Driving Away

On the kamikaze fourteen-hour drive from eastern Idaho to the northern coast of Washington, my only company the dog curled up in the piles of bedding jammed into the Subaru and Cy's voice on the radio as he piloted the van in front of us, I thought about the other times I've driven away from an old home toward a new one. 

When I left Brevard, two goodbyes stood out: the one to my withholding and not very good boyfriend, which was sad but lackluster, and the one to my father, which felt emblematic of becoming a grown up. When I left Tahoe, I drove away from a crowded hotel room at a casino in Reno, where we had celebrated the end of another season in fittingly hedonistic fashion. Everything and everyone was transient in Tahoe so it didn't feel noteworthy to leave, although I was going to miss some of the people I had met. But my partner was waiting in Idaho with a new life ready for me, so I headed east. 

This time, I was driving away from my home of ten years. In Teton Valley I became fully actualized, changed a lot, grew a lot. I had a deep sense of community, like I had in Brevard, but stronger and earned on my own rather than through my parents' business. I had a husband and a career and a house and adult friendships that made me feel so fortunate I could cry. 

My winter of goodbyes was drawn out and peaceful, because I had the privilege and luxury of leaving my intense job in November and only dabbling in work through April. It was an amazing winter with tons of good skiing and opportunities for adventures with people I care about. When I wasn't skiing or volunteering at the food pantry or listening to podcasts or typing away at JayP's book, I was slowly purging the house and tidying up loose ends. When it came time to pack, of course, we discovered I hadn't purged aggressively enough, but isn't that always the case. 

We filled our final weeks with as many hugs and drinks and walks and skis as possible, but I still didn't feel like I had done my friends justice. But they all quickly lined up with dates that they wanted to come visit, to spring ski and mountain bike, so none of my goodbyes were forever. 

Regardless, I cried often in the final week, almost as sad to be leaving my beloved little house in town as I was to be leaving my community. 

I thought I remembered writing on my blog in 2012 that, as I drove west away from the Blue Ridge, all my feelings were packed away in a box buried under other boxes in the car. It appears that I didn't write that after all, but I definitely thought it, and on my next big drive west, to Washington, it was exactly the same way. After the ceaseless churn of sadness, once I was in motion the feelings went into their little box, to be stored and forgotten somewhere in our new rental. 

Here, I'm not sad, just a little restless, waiting for life to start, waiting to accumulate friends and experiences and knowledge all over again. 

It's been amazing to ride from the house to the tangled web of trails and remember what good dirt is, when Teton Valley mountain biking is still months away from prime season. But the ride that really cinched the decision wasn't on trails, it was on pathways. A friend of a friend took us out to tour some of the city on gravel bikes and the sheer density of back alleys and greenways and bike lanes and singletrack cut-throughs filled me with joy. This place has arteries and veins crisscrossing the whole body to serve the beating center. And being able to ride safely and quickly and on scenic byways to the grocery store is a major factor in quality of life. 

The path to the grocery store looks like this.

Die A Little Death: Fat Pursuit, Skinny Skis

 Look at all this room I gave myself to blog about the race itself since I already wrote about the preparation. Huh, maybe I should do this more often.

I cruised up to Island Park on Friday night with Harrison and Kate in the back of Diego, a sketchy old SUV, and crashed at the volunteer house. Maybe the best part of the Fat Pursuit was dipping back into the Teton Valley bike world and talking to friends I made almost ten years ago and rarely see anymore. As seasoned veterans of the Fat Pursuit, they all had their own important stuff going on, documenting the 3 am finishes of the first 200K racers, re-upping the Coke and PB+J supplies at the aid stations, making sure JayP ate something during his sleepless multi-day race directing stint. 

I took two pictures over the entire race and the internet hasn't provided any yet. 

Just like the old days 

At the start line I posted up near the back, not sure how to handle the chaos of a hundred nervous bikers while I'm on awkward edgeless skis. I started conservatively but the first stretch of trail was slightly downhill on partially-groomed mashed potato snow that looked challenging for the riders and was perfect for skiing, so I was effortlessly passing riders and made it up to the first third of the pack, in sight of two skier guys in skin suits. 

We crossed the highway. I had realized the day before, looking at the course map, that I would have to remove my skis for several road crossings, and bikers definitely had an advantage there. We traversed a chilly meadow on a very fast track and then entered beautiful, snow kissed woods. 

I had been a little leery of sharing the trail with bikes but the riders gave the strange hairless two-legged creature a wide berth. They regained time on me but I was in heaven, relishing that first ten mile euphoria that always hits. I was having a ball, convinced it'd be good times the whole way, plotting how to help Jay market this as an endurance XC ski race because more skiers should join in on the fun! No matter how many times my happy haze slams up against the reality of endurance racing, I still can't help but think at the start of every race that the whole event will reflect those first hours of cheerful excellence. 

