by Jill Homer
My toes began to tingle beneath my thick, knee-high wool socks, winter hiking boots, and overboots. My ski gloves did little to fend off numbness in my fingers, and I frequently shook one hand to reignite circulation while gripping the handlebars with the other. “Do you think it’s minus twenty out here?” I asked Geoff.
“At least,” he said.
It was fearsome, this cold, like a snake wrapping around my torso and slowly tightening its grip. There was an unsettling dynamic to temperatures this low — a wild swing from “So invigorating! I’ve never felt so alive,” to “This is probably what death feels like, after I’ve already died.” Once the initial surge of adrenaline wore off, there was only the sensation that warmth was leaking out of our bodies, never to return.
After a few hundred meters, Geoff hit a soft patch of snow and dismounted. I jumped off my bike and started jogging to catch up with him. It felt markedly better to run than it did to pedal; finally, some warm blood circulated away from my core and trickled into my legs and feet. I made a note of this — “When my feet are numb, I need to run.”
When I caught up to Geoff, his face mask was coated in white tufts of frost. “How are you feeling?” I called out through my own rigid strip of neoprene.
“Fuck it’s cold,” Geoff growled. “Riding bikes in the winter sucks.”
“I sort of agree; running feels warmer. In this sandy snow it’s hard work just to keep the wheels turning. I’m sweating but my feet and hands are freezing.”
Geoff brushed frost away from his eyelashes and turned to start pedaling again. The trail, which cut a straight opening through the forest, rippled across the snow like a wrinkled piece of fabric. These “whoop-de-dos” were a result of snowmobilers accelerating unevenly, which caused their machines to dig shallow trenches into the snow. Excess powder deposited behind the trench in a mound, and this ripple effect deepened every time another snowmobile followed. Whoop-de-dos were an obnoxious obstacle — worse than a road filled with potholes — but at a faster clip they were fun on a bike. Geoff and I swerved and giggled, cranking up speed on an undulating roller coaster until the trail flattened out again across an open swamp.
In swamps, the wind blew freely, and sandy snow obscured the trail. It was too deep to ride. Geoff was markedly faster while pushing his bike, and soon there was a large gap between us. As I rushed to keep up with him, I felt the dizziness of low blood sugar. I reached into my food bag and pulled out a chocolate Power Bar. It was the least appetizing food I could imagine, but Power Bars seemed like a good idea when packing for the trip. Geoff had acquired stacks of these energy bars at a discount store in Utah for five cents a piece. Even though the bars were already expired when he purchased them almost a year ago, they somehow found their way to Alaska and lingered in our cupboards like unwanted fruitcake. This Power Bar was probably not the softest piece of food material when it was warm, but at twenty below it was about as edible as a brick. Actually, even bricks have weak corners that a person could break with their teeth if they tried. This frozen Power Bar was harder than a brick.
Still, it was all I had, and my energy levels were plummeting. I decided to thaw the bar in my mouth, so I unwrapped the entire thing, shoved the block of food-like substance to the edge of my throat, and clamped down my teeth. I considered how I looked with an iced-over face mask pulled down around my neck and an unidentifiable brown rectangle sticking out of my mouth. Without the protection of the face mask, the tip of my nose began to sting. My whole face was numb, but I did notice a strange sensation of warmth oozing down my chin, onto my neck. When I brushed my glove over my face, it returned covered in brown slime — a mixture of drool and melted Power Bar.
“Ew,” I said in a muffled voice, and took this as a sign that the bar was thawed and it was time to start chewing. My teeth clamped down, but they still didn’t go all the way through the bar. I gnawed and gnashed and gnawed, finally wrestling a separated chunk away from my mouth. Warm liquid was dribbling down my chin again, but when brushed my glove over it this time, it appeared bright crimson. Blood. My mouth was so numb that I hadn’t realized I was also chewing on my own flesh.
Geoff was waiting for me at the end of the swamp. When I caught up with him, he gasped, “What happened?”
“Power Bar disaster,” I said. “Is there still blood on my face?”
“It’s all over your chin,” he said. “Did you bite your tongue?”
