Lessons of the Chilkoot Trail #3

Question for my Third Third: If it’s not enjoyable, why am I doing it?

Climbing the Golden Stairs required intense focus. Mountain climbers like that feeling, they say it makes them feel really alive. I like intense focus, too; I call it “flow.” My flow comes from a creative activity: art, writing, theater, problem-solving. Not from clinging to a rock on a mountainside.

It wasn’t just the Golden Stairs. The whole Chilkoot Trail requires focus. Every footstep has to be planted, whether it’s over a shaky plank or on rocks through a creek, through rocks and scree on an eroding trail or assessing the depth of mud. You can’t just amble along, idly hiking and humming like Winnie-the-Pooh without looking at your feet. When we’d get to the rare spruce needle path, I’d shout hooray and relish the cushiony simplicity of merely walking and looking around.

What I like about hiking: the big, wide, expansiveness of Nature, how it invades your senses without any extra attention.

What bothered me about the Chilkoot: the big, wide, expansiveness of Nature was where I placed my foot. Sure I stopped frequently and looked around and marveled, but the focus was on the ground, on my next step. I had to interrupt to appreciate the Nature around me.

On the other hand, the terrain and landscape was spectacular. I look at photos I took and gasp at the beauty.

I think fondly of the people I met along the trail. By traveling from camp to camp, you meet up at the end of each day’s hike. The crowd from Sea to Sky Expeditions became special from the very first. Nathalie and Kate shared their gourmet meals, and we all shared conversation. Marty and 12-year-old Lucas were a particular delight; camp didn’t feel complete till I found them each day.

Afterwards, relaxing at the end of the Trail, at the last camp in Bennett, I looked at the photos Lee took on the Golden Stairs. (She lifted her hands to take a photo!) Joan and Barbara were on two legs, not all fours. “This must have been after the first false summit, right?”

“No, that was on the main part.” But how could they stand up??? I don’t understand. Was I just crawling when everyone else was walking? I was all alone so I had no one to observe (even if I could take my eyes off my immediate hand-holds). How real was my horror?

I emailed the National Park Service and Parks Canada to find out just how steep the Stairs are, and they told me “that the Golden Stairs hill has an average slope angle of 35 degrees with the steepest part measuring in at 45 degrees about 3/4 of the way up the Stairs.” That is VERY, VERY STEEP. I am not just a scaredy-cat.

So now we’re back at Barbara’s question: “What exactly was the point?”

Was it some bucket-list aspiration? Was it about conquering some difficult task and feeling the pride of accomplishment? Was it about stretching myself? Or was it about enjoying the company of women in the beauty of Nature?

It was all those things. But you don’t conquer the fear of heights. You stifle it, get past it, don’t let it limit your life choices, but you don’t enjoy it. I once took a behavior modification class where people learn to get over fears. We began with the intellectual: is the catastrophe you imagine realistically going to happen? The next step is doing a lot of the fear-inducing thing till you’ve minimized it. Finally, there are relaxation and calming exercises.

The only thing that worked on that mountain was brute emotional force.

And let me tell you about relying on brute emotional force: it’s not what I want for my Third Third. That’s it. I’ve earned – and learned – better. It’s no test I want to “pass”; it’s a test I don’t even want to take. I have it, I’m capable of doing it, but I don’t have to seek it out.

Would it be a terrible shame if I’d missed all the glorious aspects of Nature on the Chilkoot Trail? If I hadn’t seen all those artifacts close up? If I hadn’t met all the warm-hearted people I spent time with on the Trail, shared the camaraderie of the women? No, there are more beautiful places in the world than any of us can visit in one lifetime. Find one that fuels your soul.

I say this, and I mean it. This is the lesson I’m taking from the Chilkoot Trail. But I’m beginning to think the Chilkoot Trail is like labor and delivery. After a while, the discomfort fades and you tell jokes about it, laugh over it. It didn’t kill you, right?

