Land and Sky: Deadhorse to Atigun

You might need to click on "Land and Sky: Deadhorse to Atigun" to see all images...

Tech Specs

Keeping it quick: I was on my brother's cross bike equipped for the trip with 34-34 gearing, mountain bike clipless pedals, rear panniers and fat dry bag with the sleeping bag rigged on the back. The improvised handlebar bag quickly become a fanny pack - not the height of bike fashion. Some items: down coat, fleece, tent, industrial strength booties, bear spray, tools, a book on climate change in the Arctic, misc clothing, water purifying tablets, Whisperlite, and EIGHT DAYS worth of food, topping out at about 55lbs on stuff loaded on the bike. I had my fingers crossed for my wheelset because breaking a spoke would have sent me hitchhiking. The uneven load combined with grabby front brakes lent itself to some wobbly handling. I hoped we ate enough to lighten the load prior to going down any big hills. You might note Joe was on a Pugsley...

Deadhorse and Prudhoe Bay

After a weekend trip to Anchorage (700 scenic miles round trip) for Darcy and Toby's magnificent wedding party (not 100% sure they wish to be featured in this blog!), it was on the plane to Deadhorse, the "town" at the entrance to the North Slope oilfields at Prudhoe Bay. After all the trouble of buying new fuel canisters for our stove to avoid even gas residue, ditching the bear spray, and my retrieving my checked luggage so I could put a knife in it, the gate turned out to have no security at all... Once in Deadhorse, a collection of heavy machinery on a gravel pad, we took a tour of the oil fields, run by BP, which ended in a trip to the Arctic Ocean.

Biking the Haul Road

Starved for adventure by too much familiar in my East Coast life, I leaped at the chance to join my uber-tourer friend Joe on a trip down Alaska's "Haul Road," (officially called the Dalton Highway), which ran south from Deadhorse 414 miles before joining the Elliot Highway for the 85 mile trek to Fairbanks. The road was constructed in 1973 to service the newly created oil pipeline which ran 900 miles from the oil fields of Prudhoe Bay all the way to Valdez where it could be loaded onto tankers. For much of the route - through the tundra, the foothills of the Brooks Range, over the Range's Atigun Past (splitting between Gates of the Arctic National Park on the east, ANWR to the east), past the "farthest north spruce tree," down the Chandalar Shelf, through Coldfoot, over the Artic Circle, and across the Yukon River, before ending in the unfriendly defunct mining town of Livengood "Liven' good in Livengood" - the road parallels the pipeline. Both pipeline and road seemed generally viewed as tremendous feats of engineering that had somehow mastered a remote and inhospitable landscape. While production is down as the oil field ages, Prudhoe Bay once produced 20% of US oil. And thanks largely to Ted Stevens and a diet of pure federal pork (in spite of so many Alaskans' disdain for government), every Alaska receives an annual permanent fund dividend check ($1300 last year); Alaska Natives of the Arctic enjoy a huge cut of oil revenue, making the North Star Borough one of the state's wealthiest; and shift work on the North Slope is a booming industry even in this recession. The trip promised to bundle a new conceptual landscape around energy and wilderness with an anticipated breathtaking physical landscape. Not to mention some good physical challenge.

Denali

I mistakenly left all my Denali photos on my brother's computer in Fairbanks, so... me and a moose is all we get. With only one cold day and going on three hours of sleep due to a noisy late-night police/wreckless driver escapade outside Stefan's cabin, taking a tour bus all day was a welcome if lame way to see Denali. In spite of the weather, we managed to capture the "big five" - grizzly, caribou, moose, golden eagle, and wolf, clamoring with everyone else with cameras and binoculars to whichever side of the bus had the best view. It was rather ridiculous! The alternative way to experience the park seemed a stark extreme - trail-less hiking. In fact, just after our visit an Georgia man in for a conference went out for a day hike and was lost for three days. Not to mention Chris McCandless...

Mt. Prindle Overnight

I would need to remember how to camp and overcome my fear of bears, so my brother took me backpacking. Yowsas let me tell you these White Mountains were not like New Hampshire's! No trails and no people. Finally met some sheep hunters out for a week or so hoping to haul out a Dall sheep (ewes pictured). These mid-aged women hunters with their rifles, maps and satellite phone splayed out in camp, talking about the wolf that visited the previous night and their intended forays to the ridge, for sure could outlast me in this wilderness 1000 to 1. Pictured: Torrs, sky, Dall sheep, and Stefan's ill-fated sleeping bag experiment.

