursday night I loaded up all my gear on to my bike and caught a ride down with a friend to stay in a cabin the night before. It was nice because this way I wouldn’t have to drive home after the race but more importantly would not have to keep track of my keys for that amount of time (I couldn’t find my driver’s license for 3 weeks after so this was a legit concern). We went through final checks on our bikes, hung out with some other racers and talked about what the days to come would bring.
At the start, I did a last minute gear check, not that it really mattered at that point, was fully into the ‘rung what ya brung‘ mode. I checked in and made sure my tracker was turned on and then went to find Grande around the start, we chatted a bit about our logistics, we had loosely talked about riding together but neither of us wanted to hold the other one back so we said we’d see what the day would bring, I was hoping to at least be with her through Russian Lakes (mile 70 and a lot of bears) and then go from there.
Right before the start
The start was anti-climatic (unlike Leadville where they shoot off a shotgun, more like, okay you guys can go now) Unlike every other race I refused to sprint at the start– it’s 250 miles like we have time. Fortunately, Grande also was taking a more conservative approach and we rode side by side to the trail head chatting with others along the way. We tucked behind two guys on the start of the singletrack and kept chatting. I couldn’t tell if I was going too hard or not enough which was a reoccurring theme, sure I was going hard but it wouldn’t be hard enough for a 100 miles race but maybe too hard for a 250 mile race, only time would tell.
We stayed in the group for most of the way up Res Pass, gaining a few additions, we checked in at the top and everyone was good to keep going. We started the smooth, fast descent towards Devil’s Cabin and then down toward Cooper Landing, at one point we caught up to some of the guys I know and was so surprised that I asked what they were doing there thinking they must have had a mechanical or something, he responded same thing as you–oh.
We rode down until the trail split, I stopped and regrouped with Ana and Grande debating which way to go, most of the boys decided to go left we opted to go right knowing what that direction would bring (both ended up in the same place a few miles later). We cruised by the cabin that Alvin did his first bikepacking trip to and I remembered the trip out being pretty quick to the trailhead. And it was for us as well, we came down into the trailhead parking lot and was met by a group of people which again my first thought was, what are these people doing in this parking lot and then it was a quick realization they were there for us, we picked up a ghost rider, Gus (who is dating Ana) and headed towards Russian Lakes (very infamous for bears). We stopped by a water tap to fill up even though it required going beyond the trail, I ate some food and topped off knowing that in about 20 miles we’d be at Wildman’s and could restock.
First water stop
We headed back the way we came and turned onto the Russian Lakes trail, I’ve only ridden it the other way so only had some idea of what was to come. We talked as if our lives depended on it, which it did to thwart off bears, making conversation about nearly everything– we also sang, and I tried yodeling which mostly made me sad that I only knew the first line from Sound of Music, “High on a hill was a lonely goatherd Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo!” The last time I had ridden this trail I ran into a Sow and two cubs, the cubs were in a tree and the mom was on the trail so we turned around and went and ate lunch and then came back and they were gone but it seems like everyone has a bear story from Russian Lake and the amount of bear scat would certainly explain why. We ended up coming up on another rider, Duncan, who we had actually met last fall when we stopped to eat lunch on a trail and he stopped to join us. Riding with a group of 5 definitely made me feel better in our bear chance category, we passed the spot where I previously had the bear encountered and I warned of a deceptively deep puddle sometime afterwards but couldn’t exactly remember where, Ana identified it pretty quickly but stopped before submerging her entire front wheel. We stopped at one point to regroup and Ana mentioned having difficulty with her front brake, pulling the lever all the way back to the handlebar with no resistance. It was also maybe the worst mosquito area I’ve ever been in and was grateful when Duncan offered up some mosquito repellent while we assessed the situation. We thought maybe the line had lost pressure but upon closure inspection realized that the brake pads were completely missing and not in a worn down kind of way in a they fell completely out kind of way. We debated potential solutions and decided to ride the 15 miles to Wildman’s and get fuel and work on it there. After some bushwhacking on the final mile of the trail we emerged onto Snug Harbor Road, an 11 mile gravel road that would take us to the highway and to Wildman’s. We were roughly at 70 miles and I felt surprisingly good at this point.
We started cruising down the road and got briefly on the highway before turning off into the Wildman’s parking lot. I went in to grab food and drinks while Ana worked on her brake and Grande held the bike.
I grabbed a handful of things still a bit unsure of what I was going to need for the next section, I was feeling pretty good and so wanted to focus on what was working because at some point I was convinced that it would stop working. We left the store, getting back on the highway before taking a 2ish mile gravel off shoot to avoid a no-shoulder zone and dropping out on the Old Seward Highway Road, a 10 mile gravel road that would take us to the Seward Highway. We got through that section relatively unscathed, I kept eating and drinking, or trying to, and we had multiple changes of clothes at the temperature started to flutter. As we turned onto the highway we decided to ride in a pace line to conserve energy and hopefully get there faster, we traded off pulls every 1-2 minutes and noticed the darkening storm clouds getting blown in from the sea.
We picked up another rider who joined in our pace line and soon we were pulled over and putting on our rain gear. It wasn’t raining hard but enough that knowing we’d be going through the night wanted to do our best to stay dry before temperatures plummeted. We did get caught in a bit more of a rainstorm but seemed to be out of it in about 20-30 minutes and mostly dry again before turning onto the Primrose Trailhead.
We picked up Gus who would serve as a night Ghost Rider (someone who rides behind you but is there for bear safety/overall safety) and set up the trail. When we were still on the road I noticed some tightness starting to set in on my calves and was worried about cramping so downed some extra salt. We weren’t entirely sure about what we would be encountering at the top, reports of snow drifts and having to hike-a-bike for miles had been percolating the last few weeks but no one had real-time trail conditions so in anticipation of snow I had shoved my feet into plastic bags to create a moisture barrier and had latex gloves. Trail features that are normally familiar and rideable feel foreign under the added bikepacking weight and the previous 110 miles that my legs had already pedaled. Primrose, while normally has a few hike-a-bike sections, I felt like more hiking than biking going up. I figured the on and off the bike was upsetting my stomach as I started to notice it wasn’t settling right, I kept moving and kept drinking water hoping that whatever it was, it would be gone soon. Again, didn’t think this was too normal, most 100 mile races at some point my stomach gets distressed and its hard to take in any food/liquids and have found that to just keep drinking, tweaking what goes in a bit can do the trick to at least keep things going down. And not that rare that after an event I throw up. I tried to trouble shoot all while lifting my bike up over rocks and clamoring up behind, was it the salt, did I go too hard, is the temperature weird, maybe I need more gatorade, maybe I need less.
There wasn’t really any option but to keep going and that’s what I did getting further into a hole. I kept track of the 4 mile mark in my mind because someone had said that’s when the snow starts, when we passed it and there was no snow to be found I was pleasantly surprised. Despite my best attempts at mitigating my stomach I crossed the threshold where I realized my body was only interested in one thing: throwing up. I tried to fight it for a bit, thinking of the fuel that I would lose by throwing it up and how that would mess up my fueling plans but even trying to negotiate with my stomach was no use “you know you’re just going to be hungry later– or we really need this fuel.” But it was futile and at a moment of pause in the group, I put my bike down and slowly walked off the trail, near a tree. I’ve thrown up enough times in my life to be able to do it somewhat quietly but it was still apparent what my body was doing when Grande asked if I was okay– I replied “I should be now that I threw up.” What? Are you okay? Okay mostly fine and sometimes do it so was hard to say exactly why I was doing it, stressed, tired, wrong food, too much salt, too hard, not hard enough, who knew, I didn’t. I knew I needed to eat as I just emptied all my stomach contents but that was challenging as my stomach settled briefly but then started to feel nauseous again. We kept moving, albeit, myself more slowly but at least we weren’t trudging through snow. I had dropped far enough back that Ana and Grande’s headlights became smaller and smaller beacons. We regrouped at the top to put on more layers before the descent. I didn’t feel great physically or in feeling like I was holding them back and wasting time waiting for me. I would often remind them that I would be okay if they left or needed to go faster but they seemed okay and after a while figured they would go if they needed to.
We started the descent down Lost Lake, which is arguably the best trail of the whole race so a little bummer to do it at night in the dark. While they call Alaska the land of endless summer sun, that’s not entirely true and we do have blips of darkness bookended by dusk and dawn. We were in the darkest patch going down. I led — fortunately I know my body and bike well enough and wasn’t too out of if that I was still able to respond to obstacles in the trail as they came up, which a few did. I also forgot about the drop off to one side so maybe going down in the dark helped. I would periodically remember to ring my bell to ward off bears and was mostly just screaming the whole time to try and let whatever might be in the trail have a warning. There was also a sense of if there is a bear there wouldn’t be much I can do regardless of my speed so will lean into the statistics that there won’t be a bear and just go (obviously a little tired at this point). We got to the bottom of the trail and regrouped in the parking lot, realizing that the lone van in the lot was a friend (who had done this multiple times and coached multiple athletes in the race) who popped her head out to chat. I don’t remember much other than sitting on the pavement and feeling the cold seep into my body.
