Becoming Frozen

by Jill Homer

  A small whimper escaped my throat. I chased it with a long, collecting sigh. “It’s all right, it’s okay,” I whispered. I grasped for rational justifications to quell a surge of panic. “There are hours until dark, and it’s pretty warm. I’ve been riding for only forty-five minutes. I just need to head down this hill and I’ll find Geoff’s trail in no time.”

  I reached for the water bottle on my frame. Only a few ounces of water remained. There was little in the way of food in my pack, but I had some extra clothing layers. I knelt down to collect snow to put in my bottle, but the bulletproof crust would not break. Even after pounding at the snow with my fists and a tire lever, I only managed to free a few small chunks. The ground was a veritable road made of water, and had neither a real road to follow nor water to drink.

  “Well, this is pretty stupid,” I grumbled to myself. As I turned around, every corner of the forest looked the same. The clearing made a semi-circle, and I couldn’t even say with certainty which line I’d ridden only moments earlier. Every tree I passed was another decision to make: do I turn left here, or right? Or straight? Backtracking forty-five minutes worth of erratic decisions started to look like an impossibly long distance.

  “People die in the woods in Alaska, just like this, all the time,” the little voice of panic whispered despite my best efforts to shut it out. I was only a few miles from my house, but that bastion of civilization was surrounded by thousands of acres of wilderness. It felt big even when I clung to the thread of trails that, no matter how faint or primitive, always promised to reel me back to safety and comfort. Without thinking I’d ventured off trail without a compass, maps or any extended sense of the region, and had to accept that I was hopelessly lost in my own back yard.

  I jumped off my bike and walked slowly along the crust, scanning for any indication of my own bike tracks. After making several criss-crosses with no luck and fearing I’d lose my tentative bearing once again, I came up with the idea to mount the bike and flow like water down the hill, toward its inevitable arrival at the narrow gully I’d ridden when I first left Geoff’s trail.

  The hill that had seemed almost too steep to climb barely slumped downhill. I resisted the urge to pedal, having convinced myself that coasting with gravity would put me back on track, but the wheels stalled frequently enough that I had no choice. I sipped my meager water supply laced with dirty ice chunks and watched the overcast sky for hints of the sun. The temperature climbed with early afternoon, and droplets of water began to rain down from ice-crusted tree branches. It wasn’t enough water to collect, but the continuous pitter-patter on the snow was maddening. I was very thirsty. But that felt less urgent than finding my way.

  “People die in the woods in Alaska, just like this, all the time,” an unhelpful mantra continued to loop through my head. As journalists often do when they find themselves in a tough spot, I imagined the headlines. “Homer Tribune arts reporter found dead near Bridge Creek.” And the content of the article: “Homer’s partner, construction worker and up-and-coming endurance runner Geoff Roes, was mystified by her disappearance. ‘She trained all winter on these trails back here,’ Roes said of the criss-crossing network of ski and snowmobile trails near their home on Diamond Ridge. ‘After getting through something like the Susitna 100, I thought she at least knew how to use a compass. Plus, she told me she was going biking in town, so I just figured she’d been abducted or something. I didn’t imagine she was lost in our back yard.’ A neighbor who was out on his snowmachine collecting firewood discovered Homer’s body less than a mile from the cabin she shared with Roes. A K-9 unit investigated the site and determined she had been circling a small area without stopping for three days before she succumbed to dehydration. No foul play is suspected in her death.”

  The heat of the day beat down, and each gulp I took to push back anxiety only further parched my dry throat. Clouds continued to hide the position of the sun, but the glare was so bright that the sky turned a withered shade of white. Snow began to collapse beneath my wheels, where weaker layers were melting beneath the icy crust. I reached my hand into the holes and scooped out handfuls of sugar snow to eat, but this did little to quell the thirst. Steeper slopes rose to the left, and I was hopeful that this was the Bridge Creek drainage, where I could climb directly uphill to reach Diamond Ridge. But in this barren maze of stick birch and spruce, I was fooling myself if I believed I could read the contours of the land against a vague memory of maps I hadn’t looked at in months. How could I even be certain I was following a drainage? Maybe I was wandering in circles in a wide basin, or cutting due north toward the vast unpopulated interior of the Kenai Peninsula. Or, maybe, I’d entered a ripple in space-time and was stranded on Mars. How could I know?

