Vapor Trail 125

This is a hard route, no doubt. 125 miles, ~20k climbing, 10pm start means 8 hours night riding. I planned and plotted, trained and rested, schemed and daydreamed about crushing this beast. I felt good, felt relaxed going in. A week in Colorado had done me well.

I knew that as a Vapor rookie I had a lot to learn and that mistakes were inevitable. I did my best to predict what they might be and to be ready to react to them. But there were many unknowns, and therein lies much of the interest. Nailing this thing on the first (real) go would be incredibly satisfying, and I knew it was possible. I didn’t want to ‘just’ finish, I wanted to ride to the limits of my ability, wanted to suffer.

I got to Absolute Bikes nice and early, meeting the crew and jumping into prepping the SPOT units. It took about twice as long as I thought, but everyone (racers and organizers) were all pretty chill and in a good mood, so it was really no big deal. I would have liked a few more minutes to get my thoughts organized, though. Luckily all my gear was ready to go.

We lined up to roll through downtown Salida at 10pm — a truly unique start, with police and dirt bike escorts. The night was cool and crisp. There was energy in the air. The neutral rollout was faster than usual, but still too slow for me. I was charged and ready to go.

They let us go, and in a brief lull, everyone continued riding easy. Someone mentioned Tostado’s charge off the front last year, sparking similar dreams in more than a few heads. A few riders surged forward, and I followed. It was ‘too fast’ only for about 30 seconds, then quite a comfortable pace. Last year I knew I was sunk when I could clearly feel that I couldn’t have ridden near the front of the pack, even for 30 seconds. Different story this time.

I stayed at the back of the lead group as we flew up the dirt road, towards the Colorado Trail. I was alarmed by the speed we were traveling with so little effort, and the fact that I wasn’t getting warm, but actually was losing body temperature as we climbed. We rolled onto singletrack and I would soon realize my first mistake — weak lights. I didn’t realize how fast you can ride this section of Colorado Trail in the dark! I thought my bikepacking lights would cut it, not having the funds for new lights or the desire to use something untested. But I was wrong, dead wrong.

Too much speed, too little light. The trail vanished in front of me! I realized too late that it was making an off-camber dive to the left, and I was about to careen off the mountain, straight ahead. How I managed to keep it on the trail, and not skid into oblivion, I’ll never know. I resolved to slow down and in doing so, I let a lot of people pass me. One of those people was Matt Steinwand, who pulled an impressive diagonal hop, perfectly positioning his bike between an off-camber boulder and a huge root. I couldn’t believe it, getting off to walk it myself.

I had reasoned the lack of light would keep me from going too fast at the start, keep me calm, but instead it just made me frustrated. The trail seemed longer than I expected and I felt the cold night’s cruel grip tightening. I added a layer and wished I had gloves that were warmer but not super warm. Something in between would have been a lot more comfortable.

Descending to the first aid station I felt a little chilled, and standing around trying to get organized only worsened it. I stood by the fire for about 10 seconds and had my only “I can’t do this” moment. I still had a few resources left to stay warm, but the night was young, the air warm, the elevation low, and I seriously questioned whether it was a good idea to continue or not. Simply put, I feared the cold and doubted my ability to deal with it.

I made sure I had adequate food and water, knowing that this would be the longest stretch between aid stations. I also sat down and stuck toe warmers to my socks. I rolled out after an embarrassing amount of stopped time, but was feeling warm, fueled and confident.

I quickly found my legs and started catching people. I saw a bunch of people I knew, and was tempted to slow down to chat, but my legs said go, and for about the only hour of my entire seventeen on the trail, I felt comfortable with the temperature.

There were so many imperceptible moments. 3am, freezing cold, following my tiny headlamp deep into unknown mountains, towards unknown horizons, towards the sky. 11,000′ the trail gets more interesting. Railroad ties, flowing streams and rocks to dodge. White lights form ghostly cliffs and derelict structures in the periphery. I am losing myself in the darkness. I am losing my hands, too. I grumble for having to resort to the big gloves so early.

