tradkelly
Oct 16, 2004, 3:48 AM
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Registered: Apr 7, 2003
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WRIAD, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love the Bomb.
(Disclaimer: Feel free to ignore the verbal diarrhea and cut to the chase. A couple of rough mental/emotional days, physical infirmity brought on by the adventure, and a vast amount of spewing technical documents at work have brought on the pastiche herein. My apologies in advance.)
This story, like all stories worth telling, began some night while I was working on the computer at home, possibly developing pictures or just making up lies about myself on the internet. I don’t really remember exactly when and where (and I’m far too lazy to look up the transcripts of those discussions), but I’m certain, particularly now that I know what I got myself into, that I was on the sauce that night and highly suggestible. In any case, as usually happens under such circumstances, I was somehow swayed into thinking that another ultra-distance sporting event for the season was a wonderful idea, and something that I really needed to accomplish.
Perhaps some background is in order, though, for the gentle reader who does not know certain small and mostly insignificant facts about me yet. First, this is a tale about bicycling. Second, I don’t bicycle. Okay, strike that. I didn’t used to bicycle, and given the choice now I think at least two-thirds of the time I’d rather push the bicycle than attempt to turn the silly little circular-motion levers to propel the vehicle up a hill. Bicycling was a wonderful way to get around the separated college campus when I was 20, but I didn’t do it again for a dozen years afterwards. I was never interested, and it held absolutely no fascination for me. Primarily, I didn’t want to be on something that wasn’t attached to me, that I felt I had so little control over, particularly at the speeds and with the crunchy surfaces potentially involved (unlike skiing, where the ground is usually either soft or low-friction).
That night, Sean found me online and started chatting. Sean is just what I call him, although I’m certain that his real name is unpronounceable, just as I’m sure that he’s actually a familiar of some Greater Demon from the pain I find myself in after these sorts of things are over. Probably in some previous life I was really, really bad (like, fry small rodents with a fresnel lens bad), and he is my just punishment. Somehow he convinced my brain, sodden as though it rightfully belonged in a flame-retardant rag bin, that I really wanted to go for a long bike ride with him and others of his ilk (the ilk that have never materialized when it came down to the actual day of any adventure, making me wonder if they are just suggestions in my head as well). Previous days, the target has been something lofty perhaps, as a run in the clouds, unencumbered and free, seeking out rare high alpine life in the Gore Range – or something very base, a descent into, climb out of, redescent into, and then just maybe come back up again from a broiling in Dis, center of the deepest hole, a full-day stroll twice across the Grand Canyon. This time, the vistas and colors in the surroundings belie the dangers, no water, no shelter, and the remote possibility of being attacked by a sandshark.
What, I protest too much thus far? Forsooth. You might, as well, had you been there, in my too-tight and quite painful shoes.
WRIAD, as you may have guessed, is an acronym. I am intensely fond of acronyms, from too-many years working in, with, and for the MIC (and you’ll have to look that one up for yourself). In most places, in most times, it would stand for something alternatively described as ‘lunatic,’ or only for ‘gonzo fitness freaks.’ Or, so at least my limited research into the topic indicated, well after I was fully committed and still under-educated. I’ve had a lifelong love of open places, and though I would not deign to live there again, the desert is one of the most stable, open, inspiring places I have been; I go back again and again, drawn like the crooked line in a child’s Etch-a-Sketch back to the red land and blue skies. The sparseness of the land, the openness and lack of people and civilization, scourges both, keep my mind there long after my body has left. To do White Rim in a day is to go into that land on closer to it’s own terms, to suffer as the desert should make you. Canyon country is very inhospitable; Abbey was correct in his musings, and it suffers under the burdens of our trying to make it more to our own pathetic likings.
The standard fare for WR (minus the IAD, you’ll note) is to take a bunch of friends and a 4x4, a bunch of food and beer, and creature comforts to bend the land towards your living room’s sensible comfort. A typical group will spend 3 to 4 days, enjoy the short sections of ride, perhaps complain about the afternoon heat or the night’s chill, eat and drink heartily, and come home telling what a wonderous and beautiful place the desert is, if only it were less desert-y. None of that happens in the WRIAD. In WRIAD, you only come back surviving, enjoying the rawness of the experience, after doing to yourself what you would pay others not to in other, more civilized circumstances. The complete WRIAD comprises a 101-mile loop (103 if you add the White Crack out-and-back for camping) around Island in the Sky, the northern half of Canyonlands National Park; the loop takes 8 miles of paved roads, about 19 of graded dirt, and the remainder of moderate (mostly easy) 4x4 jeep trail. Not completing the mandatory easy road sections on top of the mesas means you’ve only got a partial completion for the full WR loop, and these more tame sections are often neglected by the more couch-inclined on the beer-and-party riding tour.
Ah, but that reminds me that I promised a tale today. The only pure ways to do a WRIAD are solo and unsupported, or a combination of the two. I was not surprised to find a nearby Boulderite that decided to do the WRIAD minus his bike, running the route with a sagwagon to provide food and water support; for a trail run, that is an acceptable conciliation, as you physically cannot carry what you need and complete the WRIAD alone. The bicycle gives additional mobility, however, and reduces the amount of support that you need to a barely manageable point. Oh, and to further disclaim, no one from Boulder should be allowed to print terms about runs or rides such as ‘moderate’ or ‘fun’. Those terms mean that the average person will not make it halfway without dying, or a third of the way without wishing that they had. Such is my experience with these wackos of the Republic, in any case. When originally presented to me, the One of the Forked Tongue had not decided whether to go with a group ride for an unpure WRIAD with sag, or to see what the desert had to offer us. The aforementioned ilk had expressed interest (or so it was reported by apparently prophecy and ancient runes), most likely in the unpure version; this sounded like a reasonable compromise between my lack of interest in the sport and lack of training time. In short order however, the ilk dissolved back into their primordial puddles of goo, leaving just myself and the Pointy Eared One to ride the preternatural wastes.
