days like these: contrast

On Monday, my friend Maggi coaxed me out of my house for a bike ride. I'd already gone on a short run earlier in the day and was just sitting down for a little lunch and planning to do all sorts of productive things. It was sunny and in the 50s, one of those days where if it was September we'd say, "There aren't many of these left." But it's the middle of October, usually one of the wettest, coldest, and most get-me-a-ticket-to-somewhere months there is in Alaska.

So I ate half my lunch, changed into my biking gear and pedaled to the trailhead. No clouds in the sky. No wind. No icy spots lurking under the slowly-rotting leaves. While waiting for Maggi, a reporter with her cameraman from a local TV station showed up and asked if I use the park much. Then she said the Rover's Run trail was officially opened that day. Oops. I rode it just over a week earlier when I noticed the barriers were gone. After all, it is October. After giving them my opinions, Maggi and I were ready to get going.

We decided that since Rover's was officially open, what the hell, we should ride it. I was glad I remembered my fenders because, as expected, the trail was littered with mud holes and slippery spots. Unlike last time I was on it, there was no ice. We hit the STA trails, which, also as expected, were well-drained and not muddy, before dropping back down to the Campbell Tract via some wider ski trails, the Tour and Lynx trails.

Good thing Maggi called me. Sure, I was getting ideas about a quilt after having visited the Earth, Fire and Fibre exhibit at the museum with my sister. And I still needed to get my comments in on the Chugach State Park trail management plan. And I still needed to remove the license plate from my car and bend it back into shape after someone backed into me last week at the film fest. But those can wait until foggy, rainy days like today. Making a big loop around the park on a sunny day in October with a friend who loves being on her bike, you just shouldn't turn down an invitation like that.

around 40 & falling apart...

Now, with rain falling and work on the house done for the day, I can finally think. It's our second day where the power for the upstairs, the main living area, is fed by two extension cords from the downstairs; and the kitchen sink drain awaits a new, non-rusted-through pipe. A day where Jon has just ordered our new doors and the third & final support header has been hoisted into place. Each day I can watch the progress and each day we are one step closer to having a level floor and solid walls that will keep out the winter chill. Each day I'm relieved that the temperatures aren't dipping too low and when the crew comments about the rain, I remind them it's not snow. Then we talk for a moment about how unusual it is and I realize it's the least depressing October I can remember, aside from the ones when I've had a ticket out of here.

do overs

a sweet ride - my Trance Advanced

I don't like do-overs. I mentioned this in September after I again failed to make a little right-hand switchback that's been taunting me all summer.

On Friday, with the framers busy working on the house, the nail guns and power saws making too much noise for me to think, I let the sunny fall day draw me to the park. Each day, more leaves have been falling to the ground with the mere suggestion of a breeze, covering stretches of the trails and opening up more views of the mountains. I pedaled toward the STA trails.

Now that October is here, the barriers which gave Rover's Run Trail to the bears for the summer have been removed. The gently-climbing trail that follows the Campbell Creek was closed in late May, before it could be opened for the dirt season. Last time I rode Rover's there was probably snow on the ground. Yesterday, some of its puddles had a film of ice no thicker than the caramelized crust on a creme brulee and my tires shattered a path through the ice with similar satisfaction to a spoon on the sweet crust. The trail surface was often leaf-covered and alternated from frozen to a half-inch slick of mud to eight-inch deep puddles. I rode on, over to the STA trails.

check out the new trail signs!

As I began up Drone Lane, I could hear the slimy mud as the tires lifted it off the frozen, hard-packed trail. It's the gooey time of year. I saw ahead my nemesis. I shifted into the gear I thought would be best for the switchback: 1 and 4. I pedaled up, began turning right and stalled.

Okay, I thought to myself. If there is ever a time for do-overs it is now. After all, the riders and bicycles I began seeing coming down the trail were covered with mud from the fast, splattering descent and I had forgotten to install my fenders. So I turned around and rode down, then rode up again. And stalled again. And again.

what color's that bike!?

it looks so easy from here!

What was the problem? I was in the right gear, I just couldn't turn tight enough to make it. Maybe, I thought, I can try again, but this time I decided that if I ended up riding into the ditch on the uphill side of the corner, that would be okay. It's not a deep ditch and I was certainly not going to be riding fast. I rode down again to a small level spot where I was staging the attempts. I rode up and, as expected, ended up in the ditch. Two more tries and I was in the ditch but managed to pedal out. I had to think this through some more.