“Maybe. I bit something, but can’t feel anything. Doesn’t matter. I’m okay but have nothing else to eat. Did you bring anything?”
Geoff shook his head. “Just Power Bars. It’s probably time to turn around anyway.”
I looked at my watch. “Two and a half hours. Yeah, we should turn around. How far do you think we’ve gone?
“I think about ten miles,” he said. “Probably a little less. We’re supposed to hit that Nome sign at mile eighteen of the Susitna, which should be coming up soon. But I haven’t seen it.”
I nodded and sighed. That was a grueling two and a half hours. How was it even possible that we’d ridden only ten miles? How would I find the energy for the return trip? And how would I ever find the energy to ride ten times that far on this trail? After just a few seconds of not moving the cold tightened its grip, reminding me that this was not the time to lapse into the inertia of despair.
Without bothering to wipe away the now-chilled layer of chocolate sludge and blood, I refastened my face mask and began pedaling furiously behind Geoff, who seemed unfazed by the paucity of edible food. Even though we left Craig’s house with the first light of morning, pink evening light had already returned to the southern horizon. The heatless sun looked oblong, as though it was succumbing to the gravitational pull of darkness.
“Do you know what mountain that is?” I asked Geoff, gesturing toward a free-standing landmass beneath the sun. The Susitna River Valley was dominated by mudflats, swamps, and small glacial rises. It seemed strange for a mountain to rise alone above it all.
“That? That’s Mount Susitna I think,” Geoff said.
“Mount Susitna,” I repeated, feeling a warm rush of affection. “Just like the race.”
Of course, the mountain was named after the river that carved this valley as it flowed from a glacier in the Alaska Range to an ice-choked arm of the sea. The Little Susitna River was a tributary of the Susitna, and these swamps were known as the Sustina Flats. It made sense that the race would bear the same name as all of its major geographical landmarks.
“Susitna” was not a unique designation. The name was derived from a Dena’ina Indian word meaning “sandy river,” and had no mystical implications. Still, ever since I embraced the Susitna 100 and everything it came to represent — taking risks, having faith, learning new skills, and making physical improvements in the name of personal growth — the word “Susitna” had taken on deeper meaning for me. In my mind “Susitna” was spoken in a drawn-out whisper, like a word one might recite at the beginning of a prayer.
Mount Susitna was a beautiful mountain — a rounded butte that cradled the oblong sun. Later I learned that locals referred to Mount Susitna as “The Sleeping Lady.” I decided I’d look to her whenever I felt lost or afraid. The Sleeping Lady could guide me home.
Geoff and I retreated over the swamp and returned to the frosted forest. The undulating trail climbed interminably. As it turned out, a gradual downgrade was the reason for the effortless fun I enjoyed while riding this string of whoop-de-doos on the inbound trip. Outbound was a slog. A few small hills led to the top of a bluff over the Little Susitna River, where the trail plummeted steeply into a gorge. It appeared to disappear off a cliff, but I’d survived these steep descents before. Fearlessly, I launched into the canyon.
The rear wheel started fishtailing almost immediately, and the bike bucked me head-first into a snowbank. I landed only a few inches from the trunk of a birch tree. Happily, a pillow of sno
w broke my fall, but it also filled my face mask and coat with cold powder. I writhed as flakes of ice stung exposed skin and flopped out of the snow bank, breathing rapidly. Geoff had been waiting at the bank of the Little Susitna. As I hiked the rest of the way down the hill, he waved at me.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Just a little crash,” I answered. “At least snow is a soft landing. Why do you think I like winter biking so much?”
“I crashed too,” Geoff said. A little farther down than you.” His coat also bore evidence of being recently packed with powder, but I could tell he was grinning beneath the ice on his face mask. “I guess biking isn’t too bad.”
“So do you want to sign up for the Susitna 100 instead?”
“Hell no. But now that I’ve seen the course I don’t think the Little Su will be too hard. I expected more hills.”
“More hills? There are a ton of hills,” I protested. True, these hills were just geographical hiccups across a wide valley. But the combination of pedaling and high-friction cold snow had a way of making all grades feel like a steep hill.
