How I Learned to Climb Hills

I have a confession. Until about a week ago I had never climbed a major hill on my bicycle. I have another confession. Since I was very young I have been afraid of exercising. It sounds ridiculous, and I'm not sure of the cause, but it may have been linked to a slight case of asthma and a severe case of clumsiness, both of which persist up to this day. I guess I've always linked exercising with that horrible feeling of gasping for breath, lungs feeling as though they have been chopped up with a very small knife, and coughing fits lasting for hours after exertion. It wasn't until I was in college that I realized this was not how everyone felt about exercise. These days I'm in much better shape than I've ever been in and I can't remember the last time I felt like I was effected by my asthma, but the fear remains.

The fear haunts me daily on our trip. Every day as I think of mounting old Betty Blue (aka my bike), I feel a panicky sense in my core that says "What if you can't do it today? What if you get hurt, out of breath, overly fatigued?" The first day of the trip I did feel that way at the end of the day. The second day I felt better, etc. until today, when I feel great! I have had my aches and pains of course, but they usually go away throughout the day, not get worse. My confidence was up.

Some people are afraid of the bears in Denali. I was afraid of the hills. The elevation map looked like a very, very bad day in the stock market, the lowest point at 1500" and the highest at almost 4000" with about four large, steep looking bumps in between. Add to that the fact that it was a dirt road (also something I hadn't ridden on very much), and that road started making appearances in my nightmares and daymares. As the day we would get into the park loomed closer and closer I started to feel myself dragging my feet. Thoughts like "Is this just the dumbest thing to do?" entered my mind. Then the girl at the reservation desk informed me that instead of riding the road in the 20-35 mile days I had imagined, we would have two days to cover the 85 miles of park road. One day we would cycle 35 miles, leaving 50 miles filled with those terrifying passes for the following day. Then we would arrive at Wonder lake, hopefully in one piece, and with both legs still attached. It was do or die, or do and die, so we did it.

The park road was fabulous, and even that first really ugly looking hill didn't finish me off although I snapped at Rusti at one point, "STOP TALKING TO ME, I AM TRYING TO CONCENTRATE ON THIS HILL!" I'm pretty sure that people on foot would have easily passed me trudging up some of those hills, especially when my back tire was spinning out on the gravel, but what I realized is something I already knew: what you put in, you get back out. Every hill has another side - a down side if you will. This down side isn't a downer at all, it's the best part of riding a bike! The views at the tops of the hills were payoff enough - Alaska's rugged landscape laid out before us in every direction like we had our own personal landscape painter - plus we got to coast down the other side of those babies without a care in the world!

I have to say Thank You to Denali for teaching me this valuable lesson, and showing me what I can do. We pulled into Wonder Lake at about 3 am to a perfect view of Denali sporting the pink alpenglow that it is renowned for. Only about 30% of park visitors see the view that we saw, and we saw it as we went down that nice long hill at the end. Previous to that wonderful sight, I was concentrating so hard on pulling up a hill that I almost hit a bear, before I heard Rusti's yells "STOP! KRISTIN! BEAR! STOP!!!!". He didn't even notice us, and neither did the other grizzly we saw foraging outside of the visitor center long after all the other visitors had left. We had the company of a fox up one of the less steep hills, carring a small rodent to her kits. We saw a perfect outline of a bull moose against a pink lake during the everlasting sunset. Sights that visitors riding the 13 hour shuttle buses in and out of the park don't get to see.

So next time you feel intimidated by a seemingly daunting task, remember to take it as it comes. And when you're going up a hill, take your eyes off the road every once in awhile, or else you may run into something large and grizzly!

I am an Adventure Cyclist

It took about four days, but then it clicked. I am an adventure cyclist. Not an athlete, not a traveler, certainly not a tourist or a vacationer, I am an adventure cyclist. I ride my bike on adventures. And Team Krusti does adventure differently than anyone else. We ride our bikes sometimes, but we also do what we always do - eat, drink coffee, tea and beer, watch movies, read, knit, shoot the shit, sleep. We take every moment one at a time and refuse to rush. We talk to people and get the feel of places, and yes, we will have one more cup of coffee or another beer before we hit the road.

That's how we made it to Cantwell, 26 miles outside of Denali. Riding our bikes sometimes and eating cheese fries to fuel us on our way. Now we're headed into the park, so if a bear is interested in us, this may be our last post. We love you all and miss you dearly. Time to adventure on!

Welcome to Rage City!

The thing is that you can't sleep on an plane. It's not part of the deal. You can just sit and squirm with you face pressed against the little plastic window and maybe you'll at least get to see something. I was staring out of the window into the ocean when I noticed the the islands weren't islands at all. And the ocean from which they arose was an ocean of trees. There's a lot of trees in Alaska.

And that's how we found ourselves in the city of Rage, Anchorage that is. Our bikes are in boxes, our panniers are empty. Our stuff is everywhere. The building and packing commences. It never did get dark between the hours of 2 am and 6 am, but only went from twilight to dawn as we contemplated bike parts and clothing. Starving, we stopped at the soonest breakfast restaurant, the City Diner. We tasted our first reindeer sausage and chatted with the first Anchorageites (Anchoragians?) we met.

We found a hostel that allowed camping, and no sooner had we puffed up our sleeping mats and stuffed them into our bag, we fell into a deep, deep sleep for many hours. Awakening to yet more daylight we headed out to explore Anchorage. A friend of a cousin lives in Anchorage and we had met several years back when she visited Colorado. She called as we were heading into town and even though she was planning a wedding, she bought us a round of beers and excitedly informed us of the attractions to be found in Anchorage. Without a second thought she informed us of the time and date of the wedding, and so it was a date!

