A leap of faith…

… that I wasn’t able to take.

I got dangerously close to purchasing a ticket to Alaska this week. The idea was to ride 350 miles to McGrath, not as a part of the race, but tagging along with Mike. I casually mentioned an interest in getting a snow overnighter under my belt to him. Soon after I found myself poring through Iditarod race reports, studying people’s setups and trying to learn as much as I could, trying to imagine if I could.

Never mind the fact that I can count on two hands the number of hours I’ve spent on or near snow in the last decade. Never mind that I have about 5% of the necessary gear. It was all possible, so said Mike, just had to set my mind to it.

I didn’t think it was a good idea, but the best ideas rarely seem like they are. I deliberated for too long, and things were getting tight, including airfare. But I couldn’t get the mystery of it all out of my head. I felt compelled to do it, even though it didn’t make any sense.

Cognitive dissonance extrema.

I had myself 90% convinced that I was going to pull the trigger, but thought it wise to sleep on it. And that’s the thing — I didn’t. Sleep, that is. I dreamed about being cold. I couldn’t get the image of a frozen, collapsed river (from one of Kathi Merchant’s awesome photo galleries) out of my head. I drifted in and out of consciousness and somehow my subconscious reminded me that I had camped out in the snow once, as a boy scout. And I froze my ass off. Strange what the mind can pull out when you’re trying not to think about anything.

I pulled a second blanket on and still woke up cold at 3am. It was all of 61 degrees in the house.

Psychosomatic?

I bailed in the morning. But I had learned something important — I need to unravel this mystery. Need to find out if it’s something I can do, something I want to do. I’ve always been interested in winter riding, but I’ve followed the races and read trip reports from behind a nice, thick, safe, Arizona barrier. It never seemed possible, and I never exercised my imagination as to what it would be like for me to actually be there.

After bailing, I spent the rest of the day in the desert, trying to burn away the tortuous imagery of snow, ice and cold from my mind.

The sun shines bright!

Will you drink from there come AZT 300 time?

I finally found the idealized saguaro (you know, the one from the license plate)!

I was losing grip strength, a product of some overzealous trail work this week. So I took several breaks on the way down Milagrosa.

Sunset runs on Millie never get old. I rode very confidently on the Green Meanie, riding some lines I usually consider off limits when solo. It was a day of accidental unclips, though, some a little hair raising. Time to give the pedals a turn or two.

I also went up/down Prison Camp / Gordon Hirabayashi, noting the sanitation that has occurred (one of the worst is shown in the above pic). They definitely need to cease and desist on the rock removal, but it is not as bad as some have made it out to be. Overall they have improved the trail, at least from the perspective of someone who will be climbing it with ~150 miles in the legs come April.