She asked if I was tired, “No, I’m not tired, I have a deep rooted fatigue that sleep won’t even cure at this point.” I didn’t move, laying down and taking in the cold seemed like a better alternative to standing.
I’m not sure how long we were in the parking lot, it seemed like seconds passed slow but minutes moved fast and before I knew it we were back on our bikes and descending down into Seward. We circled through town, riding by the Sea Life Center before heading back out to stop at the gas station. At the gas station I was trying to figure out what to eat, half my plan was to just make it Seward and restock but with my stomach the way it was, nothing seemed appetizing and so I wandered the aisles a bit, went outside, went back inside, and decided on some lime flavored tortilla chips thinking the salt would be nice and it was something my stomach hadn’t rejected yet. I smashed the bag onto a bike bag and strapped them down. The clerk inside told Grande that there was a food truck that did breakfast and opened at 4:30am. It was about 3:40ish so we discussed options, I liked the idea of getting real food and we thought maybe we could sleep while we waited. We settled on that, sleeping and then getting real food before going back out. Now we just had to figure out where to sleep, somewhere close to the truck, we scanned the area when Grande said, “I’ll be right back” and headed to the hotel across the street, 2 minutes later she popped back out, we can sleep in the conference room. She had gone in and asked if we could sleep in their lobby for 30 minutes and the clerk said, “No, but we have a conference room with couches.” We rolled into the conference room, setting our bikes against the wall.
Super lux accommodations
I was still chilled to the bone so put on my puffy pants and jacket over my cycling clothes and took off my shoes. We all ended up sleeping on the floor since there were only two couches and we didn’t want to get them dirty. I put my legs up on the couch and hoped that with the brief sleep I would awake feeling anew.
In the 30 minutes that we allocated for sleep I was in it deep and woke up not feeling super groggy but was immediately met with waves of nauseousness again. Oh geeze and was consumed with a few dry heaves having nothing left in my stomach to discard. We packed up and left as quickly as we had arrived.
Ana had left a few minutes before us to place our order and I was surprised at the amount of people who were already milling around at that hour in the morning. We got our food and I got an ice coffee and shoved it into my feedbag. I ate some of the hashbrowns, eggs and sausage mix and then packed the rest to go hoping that having real food over the course of the morning would do the trick.
As we were waiting for our food, Ana checked the trackleaders board after one of the guys told us we were in the lead the night before. The woman in second (assuming the three of us were tied for first) showed to be on a boat in Seward when we were getting food, a bit odd but maybe she had a friend with a boat in the harbor she crashed on. We started riding out of town towards the trail head when we pulled over to readjust some tings Ana checked again showing Jenny ahead of us now. The leaderboard only pulls data every so often so not weird to see jumps. I realized my body was not up to the task of chasing anyone down so I turned to Ana and Grande, “you guys should go, you can catch her, I still don’t feel super great.” Grande also suggested Ana go ahead, she hesitated, “riding with you guys is so fun though” “Yeah but you can win, and we’re old you should go!” And with that we decided she would go and we would probably fall off her pace at some point. We rode the rest of the road to the trail, I felt off a bit and slowed to throw up what I had just ingested, oh shoot, I decided then that if I threw up a total of 5 times I would pull the plug regardless. We met up with Gus again at the Bear Lake trailhead and ran into Jenny, in bit of a cluster as we navigated the overflowing water on the trail. Upon reaching the singletrack Ana and Gus went ahead followed by Jenny, Grande and I. We got distance between the groups pretty quickly on the trail. I had ridden this trail once before but that was not enough to fully prepare for what awaited me.
Bear Lake trail is a bit notorious, first any trail name with ‘bear’ in it tells you a lot you need to know, the other is that it’s a lot of hike-a-biking but especially this year with multiple down trees. We started and having to get on and off multiple times in the first part navigating short inclines and sketchy side exposure. There is one steep hill in the middle where we gain about 1,000 feet in less than a mile. We started pushing our bikes up and as we climbed I fell down into a darker hole. Having not been able to keep food down for almost 8 hours at this point and lugging a fully loaded bike up this hill was my breaking point. I started crying while trying to remain engaged with Grande so she wouldn’t know that I was in it deep. I tried to keep drinking in hopes of settling my stomach at some point and getting some calories in so I could get out of this hole. We kept pushing up and finally got some reprieve at the top to pedal which was abruptly cut short by having to lift our bikes over a tree. Even the act of lifting my bike over seemed like a gargantuan task and took everything I had to be able to do it.
Me realizing I need to do more than one push-up a year
On one of the descents my tire slid out on a water bar and I crashed, ripping my shorts in the process, I got back on my bike and cried harder. Shortly after, I crashed again on another water bar Grande(having recently been WFR certified) called for a coffee break, “hey let’s just take a break for a minute” but also knew she was assessing me. At this point I had taken my inhaler three times and was borderline panic breathing on this section. I took a few deep breaths, I realized I had passed the threshold for my body and was in uncharted territory, I was riding super sloppy and at this point was worried about getting hurt worse, I voiced my concerns to Grande. But we kept moving, I was ruminating over my dark thoughts when I was startled by another voice in my head “Have some grace” it was overriding everything else in a way. It repeated, “Have some grace with yourself, you’ve never done this.” And as quickly as it appeared it left again with a vacant silence filling the space. It did make a good point, I have never done anything like this before. In that moment I knew I was going to finish no matter what. I’d like to say that I rallied and pulled it all together in that moment but it was a slow crawl out of the dark space I had been in, my stomach was still uneasy but I was able to get in some calories which helped. We finished the trail and I was so relieved my tears of despair turned to tears of joy. We stopped before the next trail and had another snack. We continued on our way, slowly getting out of the hole, my stomach still didn’t feel great but I hadn’t thrown up in a few hours and was able to keep everything down at this point, albeit it was a minimal amount of food.
Seven miles later we were back in the parking lot that we had started at 12 hours earlier. We got back on the highway riding for a few miles before turning off to take a 5-mile loop going up a double-track mine road, the instructions weren’t entirely clear so we bypassed the trail we were suppose to get off on and hiked up further before questioning and going back. I stopped to pee and as I crouched down looked down and was startled to find a deep red substance starting back at me. Now for anyone else it would probably be obvious that this is blood but remember I’m like 30 hours into this race and not expecting my period for another 2 weeks. I stared at it wondering if maybe it’s not period blood, is something else happening down there, am I chafing that bad, no. Okay, must be period blood, hmm well did not prepare for this. Thank goodness I had a chamois on. I decided to just go with it and free bleed, I didn’t have a tampon and thought maybe I would try to get one at the next stop. Once we figured out where to turn off the trail it was a nice two mile descent back to the gravel road to exit back to the highway. We talked about how fun that little trail was but with only being 5 miles we wouldn’t exactly drive down there just to ride that trail but was cool to check out.
We were back on the highway and headed towards Moose Pass which would be our last stop in all likelihood since we wouldn’t reach the last one before it closed. We pulled into Moose Lodge and saw some friends in the parking lot, they said the food wait time was about 30 minutes, too long. Being low on resources I told Grande I was going to check out the general store across the street. I went in and still wasn’t sure what my stomach wanted so wandered around for a bit, seeing they made sandwiches I asked if they had gluten free break. “What is that?” What? I didn’t even know how to respond, “oh like wheat free, I’m allergic to wheat” “No, we don’t have that”. Hmm, okay I thought, “Can you give me $10 worth of just turkey meat?” “Yeah….we can do that.” I was also being mindful because I only had $20 in cash and it was cash only. I also grabbed two rice crispy treats and skittles. I went back to the Lodge parking lot, running in to go to the bathroom, still no tampons in sight but also after sitting on a saddle for 30+ hours I’m not sure I even wanted to mess with that. I also convinced myself that since I had already torn my shorts people maybe wouldn’t think that much of it but I’m also not sure I really cared at this point. But it was nice to finally be able to use some toilet paper.
I called out something but don’t remember what but took that little boost with me into the next section of the trail. I still had to walk up small hills as the weight of my bike seemed to be beyond my pedaling capabilities and power output at this point. The overgrowth wasn’t too bad and we kept climbing towards the lakes that would mean we could reap our reward on the descent. As we were approaching the lake we saw two guys laying down in the grass, we assumed they were racers but didn’t recognize them and only one had a large load on his bike. We decided to circumnavigate the creek crossing saving our feet from being wet and instead rode on the shore around and through parts of the lake which seems counterintuitive for getting our feet wet but Grande knows all the tricks. We descended down a rocky section and getting through it made me feel more confident, that I had gotten over the dark patch and my body knew what to do when it was on the bike again. We talked about how we only had one trail left after this and thought maybe we would finish at 10-11pm. We got down to the Johnson Trail parking lot and saw some people who were waiting we found out on the rider who had been sleeping on the side of the trail. Someone gave me some water and another friend pulled into the parking lot who had done this before, back when it was more of a tour and had camped out for a few nights. She said when she got to the split on the highway where you go left to stay on course or go right to take the quick way back to Hope, she realized if she took the right she would get there in time for last call so did that and bailed on finishing the event. I also had that realization, the split is 15 miles downhill on the highway to Hope, the course is about 35 more miles of highway/trail to get back to Hope. We stayed longer than we had anticipated and right as we were about to leave, a friend pulled in saying this section took them 7 hours prior. “What?” We were thinking maybe another 3-4 hours. I had enough food for about 40 miles but I did not have enough food for 7 hours of riding. Alright well, I guess we should get going. We calculated it out, 7 hours would put us at 3-4am, we turned back onto the path next to the highway, we cruised down it talking about how we were feeling.