“Have you looked at the course map for the Susitna 100?”
“I’ve looked at it a lot,” I said. “But it’s hard to conceptualize, when I know nothing about the landmarks on the ground. The topographical map makes it look completely flat through here. It’s obviously not.”
“From what I’ve seen, the hundred-mile course spends a lot of time right on top of frozen lakes and rivers. Should be easier once you get past these swamps.
“I’ll keep telling myself that,” I said.
At least the Susitna 100 was still weeks away and full of unknowns. I could still let false optimism conjure scenarios that made it possible for me to finish the race. But here, in the present, I knew exactly which obstacles I faced, since I’d ridden this same trail just hours earlier. I couldn’t fathom why the trail felt so markedly different on the return trip — the hills were so much steeper, the snow so much sandier, and the distance so much farther. Hunger clawed at my stomach, and I was beginning to feel throbbing pain where I’d chewed a hole in my cheek. Still, I didn’t dare try to eat again. The risk of further injury from frozen Power Bars was worse than biking with no energy. I was lucky I hadn’t broken a tooth.
Twilight had taken over the sky by the time we returned to Geoff’s Honda Civic. The purple hue was only a shade away from black, and yet streaks of crimson light from the lazy winter sun still clung to the horizon. My legs were exquisitely tired, but the rest of my extremities had finally achieved a pleasant equilibrium. My arms and neck were warm. My hands and feet were no longer numb, and hadn’t been for hours. Somehow, without adding more clothing layers or consuming heat-producing calories, I’d managed to stay not only alive but comfortably warm, simply by staying on the move.
“Just keep moving,” I thought as I looked toward the silhouette of Mount Susitna, now reclining beneath a blanket of stars. “That’s the key. Just keep moving.”
_____
Gloom and Doom
February 14, 2006
With eagle feeding in full swing on the Spit, there’s an eerily Hitchcockian feel out there — birds of prey peppered across the gray landscape, waiting out the silence with ominous glares. As for me, I’ve been feeling a little bit under the weather, in the more literal sense — as in oppressed by the weather. The local news is predicting lots of doom and gloom surrounding this week, which includes the Susitna 100. The Iron Dog snowmachine racers are tearing up the trails with as much force as they can muster in the soft snow. Several Yukon Quest dog mushers had to be airlifted off the trail after a storm (they’re in a different part of the state, to be fair.). But still, weather reports call for the delightful-sounding “wintry mix/wind” for Wasilla on Saturday, complete with a 35-degree high. I feel sad. I blame global warming.
There are some encouraging reports at the MTBR Alaska forum. Although one rider mentioned renaming the race “Ididaswim,” another reported riding out to the Susitna River earlier today on hard-packed trails with a light dusting of snow. Mmmmm. If it could only stay cold enough to remain that way.
But with Saturday fast approaching, I’m going to have to decide beforehand how far I’m willing to “swim” without quitting. I’ve decided that as long as I feel healthy and am not suffering beyond reason, I should have no reason to quit the race before the official cut-off time (Forty-eight hours. That’s right.) I have the option of sleeping along the way. I’ll have enough food to stuff a luau pig. And if there’s one athletic talent that I have, it’s plugging along — even when the going is insufferably slow. How long will it take me to swim 100 miles? I don’t know. But I’m fairly certain I could walk 100 miles given 48 hours to do so. Not that I’m about to enter this race in the foot division.
*****
January ended and took the cold snap with it, ushering in a sloppy thaw infused with aromas of rotten fish, dog feces, and wet soil. “This is what spring smells like,” Sean told me.
On the first Saturday in February, I embarked on the last long ride of my training cycle, churning north toward an elbow of the road near Anchor Point. A sign announced this was “North America’s Most Westerly Highway Point.” With a designation like that, it wasn’t too far a stretch to believe that I had pedaled to the edge of the world, which is how I liked to imagine the Cook Inlet shoreline. I dismounted the bike and waded through a cluster of spruce trees. Just beyond the thin strip of forest was the beach, coated in a paper-like film of ice. I took light steps atop the milky blue surface, giggling as it shattered and collapsed under my feet. The gray water of the Cook Inlet was calm, and a light breeze blew puffs of pink sea foam over frozen sand.
