Into the North Wind: A thousand-mile bicycle adventure across frozen Alaska
Page 22
White slickrock gave way to a sheen of glare ice, then a patchwork of ice and gravel. The road took a sharp turn back to the coast, where I could see a cluster of modern buildings and people standing next to parked cars and trucks. This was the “end” of the Nome-Council Road during the winter months, and people had driven out from town to watch mushers cross the road at a trail intersection. As I pedaled past on my behemoth bike with head gear coated in rime, they ignored me. It wasn’t unusual to see a random person on a fat bike out here. We were only six miles from Nome.
I pedaled onto clear gravel, mind fluttering and heart in a state of disbelief. The final six miles to Nome were a plowed road. There were no longer any obstacles between me and the finish, short of being hit by a truck. A thousand miles across Alaska. Was it even real? I glanced to the north, where the wind still blew at a steady ten miles an hour. Directly beside me, on the trail that now paralleled the road a hundred meters away, there was a dog team driven by a musher wearing a blue coat. I recognized that coat. Could it be? Was that Jason?
Without further thought, I lowered my shoulders, tucked my chin over the handlebars, and launched into a full sprint. I had a thousand hard miles on my legs, a numb hand, glycogen-depleted muscles and oxygen-deprived brain, so it probably wasn’t much. But that sprint was truly everything I had left to give. I crossed a bridge over the Nome River, and then there were three miles to go. My heart was racing so fast that it vibrated. Trucks and cars streamed past. A few drivers honked their horns. Distant buildings grew in size until I could make out windows and doors. The gravel road gave way to pavement, and then there was one mile to go.
It’s become a tradition of mine to press the forward button on my iPod Shuffle when there’s one mile left in a race. It’s a memory-generating ritual, letting fate determine the song that will remind me of this moment for years to come. Although my iPod had been turned off since early-morning anxiety about the cold prompted me to shut the thing up, it was still clipped inside my coat and there were still buds stuffed inside my ears. I turned it on. Immediately I heard the rasping voice of the pop star Sia, singing “Dressed in Black.”
“I had given up. I didn’t know who to trust. So I designed a shell. Kept me from heaven and hell.”
Ten years of striving carved a path that was littered with failures, and it was true. I had given up. When the way ahead looked impossible, I continued to sabotage myself. I emotionally withdrew from this race before it started, sent myself supply boxes full of garbage, lingered at every possible quitting point as long as possible … and yet, here I was.
“And I took to the night. I’d given in to the fight. And I slipped further down. I felt like I had drowned.”
Fog continued to cloak my thoughts, even as I strained to focus and absorb every detail of this final mile. The towering hospital building with glass windows gleaming in the afternoon sunlight. The dirty piles of snow lining the street. The jumbled ice of the Bering Sea. The bitter taste that lingered on my tongue after weeks of poor nutrition. The rawness of my throat as I gasped the cold air, which was infused with exhaust — a taste so familiar and yet so foreign. The tingling in my fingers. The trembling in my chest.
“Life had broken my heart, my spirit. And then you crossed my path. You quelled my fears, you made me laugh. Then you covered my heart in kisses.”
A grin spread across my face. Of course. The Iditarod Trail. Ever since I put a wheel to this trail ten years earlier, I’d anthropomorphized its existence and exalted its influence on my life. It was beautiful and benevolent, it was cruel and calculating, it was cold and indifferent. It was the ghost trail that disappeared in the summer only to be reborn every winter, cutting an ever-changing path through a seemingly timeless land. It was not unlike the God of my youth, doling out a barrage of brutality with a promise of redemption at the end.
“I was hopeless and broken. You opened the door for me. Yeah I was hiding and you let the light in, and now I see — that you do for the wounded, what they couldn’t seem to. You set them free.
The burled arch came into view, with its whimsical black lettering burned into wood: “End of Iditarod Sled Dog Race, 1,049 Miles.” A small crowd was assembled around the finish line, awaiting mushers. Some clapped, but others seemed confused as I pedaled up the snow ramp and came to a stop just a few feet shy of the arch. An announcer with a microphone figured out I was “one of those Iditabikers” and peppered me with questions. How did it go? How was the trail?