We also decided to charge our lights for when we would need them on the final descent which on our timeline would coincide with the darkest patch of the night. We cruised down the path and it spit us out at the juncture for Hope or staying the course. We stopped. Grande talked about pulling the plug, she had some things she needed to get done and didn’t want her partner to have to come get her at 3am to go back to Anchorage. I said I was going to keep going but in my mind was mostly just like “oh fuck, bears” but understood where she was coming from. We stood there for a bit longer and talked about what I would need for the final push. It took me a minute to realize, before exclaiming, “I have a minivan! I can take you back to Anchorage!” volunteering to drive us back after (which was the plan anyways just now with another person). “Yeah, we can fit all the bikes and us in the van and we’ll get you back so Dusty won’t have to come down in the middle of the night!” That was enough to make it work, we planned on stopping a bit further so Grande could call Dusty. I messaged my mom on the Inreach
“Grand is going to head to hope, I’m going to try and make a push of it”
“I’ll sleep in the van in Hope or whatever after”
“Going to try and catch the guy in front of me to ride with”
“Scratch that– we’re going to drive Grande home with us and keep riding together”
None of these ever got delivered because I forgot to switch my bluetooth on (good thing I didn’t actually need to relay any important information) so after handing Grande her lights back (which she gave me when I thought I would be solo) we took on on the final push.
We started riding again, this time on the highway which was a bit of a slog, Grande put a gap in on me and I didn’t have it in me to catch and sit on her wheel. The race director pulled in front of me to see how it was going and to say he probably wouldn’t be at the finish line. I switched my rear light on for cars watching the miles tick by on my watch. I was that glad that Grande would be with me for this section, I understood her stopping but also didn’t fully process what riding in the dark by myself would have actually entailed. I was alone with my thoughts, it was still too early in the race to even envision finishing so mostly just focused on one pedal stroke at a time. We stopped at the last spot before we’d lose service again until we were done, Grande touch based with Dusty, who said he would leave Anchorage when we were at a certain point. After what seemed like and was ages on the highway we finally reached Devil’s Creek Trailhead. We again saw Wes (the racer who was sleeping earlier) and his crew. He was going to sleep for a bit and then take off. We decided to start the push of what we hoped would be the final leg. We both felt good, not energized but not too tired and decided we would wait until the descent to use our lights so they would be fully charged. We left the trailhead around 10 or 11pm and still had some daylight, we descended down the trail which was a nice reprieve before starting our last climb. Okay, 10 miles to the Res Trail and that brings us back to Hope. Mind you it was still about 25 miles from the Res Trail to Hope. We started the slow climb up and at a few of the switch backs I got off to walk even though under different circumstances they aren’t too challenging to ride. Have Grace, it’s okay to walk you aren’t doing this fresh. As we climbed we got denser into the shrubbery and it got darker, we still refused to use our lights still anticipating needing them for the descent and so we plunged further into the darkness. Even with it being close to solstice there are waning period of lights, it’s not fully pitch black but easy enough to lose yourself in the darkness. There is something so lovely about the dark and it felt extra special being submersed it for how much daylight we had. In high school and most of college (much to my roommate’s dismay) I would do late night runs when the world was asleep and it felt like the night had stay up just for me. That’s how it felt now, as if we were the only two souls out there at the moment with the vastness swallowing up anyone or anything else.
I thought about seeing a bear, if I would even see it, and surely I was going to so slow it wouldn’t be threatened, would I be threatened, all the adrenaline had seeped out of my body over the past 38 hours, my heart rate wasn’t even getting about 125, so if anything now was the best time to see a bear because in all likelihood I wouldn’t be able to overthink the situation. I also imagined that this is what it must be like to ride drunk as my front wheel would sometimes weave back and forth on the trail and I was grateful it never fully went over the edge. At one point we both realized we had gotten sleepy but were navigating how to assess the other person’s status. I told Grande something to the extent of you know I think I’m tired and could probably take a nap but not sure I’m fully tired and could also probably keep going. We had some coffee and kept trotting along but the darkness continued to steal our energy. “You know there is a campground just up ahead we could take a little nap, being in the dark made me more sleepy.” “Oh yeah, that works for me.” We crossed through a river and took a bend in the trail which put us right at the campsite. During day trips I always found it strange it was there, only 5 miles from the trailhead who would ever use it. Luckily for us no one was and we put our bikes down, pulled out our puffy gear and bivys (mine was really an emergency bivy which made me feel like a chipotle burrito. I thought about how close our bikes were to us and the food on it and then my eyes shot up worrying about the blood in my shorts, I wracked my brain trying to remember if it was an urban legend that bears stalk women on their periods or not. I convinced myself it must be but surely if it was true we wouldn’t be there that long. I clutched my bear spay harder and tried not to think of what I was potentially attracting. Wes rode by us not too long after we settled in asking if we were sleeping, Grande responded and he kept going. The alarm came all too soon this time and I asked Grande if we could snooze another 10 minutes, she agreed but this was a dangerous game as we were both master snoozers. In that brief time it was enough to have a very real dream of a man standing at the camp telling me it was time to leave and waking up to realize that my bear spray had nestled in under my back. We got up with the next alarm and put away our bivys, I mostly just stuffed mine away since folding it seemed to require too much brain power. We stayed in our puffy clothes to help warm up. We commented how we timed it right because when we woke up it was light enough we didn’t need to use our lights, so much for charging them the whole time. We stopped and filtered some water and I made some coffee. I tried to take some syrup in but my stomach immediately threw it back up, no matter we were close to being done and I was on fumes anyways.
Time seemed to be arbitrary during the race but this was 5:30am
We began to cross what was maybe the most treacherous crossing of the ride, Grande went first and started riding but soon hit a rock and tipped over submerging most of her body and bike into the water. The current was working against her, she wasn’t in any real danger just having to lift her bike back up and get out of the water. I felt helpless as I just watched as there wasn’t anything I could do from shore and she quickly exited the stream. I put together enough rocks to scamper across not caring anymore if my feet got wet. We came upon Wes who was sleeping in his clothes next to his bike, he stirred awake and asked if he could ride with us, sure no problem. We took off on a flowy section and about a mile later came to a snow crossing, I went to grab my phone to snap a picture but panicked when I couldn’t feel it—“I dropped my phone” I had it when we were coming up on Wes because I went to get a picture of him sleeping but then decided against it. I’ll go back and look, you don’t have to wait, Grande didn’t mind so she could change out her wet socks, I sprinted (or what sprinting looked like at 44 hours) back and right after we had seen Wes my phone laid in the trail, relief washed over me because in all honesty was going to leave it if it wasn’t there and deal with it later.
After finding my phone
I got back to Grande and Wes and took off realizing we were close to the summit maybe a mile or two away. Still too soon to think about the finish. We regrouped at the summit, realizing it was mostly downhill I pulled out my speaker to blast some tunes—not so much for us but for any potential animals and anyone coming up the trail. We rallied down, hooping and hollering (or at least I was), my body in perfect sync with my bike as I navigated the trail, pure trail magic. There were six brief uphills on the trail which we regroup on during the first five. On the last one Grande and I waited a bit for Wes and ultimately felt bad ditching him but we were close enough to the finish and he had given us permission. We took off down the trail and crossed the familiar bridge that had led us up the trail nearly 2 days earlier, okay now just 6 miles into Hope. We cruised on the road, stopping briefly to take a photo with a sign for the Kenai 250 riders.
We chatted about what had transpired over the past two days and both agreed we’d probably do it again (this was Grande’s second time). We turned onto the mainstreet of Hope and to our surprise there were actually people waiting for us, I scanned the crowd and with my terrible eye sight only made out Grande’s dog, “Lil Snugs!” I yelled, “oh man we’re here”.
Seeing the finishing line made me realize I was actually going to finish
And we rolled into the finish but were quickly told that we actually had to ride another 20 yards to the official finish, which we did and then came back to meet up with our friends. We arrived in around 47 hours and soon were swapping stories with other finishers and friends. I love sharing the individual pursuits that we all collectively experienced. It really was a different race for everyone out there. Grande and I even joked that we won’t ride together unless it’s at least 200 miles.
Felt like I had just won Miss Mount Rose
For not being allowed an official crew, this guy sure showed up a lot during the race
The recovery period proved a bit longer than anticipated, I quickly came down with a cold and spent most of the following week taking it easy. But fortunately was able to recover in time to participate in the Jurassic Classic.