If you find me laughing about being terrified on that mountain, smack me about the head.

Lessons of the Chilkoot Trail #2

Two hours into the Chilkoot Trail, we stopped for a snack break. I sat in a lovely spot under a tree … in a pool of sap. My pants were a sticky mess, soaking through to my underwear. When I pulled them down to go to the bathroom, it tore from my skin like duct tape. For the rest of the trip, I carried bits of the Trail with me, stuck to my pants.

This was not a problem on the Trail. This was a “funny anecdote.”

The river had reached flood stage and the ranger warned us at the outset that waters were waist high. Fortunately, by the time we got to the worst part, the river had crested and people had laid out planks of wood to traverse the miles-long swamp. We had to climb over rickety debris to figure out the next path through the muck, tilting and turning, stretching to reach the next foothold. One false step and we’d be soaked and filthy.

This was not a problem on the Trail. This was an adventure. We called it the “jungle gym.”

The last thing on my to-do list before going was to sew and secure the buckle on my backpack. I didn’t get to it. After stopping at our first camp, Gwen approached me with a found buckle: mine! The trip would have been impossible without it.

This was a potential problem on the Trail that didn’t materialize.

The Trail includes a long suspension bridge. My fear of heights rose up and lodged in my throat. The bridge swayed, the slats looked rickety, the river below roared. I had to keep moving and force my way forward. Somewhere in the middle, I thought I’d throw up, but then I’d have to lean over the side or look through the slats. I made it over. I have steely resolve, after all.

This was a problem that foreshadowed a far bigger problem: the Golden Stairs.

When I'd looked at the pictures of the stampeders going over the Golden Stairs in winter, all lined up, it didn’t look bad: they were standing on two legs, there were a lot of them in a line. That’s winter, when 1,500 steps were cut in the snow. This is summer, when there are only boulders up the steep, 35-to-45-degree slope with orange wands planted intermittently so you can find your way.

This is what you have to do to climb the Golden Stairs: you reach up with your hand and find a stable boulder that holds its position. You search your feet around to find supports for them. You look ahead for the wand. Sometimes your head can’t lift because a jutting boulder blocks your pack; you have to reposition with a shifting 37-pound pack on your back. At all costs, you DO NOT look down. Your whole world is just your next step: choose a rock, test it, step up, fight off fear, don’t look down. Choose a rock, test it, fight off fear.

Hysteria nipped at my psyche. By then, I knew I was nimble and strong. On any other rocks, I would be scrambling like a monkey, sure-footed in my trusty, beloved new boots, but here I was high up on a steep slope.

I made it to the first false summit. There are three. It levels off for a bit so I calmed because now I couldn’t fall the whole way down anymore. Then it started raining. Then I became trapped behind a guide and an extremely fearful, slow-moving woman. Then the wind picked up.

The summit is less than halfway on that day’s hike, and there’s a hut at the top. I’m sure I read something once about a ranger there, about hot chocolate. It turned out to be a freezing closet that could barely hold eight people. When my teeth started chattering, I knew I had to get going. The next camp is four miles away over more difficult rock scrambling; shifting, eroding paths on the steep edges of water; hazardous creeks and icy snowfields to negotiate; yes, beautiful wildflowers and waterfalls.

It took 11 hours to go the eight miles from Sheep Camp to Happy Camp.

I walked into Happy Camp and two women offered me hot tea. “Do you have a cup?”

I stared. Cup?

“Here, use our bowl.”

After three bowls, I set up the tent in the pouring rain. Later, when Barbara and I were lying in the tent, she asked, “What exactly was the point?”

Tomorrow, the point. Or not.

Lessons of the Chilkoot Trail #1

Before I left for the Chilkoot Trail, friends described it to me as four days of hiking and one arduous day for the ascent of the Golden Stairs. At the end of the trip, Lee said in order to understand arduous, you’d have to re-think hard as if it were easy. Personally, I prefer grueling, but because it also involved fear, I’d add harrowing.