“Oh, it was beautiful,” I said hoarsely to a live recording that was being broadcast all over the world.
Others approached as they realized that I had pedaled this bike all the way from Knik, and blasted me with more questions. I felt overwhelmed. Sia was still playing quietly in my ears, and I couldn’t find the iPod to turn it off. A woman took a few photos and then a big man with a green coat and a Santa Claus beard approached. I recognized him vaguely, and he introduced himself as a long-ago acquaintance of mine, Hunter from Ketchikan. Although I had a few friends in Nome, I saw no other familiar faces. My mind was still foggy, my breathing labored. Hunter placed a hand on my shoulder and guided me to a narrow opening through the plastic fence surrounding the ramp.
As we stood together on the pavement, the town siren went off, announcing the approach of the next finishing musher.
“Is that Mackey?” a nearby woman remarked, and despite another crowd growing around my bike, I sidled up to the fence to watch. A musher wearing a blue coat pulled up the ramp. The announcer introduced him as Jason Mackey. Crowds assembled around his team, doting on the clearly elated dogs. I would have given just about anything in that moment to walk up to Jason, congratulate him on a good race, and return his ski pole, but I had left it back in Safety. Instead, I lingered shyly at the fence, quietly relishing my ten-minute victory.
I switched on my satellite phone to check for a message from Beat, and saw a text from my father, congratulating me on setting the record. The record? I scoured my foggy mind for any evidence of the record. It was past two in the afternoon, which meant it was past day seventeen. I’d forgotten to check my watch at the finish, but it was six in the evening, and with the daylight savings time adjustment, it was less than seventeen days and four hours. Seventeen days was a decent finish — it had been the best overall time in the Iditarod Trail Invitational up until 2014. Of course, trail conditions determine speed more than anything else, and I wasn’t about to indulge in smugness about nearly beating one of Mike Curiak’s best times while I rode the icy trails of 2016. But the record?
Later, after I located my friend Phil and sat down to leftover pizza at his home, I looked up the statistics on his computer. Ausilia’s record was seventeen days, six hours, and twenty-five minutes. I finished in seventeen days, three hours, and forty-six minutes. It occurred to me that if I hadn’t engaged in my impromptu race with Jason Mackey, I probably would have spent much more time dawdling during the final section — especially after all of the difficulties I experienced in the Topkok Hills. Before I found Jason’s pole, I’d planned to stop at the Topkok shelter cabin, eat a hot lunch, and try to shore up strength for the final push to Nome. I was so certain that my body was spent, but all it took was a ski pole lost on the trail to shift this perspective. Instead of resting and conserving energy, I sprinted with a zeal I hadn’t felt in at least a year, before all of these breathing difficulties arose. If it wasn’t for that unhindered burst of energy, I likely would have been slower than that two-hour margin, and the record wouldn’t have fallen.
“The Iditarod Trail provides,” I thought, imagining Jason’s ski pole propped against the door at Safety. I bit into a piece of pizza, which tasted like the bitterness that lingered on my tongue. I was so tired, and my brain was so muddled, that my only emotion was disappointment that I didn’t feel something more. It always takes time for the weight of an accomplishment to settle in, but I sensed that soon this would mean much m
ore than a simple fairy tale about a benevolent trail that took me in wounded and set me free.
“The Iditarod Trail provides.”
Chapter 16
Epilogue
One week later, snow as fine as dust streamed around my boots while I trudged up the western face of Cape Nome. The Spring Equinox had come and gone, the mid-day sun was directly overhead, and white slopes glistened with such intensity that I had to squint into my sunglasses. It was another brilliant Wednesday afternoon. The sun made the eighteen-degree temperature feel almost hot, even as a headwind froze beads of sweat on my forehead. My heart fluttered with anticipation, because I expected to see Beat on the other side.