  The crust no longer held my weight. I could not ride my bike, and each step punched through icy snow up to my knees. Forward progress had been reduced to a trudge, but I took heart in the idea that I was at least making tracks now. At least I’d leave something behind, some indication I was here. And if I stumbled across these tracks again, I’d know it was time to panic.

  With every wallowing step, my situation seemed more hopeless. And yet, my anxiety continued to diminish. It felt as though I’d gone through the initial realization and reaction. Once I had that adrenaline-driven episode out of my system, instinct took over the motions of doing what I needed to do to survive, which is stay calm and collected. I suckled the last droplets of water from my bottle and squinted through trees at the upper slopes for any sign of a cabin, or road, or anything. I’d become so uncertain of my direction that I started looking to the right as well, in case Diamond Ridge was in the opposite direction I expected it to be. I couldn’t just pick a bearing and stick with it, because any wrong choice in direction would have me wandering long enough to die of dehydration. No, I needed to go west, then south. Boy, it was dumb not to carry a compass.

  My mind entered a dull space as I trudged across the collapsing snow, scanning for any sign of civilization. Looking for random clues was the only idea I had at this point, but the odds of finding anything in this expanse of taiga were low enough that I couldn’t let myself think too hard about it. Thinking about arriving safely at home only upset the delicate grip I held on my emotions. Instead, I focused on Geoff, out for his Sunday run, and how surely he was somewhere nearby and would somehow find me out here, wandering through the woods. Illogically, I stopped every few minutes to hold my breath and listen for Geoff’s footsteps. Droplets of melting ice continued to hit the snow with a rhythm and cadence that fooled me every time. Was that him? Was he here?

  Only the melting snow answered, and the countless quiet “whomps” that preceded each collapse of the now-delicate crust under my feet. Underneath the shattering layers of snow were trickles of meltwater and larger streams that were waking up for the season. Moss growing around the trunks of the spruce trees glistened with an almost iridescent shade of green that I hadn’t noticed before. Squirrels leapt between branches with a drunken awkwardness, as though they had only just awoken from hibernation. A spring that had taken months to emerge from winter was now accelerating toward summer at an astonishing rate.

  The timing was not ideal. My legs crashed through the crust with every other step at this point, and I’d given up all hope of riding my bike — although going nowhere more quickly wasn’t exactly going to end my predicament on its own. Still, instinctual urges kept inching toward the panic button, and my ability to sprint had been reduced to a glacial trudge. Even if I knew where I was going, I was not going to arrive there soon, but at least the slow pace gave me ample opportunities to continue my Easter-egg hunt for remnants of civilization. I found rusted tin panels and twisted metal beams only half exposed after a winter under the snow, but nothing promising for more recent human presence. Moose tracks were everywhere, and I glanced around nervously for unwanted glimpses of this territorial animal.

  All the while, I strained to listen for s
ounds from Geoff. Not just another human, but Geoff specifically. I had no logical reason to believe he was anywhere near this spot, at the bottom of a canyon without established roads or trails, but the conviction that he must be nearby wouldn’t let go. I hoped this was a glimmer of intuition, but suspected this was just another emotional coping mechanism — I couldn’t let myself believe I was utterly alone. The truth was too dispiriting, so I created an impossible hope and clung to it in the face of all evidence to the contrary. “Geoff?” I called out as loud as I could muster. “Can you hear me?”