We had a couple of days to hang out in Anchorage before the wedding, so we stashed our gear and turned our bikes toward the coastal trail that runs about 10 miles around Anchorage. The day was clear and sunny and the biking was perfect. The trail ended at Kincaid park, where we met our first adventure-friend, Matt.

Conversation began because Matt had the same bike as Rusti - all the way down to the Brooks saddle. He was a firefighter, and his wife and kids had been out of town for a month-long camping trip. He invited us to stay at his house on the outskirts of Anchorage. We took his information and continued our ride, picking up some things at REI before stopping at an "authentic Alaskan restaurant" (meaning more reindeer sausage). Around 8:00 Matt called, asking us where we were, he had picked up dinner. Well, he came and picked us up at the restaurant, stashed our bikes on the back of the car, and took us to his nice, cabiny type house outside of Anchorage. After eating second dinner at 11 o'clock at night and chatting for awhile, we hit the sheets. Little did we know Matt had let us sleep in his bed as he slept on the couch. The next day we were treated to lunch in Girdwood after seeing zero belugas at beluga point (the lack of wildlife will turn into a theme of our trip). We beelined it to the church, only to find out the day was Thursday and the wedding was Friday. So we chilled at Matt's - took a hot tub and watched a documentary. (Note: we missed the wedding anyway - we thought it was at 6, it was at 4. We made the reception and had a grand old time). Overall, THANKS MATT!!! What a great introduction to Alaska!

Pre-Adventure Warm-Up

We don't remember whose idea it was to go to the sand dunes. It was one of those half-baked schemes that seem like a good idea at the time, and then the closer it comes the less that good idea seems so good. Other people who had promised, even sworn to come, realized this fact and cancelled their plans, but the bummer about being the person who plans the half-baked scheme is that once you have committed to your plan, you have to follow it to its completion. So, Team Krusti, with 3 days left before the Grand Adventure departed to go camping together before going camping together for the next four months. We called our friends and they were pondering showing up, so we packed up the Miata (remember this, it's important later) for our 5 hour trek down to the dunes. About 3 hours in to our trip, after temperatures hit about 100, we called our dear friends who had left slightly after we did to ask for directions to the dunes.

We should have known to ask someone else when they sent us down highway 69. After driving through the quaint town of Gardner (3 bars, 2 churches, 1 school, no gas), and being informed by the gas station attendant that there was no gas there, but if we were heading over the pass (**sizes up car**" it's a dirt road, you could make it in that") we should find some gas, or at least the dunes, in about 40 miles. I figured we had about 75 left on the tank, so I wasn't too concerned. And that's when our pre-adventure began.

First we took a wrong turn down the wrong, very very rough dirt road that dead-ended at a hiking trail we had taken the year before at the dunes. Choices: hike down to the dunes or turn around and try again. We took the second option because it would have been difficult to carry both the tent and the beer down that trail. So back down the dirt road we went. Another 15 miles down the road was another dirt road, complete with lots of signs about staying off of property and the dangers of bison hunting on private land. We turned on that one. A rougher dirt road. With less gas. In a Mazda Miata. But, thankfully, a tough Mazda Miata. So we roughed it up that road until we saw a sign. The sign had pictures of vehicles that were allowed on the road - an ATV, a dune buggy, something else with large tires and four wheel drive. None of the pictures were of zippy sports cars. So, after a close-to-full-on mental breakdown, we headed back down the dirt road. With less gas. In a Miata. At this point we had not seen a gas station in about 60 miles, we were in the absolute middle of nowhere, and without a clue. Thankfully that's when we met Eldon. Eldon had a big old jalopy truck, a Busch, and a tank of chainsaw gas (she'll smoke a lot, but it won't hurtchyer engine!). Thanks Eldon! We were able to make it another 20-30 miles down the road to the only gas station with gas on that side of the mountains.

As we found out at that gas station, unfortunately the sand dunes were on the other side of those mountains. We had two options. We could backtrack 60 miles the way we came, or we could take the long way there. We opted to backtrack after sipping a beer and eating a sandwich and watching a gorgeous sunset over the mountains, and imagining how beautiful it would be if it was over the dunes. Then we climbed back in the car and backtracked 60 miles before finding the road that actually leads to the Sand Dunes.

Rusti gets behind the wheel to pull her in for the last long haul. It's dark, it's late, we've been driving for 10 hours now. He's cruising along at 65 mph, going over the pass on the other side of the dunes, when all of a sudden the windshield fills with green eyes and a giant head. An elk, felled by a semi in the middle of the road in front of us. Split decision: try to swerve or hit it dead on and hope to catch some air. Rusti went with option 2. And all of a sudden we are airborn over this dead elk. And then we smell it. Eau de Dead Elk all over the bottom of my poor, poor car. But, it seems to be driving alright and we don't seem to be dragging anything, so we pull her on in. Granted, I was in what I would call a terrible mood at that point, and not cheered up by the sight of a giant piece of plastic hanging off underneath my car and every surface covered in elk fur. But, Jenny and Rachel had made it safely, finding different directions since theirs were less than accurate for people not in four-wheelers, and we cracked some beers and made up.

The next day it was really really hot, we went to the dunes for about 2 hours, tried to sleep, it rained in the afternoon, I freaked out because I had wasted 2 of my last days in Colorado far away from my family and kitties, we went to bed early, woke up early, and left the dunes.

So, next time you have an idea, remember to fully bake it. Use a toothpick to make sure it's done. Half baked ideas will waste your time and leave you wondering: why were we acting like such retards?