After finishing the Iditarod Trail Invitational on Wednesday, March 16, I spent one night convalescing at the home of Phil and Sarah Hoefstetter. Phil was an administrator at the Norton Sound Regional Hospital, and had ridden a bike from Knik to his doorstep in Nome four times since his first Iditarod Trail Invitational in 2008. In 2016, he won the race in eleven days, five hours, and fifteen minutes — only one day behind Jeff Oatley’s record. Phil had a genuine shot at this record, but he was beset with mechanicals throughout his ride. The final straw snapped when his chain broke during the Norton Sound crossing. He replaced the broken link, but it broke again. After three frantic repairs on the exposed surface of the sea ice, Phil ran out of spares and had to hike the rest of the way into Koyuk. There he waited nineteen hours for a replacement chain to arrive from Nome while constructing a makeshift tool to install it.
One day after Phil finished, the Alaskan trio of Bill Fleming, Kyle Amstadter, and Jay Cable arrived in twelve days, eight hours, and forty minutes. The three traveled together for most of the race, forging a camaraderie that became unbreakable. Three miles from Nome, the cassette popped off of Jay’s rear wheel. He urged his companions to go on without him, but they insisted on setting up a tow system so they could pull Jay the rest of the way to Nome.
Three days later, the next finisher was Robert Ostrom — the man who took a ride on Mike’s back across the Happy River. This was Bob’s third and fastest finish in fifteen days, eight hours, and thirty minutes. He arrived like a phantom in the night, quietly leaving town before the handful of fans in Nome even knew he was there. Bob truly rode solo, sometimes more than a hundred miles separated from any other person. He managed to cross the sea ice before the windstorm that pinned Mike and me down, but later fought sixty-mile-per-hour gusts that knocked him off his bike.
I came in just under two days later, the sixth finisher overall. That night I microwaved my own finisher’s banquet of leftover pizza and hot chocolate, then sat at Phil’s computer to refresh the race tracking site and gauge Mike’s finishing time. Despite my best efforts to keep my eyes open, I dozed off after sunset. Mike rolled under the burled arch just before eleven that evening, finishing in seventeen days, seven hours, and forty-seven minutes. All of Nome’s hotels were booked for the Iditarod, so he found a church, crashed under a pew, and then caught a flight back to Anchorage early the next morning. By the time I woke up, he was gone. My one regret in the race is failing to congratulate my trail companion at the finish. We didn’t ride together often, but Mike was always on the periphery. Knowing he was usually just a few hours behind me helped boost my confidence in tackling the more remote segments of the trail. I would have been exponentially more alone without him.
I felt guilty about missing Mike as well as disappointed that my own finish line experience had been so anonymous and strange. So the following evening, I made an effort to greet the next cyclist to arrive in Nome, Troy Szcurkowski. Troy was Australian, and the first person from the Southern Hemisphere to finish the Iditarod Trail Invitational. Other Australian ultra-endurance athletes I know never seem to take anything seriously, so I was surprised by Troy’s steely demeanor when he rolled under the burled arch just after sunset. His finishing time was eighteen days, six hours, and fifty-nine minutes. Without acknowledging anyone else, Troy propped his bike under the burled arch and began fumbling around with a lightweight tripod and camera. A chorus of spectators offered to take his photo, but he just shook his head and acted as though no one else was really there.
After he took a self portrait, a famous musher named Martin Buser — who just happened to be waiting under the arch for somebody else — teased Troy about all of the gear piled on his bike. Troy was adamant that everything was important, and meticulously detailed the individual pieces. Martin started laughing, which caused Troy to become more flustered and confused until I guided him off the ramp. A local woman, Nora, invited us both to dinner and gave us directions to her house. It was two miles away, and Troy raced as though a wolf was chasing him. I was one day into my own deep recovery, and no longer had any steam left in my lungs or legs. I bonked badly after one mile, and felt dizzy and disoriented by the end of the second mile. By that point Troy was more coherent and ready to be around other humans, while I slurred my words and battled sleepiness throughout the meal.