The conditions began to get a little sloppier as we left the track that had been groomed only hours before the start. Island Park is the land of slednecks, with miles and miles and miles of wide trails devoted to snowmobiles, and heavy sled travel churns up soft snow and leaves it variable and rutted. We had the best possible weather, just below freezing and no precipitation after 9 am, but even then the track proved challenging for me, requiring that I pay attention to each ski glide and tack across the trail to find the best skate surface and use all the little stabilizers muscles in my feet to stay upright and keep my skis flat across the washboard. This is what Jay had said, that I should train on snowmobile trails, but I figured a few days of skating on tracks with four inches of fresh snow on top of corduroy was adequate. Not the case. 

Fat bikers continued to pass me on their single ribbon of tire-firmed snow on the edge of the trail, while I worked hard to keep moving forward. And yet I didn't ever wish I was on a fat bike - I watched the earthworm squiggles of their tire tracks wherever they deviated from the single firm line, washing out in soft snow and having to walk their bikes, or just mindlessly pedaling down the broad, flat roads. 

I never had the luxury of being mindless, engaging every muscle in my body in this never-ending cycle of pole-push-glide-pole-push-glide. 

The low point came around mile 22, after the route passed a beautiful lake with sapphire blue sky above, then spit us out on pavement. Oh dear. At first I tried skiing on the whooped-out sled track on the bank above the road, but the constant ups and downs and narrow tracked out ruts proved to be extremely slow and fatiguing to navigate. There was a skiff of plowed snow on the shoulder of the road, just wide enough to skate, with occasional large ice chunks threatening to catch my skis and toss me off my feet. Sometimes I had to take off my skis and walk. Many bikers passed me. 

Along some lovely little body of water, no idea I was about to ski down a road.

Fortunately, after over a mile of this nonsense, the road section ended at an aid station. After a pickle, a cookie, and some ginger tea (maybe someday I'll learn to eat enough during races) I set off again, knowing that I was starting up a long "climb." The course had barely any elevation gain, 1085 feet over 35 miles, but even a 400-foot climb felt like a lot in choppy mashed potatoes. 

I felt pretty shelled and kept getting passed. Harrison, who had stopped for multiple tokes and a visit with his girlfriend and dogs at the last aid station, leapfrogged me for the final time. Another rider, as she passed me, said "I think you're working harder than I am," a point I had to concede. I would've been at least an hour faster on a bike, but still wasn't wishing that fate upon myself. Even though I was in a gloomy place, I still had the presence of mind to marvel at the act of skiing, and notice that every time I put effort toward using good form, it made me faster. 

I was mostly using V1 by the end, the first-gear style of pole planting used for climbing. V2-Alternate had served me well at the beginning when I was moving faster, but the surface was never smooth enough for me to try out my nascent V2 skills. I had to switch primary pole sides in V1 because my left arm and shoulder were complaining by mile 20. 

I finished the climb just as the political podcast that I had put on to dull my brain ended. I switched back to music (this was the first race I've ever used headphones for, and it was essential) and braved a glance at mileage. Only two to go! Okay, I thought, here goes. The final miles were down a windswept meadow where I could see for eternity, but it didn't really drag down my spirits as much as a straightaway usually does. I put my head down (only in the figurative sense; I had to concentrate the whole race on keeping my head up) and churned to the finish line. 

Jill Homer always picks a song as she finishes races to set the tone for herself. I didn't have the wherewithal for that but The Beths song "Little Death" came on as I was pushing on the final stretch. Ignoring that the song is about lust, I appreciated the words as I was feeling dramatic and was pretty certain I was dying little deaths. 

 
My legs support a little less
My tongue becomes a little mess
My lips are longing to confess, uh
My lungs they catch on every breath
My heart beats harder at the cage inside my chest
I die, I die a little death.

The extent of my aerobic and muscular fatigue wasn't clear until I had to lay down in the snow at the finish, and then wandered around unable to get comfortable standing up or sitting down. I quickly changed out of my sweat-soaked socks and hateful boots (everything hurt but my feet definitely hurt the most) and regained my composure, some, so I could go cheer for others at the finish and hang out. The second place female skier didn't come through until we were packing up Diego to leave - she classic skied, which seems way slower but also probably a lot less painful. Harrison pointed out that I was operating at a higher intensity than the bikers the whole time, like basically running 35 miles, albeit with more elegant equipment. But yeah. It was really hard. I was afraid I had built it up too much beforehand to myself and my friends as a big effing deal but finishing felt like a major accomplishment. 

I had wanted to hang out and share the camaraderie with the finishers and volunteers, but my whole body and my stomach hurt so much that when my friends said they were taking off, I was content to hop in the car and head home. After twelve hours of sleep and a huge breakfast, I felt recovered enough to go for a ski tour with Dan and the dogs - not even sore, but missing my top end of speed, unsurprisingly. 

And now I'm looking at the registration page for some of the local XC ski races, because once you've skated 35 miles of sled track, 20K of corduroy starts to sound pretty relaxed. 

Fat Pursuit Preamble

I never write pre-race posts because I like knowing the outcome first so I can adopt the appropriate tone in my blog - insouciance or wry resignation or casual swagger, it all depends on how I finish. And when I was younger I was so calculatedly apathetic about race preparation, often to the point of self-sabotage, because it wasn't cool to try, and it was cool to do well effortlessly. 

