Into the North Wind: A thousand-mile bicycle adventure across frozen Alaska

by Jill Homer

  Four miles from Ruby, the satellite phone finally patched through a call from Beat. He was just about to leave McGrath, he said, and was traveling with Peter Ripmaster — the man who fell through the Tatina River ice — and the physician from Utah, Eric Johnson. Beat had the usual foot and leg pain, but he was finally starting to feel strong. It was just like Beat to take three hundred and fifty miles to warm up.

  “I’m so tired today,” I admitted. “I’ve been getting a ton of sleep — you’d be ashamed — but it’s still catching up to me. I don’t know. Maybe it’s the cold, or not enough food. Maybe it’s just living out here, just keeping myself warm. It’s hard.”

  “It is,” Beat agreed. “Get some rest in Ruby. That’s a long section you went through, and you still have lots of time.”

  As much as I anticipated conversations with Beat, I always hung up the phone feeling acutely lonely. These calls were so brief that they left many questions unanswered, which in turn emphasized our absence from each other. I missed Beat, but I didn’t feel truly alone until I heard his voice crackling over a connection that was tenuously held together by a distant object hurtling through space. This yearning wasn’t unlike the wistful sadness I felt while staring at a piece of trash alongside the trail. I realized the reason this wilderness felt so isolated was because it was littered with remnants of humanity. Relics, like too-short phone calls, are only reminders of companionship, displaced by time and distance. I longed to see Beat again, but Ruby would come first, so I anxiously anticipated that.

  Mile-marker three brought a four-hundred foot climb. The effort bolstered my angst, as it took my ragged legs a half hour to make the mile-long ascent. At the crest of the hill I could see Ruby, nestled against a steep river bluff, with homes built most of the way up the hillside. The village wasn’t what I imagined — I’d pictured something flat and sprawling, a settlement to match the expansiveness of the Yukon River. Beyond Ruby was a white strip of ice, at least a half-mile wide. On the far side were more domed hills, interrupted by sheer limestone cliffs.

  “The mighty Yukon,” I breathed out. The statement sent a chill down my back. I did this — I actually pedaled a bike to the Yukon River.

  One last frigid descent brought me to the River’s Edge Bed and Breakfast, where I’d sent my supply box. The proprietor was a Native woman with a number of children in the house — I counted at least four. She hastily showed me around then apologized when she had to go back to work. This also didn’t match my preconception of Ruby, as I imagined a slower pace of life on the Yukon. I was impressed that a woman with multiple children and a day job also ran a B&B.

  She asked if I was staying for the night, and looked surprised when I answered yes. I suspected she disapproved of my own relative laziness. It was an embarrassingly early hour to stop for the day in the middle of an adventure race — two in the afternoon — but I made the usual justifications. I’m tired. I’ll put in a long day tomorrow. Beat agreed it was a good idea.

  The hot shower was sublime, even on wind-burned, chafed skin. My appetite soared. I didn’t want to go rifling through a stranger’s kitchen, so I gnawed on an astronaut ice cream sandwich from my box, and a bag of beef jerky left over from one of the cyclists who had been through Ruby two days earlier. The jerky tasted particularly amazing, and I wondered if not eating enough protein was partially to blame for my fatigue.

  The afternoon dragged on as I fiddled with my gear and grappled with the inevitable onset of town anxiety. Comfort was something I wistfully anticipated, but once removed from the trail, down time proved to be more nerve-wracking than relaxing. Eventually I’d have to return to cold solitude, and this knowledge kept me on edge. I sorted my food, then laundered my clothing and arranged it in piles. My gear looked simultaneously inadequate and burdensome. How would I coax myself back out into the cold, yet again?

  Sam and Katie arrived at sunset, and stepping outside to greet them brought a shocking chill. Sam had stories to share about breaking creek ice to collect drinking water and finding their own perfect campsite, but I could only handle the cold for a few minutes. I mumbled an excuse, then rushed back into the heated house and climbed into bed.