That night I moved out of Phil’s house and went to stay with a physician named Roxy, who offered me a spare bedroom in her apartment. She whisked me to numerous social events around town, ensuring I never went hungry. She also offered medicine for my bronchitis — which was already improving — and advice for my numb hand. After several tests, Roxy determined my issue was almost certainly carpal tunnel syndrome. Subsequent nerve tests would confirm a grade five case, and surgery three months later revealed a significant buildup of scar tissue around the ligament. The best theory available is that a wrist injury — either old or recent — caused scar tissue to form, compressing the nerve. My crash on the ice during the first day of the race was likely the final kink that resulted in a sudden and severe neuropathy.
Two more finishers arrived on Friday — Bill Dent of England and Donald Kane of Scotland, in nineteen days, four hours, and thirty-seven minutes. The United Kingdom contingent teamed up for most of the race, even though Donald rode a pre-2005 steel fat bike with first-generation, non-studded tires. How he stayed upright on top of glare ice remains a mystery.
The Northern Lights were rippling overhead on Friday night when Roxy and I, along with another doctor named Eric, set out to watch Tim Hewitt march the final miles into Nome. The North Wind howled as we ducked behind Roxy’s car and propped cameras on the hood, trying and failing to capture a focused shot of the aurora. A bright headlamp appeared in the distance and we waited ten minutes for it to finally reach us. Each one of us was shivering profusely and cheering weakly when Tim passed. Suddenly Eric shouted loudly, “You can do it!”
“What?” Tim called out from the trail fifty meters away.
“You can do it!” Eric yelled more forcefully. Tim lingered for several more seconds, likely confused, before Roxy and I yelled, “Go! Go.”
We teased Eric — not just for quoting a bad Adam Sandler movie, but because Tim was nine hundred and ninety-seven miles into a thousand-mile journey. Obviously he knew he could do it.
Tim also added an epilogue to my Jason Mackey ski pole saga. The broken pole was still propped outside the door when Tim arrived in Safety two days after I left. Tim lost one of his trekking poles while crossing the Happy River above Puntilla — some eight hundred miles back — and decided to grab it so he’d have two for the final stretch to Nome. He carried the pole most of the way over Cape Nome before deciding he was better off with one, and tossed it into the night. I was disappointed that Jason’s pole made it so far without reaching the finish, so on my way to see Beat the following week, I scoured the slopes in search of a bent ski pole. I never found it, so that pole likely still lies on the hillside today, a mere ten miles from Nome.
A crowd of inebriated revelers trickled out of the Front Street bars and gathered under the burled arch for Tim’s midnight finish. The group cheered wildly as he arrived under threads of colorful lights after nineteen days, nine hours, and thirty-eight minutes.
“Where did all of these people come from?” Tim exclaimed. His smile was as bright as the aurora still dancing in the sky. His ninth finish of the thousand-mile hike shattered the previous foot record, which also belonged to him. To set it, Tim had to walk more than fifty miles a day, dragging a thirty-five-pound sled, sleeping an hour here and there, and traveling most of the distance alone. Most who understand the race agree that while Jeff Oatley’s ten-day ride is stout, another racer — such as Phil — could best it in near-perfect conditions. Tim’s record, however, is more likely to stand forever. He was sixty-one years old.
Beat was the next in line to finish the race, and I didn’t expect him for four or five more days. Most people depart quickly after finishing the Iditarod, but I lingered in Nome for more than a week, waking up with night sweats, staying up late with Roxy, and pedaling my bike slowly along the icy streets of Nome. Iditarod Sled Dog Race festivities continued into the weekend, and I enjoyed spectating the final mushers, sharing overpriced restaurant meals with new acquaintances, and attending the Iditarod finisher’s banquet. Nearly a thousand people were crammed into a gymnasium that could barely hold six hundred. For fifty dollars we dined on overcooked salmon and strawberries while sponsors rambled on for more than six hours. Roxy and I only made it through three hours before we squeezed our way outside, laughing at what a spectacle this was for a town of three-thousand people in the middle of nowhere. The sled dog race is a big deal. Not many people care about the cyclists and walkers, which is just fine with us.