But with the Fat Pursuit, I wanted to write about the run-up to the race, just as I've wanted to set myself up for as much success as possible, ever since I got the wild hare to register.

This came about because I'm writing a book with Jay Petervary, another scary admission that, by putting out into the world, holds me accountable to really do it. It seemed essential in order to capture the JayP zeitgeist that I finally attend the Fat Pursuit, the winter event he's been putting on for ten years. At first I figured I'd volunteer, because I like volunteering and because I have very little patience for fat biking. At its best I find it kind of boring, and if the conditions are bad it's an interminable slog. 

But then I jokingly posited to myself that I could skate ski the 60K. And then I asked Jay and he confirmed that skates are definitely the appropriate ski choice over classic, which is good because I don't classic ski. And while the Fat Pursuit, in particular the 200K, is notorious for rugged conditions, negative 20 or two inches of snow an hour or 30 mph wind or sometimes all three the same awful year, Jay said the new 60K course is more protected from the elements and is almost guaranteed to have a pretty decent groom on it (in other words, ideally it won't be 35 miles of wallowing through deep snow on improper equipment). 

So I registered. Committing was made easier by a very healthy coupon code.

Sitting with Jay for hours at a time learning about his experiences in the ultra-endurance world and his psychological inability to quit ridiculous races makes me feel sheepish that I've treated this paltry event with such single-mindedness and nervousness, but we're not all full of sheer New Jersey cussedness, I guess. 

I haven't done a ton of miles because the backcountry skiing has been phenomenal, and because our groomed tracks are pretty short so distance skating requires aggressive hamster-wheeling, but I did polish off an 18-mile day last month and figured if I could finish that just feeling a little sore and sweaty, I could probably schlep my way through double the distance.

Since I learned to skate in 2021, I've been watching Youtube to try and improve my still amateurish form, and this winter I started doing fifteen push-ups a day because my poling sucks. Chrissy is the only person who will skate with me, and is willing to listen to me talk about technique ad nauseum. 

My equipment is old and screams rental gear, and I haven't gone out and bought XC-specific apparel, the wind-paneled tights and streamlined hip pack and overkill insulated leather gloves, so I just wear what is essentially my skinning outfit. Skating is way too hot of an activity for the cute little beanies and puffy jackets people wear at the track, so I wear a ball cap and t-shirt and bike gloves, and weather-resistant vented softshell pants that seem more versatile than tights, I guess. And I'm bringing a skimo race pack, with loud neon Dynafit accents, for emergency gear.

To sum it up, I look like a waddling baggy dork but that's kind of how I ski too, so I've resigned myself to not fitting in at the Alta track, land of 65-year-old speed demons. 

Fortunately, there are very few skiers signed up to race, but one woman whose Instagram bio includes "cross country skier" is coming, so there goes my shot of a calm cool and collected start, not that that was ever likely - I am and have always been a first-ten-miles hustler who always blows up after three hours. I'm usually able to recover, enough, and this summer and winter have marked some of the fittest seasons of my life, at least out west, so it's fun to lean into that old lady strength I've been accruing. 

The Island Park forecast looks surprisingly good, gentle snow through the night clearing up to an overcast day just below freezing, but, as JayP warns, you can never trust the forecast in eastern Idaho. So I'm packing all the necessary outerwear as well as some ingenious (maybe?) skins for skate skis, thanks to Cy the inveterate tinkerer and preparer. 

All in all, I'm in no way apathetic about this. I'm really excited to take on a challenge that I'm not sure I can do, because isn't that what makes sports so dang rad? 

What is Hard?

Last night I went to a yoga class because that's what women of leisure do. My friend Bria was teaching. During the guided meditation, she instructed us to think of something hard we had done in the week prior. 

Sprawled in some sort of baby pose, I was struck by a wave of guilt at my privilege. I hadn't done anything hard in a week. 

Backpacking to hot springs? Cold, but not hard.

For the past few years, hard meant putting out a paper I was (usually) proud of every week, poring over mean Facebook comments despite myself, driving past fast food restaurants that advertised a higher starting wage than I was earning as editor, saying sorry, saying no, or saying yes and committing my time to important things, mundane things, repetitive things, heartwarming things. Hard was having people say to my face that they had stopped reading the paper because of how biased it was. Hard was watching a former coworker constantly try to scoop us in covering the most controversial stories, then giving out my publisher's cell phone number to people so they could complain to him about the work I was doing. Hard was staying up late when Cy was on SAR call-outs, knowing that I would have to write about the grim outcome, but also knowing I couldn't use everything he told me - the information had to come from official sources. Hard was attending as many high school sports games and matches as possible and still hearing from a small but vocal group of parents who complained that we didn't pay any attention to their (deeply mediocre) teams. Hard was never turning it off. I didn't work crazy hours and often bailed to go skiing or mountain biking, but I never stopped thinking about the job, the community, and there was always a chance I would have to get home and cover some horrible breaking news. Hard was also telling people I respected that I was leaving. 