Things Alaskan

Things Alaskan: building a cabin, farewell to a caribou, warding off bears at the Museum of the North, patriotism (?), permafrost, requisite broken windshield driving through Wasilla, dog mushing, Fairbanks fur store, Sportsman's Warehouse, dry cabin water system, such light, the dump (no recycling in Fairbanks), "sturdy" pilot bread backcountry cracker gone gourmet, Chinook caught off cliff and badly filleted, moto, and hopping falafel stand.

Alaska!

Post-Fitchburg entailed more joyful though lackluster suffering on the bike with dear team Wheelworks, including Clamfest for the first time, then the gorgeous, authentic, and hilly Tour of the Catskills, then a heat-combusting Beverly Crit, then Witches Cup by which point I finally had some racing legs, only to fly the very next morning to...

ALASKA!!!

I would get to see my brother's life in Fairbanks (a long overdue adventure), attend a wedding party of a grad school friend, add raw experience to intellectual grasp of a climate change frontier, and, in a late minute trip extension (sorry Green Mountain Stage Race), pedal the "Haul Road" (Dalton Highway) 500 miles from the Arctic Ocean to Fairbanks. The itinerary seemed destined to jolt me from my comfort zones!

Where to Begin?

Well, I set a new record for blog neglect to the point that no one might read this anymore! Glimmers of inspired racing during cross season, but all in all a busy adjustment to my new teaching job, with plenty of moments of run-over-by-a-truck fatigue. I had to step back from being driven and find my footing at work. Coached rowing this spring (even rowed a few times), reveling in the progress of my novices and the victory of the top boat, but was unable to race the bike or train as I am used to. Just started racing three weeks ago, one crit where I faked it for 4th, then two road races where I got clobbered. I super-loaded the training in advance of a professional development trip to Costa Rica focusing on conservation, ecology, and certification programs for sustainable agriculture and forestry. I had a crackpot plan to race Fitchburg the day after my return after a week off the bike. (This was not even "seemed like a good idea at the time," this was "seemed like a bad idea at the time.") In spite of this it was fun to finally race with my team, and surprisingly exhilarating to leap directly from an inspiring week in Costa Rica right into my favorite local pro race with great teammates. But ugh. I was woefully in over my head. Dropped in the circuit race, rode it in. Then dropped in the road race, rode it in but time cut. At some point I will need to decide if I am committed to being fast and if I can make it happen with my current circumstances, because I will tire of being terrible, but it was fun and certainly served its role as a training boot camp. This photo from the flight from the Osa Penninsula, the remote southwest corner of Costa Rica.

New in 2009

I could not be more psyched about racing on BikeReg.com / Joe's Garage / Independent Fabrications this year. That's that. Fantastic people and the best of sponsors, based right here in New England. Feels like home. Now to race the bike fast.

Bedford Cross - Sept 13

There is nothing quite like a race to jolt one into cross season! You can roll around on the cross bike but it's just not the same. Hard to know what to expect emerging from over a month of training without racing, then the always-chaotic/tiring first week of the school year. Sustainability across the board, and zipping out to Bedford and my other life was a key step in the quest for balance. Weather was HOT; course was a dry grassy slog. According to others, the slog is my specialty, so I was supposed to be psyched for this course. Hopes of anonymity dashed at the line with Mo, Sara B-Z, a fair number of ringers! Holeshot off the line (evidently I can clip in even after switching back to Time from Crank Brothers) and leading then following Mo but AYA then my seat was coming off. Many thanks to JD and Matt Roy for help in the pit (left-hand bike change in the first race of the year!?), new bike but then AYA my handlebar was loose, so another left-hand bike change. Inexcusable equipment laziness, but point of race 1 is to blow out the cobwebs and eliminate glitches. I clawed my way back into 5th but definitely tired by the end, though closing a bit. Smoothness needed but hopeful about the legs and season. Mo rocked, and Anna/Anns were well-represented on the podium, taking 3 of top 5 spots. Way to go name. Photo courtesy Brad Jurga. Next up, Suckerbrook Cross.

And September!

Eeking in just under the one-month-between-posts limit. Much to report! Transition time as I moved, started a new job, got a haircut... My brother returned from his e$%# ("epic" is now under quarantine) two-month canoe trip on Alaska's Yukon river so I no longer need to worry about him disappearing into the Bering Sea. Big news is I am teaching again, hoping I can successfully integrate environmental science, biology, and public health into a tip-top high school's curriculum and ethos while sustaining a strong racing life and making the most of the academic calendar's opportunity for expeditions and adventure. The pace of life is high, but whose isn't and ideas and energy and people should carry me through. Grad school felt like a lot of absorbing, now it's time to see what I can do. You run what you brung. New Haven was surprisingly great, but I am so happy to be back in the Boston area again.