Next time I climbed, I looked at a birch tree ahead of me, on the outside of the turn. Last winter Randy, one of the STA volunteers, had installed a reflector on it to help mark the trail for night riding. I decided that if I was to make this climb, I needed to veer a bit more to the left before cutting sharply to the right. I aimed for the tree, then turned my bar right, looking up the trail, trying to keep from dropping into the ditch. I rode around the apex, then along the edge and up a few more feet of Drone Lane. I could have kept going. But like a musician who finally plays a complicated phrase, I decided to do it again.

aim for the larger birch, then cut to the right!
(I see flagging - maybe soon we'll fix the grade
where things sloughed a bit...)

And again, and again. I tried to make a tighter turn each time. I must have ridden up and down that stretch a couple dozen times, but I wanted to know that the next time I ride that trail I'm going to know the line just like I know where the letters are on my keyboard. I wanted to know that next time I won't have to think about it as much. That I'll be able to aim the bike and it will know how to make that turn.

Through the process, I remembered my friend Lori joking a few weeks ago when I'd made a tough climb pulling my fully-loaded BOB trailer that I'd shown that hill who was boss (though she used a term I wouldn't use on a family blog). I decided on this corner that rather than dominating it, I had to communicate with it. Talk my way through the impasse until we came to an understanding. Now, I understand that tight bend in the trail. I've made friends with it. We're going to get along just fine.

When I got home, they had begun framing
the new front entrance.

closed!

They closed Rover's Run Trail yesterday. Some call it "Mellen's Way," though the renaming attempt has been foiled by the media which refuse to use the new moniker. Nevermind, though, the trail is closed until October by order of the Parks & Recreation department. It's because of the bears. It's because of the people. It's the fish. It's the wildlife managers.

It's for our protection.

I've biked this trail for years. The year I worked on my book I encountered a black bear sow and two cubs. I skidded to a stop and waited, all the while calling for Jon who was behind me planting trail markers for an event. It made me a bit nervous. A bit more aware, in the same way I'm aware when I'm walking down a street at night in an unfamiliar city or neighborhood. Wary but confident that I can handle whatever arises.

Then last summer the brown bears caused trouble. They seriously mauled two people on the Rover's Run trail, one, a teenage mountain biker. After a runner was attacked, the trail was closed until winter. Two men were also attacked and chased on a trail nearby - the Double-Bubble portion of Spencer Loop. A brownie also chased a runner on the eastern portion of Spencer Loop. Both these trails remained open and are open now.

But Rover's has been closed because it is near a salmon stream, though other trails near the stream have not been closed. I've seen brown bear tracks on a trail across the road from this stream. It has not been closed either.

The trail is not the best one in Anchorage's parks, but it's popular and it connects us to other trails. I happen to live just over two miles from it and commute within a half-mile of the trail on my way to and from work. I'll tell you that it was a bit spooky riding through the park last year, especially after the second mauling. Partly because I arrived at the trailhead to find police tape blocking my exit from the trails I'd just biked; partly because an officer was gathering his gun and gear to head out into the woods to find that bear. But mostly because after that second attack, the park felt abandoned, like an empty street in a nameless city. You felt there should be people there but just didn't know where they were.

Where they were was not in Far North Bicentennial Park. They were in the state park, at Kincaid Park on the west side; they were even on the Resurrection Trail where there are loads of bears and little hope for cell phone service (so I hear from people who have cell phones) in case you need to call for help.

So last year the city told residents to stay off one trail, so people abandoned the entire park. We can assume that bears felt comfortable moving in. Now here we are with the start of the summer mountain biking season and Parks and Recreation is closing down a trail. I'm sure there's been lots of pressure to do so (mostly from people who don't use trails). This is precisely what the city shouldn't do. What they should do is tell every mountain biker, hiker and equestrian to fill those trails. Stop-and-go traffic, fender-to-hoof all along the trail. Weekends, evenings after work. Fill those trails.

Because if we are out there making noise, passing through, causing a commotion, no bear is going to want to choose that trail as a buffet and playground for raising a family. Trouble isn't going to move into a busy park.

For the record, I don't advocate poaching closed trails (esp. when there's a camera and they can always find out who you are so you can be ticketed and it makes all of us look bad as a group), but I do think we all need to make a case for reasonable trail management. Closing one trail is a simplistic solution whose repercusions will resonnate throughout the park. Not in a good way. If people don't think a park is safe, will they fund projects to improve it? Will people schedule events in the park helping put more fees in the city coffers? I think not. The people pressuring Parks & Rec to close this trail should think a little more creatively about how to make our parks safe rather than scaring people away.