Visiting family? Awesome, not hard

But when I was mouth-breathing into my yoga mat last night, all of that hard had gone away. I spent my week skiing a ton, deep cleaning the house (and fretting over how many possessions we have in the face of a move next spring), cooking dinner before sunset, and beginning to chip away at a new (exciting, overwhelming) project. None of it was hard. It all felt good, and satisfying, and incredibly selfish. 

Skiing amazing early season snow? Definitely not hard

This year I quit two things that have defined me for a long time. I gave my notice at the paper in late July and finally made it out the first week of November. But before that, in spring, fighting tears, I told the head coach I wouldn't be participating in NICA this year. Cy had been kicked off the team for what I felt was not a great reason, and that decision was the final straw for me, proving that retaining enthusiastic, passionate, and committed coaches wasn't a priority for the program. It broke my heart to quit, and I did burst into tears when my favorite mom called and asked if it was true. I felt wretched, and again, so selfish, but it did mean a yawning chasm of free time had opened up for me, after seven years of five to ten hours a week of unpaid practice from June to October and four to six race weekends around the state every fall. 

I loved coaching NICA so much but it was a huge volunteer time commitment and this year I ended up not missing it as much as I expected. Especially because I got to ride with my favorite kiddos in ways that weren't allowed within the program - gravity laps on Teton Pass (introducing girls on XC bikes to the idea that the pass is for everyone), lining up against them in enduro and downhill and cross country races, and going on a couple big training rides with two exceptional athletes that I've coached since they were in sixth grade. I was so grateful that the parents we've developed relationships with over the years didn't hold our exit against us and were still happy to let their kids ride with us. 

Seeing these girls grow into total crushers? Inspiring, not hard

So now I'm wallowing around in my lack of employment and involvement in the community, and trying to avoid the question when people ask what I'm doing next. Because at the moment I'm just enjoying myself. Taking it easy, I guess, after a lot of hard. 

Dealing with a dog that is incredibly needy but also very poorly behaved? Kinda hard

Ectopic Pregnancy

This happened four years ago. We paid off the substantial bills for two hospitals and an ambulance a year later, while in the middle of a major house renovation, and I wrote about it a year after that.  

The cramps first started in December, one evening before a work party. We had both showered so we had a quickie. At the end, instead of an orgasm I was struck by a wave of vicious cramps that shut down my abdomen. Cy was confused and apologetic as I writhed on the bed. Gasping, I sent him away, and emerged in a dress and tights thirty minutes later, still in pain. 

A few more episodes struck aggressively over the next few weeks, and the bleeding started mid-month, first spotting then a regular flow that at some point started soaking through pads like my period never did. 

I was convinced my IUD was misbehaving. I did one quick Google, found nothing substantive, and left it at that. The thought of my warmhearted doctor fiddling with the IUD like she had when she inserted it, sending incredible pain through my pelvis and causing months of side effects, made my skin crawl, so I did nothing. 

Finally I made a doctor's appointment because the bleeding was so heavy and the cramps left me supine on the ottoman trying to find a position where the muscles in my stomach would leave me alone. I decided my solution was to get that little U of metal and plastic removed and then discuss other options. My appointment was in two days. 

But that night started to feel like a fever dream, the pain spreading upward like terrible suspenders into my shoulder. I started having dizzy spells and feeling too hot, too cold. While editing pages after hours at work I had to go lie down on the floor of the manager's office a couple times until the desire to faint had passed. After going to a city council meeting, I made it home, groaning as I shifted my carcass out of the car. I ate no dinner and went straight to the shower, and when that felt too intense and black spots danced before my eyes, I sat down and had a bath. 

Cy sounded more worried than I'd ever heard him, but I waved him off. I have an appointment. I can't go in any earlier, I have to get the paper out tomorrow morning. The ER is way too expensive, and what if I get a male doctor? He won't know what to do with me.

Sleep was hard to come by and after a few uneasy hours I came awake unable to breathe deeply or lay comfortably because of the pain in my shoulder. I took a piss, took a drink, and Cy was awake, and asserted again that we needed to go in. This time I said yes, I do need to go to the ER. 

We packed water bottles, books, and snacks, me distrustful of hospitals and wait times and how long we'd be away. No bra, no contacts, I walked into the ER with Cy, and a nurse I knew greeted us. He realized I was a mess. IUD issues, I told him. 

Other men checked me into the ER, took vitals, tried to absorb the information I provided. To my relief a female NP soon parted the curtain and started questioning me. She didn't seem to take in what I was saying though, or I wasn't explaining my symptoms in the right order, because she was most concerned about the shoulder pain, not the wracking cramps. She asked if I had been doing manual labor that made me sore. Yes, I've been putting in flooring in the house I just bought but I am intimately familiar with the sweet feeling of muscle soreness, I tried to say. 

A technician ushered me toward the X-ray room and I thought about all those articles I had read about hospitals performing unnecessary tests. No, I don't need that, I told him. The NP came back in and demanded to know why. I told her I wasn't concerned with my bones, it was my abdomen that was killing me. I peed in a cup. Got an EKG, although I suspected I didn't need that either. 

Twenty minutes later she returned and her demeanor had totally changed. Maybe I was no longer the hypochondriac with a sore upper body. 