The Alpine Tunnel and the Continental Divide, it’s an inhospitable place. I stop and pause, as I promised myself I would. Pause to look at the stars and think about the extraordinary nature of the moment. This is where the interest is, away from the ordinary. This is why I am here. The night is so dark and so deep, it could swallow me whole.

I drop down a few switchbacks, catch a rider, watch him crash, keep descending and keep generating heat. At the first sign of a jeep road, I go proactive, adding all my layers for what I know is going to be a cold and effortless descent. My nose is the only exposed piece of skin, but everything is cold. Campfires and running engines confuse me. There’s no cheering or words at all. Cold silence at the train ruin. Are these people related to the race? Other riders are stopped, adding layers.

Climbing Tomichi pass, I think myself pretty hot as I ride sections that Tim Kugler is pushing. Then I realize he’s on a singlespeed. I’m walking my bike too. He fills my head with promises of a short hike-a-bike to Granite Mtn and 12,600 feet. Promises of a 9 mile, never ending pump track, the Canyon Creek descent. I don’t believe him, on either count. But his attitude is infectious.

A light is going the wrong direction, pushing a bicycle up the other side of Tomichi Pass. Cameron Brenneman. Ouch. My GPS confirms my path, as I venture onto narrow trail. There are no trees now, and the entire field is visible as little white lights snaking their way up the mountain. I’m disappointed by the lack of solitude out here, but only have myself to blame — either be faster or be slower if you want to be alone out here!

My ankle is happy to push a bike up steep slopes, for the first time in months. The hike-a-bike seems short lived. Or perhaps I fear the descent so badly that I do not want the climb to end. I let Tim and his energy pass me shortly after the descent begins, after using the air to dry a little perspiration from my skin. I suit up completely, pull out all my tricks to stay warm. And it works, for a while.

While stopped, closing all vents and covering skin, I flip off my lights and stare at the sky again. I can see. See the world, the mountains, by starlight. How is it so bright? I cannot see the usual beauty that I know is there, just not being reflected towards me, but something else is, unique and enlightening in its own way.

My brake levers start to feel like they are made of ice. The air on my face feels wrong. It feels toxically cold. And there is no relief in sight. The downhill never ends and as I descend into a big valley, the air is getting colder, not warmer. Last resort, I pull out the hand warmers and drop them in my lobster gloves. So, there are brake levers there after all, not sticks of ice!

I’m not in a happy place at all, as being cold never is. I keep thinking of how fun the trail would be in daylight and with a sliver of warmth. Of how I’d spent the last month and a half training my body not to generate heat, surviving pedal stomping sessions in 100 degrees. A week in Leadville is not enough to erase all the hot rides that came before.

Halfway down I was puzzling a way to cross Canyon Creek, when Cameron came from behind. He knew there was a bridge. I followed him across and resolved to poach his lights a while. He was motivated, for sure, standing to pedal and generally working the trail over. I mimicked his every movement, and, well, it was awesome. The trail and the night came back alive. We were ripping through the forest, ducking and diving, feeling the flow. Tim was right — 9 mile never ending pump track.

My hands coming back, the weak return of the sun and following Cameron — all well timed. I’ll never forget those bottom miles of Canyon Creek.

A stinger climb led to some heat. I thought my worries with the cold were over, now that the sun was coming up. I made it to the next aid station, where I found a surprising number of riders. The bottom half of the top ten seemed to all be there, and I knew this race was far from over. It took me a few extra minutes to get what I needed, not being accustomed to aid stations and feeling strange about just grabbing what I wanted without it being offered to me. The Gunni crew seemed to know all the racers but me, jumping up to lube their chains and fill their bottles. I felt a bit like an outsider, but I know it was mostly due to there just being so many riders there at the same time.