A nice change from the sour patch kids
Riding the 250 was like finally being able to exhale. I had no idea how much my body missed riding/racing until I was back doing it. And I wasn’t exactly sure if those deep reservoirs still existed after taking time off to study for the bar and then COVID. What was I made of, who was I, could I still consider myself and endurance racer even if I had not done any race over 45 minutes in 2 years? The rhythmic turn of the pedals allowed my brain to finally stop turning and just be, to exist, not worry about COVID numbers, data, work, or what the future might look like, all I had to do was pedal and that’s what I did.
Roads that lead us home
Over the course of the race a good family friend died, I got word when were in Seward before the hellacious trail and before my moment of grace, after the race I texted one of her kid’s this, “I got notification of your mom passing when I was on course, a few blimps of service kept me updated and my mom told me when I was about 130 miles in and headed for the hardest section of the race – I often think a lot of the draw of doing endurance events is how ethereal the next world feels, like a thin veil and often finding myself thinking of the grandparents, songs will come on that I’ve associated with them for years and I feel like they’re right next to me. When I was in the thick of it during the 250 and I mean the thick of it like I had never been before while racing—I had thrown up twice, was crying, was pretty worried about how I was riding and how I was going to continue, there was an overwhelming presence that just drowned out all my thoughts and told me to “just have some grace, you’ve never done this before” I’d like to say in that moment I turned things around but truth be told it was a slow process out of the dark hold but it was the start of crawling out of it. I didn’t think much of it at the time like maybe my body had finally had enough fighting and it telling me to go with it but also not fully convinced it wasn’t one of the grands or your mom reminding me of my own strength when I was doubting myself (as is so often done).” Maybe it’s this draw of tapping into this infinite grace that exists but is so easily drowned out by the daily hustle that continues to draw me to trail. The stillness and simplicity of just having to pedal.
Big thanks to Grande for riding with me, Ana for hanging with us the first day, Rachel for being a “gold sponsor” and loaning me the bike repair kit + all the bike bag gear (one day I will get my own). Chain Reactions for getting the bike in race shape so I did not have to use my bike repair kit. Juliana Bicycles for making such a rad bike. The race organizers for putting together this amazing event– and mostly everyone reading this and who followed along while we were out there. It’s such a fun little event and I was blown away how many people reach out after to say that they had so much fun tracking us– here’s hoping to recover fully in time to do it next year- ha
When people are dying or faced with the prospect of dying they talk about home–either where they came from or where they hope to return. Which is how I learned a lot about the remote places in Alaska; someone would come in and their story would come out about their village, their way of life, their lineage. I would often nod along as if I knew the reference points they were citing. After I was in the clear I would quickly google to learn where the place was located and would soon find that no roads enter/exited the community. Which is still hard for me to fathom, at times Anchorage feels isolating. Through these conversations it painted a picture of Alaska that is often overlooked on a map. And from staring at those maps it’s also how I learned that there are only 5 highways in the state or at least primary highways, Glen Allen Highway, Seward Highway, Richardson Highway, Dalton Highway, and The Parks Highway (which you would think is after Denali National Park because it takes you there but is in fact after a guy named George Parks, first resident governor of Alaska). In my time here I’ve actually only driven on three of them, The Glen (arriving and leaving), Seward, and the Parks Highway. Dalton goes to Valdez and Richardson (fame of Ice Road Truckers- I think…) starts at Prudhoe Bay and runs down to Fairbanks.
Nothing a little super glue and duct tape couldn’t fix when this happened right before we left
Which means in my planning a trip to Valdez I only had minimum navigation. I convinced a friend, Grande to come, which really didn’t require too much convincing other than “hey want to ride to Valdez and catch the ferry back” and coordinating schedules. The trip is about 300 miles so we figured we would ride Friday/Saturday and then ferry back on Sunday. Only after selecting the one weekend that really seem to work for both of us until July or August we realized we wouldn’t be able to leave until at least 2pm on Friday. That’s fine, we’d probably only ride 100 miles on Friday anyways. We continued with our planning which wasn’t much and really only figuring out stove requirements, tent set up, and potential camp spots. Kevin has never witnessed me prep for an adventure like this and suffice to say I think he was shocked at how little effort I put into the logistics. But also felt like there wasn’t much beyond what we figured out, leave time, stop places, and when to show up to the ferry. I packed my food, which ended up being enough for a week, sleeping gear, riding gear, and a few extra layers. I didn’t checked the weather till the day before because as I told Kevin it doesn’t really matter since this is the one weekend we can do it, we’ll ride in whatever.
Make your friends ride for 200 miles and take photos like this haha
In what should surprise no one, we didn’t actually leave Anchorage until 4ish on Friday which resulted in Grande’s husband driving us up the road to start. We shaved about 50 miles off and got dropped off in Palmer which also meant less traffic on the highway. I rode with a tail light and we both had safety vests, although Grande’s mostly put mine to shame but we did what we could to be seen. I still struggle with riding on the highway and even in town, I can do everything right, lights, vest, stay on my side/area but all it takes is someone deciding to look at their phone, drive under the influence, or become distracted and that’s it. We had all positive and/or neutral interactions with cars so that was nice. Most of our ride followed the same pattern, ride, pull off to change gear, ride some more and then figure out where our next stop was. Grande’s husband had connected us with a friend who had some land we could camp on near what we anticipated being our first stopping point. We got ahold of him and got directions and after about 4 hours of riding we turned off the highway and descended down a gravel road that gave us a full vantage point of a glacier. We got a little bit turned around and ended up calling him again to get direction and he offered up his arctic oven tent for us to sleep in. We made it to his property and we were amazed at the views he had, he was working on building a cabin but for the time being had a sauna and outhouse which is really maybe all you need? We made camp in the tent he provided and ate dinner with a view point of the glacier.
We got into bed and then tried to factor what was the last possible time we could wake up without getting into Valdez super late and settled on 6am, both being master snoozers it was closer to 6:30 when we actually arose. We packed up, unable to figure out how to get water from the tank on the property and decided to ride the 4 miles to Sheep Mountain Lodge to fill our bottles.
When we got to Sheep Mountain we also ordered coffees and then we got breakfast but figured it would be to go and then we decided to just stay and eat. I got another coffee and then about an hour later we were back on the road, having only tackled 4 miles of the days journey.
We decided that when we saw a spot for water, we’d stop just to make sure we wouldn’t run out but otherwise the next juncture would be Glennallen, about 70 miles away. I was told that it was mostly downhill but having lived in Colorado my judgment of downhill vs uphill is a bit skewed, what I envisioned was all downhill with minimum pedaling, what greeted us instead was rolling hills and with an overall decline in elevation. It was also strange because the only time I had been on this road was entering and exiting Alaska, and the current landscape was a stark contrast to the last time I was out there, dark, snowy, cold, alone— now it was mostly sunny, some warmth, greenery for miles with mountains on the horizon, and also not alone.
Mostly a lot of this
We arrived in Glennallen and opted to stop at the grocery store over the gas station, we took separate turns going in getting food and then sat on the picnic table outside to eat a bit before getting back on the bikes. It was about 2 pm at this point and we realized we still had about 115 miles to go, which was almost comical but we kept joking we just had to be in Valdez in time to catch the ferry which didn’t leave till 11am the next day so really plenty of time.
When you really have no idea what you’ll want during a ride
We turned right out of town, our only real turn of the trip and headed towards Valdez. The mile markers counted down towards our destination which was nice because I’m terrible at math but also at moments of slowly ticking by, depressing. The only thing on this route worth noting was Thompson Pass but we were unsure of where it actually showed up in the route. Grande had done this ride but as part of a 400 mile race and had never actually seen Valdez in the daylight as she got to town at midnight stopped at the gas station and then turned around and headed back out. She also warned me that when you get done with the pass there is still like 15-20 miles of riding into town.
With less traffic we rode side-by-side for most of the stretch and trading off leads when cars were approaching. We spent time talking about everything and nothing, being in the bike industry, work life balance, dog life, and getting back to racing when your fitness and speed isn’t where it used to be, among other things. Really it’s easy to find things to talk about when you have nothing else to do but pedal. We kept an eye on the impending clouds in the distance and some scattered sprinkles throughout the day led us to multiple gear changes. We kept joking that we didn’t care what the weather did when we were riding so long as it was “sunny for the cruise” on Sunday. We noticed some cars coming towards us with their wipers on and stopped to put on more rain gear getting back to riding just before getting caught in a storm, water gushed down filling my shoes with ice-cold water. Everything else remained mostly dryish or at least not terribly uncomfortable.
Once the rain stopped and we had dry roads for a bit I started to calculate how much further we’d have as my feet had become frozen from the rainwater and then the dropping temperature. Hmmm, about 5 more hours, could my feet make it in this condition, unlikely. I have my sleep wool socks I could switch out that would at least get them dry and some toe warmers I could put in so if they were warm would not be worried about any damage. I asked Grande to pull over, we also debated hitching a ride and decided that if I car stopped we would get in. I started peeling off my wet socks and replacing them with dry socks sticking a toe warmer on top before sliding them back into the damp shoe, the wool sock and toe warmer created some barrier to prevent the cold from seeping into my toes and I decided this would be fine. Left with an extra toe warmer I decided to stick it to the back of my neck as a way to get warm blood flowing through my body — only the next day when I peeled it off did I realize why they recommend not having it placed directly on ones skin as I had a nice little burn spot– in the moment the warmth took over and I didn’t even realize it was burning through- oops. In case you’re wondering no car stopped and we kept pedaling on.