She told me I was pregnant. I burst into tears. She explained it was most likely ectopic, outside the uterus, and they didn't have an ultrasound technician on call. She said she was going to send me to Rexburg (the hospital there is just a baby factory, she said) so we got ready to head west. 

At the desk they confirmed with us that Cy was fine with transporting me, but then my ears started ringing, my vision blurred, and I bent over to right myself. Their voices, sounding far away, grew loud with alarm, and they sat me in a wheelchair as I shook and sweated and heaved into a bag. I had apparently almost dropped to the ground, almost hit my head on the desk, but Cy caught me in time.

They put an IV in me and watched my color return. Ambulance it is, then. Two EMTs hustled me onto a stretcher and into the back of the vehicle. One of them, a sturdy young woman, stayed back with me and murmured comforting things and had me gauge my pain. She warmed up the little room until I stopped shivering. She pumped a dose of painkiller into my IV. Isn't fentanyl a pretty gnarly opioid? I asked. She considered this and then said she preferred it to morphine. 

I drowsed a little but didn't feel much of my pain being killed. I saw the headlights of my Subaru through the back window as Cy chased us going 80 to Rexburg. 

There, the first nurse I interacted with called my malignant growth a baby and chastised me for leaving the ultrasound tech waiting for an hour. I was on enough drugs to knock out a horse, having asked the EMT for more to little effect. I decided I didn't need to apologize to her. 

The ultrasound tech was younger than me and very apologetic for the extreme discomfort she was putting me in. She said nothing about the mysterious clouds showing on her screen, so I just gritted my teeth and dug my nails in as she manipulated the wand inside me. 

An unpleasant male doctor with a flat head, a shapeless belly, and a stilted manner asked me a couple questions but then tagged out - the specialist had arrived. He was much more pleasant without any air of judgment and was the first person to lay out possible solutions as well as the cause of the pregnancy. 

He was weighing the options but felt that surgery was the right move. Cy agreed to talk to my mom and call the newspaper to help direct them a little bit, as I gave up the last shred of control I had over the situation. They put drugs into me that had me passing out as they wheeled me into the operating room. 

I came to with a sense of noise and light. The word salad bombarding my brain eventually coalesced into It went well. It wasn't ruptured.

I felt hazy and quiet and hurt. Cy sat by the bed feeding me water, gently scratching my back under the hospital gown and letting me know what my friends and family had said while I was under. 

Finally the specialist returned and showed me a sheaf of photos of a red bulbous object inside me. The procedure worked - they drained the blood from my abdomen (the blood that was pushing up into my chest and causing shoulder pain), eliminated the growth, and double and triple checked my reproductive organs. 

He told me they caught it just in time. Ectopic pregnancies can be deadly. I didn't let my mind linger on that. And IUDs seem to increase the chance of ectopic pregnancies. This same thing happened to my wife. Also once you've had one you're more likely to have another. 

Cy later told me he had Googled my symptoms a lot more thoroughly than I had and saw pretty clearly what it was, but didn't want to pressure me. 

I was still hurting but could sense that the badness was gone from my system. I sent out some texts. Asked Cy to grab me a Sprite when he went out - he was clearing starving and running low on fuel after a hungry, intense night and morning. I had dressed myself (slowly) when he returned. An aide wheeled me to the curb where Cy picked me up. Every little bump on the drive shook me with pain but I felt clear-eyed and full of new life. Well, that was something, I thought. 

The Ogre 24

It happens over beers at the Wolf, as so many good things do. Dan mentions he tried to put together an Ogre 24-hour team with some TCSAR buddies but they couldn't do the race as a co-ed team because they didn't have a woman. I swore long ago I would never do the 24 because it always involves water and sleep deprivation but for some reason this time the idea creeps into my skull and bounces around in there. Dan does water stuff - he has the equipment and knowledge, so I can just be a passive byfloater. And while I reliably fall apart during the Ogre, that's always with Cy, and there's something to be said for doing an adventure with people who are not your main source of emotional stability. You have to keep the bad attitude inside. 

I pour another beer from the pitcher and tell Dan I want in. Cy raises an eyebrow. 

We start a text thread with the two Jackson boys. It comes to light that Ian doesn't even own a bike, Steve doesn't own one that's appropriate for the race, and Dan has only recently purchased a Surly, but is not really a cyclist. I propose a test run where we bushwhack from Teton Canyon to Spring Creek, ride Aspen, then take gravel roads back. It's a pretty good indicator of the Ogre, and I feel optimistic, ish. 

The race starts at 2 p.m. on a Saturday, a time frame that lends itself to a lot of dicking around. We make piles, allocate piles, pack piles, put glow sticks on our watercraft, pare down our first aid supplies, attend to one poorly maintained borrowed bike, prepare for the different transition areas and different disciplines. Then all of a sudden it's noon and we have to go to check-in and start studying our map. (The venue is a block from Dan's house and we're the only local team competing, which certainly counts for something.) 