Across the water, the silhouettes of Mount Redoubt and Mount Augustine loomed above a hazy marine layer. Augustine was still spewing vapor one month after its initial eruption. Beneath the volcanoes, snow-covered peaks lined the distant shoreline. My thoughts drifted to the geographical expanse beyond this particular end of the road. In Homer, I could drink mocha lattes at the Starbucks stand inside the grocery store, and fire off blog comments to virtual friends in Norway. My Alaska life was as modern as it could be, and it was all too easy to forget about these primordial landscapes just beyond the edge of civilization.
These weekly long bike rides became a ritual of reconnecting with the wilderness beyond. They often fell on a Sunday, and the practice had become like church for me — acknowledging the spiritual elements that gave my day-to-day life a sense of meaning. Next to the ancient ash spewing from Mount Augustine, my own existence was inscrutably fleeting and small. It was gratifying to appreciate the trillions upon trillions of atomic collisions that had to take place for me to end up here, in this place, this moment, tiptoeing across paper ice that was surrounded by an primordial ring of fire.
In the pre-dawn hours a few days later, loud knocking startled Geoff and me enough to simultaneously jump out of bed. We braced ourselves on the hardwood floor as unseen forces rumbled underneath. “It’s the bookshelf,” Geoff said as the knocking persisted, followed by the sound of objects falling to the floor.
“It’s an earthquake,” I gasped, dropping to my knees to shield my head against the ceiling beams that would surely come raining down next. An eternity that was closer to thirty seconds finally brought an end to the tremor, and our cabin sustained no damage even though books and a few of Geoff’s eBay supplies toppled to the floor. The U.S. Geographical Survey Web site reported a 5.3 magnitude earthquake centered just eighteen miles south of Homer. Several aftershocks prompted a tsunami warning, which in turn prompted my co-workers and me to drive out Homer Spit in the morning — the same spot everyone was supposed to be escaping to higher ground — and look through binoculars for errant walls of seawater.
It snowed heavily through the week, but by the following weekend — the last weekend before the Susitna 100 — snow turned to rain. I had b
ecome fixated on weather forecasts, scrolling through several different weather Web sites every day and weaving them together into a prediction I liked: one that was below freezing but not too cold — maybe twenty degrees — with only light winds and no precipitation. This optimistic compiling had become more difficult as the event neared and more forecasts called for a mix of snow and rain.
One week before the Susitna 100, the Tribune assigned me to shoot photographs at the Homer Winter Carnival. Hoping to squeeze in one final training ride, I strapped on my overboots, rain pants, and snowboarding coat, and rode the long way into town. This ride would be only forty miles on roads, so I didn’t bother to pack extra layers into my backpack. Outside, the air was filled with snow bombs — snowflakes that were so wet they banded together into balls before they even hit the ground. I pedaled through the thick deluge, then descended in elevation until the snowballs turned to daggers of sleet, and then driving rain.
Despite terrible weather, the Winter Carnival went on as planned. Parade floats plied through several inches of standing water, and spectators lined sidewalks in their bright orange Helly Hansen rain suits, rubber gloves, and XtraTufs. A few people held umbrellas — fewer than I expected — and small children splashed through puddles that still held floating chunks of ice. It was one of those occasions where newcomers shake their heads and think, “Only in Alaska.” Even with all the same modern conveniences as anywhere, Alaskans won’t be mistaken for citified sissies.
The parade floats were similarly rugged and uniquely Alaskan. There was a small tractor with chains on its wheels, driven by a flannel-wearing homesteader and towing an unidentifiable wooden platform. There was a teenage boy dressed like a hockey puck and running in circles while another teen on stilts chased him with a hockey stick. There was an impressively massive taxidermy grizzly bear with leis draped around its neck. Alaska Native dancers swirled in traditional costume and the high school band marched in their drenched uniforms. No one seemed to mind the mud flowing through the streets. Alaskans don’t let any weather rain on their parades.