You can tell this whole experience is going to require some processing as I write about it. The lessons I took away – things I learned about myself – are multi-layered.

We were six women ages 60 to 70, and every one of us made it through safely and without mishap. I shared a tent with another Barbara, who regaled me with her summations of each day. At the end of the trip, Barbara said that when people will congratulate her for finishing, she’ll say, “It was the trip of a lifetime. Let me tell you all about it so you won’t have to do it.” The bottom line: if I were to advise visitors to Alaska, I would NOT send them on the Chilkoot Trail. I wouldn’t send myself.

Around this point, Cheryl would shout at our tent, “Stop introspecting! It was a great hike! I’ll come back in a couple of years and do it again.” And if you’re Cheryl – the only one of us who’d done it before – TWICE before – you’d be an energetic spark plug who simply loves the movement, the activity, the effort, the terrain, the rocks, the creeks, the sheer adventure of it all. There is no doubt that Cheryl thrives on this, and it was a pleasure and inspiration to hike with her.

What I love about backpacking:

• I love being in air that has not sat inside walls. I love the freshness and openness.
• I love having all that I need contained on my back.
• I love the simplicity of living minimally, wearing the same clothes for five days, not brushing my hair, having no chores outside of the ones on the trail.
• I love not being reachable by the outside world.
• I love sleeping in a tent where I am protected from mosquitoes and rain and feel utterly and completely safe.
• I love wildflowers, leafy foliage, babbling brooks, pretty rocks, the hugeness and awesomeness of Nature.
• I love feeling my own strength and fitness.

The Chilkoot Trail had all this plus history. Blueberries littered the bushes till it looked like blue jewels had been flung around. On one path, there were so many blue and green stones it looked like a blue Yellow Brick Road. Creeks and waterfalls and lakes just sparkled. Forests were magical, with rock punctuating every landscape. Dubbed the longest museum, rusty artifacts from the Klondike stampeders littered the path. The terrain was varied, shifting from rock to water to spruce to snow and back again, and it was exciting to follow a trail with cairns, steps cut into stone, and an improvised “jungle gym” (more about that later).

Before the trip, I was worried about my physical stamina. I didn’t know if I could DO IT – travel the 33 miles uphill with a 37-pound pack on my back. Within five minutes, I knew that was no problem. I literally scampered along the trail.

Lesson Learned #1: I am fit, powerful, and strong. I have physical strength and stamina as a product of the way I live and exercise. I can lay that question to rest. I don’t need to test myself on that anymore.

Before the trip, I prepared. I measured what I ate on camping trips, registering what amounts left me full and satisfied. I figured out how to package things so they’d be easy to pull out meal by meal. Because all trash has to be packed out on the Chilkoot, I minimized waste and packaging. I experimented and figured out how to keep my Wheat Thins unbroken and unsoggy! I took Tim’s sleeping bag to save 10 ounces, borrowed Mary’s tent and Thermarest because they were lighter.

I could do all this because Joan handled all the paperwork: registration for the Trail, permits for our campgrounds, hotel reservations before and after, train tickets for the return – even lunch on the train! She is a logistical wonder.

Lesson Learned #2: I am a diligent preparer. Not overly familiar with backpacking, I asked advice, aimed for minimizing weight, maximizing convenience and taste, and it worked! I came back with only eight ounces of a spare meal.

Lesson Learned #3: I have steely resolve. At the end of the Trail, when Joan described our state as being “depleted,” we realized that if we suddenly had to hike five more miles, we’d do it. We do what has to be done. Period. We six women are six tough cookies. On the trail – in life – we do what has to be done. Period. We may have known this before, but the Chilkoot Trail reaffirmed it.

All these valuable lessons, with beautiful Nature – what wasn’t pleasant? What lesson did I learn that means I don’t need any more Chilkoot Trails in my life?

That’s tomorrow.