  An afternoon wind was starting to pick up, and it answered me with unsettling eeriness —no. No one could hear me. Even though temperatures had climbed enough to melt snow, they were still well below comfortably warm. The breeze cut through my damp clothing and chilled my skin, reminding me of that edge on which I still teetered. There were still many hours before dark, but if night came before I found my way, I’d have no choice but to hunker down. I wondered whether I should start building a snow cave sooner, while the snow was still softened, rather than later, when I’d no doubt be desperate and clawing at ice. But even in a cave I’d struggle to make heat in my damp clothing with no fire. I had no fire starters and no headlight. I had no water or food. I had nothing I needed.

  “People die in the woods in Alaska, just like this, all the time,” the low, ominous warning cycled through my thoughts. “Geoff?” I called out loud, again, in response. “Anyone? I’m lost. Can you help me?”

  The overcast sky lightened to a degree where I could see the obscured orb of the sun, almost directly overhead. Just as I pondered its position, I stumbled across a snowmobile track, faint and clearly old, but it continued to press a path into the crust along a frozen stream bed. This discovery didn’t spark the joyous reaction I would have expected. It was something, but apparently not enough to quiet the jitters still vibrating just below the surface. I followed the track to where it intersected with other tracks. It was just a maze within a maze, drawn by hunters looking for game most likely, and any track I picked was just as likely to lead nowhere as somewhere.

  But, it was something. The snow beneath the tracks remained compacted enough that I could ride my bike again, and I figured I’d just ride until I either found my way out or came across my own tracks, after which I’d at least know which trail not to take. The idea that I was doing something tangible toward my escape brought a new sense of purpose, and my anxiety relaxed enough that I became more acutely aware of my thirst and hunger.

  Even as it quieted the panic, the snowmobile maze had an effect of causing me to feel even more unmoored than I was before. I’d managed to convince myself I was following Bridge Creek, and if I continued to move with my back to the sun, which was generally east, I’d find the dam. But now I wasn’t so sure, and the tracks only took me deeper into the forest, possibly following different drainages. Still, it was something. Thoughts drifted back to Geoff. Now that I could no longer convince myself he was out there, I speculated where he might be. Probably back at home after his long run, showered, and tinkering with one of his eBay projects, or maybe he drove to town to browse the latest shipment of tools and materials at Ulmers, Homer’s quintessential “everything” hardware store. Although our landlord refused to let us put a wood stove in the cabin, Geoff was determined to make our heating more energy and cost efficient, and had been researching options, putting up weather stripping, and coating the windows in plastic. This project was leading to more home improvement ambition, and our outdoor shed was slowly filling up with scrap wood, extra nails, and other dumpster finds in anticipation of future usefulness.

  After six months in Alaska, Geoff had become more enamored with self-sufficiency and subsistence. The previous evening, we’d had a long conversation about stockpiling local foods over the summer for the following winter. He planned to start a garden and pick berries where he could, and wanted to find a local charter fisherman who’d be willing to let us clean boats or do other odd jobs in exchange for halibut and salmon. I’d managed to land a spot on a charter later that week as part of a tagging crew for the Chamber of Commerce halibut derby. Geoff was especially excited about the prospect of me catching two of my own fish, our bedtime conversation revolved around making sure to keep the halibut cheeks and why twenty-five-pounders are tastier than hundred-pounders.

  As lost as I was in the woods, I couldn’t help but shake my head at the pretenses of home life. I loved these acts of nesting because it meant Geoff and I were building something together. But where it mattered, did it matter? By many standards we were barely scraping by. Did swabbing decks in exchange for a few pounds of fish really make a difference over longer hours at work? Geoff seemed to take the stance that food gathering was a virtue while slaving away in an office was a waste of life. Trading time for goods, or money, or personal gratification — each is infused with subjective standards by which deem our lives worthwhile. I craved interludes to the outdoors, which felt almost stolen from “real life.” Because of this, I wanted them on my terms. I wanted to wander and observe; I didn’t want to fixate only on what the land could give back to me.

  These meandering and disconnected thoughts continued, as though I was subconsciously trying to distract myself from the bleak knowledge that while the land can provide bits and pieces of life over time, it can take away everything in an instant.