I wish I hadn’t stopped at all, and truthfully I didn’t need to carry any further water or calories than what I had. Standing around I lost whatever warmth I had, and the short but fast descent out of the campground to Old Monarch Pass was very cold. I didn’t worry about it, though, because the sun was up and a huge climb was in front of me. I’d warm back up quick.

My legs felt good. I started plotting to ramp it up and pick people off, visualizing the release from the cold as the lifting of a huge burden from my shoulders.

That mindset started to fade after about 500′ of gain on Old Monarch’s steady grade. I was getting colder, not warmer, and started to feel that something wasn’t right. My chest felt tight, and I couldn’t take a deep breath. All I could think about was the sun, and how to find it. I was confounded, because every other time I have been cold, wearing this much clothing (full on rain jacket with hood over head), it has been easy to warm back up while climbing hard, and I start sweating like mad. Not this time, couldn’t even generate a drop of sweat.

I stopped there in the sun for a short while, reluctantly letting some riders go by. I kept pedaling and noticed my breathing getting easier as I neared the top. Not an elevation issue! I kept pushing to the aid station, thinking that it didn’t make much sense to stop and try to figure out what was going on just a few miles short of it.

Steve and Sonia at the Monarch aid were awesome. Jeny was there too, sharing her inimitable energy, trying to encourage me (you are awesome JJ).

I pulled off most of my layers and quickly found myself shivering. They got me a blanket, a warm hat and warm gloves, then Steve started coaching me to high step back and forth on the sunny side of the Absolute Bikes trailer. Part of me was thinking… “but, there’s a race, you can warm up on the trail”, but the other knew that if I hadn’t warmed up by this time, I wasn’t going to, not while pedaling my bike on the Monarch Crest trail. Something was wrong, and I had to feel better before I could even consider leaving.

I couldn’t figure out how I had gotten so cold and how it had shut me down so badly. While my body seemed to have plenty of energy, why couldn’t I tap it? It’s a kind of emptiness I have never experienced before. It wasn’t a tiredness and wasn’t painful. It was just as if my core was lifeless, like it wasn’t there. A vestige of myself, vaporized.

vapor trails during the vapor trail

My best after-the-fact thought is that the chemical warmers I had been using for my hands and feet might not have been a good idea. My feet, in particular, were very warm throughout, and usually they are the first to go. Usually they are what forces me to get off my bike and run up hills when I could ride. Though I live in Tucson, I have enough cold riding experience that I should have been able to handle this event.

“Lack of input from cold receptors in their hands, decreased the body’s ability to make the needed blood flow changes necessary for cold protection. Sensory information from cold receptors in the extremities seems of high importance in thermoregulation.”

I am not so sure about the physiological impact of artificially keeping your extremities warm, at the cost of your core, but I am sure about the mental impact. I think it fooled me into thinking I was warmer than I was. I usually use my hands/feet as a gauge for how cold I am, and getting them to stay warm through your body’s natural processes seems like a much better way to ensure warmth in general.

Who knows, though. It was cold out there, and there’s a natural tendency to grasp around for weird things that went ‘wrong’ to try to explain when things don’t go as well as you hoped. What I’m trying to say is that all excuses aside, the Vapor Trail crushed me, and I was pretty much a wreck there at the Monarch Aid.

Luckily that was what I was looking for (to be crushed). It was expected. I took on the challenge and I was still going to finish.

After many minutes of pacing with the blanket I noticed a huge difference. The breeze no longer felt toxic. The sun felt warmer. I could breathe easy. Go time.

Monarch Crest Trail was a breeze. My legs had depth. The views and day lit singletrack were superlative. A just reward for a night’s hard riding.

There was a big old sack of packaged dirt (?!) almost precisely in the spot where Dave Harris took his nap in the CTR last year, after attaining the crest from Fooses Creek. I thought I was hallucinating at first, seeing events from the past. I started laughing when I realized what it was.

For a moment I had thoughts of turning on the afterburners and focusing hard to catch people, get back in the race. But I had lost so much time to the cold and my weakness that I knew I could do better. I could be here much faster. I decided to give up and just finish.