  Mike arrived about an hour later. Unable to sleep, I ventured back outside to fiddle with my bike bags one more time. The temperature had fallen to five below zero, which burned on my bare hands. It would take a few more minutes before convulsions started, so I worked quickly, reminding myself that an afternoon of acclimating to indoor temperatures — rather than weakness or fear — was to blame for how sinister subzero air suddenly felt. Sam and Katie were still sitting on the porch in their down coats, sipping on tea that they heated on their camp stove.

  “Are you guys staying here tonight?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” Katie said. “We haven’t decided yet.”

  I turned to face their view of the river. There were still wisps of crimson light to the south, and a purple curtain of stars to the north. The river ice reflected moonlight that was still hidden behind towering river bluffs, and silhouettes of cliffs on the other side of the river created a spooky contrast.

  “The Yukon River,” I said. “Can you believe it?”

  “It’s beautiful,” Katie nodded. “We were just talking about spending the night out on the ice, under the moon.”

  “Huh,” I said. If it was five below on this hillside fifty feet above the river, it was probably fifteen or twenty below down on the ice. “That would be amazing,” I agreed. “Tomorrow night, maybe.”

  The chill cut deep by the time I retreated indoors, and I was shivering profusely when Mike approached to ask when I was leaving in the morning.

  “First light,” I said. “I set an alarm for six.”

  “Six? Why not eight?”

  “Ha! If you want to leave with me, great. Otherwise I’m sure you’ll catch me somewhere on the river tomorrow.”

  This night, even more so than my nights in Anchorage and McGrath, I wondered where I’d find the courage to leave comfort and safety for the ever-widening jaws of the unknown.

  Chapter 11

  The Mighty Yukon

  At first light, I ate breakfast alone. The man who co-owned River’s Edge Bed and Breakfast cooked a plate of potatoes and eggs, then sat on a couch while I awkwardly picked at food I was grateful to receive, but had no appetite to ingest. Instead I peppered him with questions about the trail. Were Iron Dog markers still in place? How much of the trail was glare ice? Where was the danger zone where snowmobiler broke through the ice and drowned a few weeks earlier? Were there new open leads on the river?

  It must have been clear that I was nervous about the prospect of traveling on the Yukon River. Even though it was early and we’d just met, the B&B owner was polite and generous with information. He pulled up a map on his phone and described the fifty-mile trail to Galena in such detail that I could imagine the scenery.

  There was a thirty-mile detour around open water after the village, but he didn’t have first-hand experience to offer further details. I asked him whether he traveled to Galena often.

  “About once a month, to see my sister,” he said. I imagined what such a trip might be like in the summertime. Folks would load up an aluminum skiff with supplies and steer an outboard motor into the blue current. Along the banks there would be grizzly bears grazing on sedges, moose wading in the shallows, black clouds of mosquitoes, and the sun making its wide arc around the sub-Arctic sky. What a contrast that would be to March, when travelers suited themselves in full-body, insulating armor and drove snowmobiles up a natural highway of ice. Then contrast that to the way most Americans travel to visit their families — inside a climate-controlled vehicle over smooth pavement lined with strip malls and gas stations. As one of those Americans, my adventure of a lifetime was this man’s monthly routine.

  As anxious as I’d been, the act of coasting down a snow ramp onto hard, blue ice wa
s thrilling. The Yukon River! I thought back to my first glimpse of this mighty river’s source. I was pedaling the Klondike Highway over White Pass, which is on the border of southeastern Alaska and northern British Columbia. Below the pass was an overlook, where I stood watching white cataracts course down a narrow ravine. That Yukon River seemed so far away, and so removed from this silent, frozen expanse. It was gratifying to imagine these two places as the same tributary. That somewhere a thousand miles away, water was cascading out of glacier-capped mountains on a journey to this wide channel. Eventually this water would flow a thousand more miles to the sea, where ocean currents would carry it around the globe. How incredible would it be to experience life in a droplet of water, riding the pulse of the world?