  Lost, I imagined, was a strange state of limbo not unlike what one might experience in the final moments of life. It feels as though an anchor has been wrenched away, and there are moments of desperate grasping as we’re set adrift. Unlike death, of course, lost is a conscious state. After the initial dismay comes acceptance, then rationalization, then a sort of curiosity. “Why have I never come down here before?” I wondered. “I live here. I should know this place.”

  Snowmobile tracks flowed through the forest, and I clung to the conviction that this was the right way, definitely the right way. I came across a faint mark over the trail that could have been my own tire tread, but I chose to interpret it as something else. As I followed what appeared to be the main track, the trail indeed became more defined from side tracks until it spilled out onto a corridor of what was almost certainly a road, at least in the summer. It climbed through the forest until I reached a bluff above a frozen body of water that was almost certainly Bridge Creek Reservoir, with a plowed road leading toward Skyline Ridge. Relief washed over me, but I was so emotionally drained that the joy I expected to feel was subdued. That came later, as I pedaled up Diamond Ridge Road, processing the experience. I remained unsure of where I’d been or how I ended up above the reservoir. I was astonished with how lucky I’d been to stumble my way out.

  “What am I going to tell Geoff about this ride?”

  I didn’t want to admit to getting myself lost in the woods, especially since it turned out to be a relatively short period of time. And yet, now that it was over, I felt only the thrill of adventure, of having survived another day, another wandering through the wild. As much as I was loathe to demean my own intelligence by admitting to being a thrill-seeker, it was impossible to connect with this invigorating sensation without the presence of risk. Whether the risk involved exposure to cold, or the fatigue of great distances, or the uncertainty of losing my way, the experiences reverberated with an intensity that I never experienced in my day-to-day life.

  I found Geoff at home, on the couch reading a paperback novel. He said he was worn out from his run.

  “I had an exciting ride,” I told him. “I followed your trails into Bridge Creek and climbed up to the ridge above the reservoir. I rode on the crust and got a little bit lost.”

  Geoff asked me a few more questions about my route, and I admitted I couldn’t piece it together entirely, other than weaving through the woods to was likely the western edge of Crossman Ridge, descending back into Bridge Creek, and feeling way more hopeless and lost than I actually was.

  Geoff laughed.
“Sounds awesome.”

  “I was scared,” I admitted. “But important lessons were learned. I kept hoping I’d run into you out there. It was all in my head, but I had this strong sense that you were right there, really close by. Where did you go running?”

  “Just around here. Homestead Trails. I came back just when things were starting to get sloppy. I followed the ski trails down that way, so who knows? Maybe we were close together.”

  “Huh. Well, I sure could have used your help. My sense of direction is awful.”

  Geoff laughed again. “I’m not touching that one.”

  I tended to lean on Geoff as a compass, both in adventures and in life. Maybe we did nearly cross paths in those meandering woods, or maybe I was just discovering what it felt like to navigate on my own, without anyone else showing me the way.

  _____

  Indecision

  June 4, 2006

  Sorry for my absence. I spent a few days wallowing in indecision, like an uncomfortable dreamer locked in a losing fight for consciousness.

  It’s a strange state of discomfort — never quite in the moment, yet never able to completely let my mind wander. I’d stare vacantly at the back of the cereal box or watch my cat cross the yard and wonder where my mind had been. Did I draw any conclusions? What would I eat for dinner tonight? Would it really be all that unhealthy to eat cold cereal again? Finally, I’d give up and go for a bike ride.

  That’s how I did all of my riding this week – setting out without really deciding to do so. That’s the consequence of having a big decision to make. It erodes your ability to make even the smallest decisions — decisions that are usually unconscious pieces of an everyday routine. One minute, I’d agonize over whether to take out the trash or wait until tomorrow. The next, I’d be spinning my mountain bike down Diamond Ridge and wondering how exactly I got there.