Ready to climb my mountain

I’m off to climb my mountain! Somehow, the Chilkoot Trail became my own personal Everest, the target for all my worries and trepidation. After years of loading the kayak with all the gear, it just seemed so daunting to carry it all on my back … up 3,500 feet, over boulders and snow. But now – on the eve of departure – I’M READY!

I would not be ready if it weren’t for the gang of people who have given advice, loaned equipment, taken me on practice hikes and trips, made all the reservations, boosted my spirits, and basically convinced me I could do this.

I feel like I’ve had a pit crew working to make sure the car – me – was in running order.

My meals are assembled and packed, clothing is all set, and rain is prepared for. I have Mary’s lightweight tent and Thermarest, Tim’s lighter sleeping bag, Joan’s pack cover. I put the pack on my back and it’s … doable! Tomorrow we hit the road for Skagway.

He doesn’t even know it, but a young man got my confidence going. He just said, “Y’know, you can just take it slow and move one foot in front of the other uphill.” At least that’s what I heard. But just this past Monday, Linda and I faced a summit, said “let’s do it,” and up we went!

It was glorious, sitting there at the top, a goal realized and enjoying the climb. One foot in front of the other.

So now, six women take on the Chilkoot Trail. We’ll be back in August, mission accomplished!

Pushing Ourselves Uphill

Over the July 4th weekend, we rode our bikes to the Girdwood Forest Fair, a little over eight miles on the “Bird to Gird” path. I ride a one-speed with coaster brakes, the only kind of bike I’ve ever had. (I’ve done triathlons with that bike. People laugh. Did I mention that it has a big basket on the back?) Coming back from the Fair, I used to walk my bike up the relentless uphill. Then, about ten years ago, I started riding the bike up. Somehow, I’d gotten stronger. Now, it’s what I do.

Except this year. This year, I became convinced I wasn’t strong or fit enough. Heading out, I noticed all the downhill, thinking, Oh, no, that’s the uphill I won’t be able to do. So on the way back, I steeled myself, grit my teeth, groaned and pushed and sweat and got that stupid bike up the #!*&!# hill.

All the while, I was thinking, “No one has a gun to your head. You can stop anytime and walk the #!*&!# bike. You can just stop, get down, and walk.” My heart was racing, sweat was pouring, and I thought, “You’re going to have a #!*&!# heart attack and yet you won’t stop and walk the stupid bike.”

I didn’t have a heart attack. I got up the hill and continued biking along. Did I have some incredible feeling of accomplishment, of pride, of relief? No, mostly I was trying to figure out what gun I had to my own head.

Do you know this feeling? Is it about facing down some age-related decline, some fear of mortality that’s fueling this doggedness? Is it about having some notion of my capabilities and not wanting to see them wane? Or is it just pigheadedness and tenacity looking for a target?

Years ago, I wrote and performed in two one-woman plays. After publicity was already out and tickets already sold, I panicked. Not only was I portraying some personally revealing subject matter, but I was doing it on-stage with lines I had to memorize. Memorizing those lines became a trauma for me. I distinctly remember saying, “Nobody put a gun to my head. Why on earth did I sign up to do this harrowing thing?!” I was consumed with terror at the thought of forgetting my lines on a stage with no safety net.

In the end, I made it without a problem, but only after the fact: each night, I was positive on-stage humiliation loomed.

In two weeks, five other women and I hike the Chilkoot Trail. I have not trained as much as I’d like specifically for that so I’m just POSITIVE I’m missing some vast storehouse of strength and fitness, and I’m worrying about it even though a few weeks ago, I ran my annual half-marathon. (Yes, I can run a half-marathon and still worry about whether I’m fit or not. I can come in fourth in my age group and still worry about it.)

Before any race, I am never sure I’ll pull it off. This time, on the way to the start line, the sun was shining and it cast my shadow in front of me. That shadow – that person – looked really fit. She swung her arms, had a zip in her step – she was really strong. She knew she’d finish well. At some point, I made the connection: that shadow was me. I could be that person. I relaxed and ran my happiest half-marathon yet.