  For now I was a mere traveler on the river, pedaling downstream in a wash of pink light. The surface had been swept clear of snow, revealing fissures, exposed gravel, and pressure ridges where ice plates fractured and buckled. On smooth surfaces I could pedal twelve miles per hour with ease, but fear of falling onto hard ice or losing the trail held me to a more conservative eight or nine miles per hour. Irregular Iron Dog stakes and faint snowmobile scratches were all I had to distinguish the trail over a mile-wide sheet of ice.

  Often I stopped to scrutinize the path ahead, knowing any ventures off the established route could dump me into a human-swallowing hole in the ice. This already happened to a couple of snowmobilers earlier in the year, and they were never found. Although my slow speeds made it easier to spot danger, they also put me at higher risk of breaking through thin ice. Frequently I encountered unnerving disruptions — patches of ice as clear as glass, and others blackened with sand — that were difficult to discern from open water.

  It was a beautiful morning, though, with only a light breeze and temperatures around eight below zero — at this point, perfect cycling weather. Two state troopers were traveling on snowmobiles down the river, and stopped to warn me about the detour out of Galena. One brought up the recent death of a snowmobiler from Ruby.

  “Yeah, I heard about that.”

  The trooper appeared surprised when I spoke. My face was fully covered in a fuzzy blue buff and sunglasses, so I guessed that he hadn’t expected to hear a woman’s voice. It occurred to me that the state troopers were the first non-cyclists I’d encountered on the trail since McGrath.

  “Be careful out there,” he warned, and reached out to shake my hand. As I pulled my bare right hand out of my pogies, he audibly gasped. “Where are your gloves?”

  “Not quite cold enough for gloves,” I said. “It’s a great day for riding.”

  Fifty miles passed quickly, and by Galena I felt fully recharged. Once the site of an Athabaskan salmon camp, the local population grew after Galena picked up a Cold War-era military base. Even though the base is now closed, the town remains one of the largest on the Iditarod Trail, with a population of 470. The village was bustling on a Tuesday afternoon; I watched two planes approach and two depart as I pedaled from the far side of the river.

  A few months prior to this race, a Galena resident who owned a summertime bed and breakfast beyond the edge of town caught wind of the event. Captivated by the idea of oddball outsiders pedaling bicycles and dragging sleds to his remote hometown, Larry appointed himself the official Galena liaison, and the most helpful resource on the Yukon River. He sent a brigade of e-mails with hand-drawn maps, descriptions of the post office and two stores in town, opening times, suggestions for resupplies, and directions to a bed and breakfast that his daughter owned, which was closer to the trail. The three-story building was difficult to miss. I promised myself I’d rest for only an hour in Galena, just long enough to sort through my box and eat some lunch. Within five minutes of showing myself into the big blue house on the river bank, a tall white man wearing a baseball cap in the sub-freezing afternoon arrived at the door. He introduced himself as “the e-mail guy, Larry” and asked if I needed anything.

  “There’s nothing I absolutely need, but I’m curious whether I can buy white gas somewhere in town. Like Coleman fuel,” I said. White gas is the fuel most cyclists use in camp stoves to melt snow and cook meals. The fuel is light and efficient but exceedingly difficult to find in rural Alaska.

  Larry shook his head, and then his face lit up. “I think I know someone who might have some.”

  While Larry went on a mission to find elusive white gas, I dug into the stack of post office boxes. Before I even opened mine, I noticed piles of rejected supplies left behind by the riders in front of me. Phil Hoefstetter in particular abandoned a treasure trove — packets of tuna, beef jerky, and dried bacon. Ten days of subsisting on nuts and candy had finally gotten the better of me, and I craved meat protein like it was heroin. The Jill who packed these boxes never thought I’d make it this far. Unappetizing stacks of Snickers bars, sour gummy bears and honey-roasted peanuts – food even Beat had rejected — reflected that skepticism. Now that I was actually going through with the ride to Nome, I would have to forage for edible food. I scavenged all of Phil’s protein, some fancy chocolates, more beef jerky from the bottom of the pile, and a nut mix that was somehow better than my nut mix — because it wasn’t mine.