We start with a neutral rollout along the bike path to 5500 and I caution the boys not to crash - there are a lot of really sketchy bikers in the pack. Then the race starts and after pacelining down the gravel road and wading with bikes through the confluence of Fox Creek and Teton River we've taken the lead, weirdly. We're the first team to arrive at Henderson Canyon, drop our bikes, and start trekking. There's a trail network here that's not on any map so I make some navigation guesses based on familiarity. We are being watched online, theoretically, our little dots moving in real time, and I wonder if our friends and family can see that we're doing well. I'm filled with the optimistic glow that happens literally every year when I mistakenly entertain the idea that the Ogre can be won in the first couple of hours. Before I remember that winning teams have the ability to somehow walk with laser focus from one checkpoint to the next instead of dithering around trying to find the orange flags in the woods. 

We hike up through wildflowers and down steep ravines grabbing checkpoints (and a moose paddle) and for the first of many times, I'm grateful that Ian and Dan can handle the navigation because I never learned how to read a compass and can't associate small physical landmarks with their paper counterparts - minor highpoint, periodic creek, steep ridge, etc. I know the area better than anyone and am moving fast, and that's good enough for me.

After a long interlude (during which time we encounter several enraged grouse) of trying to find a tricky checkpoint in the inaptly named Lizard Lake, we run down out of Mahogany across half the valley to the South Bates river access. The sun is setting, I'm playing pop music on my phone, we're passing tons of people. I'm not even mad about the road miles. 

After inflating our duckies and donning PFDs and dry gear (thanks Sarah) we get on the river and paddle a frenzied quarter mile upstream to snag a CP dangling from a willow on the bank. Once we point it downstream I begin to realize how unpleasant this endeavor will be. Twelve miles of nonstop paddling down slow moving water in the dark and cold, covering far more ground than necessary because of the river's incessant meandering, Ian and Steve speeding away in their boat because I'm not a good paddler, and the river is sooooo boring and my gloved hands and sleeves are soaked quickly and with every pass into the water my paddle squeaks against the rubber kayak and is very annoying and embarrassing. 

Two eternal hours later we take out at Packsaddle where many teams are recovering, shivering in front of the fire, drinking coffee, facing the long night ahead of them. After everyone's hands stop shaking we deflate and pack up our kayaks and schlep them into the Uhaul, change into warm clothes and socks, and strap on our bike lights. We depart around midnight. The race director said he was stuck there until 5 a.m. waiting for people in basketball shorts on stand up paddleboards to recover from the first blush of hypothermia and start biking.

We begin the not insubstantial climb from the river bottom back into the Big Holes, up gravel roads and double track to the cirque of Relay Ridge. It's a long ride, with several extended breaks to accommodate the mixed pace of the group. Once we reach the cirque, we drop bikes and start wandering around. There are quite a few CPs up here but we decide to be kind to ourselves and only shoot for a few of them, enough to allow the sun to rise so we don't have to ride downhill in the dark. At first morning light I have a donut and a can of iced coffee, which everyone is deeply envious of. 

I tell the boys that if Abby and Jason are awake, they're probably watching the livetracker and are happy to see that we're at a stunning overlook of the whole valley and the Teton range at sunrise - that's the kind of race directors they are. 

After a couple of scenic CPs on cliff bands and nearly an hour of flustered searching for one last flag in a sinkhole (which turns out to be a very big obvious sinkhole that we manage to overlook for too long) we head back to our bikes and point it downhill, accidentally blowing by a few intersections before making it down the steep technical final section to the Horseshoe-Packsaddle road. No injuries, no mechanicals. Shocking. 

We eat lunch next to a creek, slap on bug spray and not enough sunscreen, and I promise to lead them out for the rest of the ride - it's the Horseshoe Canyon network, which I know well, and I'm still feeling pretty good. It's nice being an asset and not at all a weak link. We catch a few more CPs and Dan, who is deeply unflappable and hasn't struggled at all during the race, admits to me that riding singletrack after twenty hours in motion is really taxing his concentration and bike skills. It's a moment that I hold onto to share later with friends, most of whom can count on one or two fingers the number of times they've seen him crack. 

I feel grateful for the many many many hours of hard mountain biking I've done. It's a huge advantage to be able to ride on autopilot when dealing with cumulative fatigue. 

The sun is fierce as we do the final unpleasant pedal from Horseshoe to Driggs (not via the most direct route of course because adventure racing). After what feels like five hours of spinning circles down gravel roads and listening to my increasingly noisy drivetrain, we arrive in town and collapse in the grass at the finish line. 

Even though our team name is In It For the Après, our après is shortlived and subdued - a beer each before Steve and Ian drive back to Jackson and I take a nap. 

The next day I feel surprisingly chipper, not really sore at all except for my shoulders. Dan agrees it just feels like the aftermath of a big ski day in Grand Teton National Park. 

We have 24 CPs total. The winning team, which includes two children who have done the Ogre several times and seem to be impeccable navigators, got all 31 CPs. We place fourth in our category and fifth overall out of 30 or so teams. Not too shabby for a group made up of two non-cyclists, one non-boater, and three non-adventure racers. 

This is the only event I keep coming back to. Playing the oldies: 

2016 Ogre 

2017 Ogre 

Cy and I also raced in 2018 and 2019, and did the Covid navigation challenge (poorly) in 2020. 

