Skulking Skurka and Curious Curiak

Ox Foster, a Kiwi I raced with on Team Hi-Tec in the 1996 Eco-Challenge, wrote me hoping I was getting in some work in between my leisure. Fact of the matter is, yes, busting my butt with four classes and two theses. The theses are super cool -- so are the classes, minus the part about grading weekly quizzes in them all -- and they are keeping me glued to my seat with my 'puter glued to my lap every night.

Anyway, what this means is I am living vicariously through others' adventure and currently following Andy Skurka as he skis along the Iditarod Trail in metal edged skis. Goof ball. I warned him. I even sent him the hot-rod of AK backcountry x-c, Tim Kelley's performance link, but to no avail. Maybe next time ole' Awesome Andy will come around from the (dumb) dark side and see the light of light on the feet. And to think he's like the uber-athlete of going light and long!! And using metal edged skis with big heavy boots, too! Jeesh......

Yep, all that weight and still averaging about 30 miles a day. Imagine if he knew how to skate ski, double pole and make do without waxing and actually followed the advice of Tim Kelley on gear....he'd be to Rohn by now and Forrest McCarthy and that amazingly artistic and young NGS photographer (Mike Brown) who's doing the big story would have to be flying up like a month early -- Tim Kelley and Bob Baker skied the whole Iditarod trail in under three weeks back in the 90s, which to put things in perspective is like twice Skurka's pace, and they of course used skate skiis and sleds rather than pins, metal, and a backpack.

About the time super-hiker's taking off, super-biker's just landed -- Mike Curiak-- in Nome, having ridden and pushed (I doubt he carried it at all) his snow bike the whole length of the Iditarod Trail, self-contained, meaning he had all his food and gear with him for the whole 1000 miles. I am really looking forward to the on-line details of that trip to distract me from grading papers and editing manuscripts.

Let's hope those get posted before the ice goes out and I can get my butt back in its proper place -- a boat.

White Mountains 100

In many ways, Fairbanks is the epicenter of true Alaskan adventurers.

Just living in Fairbanks is an adventure, especially for people who move there from the Lower 48, like college kids going to UAF to get a science major and an unofficial minor in "cabin dwelling", an adventure in itself of wood burning, ski-communting, and water-hauling. Then there's Fairbanks' location, smack in the middle of Alaska's central wilderness, within view of the Alaska Range and within a day's drive of the Brooks Range. Alaska's first marathon, the Equinox, is a Fairbanks thing, and its 20 year recored holder a Fairbanks Resident. Fat tired snow biking was born on its musher trails and the first double width rims were produced there in the early 1990s. For a town that's like a fifth the size of Anchorage, it produces amazing skiers, bikers, climbers, and even boaters, not to mention mushers who win multiple enduro-races back to back to back to back

All the good stuff about Alaska, its cold winters that clean out the population, its beautiful springtime which is really the first few months of summer, 24 hour sunlight during the summer, vast open vistas in amazingly clear air, landscapes dominated by the natural, people with full-bodied characters living a semi-subsistance lifestyle. It's all there and with an eclectic mix of liberal college-town dwellers, moderate military, and more conservative-minded resource-extractors. Oh Fairbanks, how I miss you.

This is all lead-up to Ed Plumb's "White Mountains 100" which looks like it offers up what is best about Fairbanks and Fairbanksans in a multisport loop through what is the most beautiful yet accessible landscape in the Interior. From all accounts -- like Ned and Jill it was a great event, one that I will have to start training for and get my entry in early, too.

It sounds like what the Iditaski was like in the 1980s and the Iditbike in the 1990s but with better scenery and far better weather.

Congratulations Ed on a race well run!

Senator Stevens and Wilderness Recreation

Ted Stevens served as Alaska’s senator for over 40 years. While in Congress, he always held tightly to positions placing Alaska’s interests highest, which meant that he sometimes had views at odds with National-level conservationists.

In many ways it’s sad that he was the highest ranking Republican in the time of Bush and Cheney, as Stevens was tainted by those imposters. I don’t know enough to review the truly pivotal roles he played in passing the biggest AK legislation in our lives, like Statehood, ANWR, TAPAA, ANSCA, ANILCA, Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Act, each on the short list of the most significant intersections of economic development and conservation in Alaska.

But I really admired him. He was the only Republican I ever voted for (other than Sarah in the Republican primary for Governor), and I voted for him every time I could. He was, and likely remains, a man of principle, rather than of partisanship. He refused to vote in favor of impeaching Clinton during the Lewinsky affair, for instance. He always flew coach, unlike his counterpart Murkowski, who as Governor, went around the Legislature to get himself a private jet.

Stevens is a short man of great stature in my humble, if liberal opinion.

In 1979 I visited his office in DC. I was 19 years old and ANILCA was soon to pass and I wanted to be sure that mountain climbers would have air access to newly formed National Parks and Wilderness Areas. He assured me they would.

In 1984, The US Fish and Wildlife Service threatened to halt the third Wilderness Classic across the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge because the Service claimed the race inconsistent with the goals of the Refuge. Stevens stepped in, wrote a letter and the race went on. It has continued ever since.

And most importantly (to me), Senator Ted Stevens answered my simple question written him on the back of a pre-paid postcard I found on a flight to Seattle: “Are mountain bikes allowed in ANILCA Wilderness Areas?”

There were three postcards there. They were meant for another issue, roadlessness in the Tongass National Forest, but I re-appropriated them on a whim. Stuck in the seat pocket, pre-addressed and pre-stamped, they were ready to help find the answer to a question I'd had for nearly 10 years. I wrote the same question on all three, one of to each of Alaska’s delegation: Young, Murkowski, and Stevens.

Only Stevens responded and here’s what he said (CLICK ON THE IMAGES TO READ THEM):

Hellbiking Lives!

Over at Cpt Swallowtail's Confessions is a link to a recent bike & boat trip. Bike & boat trips are also making their way onto the Alpacka forum.

Recently looking under the house for old tax records, I came across an October 1989 Mountain Bike Magazine with my "Live to Ride, Ride to Die Mountain Bikes from Hell!" story. It's a little embarrassing to read my hyperbole now, but like the Wilderness Classics before it, this was a rich full-bodied trip. It was a trip that really opened our eyes to the possibilities of mountain bikes in wilderness, centered on the packraft. As far as I know, it was likely the first bike & boat trip in Alaska (by bike & boat I mean we carried the boat on the bike and vice-versa).

On our trip we carried only one raft, a Sherpa Packraft. Our bikes had no suspension, as there were not even front forks with suspension!

Anyway, some of you might enjoy the read. I did. But then I guess at my age, reminiscing is becoming an increasingly popular pastime.

(To read any page just click on it.)