When it’s 10:30 pm at night but you have no idea since it’s still so light out
We reached the Thompson Pass summit just around midnight but at this point hadn’t even pulled out our riding lights, with only dusk settling in around us. I pulled my headlight out and switched it to a red light to have a taillight for the descent (since mine died) and Grande used her headlight, between the two of us we had a complete set which is more than I’ve had in previous rides. We started the descent and the drop in elevation made it seem like the darkness grew quicker as we were also getting overshadowed by the mountains we had just climbed. Still mindful of traffic we pulled off each time a car was behind us which made me realize how little of a shoulder exists on this side, and also encountered the highest stream of cars in a one section of the road with 4 cruising by us all around 12:30am, which made me question why they were out so late but they were probably questioning why we were out so late.
We got to the bottom and I was met with resign as the mileage post still showed 20 miles into Valdez, what a buzzkill, even with Grande’s warning. We stopped and did jumping jacks to warm up because at best we had another hour of riding and at worst, well longer. The rest of the road was at least positioned on a decline so while we were pedaling, less effort was required, or we were doing less effort since it was 2am. The road into Valdez is littered with waterfalls and the thundering release of water echoed through the canyons as we approached. It was really pretty, even in the dim lighting and made me wish I could see it in the daylight. Grande pointed out which waterfalls were popular for ice climbing–while Valdez is a premium destination in the winter for skiing and ice-climbing it didn’t seem like there was a lot to do in the summer other than hike around.
We finally got to town, or where the mileage posts stop counting and came to a darkened intersection. A lighted gas station was to the right, what appeared to be a giant hotel of some monstrosity was to the left across the water (we realized the next day it was the oil pipeline terminal) and some faint lights were a little in front of us. Huh, we pulled out our phones to look up a hotel and make sure we didn’t have to do any extra pedaling, we found one 3 miles away in the area with all the other hotels. How is this where the highway ends but the town doesn’t begin for another 3 miles. We joked that we only have 3 more miles to go, what’s that on top of the 201 we’ve already done. We got to the hotel and was greeted by someone who gave us a room key and told us what time breakfast was. We made it to the room, turned up the heat, showered, and then both put on our puffy clothes and climbed into our sleeping bags in the beds– yes we had been that cold for that long.
We got up the next morning just in time to get the continental breakfast and then rode over to grab some coffee. We ended up chatting with a guy who started talking about the oil spill (okay maybe I started talking about the oil spill) but he basically works for one of the citizen non-profits that was started after it so talked about how it was a catalyst for changing the laws and regulations in the oil-industry and how there is community and citizen oversight with what is happening from an environmental standpoint. He also mentioned how everyone always said it was a matter of ‘when not if’ the big one would happen. Which took me back to closing remarks on the PIP Framework at the World Health Assembly in 2017 where the chairperson said the world is not equipped for a pandemic and it’s not a matter of if but when. So maybe post-COVID we’ll have some new laws/regulations that foster the development of public health agencies and response to disease outbreaks. But who knows, the Valdez oil spill is 30 years out and the impacts are still being felt in surrounding communities.
After about a 45 minute break and two coffees we headed to the ferry where we checked in, the documents that I had been carrying for our vaccination proof were no longer necessary as of that morning–given that most of my work is on COVID policies I asked what changed, the guy didn’t know but he did say they weren’t necessarily doing anything with them anyways in terms of contact tracing more just served as a reminder for people that COVID was a threat. We got on the boat and took a seat outside with another cyclist joining us and we discussed our approach to getting through the tunnel since we weren’t allowed to bike through.
Sunny for the cruise!
The tunnel is a single lane tunnel that connects the town of Whittier to the rest of Alaska, there is no other way around. Pretty soon a couple came up who asked if we were the cyclists but I’m pretty sure the gear we had on gave it away. We talked with them for about an hour and then we asked if they would be willing to drive us through the tunnel, which they didn’t hesitate in their response and were convinced that three bikes would fit in the back of their RV. We spent the next few hours basking in the sun, which as we had requested it was “sunny for the cruise” and taking naps after our lack of sleep the night before.
We docked in Whittier found our ride and got to the other side of the tunnel, with a 5am meeting the next morning I wasn’t sure I had 50 miles of pedaling in me but luckily Grande’s husband came and met us about 8 miles from where we got dropped of– I was especially grateful given the headwind we were battling.
I signed up for the Kenai 250 which is happening this weekend, it’s 250 miles connecting the trails on the Kenai Peninsula. It was one of those things that didn’t appeal to me until it did, or maybe Rachel and Grande finally got to me. It scares me (but in a good way, Mom!) because I don’t know what my body will be like at hour 20 and there is a very real possibility that I will not finish– and I haven’t felt some of these feelings in a long time — it’s very similar to how I felt when I first started racing 100 milers like I didn’t know what my body was capable of or where the limits existed (if they do?) and the very real possibility that my body will break down and I’ll have to pull the plug. So it’s a lot of confronting insecurities and uncertainty all while trying to figure out what I’m going to want to eat at hour 32 and wondering if I will in fact regret not carrying an extra pair of shorts when I run into a bear by myself and pee my pants. I keep reminding myself that it’s okay to stop when I stop having fun (and that’s my general approach to bike racing) and that I have more value than my best (and worst) place finishes. It’s strange because I still consider myself an endurance racer but I haven’t done a long race in almost 3 years now (bar studying and then COVID). And I think some of the uncertainty is if I don’t finish how will I define myself, can I still be an endurance racer or do I get demoted to ‘attempted endurance racer’. Only one way to find out…
It starts on Friday (tomorrow-eek!) and I really have no idea how long it will take- anywhere from 38-55 hours. There is still snow for a good portion on one of the trails so that section will be slow going. I’m not planning on sleeping much, beyond a few 20 minute naps if needed and instead trying to push through– but if I do get stuck out the second night will probably try to sleep a few hours and then continue on. I’m probably most nervous about dealing with bears but as a friend who has done this before told me, bears hate Beyoncé so just blast that (also currently accepting other song recommendations). If you are so inclined to follow along you can track me at: http://trackleaders.com/kenai21
And if you’re even more inclined to track me and come find me on the trail to ride with, well that would just be the best! I’m low-key pretending it’s my going away party because at some point I will be leaving Alaska for DC (which, yes will be of a rough transition– no saying if I’ll be able to stay away though so come celebrate at your own risk).
But it might also just be a lot of this + bears sooo
In the past months I have started and stopped writing more times than I can count, thinking I needed to find the right words for the right audience but I’ve realized that I don’t do this for you I do it for me and if I’m trying to craft the right words for the right reader well then that will never happened because who is the right audience (like besides my parents who already get mini life updates 3-4 times a week).
I still spend a lot of time working on COVID so it still occupies a lot of my mind (globally, we had our highest daily case count this week) but with the vaccines coming online here it feels like I can breathe easier knowing my parents, family, friends, and community are protected. Then I feel guilty because all of those individuals who still can’t access the vaccine while still tracking everything that is happening worldwide and knowing that our individuals actions can have large and lasting impacts beyond our immediate contacts. I’m sure it’s been a wild ride for my therapist and she’s probably learned more about pandemic preparedness and vaccine deployment than she probably ever anticipated knowing about. And it’s been exhausting to see peoples’ response and while I won’t get super deep into my thoughts I will say that I hope when this is over we invest in public health, education, and mental health resources.
Alvin did become a pretty good trail partner
To catch you up from last fall I drove through Canada while the border was closed, with Alvin- the best backseat driver. I didn’t think I could handle an Alaska winter during COVID and it was the longest I had not seen my parents in person like ever (which is very fortunate). We left here in late October (figured if there was a coup during the election resources to Alaska would be cut off first– and that was only funny to joke about until an insurrection happened).
When I drove up to Alaska I promised on my return I would not do it in that amount of time again, I’d take like 2-3 weeks really make a trip of it, well I at least kept half of that promise and did not do it in the same amount of time, but rather quicker. The border was closed (and still is) except for essential travel. My plan was to drive most of my things down before the roads got too bad in case work was like hey we need you in DC and honestly was not sure I could handle Alvin flying beneath me in cargo, let’s be real. I had to show way more documentation to get into Canada than I thought was possible (they did not even seem to care that Alvin was vaccinated). I was given strict instructions and a number to call if I developed symptoms on the drive. It wasn’t too bad just long, and having Alvin at least forced me to stop every few hours to get out and walk around.
When we got to the US border I was met with one question, “where did you stop” and well because I’m me had a list of all places that I had stopped even briefly in case they needed to contact trace, I handed them the list and he goes “oh no, we just need to know if you have any fruits or vegetables that could be carrying something” I looked at him as if I was not the potential carrier of something. I said I had no fruits or vegetables and he waived me through (again not concerned about this wild village dog). I turned my paperwork into the Canadians to avoid getting a bench warrant on me and entered the US. After another 12 hours of driving, and quarantining before hand, I finally made it to my parents and was oddly relieved to see them alive (even though weekly Facetime calls told me they were).