Jeff Kerkove was finishing the Starvation Loop right as I pulled up to the Marshal aid. He’d ridden a smart race and I was not surprised to see him duking it out for the win. I talked to Derrick (manning the Marshal aid) for a while, snacking on all the goodies he had. Bear Oliver rolled up, so I joined him for the Starvation Creek Loop.

I’m a loop purist, so this internal loop really irks me. Maybe it’s because I stare at GPS tracks all day, but anything but a clean loop just feels grossly contrived. At the same time, I loved this loop for that exact fact. It tests your resolve, torments you with the knowledge that you are dropping down only to climb right back up to the same spot. Brilliant.

Bear had similar thoughts about the cold — he felt like he still had not warmed back up from the Canyon Creek descent. It slowed him down a bunch too. We commiserated a while — at least I wasn’t the only one freezing out there. I looked forward to the 9000 foot elevation at the bottom and a slow climb back up. I might finally, actually, possibly warm back up.

Indeed, I finally pulled off my vest after a little climbing, but still kept my arm and knee warmers. Those wouldn’t come off until I was done. I never got too warm, and felt uncomfortable pretty much throughout.

The rest went as expected. The climbs were slow, Silver Creek was punishing, and Rainbow trail was pure bliss. I was quite happy to find the ability to enjoy Rainbow at the end of 100+ miles and a night of no sleep. I smiled, a lot.

photo by Eddie Clark

17 hours and 17 minutes. Too bad it was 15th place, not 17th, to round it out. Strong group of riders out there, I feel lucky to have been smoked by so many of them.

Hanging out after the race it was clear what a special group of riders this race brings together. Matt Turgeon called it a family reunion of the self inflicted pain worshipers. It sort of felt like that, even if I was meeting a bunch of people for the first time. It was also really cool to have been involved with the race a bit, on the SPOT tracking side, which meant I got to know many of the cool folks at Absolute Bikes a lot better. Huge thanks to all of them for putting this fine event on! The world needs more races like the Vapor Trail.

I crashed on the couch of Tom Purvis. I don’t even remember laying down — must have fallen asleep right when my head hit the pillow. Tom had a tough race, but the guy has got spirit, and his spirit is deeply embedded in all things Vapor Trail. Fun hanging out with him, eating breakfast and running into Eszter and Chris, too.

Uncertainty about Paula needing a ride back from Phoenix meant I took a wait-and-see approach to heading back to AZ. I got to hang out with Krista Park again, going through Durango in case I was needed in Phoenix.

By the time it all worked out, I didn’t need to go to Phoenix, but there was also no way I could make it all the way to Tucson. It started getting dark right as I was approaching Show Low. Time to head for Los Burros!

It’s a bit out of the way, but it’s also my favorite campsite in the White Mountains. Multiple singletracks converge at the campground and not too many people know about it. I went for a headlamp hike, exploring the meadows around the campsite. Every few minutes an elk would let out a super loud bugle. It’s an awesome sound, echoing off the trees and cinder cones that surround the meadow. My camp neighbors explained that it was mating season, and that multiple bulls in the area were trying to call the cows on over. Apparently it wasn’t working so much, because it continued throughout the night — not that I noticed much. I do remember waking up to a very melodic one, that seemed to inspire the local coyotes to respond in counter point, with their own chorus. I love the sound of dozens of coyotes yelping and howling, against the night.

The next morning I pedaled around the Los Burros loop, a mix of singletrack and closed forest roads. Flowy trail and flower lined meadows are the highlights.

Oops, nap time! Legs felt good, but I got sleepy pretty quick.

Definitely a pleasant stop and a great way to end the trip.

Right now I can’t convince myself to attempt the Vapor Trail again. But I know the memories of being chilled to the bone will fade, and that I will have a hard time resisting a year from now. I certainly learned a thing or two, and I count that as progress.