  Although tuna was more valuable than gold, it was still heavy, so I opened three packets and mixed tuna with instant mashed potatoes for lunch. This was another taste sensation that can’t be adequately described. After the overwhelming anxiety of Ruby put me off breakfast, I was ravenous for lunch. The tuna and potato dish had more than fifty grams of protein. Flavored with four-cheese powder, a dash of black pepper, and a king’s dose of sodium, this microwaved bowl of mush was the best meal I had eaten, ever. At least in recent memory.

  Larry returned within a half hour, as promised, toting a gallon container of Coleman fuel. The can was nearly empty, but held exactly what I needed. I had just ventured outside to pack up my bike — barefoot, sunburned, gloveless and hatless. The afternoon temperature had risen to twenty-three degrees. Larry snapped a photo for the race’s Facebook page, then wished me well before I went back inside to put all of my clothes back on and leave a large tip.

  The trail veered back onto the river for ten miles before cutting inland on the detour. Knowing there were unbridgeable gaps of open water nearby, I expected the river ice to become more tenuous. Instead, the ice beyond Galena was snow-covered and soft. The morning’s effortless ten miles per hour became a strenuous five or six, but I couldn’t complain — soft snow was still faster than the tussock minefields of the Interior. The sun slipped beneath wispy clouds, and peach light spread across the horizon. Away from the high bluffs of the river, most of the landscape was a wide-open plain of what were likely marshes during the summer. These flat, white expanses were occasionally interrupted by tiny rises that allowed spruce to grow. The forests were brief and sensory-loaded, with the newly built trail smelling strongly of pine as it wound through a corridor so narrow that my handlebars barely cleared the tree trunks. The marshes, in turn, were long and reflective. Under the violet sky I slipped into subliminal contemplation, until an unexpected tear rolled down my cheek. I was crying to a folk song playing on my iPod, which I didn’t even register before strong emotions trickled to the surface:

  “I stood above the Rocky Mountains, where Colorado touches New Mexico. And I could see a hundred miles, but I was many thousand miles from home.”

  Colorado had been on my mind frequently, as Beat and I were preparing to move from California to Boulder the following month. We had purchased a home in the mountains, nestled beneath craggy peaks in a forest of Douglas fir and ponderosa, yet close enough to town that Beat could commute to work by running on trails. It was a big leap away from our life in the Silicon Valley. We were moving from a small apartment in a metropolitan area to a house on a dirt road with snowy winters, property to manage, and wild animals as neighbors. Beat was thrilled to finally have his own space. I was excited as well, but concerned that working from home
in the mountains would leave me feeling more isolated. I worried about the altitude’s effect on my lungs. Although I never set out to become a Californian, I’d lived there for five years, and developed affection for my surroundings. Change, even positive change, can be difficult. Sometimes I wonder if my dedication to staying in motion is my own way of coping with the inevitability of change.

  This year’s journey on the Iditarod Trail just happened to fall into the calm before that storm. As soon as we returned from Alaska, Beat and I would pack up our belongings and uproot our lives. That is, if we survived this race. While grappling with the recent health concerns, I harbored strong doubts that I’d live through this. These thoughts were pressing enough that I secretly questioned the point of making plans for Colorado, since I might be dead by April.

  Now I was pedaling across expansive marshes where the Koyukuk River touches the mighty Yukon, and subsequent chapters were becoming more real. I was still breathing, and those breaths very well might take me to Nome, and then beyond Nome to the Rocky Mountains. It was a beautiful thought, full of uncertainties. The salmon-hued sunset revealed no promises. I repeated the song again and again, whispering lyrics through a lump in my throat.

  “I was many thousand miles from home.”

  Sleepiness settled in with the rising moon, unraveling my determination to pedal late into the night. A strong breeze had returned, and I knew that as soon as the trail veered back onto the Yukon River, I’d be viciously exposed to the wind for the next sixty miles. Koyukuk was just six miles away. I’d heard stories about unfriendliness in the village and expected it to be shuttered at this hour, but figured I could find shelter in the surrounding forest. The trail dropped onto the Koyukuk River, again swept clear of snow. The ice was the same color as the nighttime sky, and its bottomless appearance was unsettling.