I planned on going back to Alaska and decided to sign up for a running race the first week of March figuring it would give Alvin and I something to do while we were home. And it did, I spent most of the time hiking, trail running, and entertaining both Tenzen and Alvin.
I found a friend to run with who knew the trails in Wind Cave, which I had never spent much time in because too many snakes in the summer but with winter only had to do a few bison detours. And she was even down to run 15 miles without thinking twice about it.
I left Alvin at home when I came back to Alaska because I wasn’t sure how long I’d be staying for. It was incredibly challenging, because we had basically spent the past 9 months together like all the time and obviously very worried about traumatizing him by leaving him with Tenzen but he seemed unfazed by it, probably had to put up with more in the village. I do get daily updates and pictures from my parents, and my sister has sworn that she will not be getting a dog (as my parents are currently watching both Frank and I’s…)
I came back to Alaska and continued running and started skiing more which was similar to a baby giraffe figuring out what to do with its legs but had kind friends who would take me out, share tips, and wait for me as I side stepped steep hills (you’re welcome mom).
I did the Homer Epic and raced (ran) 30 miles, it was a time trial start with each participant spaced out by about 30 seconds so I started alone and spent most of the day alone. I figured it was a good way to get to see Homer, albeit a bit slow but it was a blue bird day so could not complain.
I felt great until mile 12 and then the snow lost it’s firmness and it became soft and squishy with a sideways wind picking up the snow and whipping it around me, reminding me that it was in fact a winter race. I made it to the half way mark and recognized one of the aid workers from previous bike races, we briefly chatted and then I took off again. Because of COVID I didn’t make any plans to stop at aid stations and carried what I thought I would need in my backpack and then Kevin carried other things I thought I might need and met me at two points, mile 10 and around mile 21.
After the halfway point I started what seemed to be the only climb of the day, or at least memorable one, it seemed to go on for about 3 miles. It started with a short climb that made me think it was over but upon cresting the summit realize there was still more to come, I started the downhill before getting to the next uphill approach when a woman rode the opposite direction towards me, she yelled something like, “woohooo go lady!” And that was enough to make me cry, like full on sob, I think because in that moment everything felt so normal, like every other race before there there is always someone yelling “go lady” or “girl power” or cheering in some form and it felt just like that, except it wasn’t, we were (are) still in the midst of a pandemic that had claimed so many unnecessary lives, caused so much financial upheaval, and torn at the very fabric of our society. So I think it was a culmination of things, plus having ran like 17 miles before maybe didn’t help my ability to control my emotions but then I cried most of the way up the hill and just like embraced it, like let it all out and it felt real good (or maybe it was the runner’s high).
I met Kevin at mile 21 and was very much looking forward to the processed turkey meat I made him haul out for that mile. I ate the food from him, lamented on how much I wished I was running on concrete since the soft snow had been my nemesis for the past 10 miles. Kevin packed up to ski back to the finish line, but it was rather anti-climatic as he never fully disappeared from my viewpoint for a few miles. I finished in around 8 hours and got 2nd (but the field was very small, although more than 2). The finish was pretty anticlimatic too, I almost tripped going across the finish line and then walked to the car and convinced Kevin to get takeout food from Alice’s Champagne Palace and that was it.
I took a few weeks off and putz around going back to skiing and lifting and then realized it was March and should probably start thinking about biking–got a little thrown that spring was here given how much snow was still around. I loosely started training and have some things in mind for what I want to accomplish this summer/fall but feel like it’s still too premature to state concretely that I’ll be doing these things, like I’ll somehow jinx it and will spend another summer grieving for time that keeps marching on. It’s been nice to get back on my bike, last summer I struggled without much structure in place, among other things, and I feel like my risk factor assessment was skewed in being able to properly assess what was required of me and others.
My academic training taught me a lot about how to prepare for pandemics but in all of those years studying I never once stopped to think about the day-to-day life of the people living through an outbreak– again law focuses on facts and not feelings. But now I realize how detrimental it is to neglect feelings and human behavior and I’m sure all the behavioral scientists are like yeah, duh. After the Exxon/Valdez oil spill a lot of researchers moved to the area, scientists, toxic marine biologists but also sociologist and anthropologists. We had never dealt with an oil spill of that magnitude and weren’t exactly sure how to respond, like after the crash happened nothing happened for 3 days, the oil just stayed in the water while people tried to figure out the best course of action for retrieval, the 4th day a huge storm moved in and displaced the oil up and down the coast of Alaska going from an isolated area to impacting many small communities that rely on the water for fishing and other ways of life. A class action law suit happened, with something over 30,000 plaintiffs but as my dad will point out, justice is not always swift with the lawsuit dragging out for more than a decade. The lawsuit got appealed all the way to Supreme Court and they did in my opinion a terrible job of articulating what punitive damages are for– basically reducing them from an initial award of $5 billion to then $2.5 billion at the Court of Appeals and finally to the Supreme Court saying that punitive damages for maritime related cases should not exceed compensatory damages which was an award of $200 million. So Exxon went from losing one year of profits in punitive damages to 1-2 days. But in exchange we’ve recovered 8% of the oil that was lost. Why did I just tell you this rather depressing information, well because in addition to this legal information, we have sociology and anthropology research that came out it too. I’ve often found the law does an awful job of telling the true realities, which makes sense because you want facts and not feelings making legal precedent but as I’ve written about before, law school only teaches case law and not the human emotions that go into walking into someone’s life on their worst day, as I often felt when walking into a patients room to complete a Will so they could be discharged into hospice and die. My story stops at completing their will and their story stops shortly after but there is no mention of the turmoil one goes through in having weeks to get their affairs in order before leaving this earth. So what did a lot of the behavioral research show after the Valdez oil spill, well it showed that communities come together when dealing with a natural disaster (i.e., disease outbreak.acts of God) but they get torn apart based on acts of humans. Basically technological disasters (acts of humans) were more psychologically stressful than natural disasters, n=177. In addition to the trauma response to the disaster, the community became divided because the longer it went on the more people were split on how it should have been handled- if it should even be litigated vs. just moving on. But there is no playbook for things like this, there is no trauma response class in schools, some people going through the legal system is healing, for other’s it’s putting salt in a wound they don’t want to have open anymore. This is all to say that I’m not sure this leaves us post-COVID, it’s been hellacious seeing our response and I often think of the 1918 Flu because we don’t have a lot of information on that, and some of that was in part because of the sedition acts but I think a lot of it was it was probably really traumatizing for individuals. Now we have all the information but will it get suppressed because of human behaviors. I don’t know but that’s what I spend time thinking about, how do we heal, how do I heal.
I did my first big ride since before COVID this past weekend and it’s the moment I’ve been waiting a year for where this desire finally trickled up and I couldn’t put it off any longer (kind of like finally blogging). Before it wasn’t there, I would think about doing long rides and going on treks but just couldn’t get over whatever barrier was there in my mind. And they weren’t barriers put up by biking but more about how society functioned during COVID which I don’t need to get into here but they have been identified and working through it with my therapist. But I knew the moment was here when I was met with either driving 100 highway miles or riding my bike and riding my bike seemed easier and more enjoyable. Which I know you’re like what, and I would have been like what all last year too. And I was amazed at how quickly my body settled into the rhythm of riding, sure I’ve done longish rides at this point but nothing really over 2-3 hours. It became mechanical again when to eat, when to drink, like I had never stopped doing it. I got done and finished at 95 miles, Kevin suggested I go ride 5 more for a century but I thought best not to over do it right out of the gate.
Why ride 5 more miles when you can go eat hot dogs
I guess my hope is that whatever you have endured this past year, whether COVID related or something else, whatever barriers you had that made you stop, take a break, and question everything that you know, that when you pick up you don’t just think about going back to where you were but are in a place where you get to think about how to make things better than they were before for yourself, your community, wherever you feel called. I also got sent this article this morning by a friend on how the pandemic mental wounds are still wide open, it helped me so maybe it will help you.
I’m headed to Valdez this weekend, it’s been on my list to go for a while and missed the opportunity to get there this winter. I have a lot more thoughts I feel like I need to get out but seems like the best thing for me is to ride 300 miles and see how this community healed after trauma. And in a way all these things tell me that I’m healing.
“If you insiston entertaining hopes you might as well be ambitious in your desires do not bother fantasizing about a return to how things were before you might as well be ambitious in your desires hope that things will be better than they were before” -Plague Poems
Photo by Rachel Heath and I hope everyone has a friend like her in their lives
In all my studies about pandemics I would always think about what one would look like today, we have made so many scientific advances since the 1918 flu but it’s now clear one thing hasn’t changed and that’s human behavior.