Yes, in my Third Third I have skills and capabilities that I don’t even question. I tackle plenty of things that cause me no angst. But on the ones I have self-doubt about, I have to struggle to entertain a positive outcome, to believe that I am strong enough or capable enough or resourceful enough to pull off whatever it is. And yet I sign on for these things!

What I ask of my Third Third is that I’ve learned something. Maybe wisdom, maybe just insight – so elusive! But now I have two thoughts that I’m trying to internalize for the challenge of the Chilkoot Trail:

• The Chilkoot Trail is a plodding kind of trail. It’s meant to be a walk uphill. There is no timing chip, just one foot in front of the other. Metaphorically, I can get off the #!*&!# bike.


• If the sun shines, I can find my shadow and follow her to the finish.

Moving the Body at Rest

My body at rest has become a body in motion. The rest of the time, I’m recovering. I know it may seem wrong to call me a body at rest when I am a distance runner, but it’s really true. I lie on the couch until I get up and run, and then I go back to the couch. This is not just metaphorical. I’m sedentary in my core. Hand me another book.

But not anymore. Not since I signed up to hike the Chilkoot Trail. I’m not sure whether that’s a carrot or a stick, but it’s certainly lit a fire under me. The fire of refusing to be humiliated, the fire of realizing the only way off the trail is over it. So I had to train. That led to the Zumba experiment, but now, with the weather turning glorious (and one little episode of barfing in the middle of a group weight-lifting class), I’m back outside.

A snow-less winter of no skiing meant I was entering the spring with enough flab for several people. I always start off slowly to avoid injury, and I usually run every other day. This avoids injury but also allows me to resume my inertia position of body at rest. This time, though, I have a rooting section called Tim. While I am a body at rest, Tim is a body-always-seeking-motion. So far, I have been able to resist.

But now, he whispers, “Chilkoot Trail,” and I gear up. We’ve added hiking to my days off. Not only do I have to practice steep; I have to practice walking, period. For some reason, I find it easier to run ten miles than to walk six. I think it has to do with standing on my feet that long or maybe it’s momentum, but I reach the groan-level much earlier with walking. Our friend Kris has been organizing weekly hikes for years, so now I show up, too.

One week it was Kincaid Park, hiking the bluff to the beach. I was glad to be with a group; maybe this would be the time I could actually find my way back from the beach without bushwhacking through brush. It was a glorious, sunny day – I applied my sunscreen – until we got to Kincaid, where the wind was ferocious. The first time I discovered the sand dunes at Kincaid, I thought I’d landed on a Star Wars planet. Woods, cliffs, rocks … and sand dunes?

Sand dunes + wind + sunscreen on face = a total crust of sand encasing my face.

The trail goes up and down, up and down. This is called “hill work.” It is work because it’s single-file and you don’t want to slow up the people behind you (Is there a hiking version of corridor rage called trail rage?). There was no smelling of the roses; we hustled along. Up and down. Up and down.

There were lots of tree roots and lots of dogs. I don’t do tree roots well. Not cracks in sidewalks, not uneven pavement, not broken branches or rocks, either. I must be a vigilant trail runner (and sidewalk walker) because tree roots eagerly await me. Tim says they’re like the trees in the Wizard of Oz when they see me. My toes are the usual victims, but I’ve been known to go down whole body, involving even my head in the calamity. Dogs just complicate the issue.

The good side to all this motion: I’ve discovered a lovely, nearby trail that has been here for all 31 years I’ve lived in Alaska and I’d never been on it. I walked a trail that I’ve only skied before – ski trails can be hiking trails in the non-winter! That was a good day; I found Joy, that shy spirit, on the trail, too.

In the midst of all this running and walking, my friend Connie passed on an article about “dead butt syndrome,” otherwise known as gluteus medius tendinosis. Ironically, you don’t get a dead butt from lying on the couch; you get it if you run too much and too exclusively. Your butt is connected to your hips, legs, and back so the pain is well connected, too. This problem goes beyond the sagginess issue, so now I have to add Other Things to my body in motion repertoire.