Location Shopping Part II

 After leaving the Olympic Peninsula we stopped for the night in south Seattle near the airport for a reset - showers and a hotel bed. In the morning we came out and noticed a large pool of gas on the rain-washed tarmac that upon inspection appeared to be coming from the van. Joy. Someone had repeatedly punctured the van's fuel tank (to steal gas in a clumsy and ineffective fashion, I guess?) although miraculously they hadn't taken the catalytic converter, usually the first thing that gets stolen these days. A friendly contractor who was staying at the hotel paused at the vehicle while we were looking at it and told us all the parking lots in the area saw routine vandalism and theft.

Seriously?

I told the hotel clerk, who gave a cursory sympathetic murmur and slid the Xeroxed incident report form across the desk but made no offer of redress for the utter failure of the night security shift. Cy, being the very competent and capable person he is, started walking the two miles to the auto parts store to get some epoxy and radiator patches while I filed the police report and insurance claim. The contractor saw Cy jogging through the concrete hellscape of traffic sprawl and gave him a ride back to the hotel. Cy laid out a rug on the ground and started patching the holes while I talked to the wildly helpful insurance adjustor, who immediately sent me payment for the temporary fix plus labor plus lost fuel, and started drafting the estimate for replacement. A diametrically opposite customer service experience than the hotel clerk interaction. 

This guy is the best

We went for a walk along the Interurban path while waiting for the epoxy to cure, and talked about the sad fucked-up-ness of humanity in all its myriad ways. Every battle being fought is overwhelming and insufficient. I don't know how we could ever begin to fix all the things that are wrong with everything, with the cities and the sprawl and the pumping arteries of cars, and the scary shacks in the hollers and the pervasiveness of drugs and the grinding poverty and the sweeping entitlement and crushing lack of empathy, where people living in vehicular wastelands need a car to get around and need to steal half a tank of gas, and hotel clerks are so burned out dealing with the constant miniscule demands of guests that they treat actual crimes on premises with the same beleaguered attention as an empty coffee carafe. It just feels like people are sad and broken and isolated and hamstrung, and I don't know if there's any way this ship can right itself. 

And yet...there is still beauty

Sobered by that experience, but with a functioning vehicle, we went to Bellingham, checking frequently that the tank wasn't leaking gas. Cy's internet friend turned real friend Sarah was happy to go for a muddy evening ride with us and all was well with the world. After we cleaned up we headed to a brewery dance party celebrating Sarah's new can art and it was so fun to be among a bunch of likeminded people dancing to music targeted with laser precision at the 28-35 demographic. Sometimes being in a bubble is refreshing. 

You can't tell but this is the biggest gap I've ever hit

We spent most of Sunday meandering all over Galbraith, including an interlude at the Transition Outpost where Cy always gets love thanks to his large paintings hanging on the walls of the shop. I had some minor biking breakthroughs and was feeling pretty good about myself, partly because I was riding on flats and I can now proudly claim pedal ambidexterity. 

Pushing my comfort zone on slabs

After Vietnamese food we had a beer down at Trackside on an evening that was pure propaganda, crisp rays of sunlight illuminating the deserted paper mill structures as people enjoyed the first hint of summer on the bay and hordes of children pedaled, strider-ed, or stumbled around on the big pump track next to the beer garden. What is this world.

Too good to be true

As if that wasn't appealing enough, Cy learned that the local LGBTQ bar had a weekly Sunday drag show so we stayed up past midnight for the third night in a row - unheard of. At the bar I picked up a newspaper for idle perusal and was impressed by its thoughtful government coverage. Later research revealed that it's a new print offering with a super exciting mission and staff. Sigh. Stop it, Bellingham. 

Who doesn't love a Sunday night community drag show?

On Monday after a delicious gut bomb of a breakfast, we met up with another Instagram friend to ride. We quickly polished off the big mellow climb interspersed with mean hike-a-bike, and then hit the steep rutted descent that, because of the wet conditions, was at the absolute edge of my abilities and bravery. I was stoked to end the trip feeling depleted and accomplished. After eating poke bowls in town we enjoyed one final hang with random internet people, crashing a wheel-building session at someone's garage. Bullshitting and drinking beers with bike bros - always a fan. Cy got to see in real life an art collaboration he had done with a tie-dye apparel brand. It's kind of wild how many clients and fans he has in Bellingham and surrounding areas.

Finished off my trip with a good hard ride in the mist

And then I flew home. He continued on his merry way doing more things that exactly fit his emotional needs - volunteer trail work days, art store visits, weekday race hang outs, jumps, and scary trail rides. I settled back in at home, gave the neurotic dog as much attention as possible, and started plotting in earnest how we could move there. 

Location Shopping Part I

On the brink of burnout at work and in a valley where it feels like we've been making the most of pretty meh weekends for the majority of winter, I take off a big chunk of time at work, more than I ever have. It's scary, it's exciting. I feel privileged and entitled because in addition to the occasional long weekend, I do take off for about a week straight every year, usually to go to weddings in North Carolina. This time though we're going to Washington and doing some location shopping. 