My dad talks about getting taken to the gymnasium when he was a kid to get his polio vaccine, and how grateful his mom was that there was one available. Polio killed but even more so it maimed in a ferocious way that children were put in iron lungs or if they were lucky only wheel chairs for the rest of their lives. The first big outbreak happened in 1916 in New York City, before that it had circulated but did not strike in the way it did that year. Until a vaccine was created in 1955, theaters and pools would shut down every “polio season” as they were often seen as hot spots in an attempt to prevent the spread. Those who could leave crowded cities often would escape to the country side in an attempt to avoid it and children often had to carry records showing that they were not infected with it. The March of Dimes came out of polio research and really spurred early philanthropy beyond the ultra wealthy. FDR took it upon himself to call on Americans to send dimes to help fund polio research (hence the name). Even when there were no known cures people would seek out remedies, FDR would escape to a bath house down in Georgia believing that the water helped with his rehabilitation (probably an early form of water therapy).
What was once a potential death sentence or a life filled with disability has been almost completely eradicated worldwide, there are less than 200 cases globally but without a vaccine it’s estimated that 17 million people who are otherwise healthy at this moment would be paralyzed. As of 2017, there were three individuals in the US who still depended on an iron lung to survive, which is one of the most inspiring and also heartbreaking medical devices we have. This article does a great job of painting the picture of those three lives. In the peak year of 1952, 60,000 cases of Polio happened in the US with 3,000 people dying, and an additional 21,000 paralyzed as a result. Polio gets into the body through the mouth then grows in the intestines, it can then travel into the blood stream reaching the nervous system where there it will attack the spinal cord or the brain, where it can cause paralysis. The death like most viral infections is not pretty, imagine a 6 year-old gasping for breath as their lungs become paralyzed and they essentially drown in their own secretions, parents only able to offer some comfort as they cradle their head as the rest of the body is in an iron lung working to force them to breath. Devastating. Jonas Salk started trials of a vaccine in 1953 (beginning with his own children) and by 1960s the reoccurring epidemics were 97% gone.
Why am I talking about polio, well with the current pandemic feel like I can finally spew out all this random knowledge about other diseases, and I still have a book due to the Notre Dame Library about it. But because I think a lot about polio right now with the discussion of schools opening up because polio mostly impacted younger children– but also if at it’s peak it killed 3,000/year by today’s measure we would have never focused on a remedy so maybe there is a lesson to learn about how society acted towards life during that time. There aren’t a lot of articles out there about movements during polio that contested the closure of areas; but I’m sure some mothers were exasperated when getting to the pool to realize it’s closed down and all the kids want to do is go for a swim. COVID-19 fortunately does not strike kids in the same way as adults and elders, or at least that is what current studies show but we’re still responding in real time to the virus so we still don’t know everything about it (the polio vaccine did a double blind study with 1.8 million school children). The most recent data shows that kids under 10 aren’t big spreaders of the virus, but with 1/3 of the cases in Florida being children that might change. A study that just came out of South Korea (n=65,000) shows that kids ages 10-19 are just as effective at spreading COVID-19 as adults (still limitations within the study). Those kids who are impacted tend to have preexisting conditions (much like adults) and symptoms are showing up differently with inflammation and rashes, and often triggering Kawasaki Disease (1/3 of kids who were diagnosed with this in NY had preexisting conditions).
Let’s take it back for all of you at home that stopped your science education in high school (and there is nothing wrong with that, that’s where my math career ended and always so grateful I have Heidi to message about math problems– and math is technically different than stats which I have painstakingly taken twice now for two different degrees….). A virus is a collection of genetic code (either DNA or RNA) surrounded by a protein coat that needs host cells to replicate itself, since it can’t replicate on its own. Viruses are different than bacteria–which are single celled organisms that can harm or help support life — think of gut bacteria vs. those that cause an infection. Viruses can’t be treated with antibiotics and instead need anti-viral medication or vaccines to eliminate them, non-pharmaceutical interventions are a way to reduce or mitigate the spread, think of hand washing.
Why does this information matter, well based on quite a few facebook posts I’m convinced that people don’t know how viruses function and behave. Because viruses can’t survive on their own, they need a host, and that host doesn’t necessarily have to be humans but most human infectious diseases are initially transmitted from animals. This is a great video that shows how host jumps happen. One more step that the virus has to take is going from just infecting humans to transmit the virus from human to human. H5N1 causes a severe respiratory disease in birds (avian flu) and human cases do occur with a 60% mortality rate but it’s very difficult to transmit humans to humans so the virus jumps from a bird to a human and there is no additional jump to another human– but if it jumped human-to-human and retained that mortality rate we’d have a problem.
Humans are hosts for COVID-19, it is transmissible from human-to-human which means each one of us is a potential host and potential spreader. How do we stop COVID, we make it hard for it to find a host. This is where all the non-pharmaceutical interventions come in that have been talked about; washing hands, wearing a mask, maintaining physical distance because we don’t have any antivirals or vaccines developed at the moment, and even if we did, a mass vaccine campaign is no small undertaking.
Right now the United States has 142,000 deaths from COVID–in the past two weeks alone cases are up 33%, hospitalizations are up 75%, and deaths are up 101% with 20 states being in the “red zone”. That’s a line of dead bodies that stretches 66 miles, or from my parent’s house to the nearest McDonald’s, pasture upon pasture filled with a person who was somebody to someone. So it’s been extremely frustrating and quite dismaying to see people’s response to this: “It’s not a problem here” “Masks are an infringement of my freedom” and “We just have to live with it” because we’re all potential hosts and we’re all potential spreaders. Even arguably those who have been previously infected because we don’t know how long immunity is lasting for, and it might not mean much if the virus keeps mutating beyond what immunity you had.
“It’s not a problem here”– this is really interesting to me because I think of 9/11, the twin towers didn’t fall in rural South Dakota and yet my community was shell-shocked on the attack. 3,000+ Americans died and it was enough that people felt called into action from around the country. I also think of what our reaction would be now to 9/11, how many would be quick to believe it’s a conspiracy theory, an inside job, a way to control the citizens, how much misinformation would have gotten circulated on facebook. If COVID isn’t a problem at the moment for your community, be grateful, but also work to take steps to prevent it from becoming a problem. We continue to take our shoes off at the airport, even though dying in a terrorist attack is a much lower threat than COVID-19 right now. Viruses don’t respect borders, it doesn’t stop at state lines or county lines.
“Masks are an infringement of my freedom” I’m not sure how this became such a rally cry or such a partisan issue. Masks aren’t an infringement of your freedom. Individual liberty isn’t an absolute. “In every well ordered society charged with the duty of conserving the safety of its members the rights of the individual in respect of his liberty may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to such restraint, to be enforced by reasonable regulations, as the safety of the general public may demand” and that “[r]eal liberty for all could not exist under the operation of a principle which recognizes the right of each individual person to use his own, whether in respect of his person or his property, regardless of the injury that may be done to others.” (Jacobson v. Mass, 197 U.S. 11 (1905)). Basically you’re arguing that everyone should have the freedom to unfettered rights and that rights come with no responsibility.
Cheney and I agreeing 100% on something–not the Patriot Act….
The mask argument just shows how unwilling we are at the moment to take care of one another. I get there was confusion early on with masks, I didn’t start wearing one until end of March when I went out. A lot of the mask data we have is from antecedent studies because it would be unethical to have a control group without masks exposed to COVID-19. We continue to learn new information about this disease, and we’re responding in real time. We know to be infected it’s time + exposure. Because I live in Alaska when I go to a trail I don’t wear a mask (I also don’t go to very busy trails), but will have a face covering around my neck that I can pull up like a bandana or buff. It doesn’t have to be this all or nothing, we know that inside, poor ventilated spaces are great for transmitting the virus, and that masks help if you can’t maintain distance (inside and outside). On a personal note, I would love to see the data of those who supported the Patriot Act passage and those who oppose mask mandates, my guess is that there is a large correlation but I would argue the Patriot Act was a larger infringement on your individual liberty.
“We just have to live with it” Nope, nope, nope. No other country is willing to live with it, if this is your view point, ask how many more Americans is it acceptable to die. I get frustrated because the amount of deaths we have are wholly unnecessary, and I’m quite ashamed of our response. I have spent the past three weeks in the weeds of other countries law and policies related to COVID and I can tell you almost every country is performing better on this test. Are we suppose to be okay that we’re doing better than early model projections, that we don’t have 500,000 Americans dead? What’s the threshold for you to take action? Washing hands, wearing masks, maintaining distance are what should also be part of broader testing and contact tracing. Look and see if you are able to get tested in your area without showing symptoms? It’s not happening in a lot of places and until it does we will be in this constant catch up game.
This past week I was in a pretty dark spot because I can’t believe that this our response and that people are okay with it. Do I think if I got the virus I would die, statistically no, but there are outliers, do I want to have prolonged lung damage or neurological damage, no. Do I think my parents are at a higher risk, absolutely. Do I want members of my community to die or have their lives impacted, no. This virus doesn’t just kill but wrecks havoc on one’s body in a brutal way (and in ways we won’t know for a while), and I know what you’re thinking, but Kate, asymptomatic people, you wouldn’t even know you had it, except that lung damage is shown in those who have shown no symptoms. Imagine going for a hike or a walk with 75% of your current lung capacity. Breathe through a straw if you want a full effect.