Some days, I actually do two things in one day: run in the morning and bike somewhere in the evening. Oh, yikes, what’s happening to me?!?

Moving muscles: A to Zumba

Way back in October, I publicly announced my plan to try out all sorts of exercise alternatives. I was going to embarrass myself into fitness.

It didn’t work. I had two days of skiing in November, and then I just vegged until I started ice skating. But ice skating the way I do it is outside-in-the-air more than it’s exercise.

Then I signed up and committed to hiking the Chilkoot Trail this summer with a group of women. Not only does that mean 33 miles, Golden Stairs, and a 3000-foot elevation gain, but also a pack on my back. Mostly, my camping involves kayaking or rafting and the boat carries the load. Carrying a pack uphill? This would require Training.

And this scared me into my first Zumba class, last week’s New Thing. The good thing about Zumba is there’s no partner so your errors mean you’re not bumping into and stepping on someone. The bad things about Zumba are that there are choreographed steps and it’s heavy on rights and lefts. If motor coordination is not your thing, then it’s pretty obvious when you’re headed right doing something no one else is doing as they head left. The great thing about Zumba is nobody cares.

The other thing about Zumba is fashion. Yet again, I seem to have missed the world’s fashion instructions. Everyone is wearing stretchy, black, yoga pants. I am wearing my blue running shorts.

So on Monday, Tim and I Zumba-ed around. Then I did some heavy-duty leg lifts and tricep things on the machines. Distance running keeps my legs strong, but while I’m at it, I’d like some Michelle Obama upper arm definition, too. Visions of sleeveless tank tops danced in my head.

Then I came home and couldn’t walk easily for two days. I couldn’t lift my arms to brush my hair.

Uh, oh, this is when you realize you’re not 25 anymore, there are more than 650 muscles in the human body, and a whole batch of them have not been taxed for a very long time. You’re lucky you have six months to get in shape. So on Wednesday, we were back at Zumba again. Except the people looked different, and there were more men there. And the instructor was a guy … who said this was “Insanity.”

Oh, no, not Insanity! I’d seen that through the doors of the athletic club once. Those people were nuts. They didn’t just jump; they leaped two feet into the air. “Don’t worry,” the instructor said, “I’ll modify.” Ha, ha, ha! He didn’t have a speck of fat on his body. He was an anatomical model of pure muscle. If he tried to swim, he’d sink. His “modify” is a whole other vocabulary word from my “modify.”

I actually lasted a half-hour before bailing. Later on, I couldn’t lower myself to a toilet seat without crash landing on it.

A couple days later, I found Zumba again. This time, it felt more like dancing, and I remembered some of the steps. If I just listened to the music, my legs sometimes went where they were supposed to. Nothing is sore in my body any more. I’m trying to map out a calendar of how strong I have to be by when. When do I have to strap on my backpack with weights and do stairs?

Back in the ’80s, I was a big Jazzercise fan, and I still can’t hear Beat It or Jump or Girls Just Wanna Have Fun without moving into aerobics mode. They got imprinted in my head as aerobics songs, and they instantly trigger bouncing. I had a punch card and there were Jazzercise outlets all over town – in churches, schools – and one two doors from my house in San Francisco. I remember when the dancing stopped and we did the abdominals. We’d screech and shriek lying on mats on the floor. Zumba doesn’t have mats on the floor. Hmmm, maybe I’ll have to try Pilates again, too.

Even back then, I missed the world’s fashion instructions. Everyone was wearing leotard-type outfits. I wore my purple running shorts. Why do people wear nice clothes to sweat in?

I hope this isn’t just a burst of fitness that dies. I don’t think so. When you have to make a change, you need inspiration, and sometimes the best inspiration is fear: as in, I’ve got 33 uphill miles ahead of me, and I’d better be ready.