We load the van up with bikes and ski gear, arrange loose dogsitting plans with our friends that live nearby, and hit the road early on Saturday morning. Drive through boring, hazy Idaho and windy, snowy passes in central Oregon, make it up to Hood, above the rain line, back in snow. We wander around Cy's old haunts, the massive hewn logs of Timberline Lodge, stunning in its magnitude, the beauty of the Works Progress Administration writ (very) large. 

After a cold night that frosted the windows of the van, we prepped early with cold hands for the ski, but not early enough, we later learned. We made very quick work of the first 4k of vert - Cy has long legs and I've been skinning a lot in hopes of getting faster. It's steep and boring, although the view of the massif in front of us is gorgeous. But we hit a line of people, both skiers and hikers, walking past the Devil's Kitchen fumarole, moving agonizingly slowly with heavy, inappropriate gear, and we can see in front of us the only way to the summit, a 500-foot headwall clogged with humanity, the bootpackers' progress frozen under the hangfire of rime ice, rocks poised to fall, and fresh snow turning into slabs as the sun ratcheted up the temps.

The crush of humanity on the headwall

Not the day for it, another skier said to his companions as he ripped off his skins. His quick hand pit broke a slab clean with an audible pop. It was exactly the inducement we needed to decide to head downhill instead of summiting. The ski over to the picturesque Illumination Rock was touchy and grabby. We snacked then skied very flat groomers back to the parking lot. 

Inoffensive skiing but not great

The base area was shrouded in a heavy, moist cloud and it was only 11, so we figured we might as well go for a ride in the valley. Sandy Ridge was deliciously not sandy - damp, mossy, rooty, it was a gentle introduction back into mountain biking for refugees of the snowy Intermountain West. We sprawled on the warm pavement in the parking lot afterward, so happy to be back in the land of trees and dark, clingy dirt. 

Multi-sport day

We have a friend across the river gorge in Washington and I had a newspaper to put out, so we slept on his couch in the small, imminently charming burg of White Salmon and worked a full day Monday. After sending the paper we pedaled around a scrappy little bike park a quarter mile from town, then walked across the street for good beer and bar food. 

I am constantly wondering what I really want in a community. High on the list is trails that are within walking distance. When Brendan got home we talked for a long time, about life, about being disappointed in places that seem like a good fit. 

We moseyed west on Tuesday, stopping at Dog Mountain for a short steep run above the Columbia to appease my incessant need for motion. 

Appeasement

Our next stop was Olympia. We wandered aimlessly around the state capital, admiring its mini-Portland feel. After grabbing some cans from Three Magnets Brewing that were adorned with Cy's illustrations, we found a good home base for the next couple of days in Capitol Forest, which we agreed was not close enough to town. The stub road we parked in had the remnants of a hard weekend - trash everywhere, a syringe on the ground, a charred pile of debris next to a fire pit - but it was quiet and only feet away from Mr Bones, the trail that would be featured in the next day's Free For All, a weeknight downhill race whose promotor is one of Cy's favorite clients. We couldn't resist doing a lap on the course that night and I was convinced to register. 

Van camping is pretty glamorous

On Wednesday we managed to do a ride that was plenty big, incapable of saving the legs for the race. The trails were delightful and not too challenging, although I took a weird line on a steep rooty switchback and went ass over teakettle, miraculously my only real crash of the trip. The scene at the race was cool, albeit bro-heavy. Riders could attempt as many laps as they wanted in the two-hour window, but everyone was shuttling, which doomed my plan of pedaling for laps on the steep, curvy logging road. I put in one clean run and returned my timing chip - no need to mess with fate. Turns out I still hate time trials in all flavors, especially DH. Cy went back for more and we were both handed very mediocre mid-pack results. Whatever, it was fun to get a taste of the grassroots Olympia bike culture. 

I liked the race course

On Thursday we headed up and around the peninsula to Port Angeles, admiring the beautiful coastline and bemoaning the inescapable rain. We strolled around the quirky, scenic town, which felt on the cusp of being "discovered," surprising in such a bikes-breweries-and-Sprinter-vans region. To Cy's delight we came across an aquarium and touched sea urchins and watched prehistoric-looking rockfish being fed chunks of mackerel while marine biologist nerds told us everything we could hope to know about the ecosystem.  

Aquatic life, meet terrestrial life

Driving around the outskirts of town trying to plan for the next day's ride, however, changed the feel. There were plenty of properties plastered with No Trespassing signs of varying ferocity, huge Trump flags everywhere, and yards full of decrepit cars, rotting cardboard, sagging lean-tos - no. Not a place I would feel comfortable if I was out for a back roads ride. This exploration culminated in the Rat Hole, which a bike shop employee had warned us about - gated land that according to most sources was probably a militia stronghold or libertarian commune. We parked on logging land and went for a muddy evening walk through a clear cut. 

Friday's ride was pretty dang cool, quasi-unsanctioned trails off the Olympic Discovery pathway that were a very open secret, fun and not too hard (except for one, which was ridiculously hard) and plenty of miles. I did long for the clouds to clear so I could see the glaciated peaks that were just above us, but we were generally satisfied with the experience, so we headed to Seattle.