As schools talk about re-opening, we’re missing the part of the conversation that talks about what we can do in the next 6-weeks to make that more feasible. I don’t have kids so I’m not writing from a place of needing to get them out of the house so I can focus on my work, but I feel for those parents who are navigating this work space and childcare/school work at home. I think ignoring the disease is not a great approach– and think there are concrete steps we can be taking to ensure our schools are safe for when they do open up.
Viruses don’t care about our families, our work, we can’t negotiate with them. It’s the law of nature, not the law of man that we are battling with. Do you want to be part of the solution or part of the problem? Everybody is a potential host of this virus to replicate in. We don’t have to be in total lock down or completely open, it doesn’t have to be this divisive. We’re all battling the same enemy, we’re all on the same team. Until everyone realizes that the longer this is going to go on. The longer issues go on beyond COVID, immunizations are down, mental health issues, domestic violence. A lot of people had an idea of fissures happening within our society but this has exposed large ruptures in a way that we should no longer be willing to ignore. For me this is the longest I’ve gone without seeing my family. And everything just seems a little harder to deal with most days– as if I was going to graduate from therapy any time soon…
As for Alvin and I’s adventures, we have gone canoeing, hiking, backpacking–oh and he ran away from the boarder’s for two days and ended up 20 miles away, yikes. We just sent out a breed kit to find out what he is. If you haven’t placed your bet yet, you can here.
Congrats, if you made it this far, my next therapy session is about 3 weeks away and the turmoil in my mind was putting me in not a great place personally so welcome to my current therapy session. Happy to discuss anything further or provide references to anything that I have. Hope at least the pictures of Alvin helped you get through it. I’m sure if you’re reading this you’re probably on a similar page with the COVID response.
Did you know that only 25% of people who start the Appalachian Trail finish it. That leaves 75% that show up with the intention of completing it to call it quits, I’m sure only after rationalizing their decision. There are other (unverified) stats surrounding endurance events, one that I’ve heard about Leadville MTB is that only about 60% of the men finish; whereas 90% of women finish. One of the reasons is that men tend to overestimate their ability where women tend to underestimate their ability. Again, broad generalization.
Colorado Trail from last year
After the bar I started reading a book about the Appalachian Trail course records, it went through details of those who attempted and ultimately achieved setting a new thru-hike record. At the time I tucked the book away with the tidbits of knowledge thinking I would rely on it for larger endurance mountain bike pursuits this year. Little did I know I’d be utilizing it for a completely different type of endurance pursuit, like staying at home and social distancing. I thought about it again, recently, when I stumbled onto this article. The slog we are in at the moment with the pandemic seems to resemble a really long endurance pursuit. At the start we’re all gung-ho, and then when you start to settle in you realize the daunting task in front of you and all of a sudden you’re questioning all of your life decisions (or really the federal government’s [lack of] response) that have brought you (us) to this point (usually like mile 55 of a 100 mile race). Now, with things opening up it’s like being at mile 70 of a race, where you’re cautiously optimistic that you’re going to make it to the end but realize that there is still enough time that a lot could still happen. And who knows maybe we’re at mile 70 of a 500 mile race instead of 100. Trying my best to remain optimistic but opening up offers a false sense of security because the virus hasn’t gone away, people have just rationalized the risks they are willing to take.
What will this nugget do when I actually have to go to work
Times remain weird and I deal with feelings of guilt being in Alaska (lowest COVID case count in the US) and with my access to the outdoors not being limited, mostly encouraged by officials to maintain mental health.
After car camping with Alvin, we decided he was ready for his next Pawnee Goddess Badge: Backpacking. Which meant I got to haul the 9 pound tent into the backcountry because we’re still not convinced he won’t damage the nice tent. Alvin was great on the trail and we kept him on leash for the most part because there were a lot of people and dogs. For as many people we saw on the trail we only heard a few others around our campsite.
I bring you a nice tent and this is where you want to sleep….
The next morning we decided to leave on a different trail, hiking up to the ridge line, going across the ridge, and then down. It offered better views and thought it would be better for Alvin to have him off leash more. We had him off leash initially but on the steep hike up to the ridge realized he would see a rock rolling and chase it down, and derp his way back up to us. We finally had to put him back on the leash so he would stop dawdling.
The views, were amazing, even though Kevin was like “they’re okay” which leads me to believe there are more amazing views to be sought.
The first half of the hike was great, with almost no post-holing into the snow.
The second half, made us realized why no one else was up there as some of the ridge lines weren’t completely melted out. There was only one section that I was mostly terrified on and it was about 20 yards of being unsure if I was walking on snow covering the ground, or just snow that could easily break and carry me away. We made it and Alvin proved to be a better rock scrambler than me, not surprised.
I felt like an anxious mom the whole time watching him go over rocks and praying he did not fall off the ledge. We made it down and again ordered burgers to be ready for pick-up upon our arrival back into Anchorage.
Last week I think I did the most Alaskan thing you could do which was bike and pack raft– or as Kevin said, boats on bikes, bikes on boats, boats on bikes. We rode out on double track for about 20 miles, the last 3 covered in loose sand made me realize why everyone else had a fat bike.
We got to Knik Glacier, where Kevin and I were the only ones willing to jump in (thank you 8 years of ice baths from high school and college sports).
We unpacked our boats and then gingerly put the bikes on the packrafts, which are just giant rubber rafts, and seem easily pop-able (quite terrifying when borrowing an expensive piece of equipment and then putting more gear on it).
The Knik River was quite mellow, almost so mellow that we had to paddle the whole time instead of riding the current. I drew on the three times I had been in a canoe or kayak and tried to avoid catching any crabs (I think that’s the lingo…). It was great until we hit mile 13 and a nasty headwind, I didn’t really think much of it, other than I wish my paddle had a power meter so I could see how much power I was putting out to go nowhere, and was quite content to just stay in that same place for the foreseeable future.
Before the headwind
Fortunately, Kevin was thinking a little more clearly and paddled over to the shore to get out and start putting his bike together. He was turned away when I made my approach to the shore but as I pulled up and went to get out the wind pushed me back into the water, this went on about 3 more times before I was finally able to get on to shore and out of the boat. We broke down the rafts (more so Kevin) and I put together my bike, loading the packs back onto our backs to pedal out. I felt tired at this point but the one thing I’ve realized with biking is that even when I’m tired my body knows what to do. We started biking towards the road with only some detours as we found the best dirt road back to the highway to loop around to the cars. It was fun and with racing on pause this season a new type of challenge and adventure to have.
Lifejacket on because #safetyissexy and I was cold
Sunday was mostly spent cleaning up gear. As of last Monday morning I was still planning on leaving for South Dakota. When I got into work (and by that I mean the spare bedroom) on Monday it was like the reality of closing all my cases or transferring them over and having to pack up and move this week hit me. I think in a lot of ways I felt like it was an either/or situation, like I was either leaving now, not knowing when I would be back, or staying indefinitely, not knowing when I would be leaving.
Plus not sure Alvin and I are ready to camp by ourselves
I didn’t feel like I could do an adequate job of finishing my cases and packing up enough that I wasn’t leaving completely disheveled (mostly my style but usually have my family to help me pack). I decided to focus on work this week and stay tentatively for one more month and reassess. The border might be open by then, which would certainly make travel easier, and South Dakota might not be the hot spot it is now. Selfishly, Alaska seems like the best spot for my mental health through all of this, besides being so far away from my family.
I think too starting last week I realized that I would be saying goodbye to clients, in my new position it’s more research and writing based and not direct client services. It’s what I want but certainly a change, some of the things I experienced this year are unlike anything I ever will – like when I went to serve a demand letter and interrupted a swat tactical take down– didn’t seem like we were going after the same person but I let them go first and called a colleague for reinforcement. It’s nothing I anticipated it would be but an amazing experience nonetheless. I’m sad that the timelines didn’t work out better for me to finish out this contract but I’m excited for what is ahead, even with all the underlying uncertainty…
Crossing one more thing off the bucket list–ignore my derpy “I’ve exercised for 10 hours” face haha
In what I thought would be my last weekend here, we are headed to Denali National Park. I felt like it was going to be one of those questions that after leaving Alaska I would hear all the time, “oh have you been to Denali” and I would have to say no, like saying no to seeing the northern lights, and saying no to seeing a bear.
As things open up I hope everyone realizes that everyone is operating under a different level of necessity and rationalized risks –financially they have to go work, for the sake of their sanity take their kids to camp or daycare, some people are comfortable eating in restaurants, getting their hair cuts, or not making any changes.
It’s kind of like being in the backcountry, everyone has a different comfort level and their own rationalization of the risks. I just have a problem if what you’re doing potentially threatens my or others health, well-being and safety. Personally, I’m still pretty cautious because I can be–and I’m kind of curious of what my natural hair color is at this point. I also understand that isn’t the reality for a lot of individuals. I do also believe that we can move forward into this space of thinking beyond ourselves, but understand that some don’t have the capacity right now as their very foundations and securities have become cracked and broken. Is that not just a juxtapose of a paragraph if you’ve ever read one. If you feel like you want more to explore I suggest reading about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
Kate Farrell Ginsbach 