Training for this ‘event’ took me by storm. I severely needed some guns and discipline in my bicycling regimen, if I was to complete this ride. We took mountain rides on singletrack, road rides in the plains and hills, and I went as far as to buy a cyclocross bike to train for road rides and to commute to work during the week, 27 miles across the city. Hoping this would give me enough base to work with, I rode and rode. To the exclusion of nearly everything else for two months, I trained and rode, rode and trained.
The day came; I knew it was here because the night before, the moon had turned to blood the night before. Okay, not really. Just trying to increase the tension.
From previous trips, I knew a perfect bivy site just outside the park on a little BLM side road; someone had forgotten however to tell the feral denizens that had already occupied MY space that it was spoken for. These creatures we never quite saw, except glimpses by the light of a fire they were undoubtedly performing strange, not-to-be-spoken-of ceremonies under the dark sky and bright lights of the stars and recent novae. Instead, we crashed lightly a safe ¼ mile down the road and waited for the chosen hour. Somehow I made it through the night safely, without being made another sacrifice at the near rituals; probably only through my proximity to the Evil Master’s Chosen One.
No problems were encountered this morning, remarkably; alarms went off, gear was all where it was when we crashed, bikes were still there and there was pressure in the tires. How all those things came together cannot be explained by anything other than, well, how shall I put it. Again, Baalzebub’s little friend, my pal. We left the Mineral Bottom parking lot right on time, just after 0600 for the pavement section. He remarked how much he longed to be old, so that he could sustain off of old-folk, calorie-packed Ensure. I wondered, just how new could that be that He had not already become a junkie on easily-digested, liquid nutrition, no chewing necessary; and it would even possibly be palatable when chilled.
Just as we started down the Shafer Trail leading down the first big cliff drop, things went downhill. Hah. Well, actually, they did. The Minion was in the lead, and I was following closely through the twilight as I heard a twittering sound in my front, and out of the corner of my eye saw movement transitory to both the motion of my bike and the ground I was rushing down. Echoes stopped Minion-boy as I rapidly (attempted to) stop my bike and figure out what was suddenly wrong. I walked the bike fifty feet back uphill, and found an oddly shaped darker thing in the gravel and dust: a brake pad. It was obvious right off that this might present a problem, with a few thousand feet looking right at us as the sun began to rise.
Nothing to do, of course; 400 miles from home, into the ride, on the saddle already; no backing out at this point, and noting to do but continue with a handicap. We looked around for a spare nut that might fit the bolt to do a field retro, but no luck; 30% of braking power for the thousands of downhill feet would be the best I could muster all day, and that was it. More bragging rights in the end, more ability to heckle tourons returning home with clean bikes after a desert biking weekend afterwards. Onward and downward we screamed. The light came, stayed for awhile, and then left again, leaving us with glare and a blue cast from the sky on the brilliant red and orange rocks in every direction.
Ten miles later, well, it still bothered me; another seven miles and passing the first campers, day-trippers for sure, and it was all good. Anyway. As it all kept going, it just turned into a thing. 26 miles in, passing the camping parties still having breakfast, was a good feeling. It felt as though no one would pass us that day, as though we were already a full day into their ride and moving right on. No one else was moving yet, no one had been working as hard as we were that day, at that hour. The first small sand banks on the trail kicked into me around 38, as the Prince was pulling away on a mild uprise towards Grand View’s overlook perhaps; he cursed the not-slickrock on the trail, I cursed the fortunately much less common sand traps.
Except for road riding, my longest ride had been a somewhat-near-epic ride on a mild overextension of available daylight during a Monarch Crest ride, 40 miles including the hike-a-bike sections. As I passed that mark, and then passed the longest mark on my longer road rides as well, I noted that I was still not halfway, still going uphill, and growing tired rapidly. Not so rapidly that I didn’t think I could go on, but I still was ready for some lunch, as we hadn’t made the time I wanted to shoot a 10- or 12-hour day.
I remember vividly wishing I had studied an elevation profile before starting this little outing, as I rode up around mile 45 and continued to see steadily rising land ahead, as the jeep road rolled on and bore slightly right around the southern tip of the Island. I could see, what looked like miles away, a final small rise at a low saddle. I hoped, focused on, just getting to this rise, praying that His Wickedness would have heeded my request to stop for sustenance (and further emptying of the oh-so-heavy backpack) at the White Crack road junction. I made a game out of things at this point still, even though I had several miles back decided that I was not to be the photographer on this day; just finding a small bush, an intermediate goal, guessing how far it was to that next point, gauging my progress ever-so-slowly on the bike computer, kept my mind involved and focused away from the drone of my legs and the sand covering ever-larger parts of the track. The game was good, the game kept me going. The game changed when rises came at me; then, the game was get to the top, a pressure to prove that I could work the gearing correctly and get the little burns that would keep me mounted. The games worked, and I stayed on over the far rise; 20 meters further was the road junction, with a guide’s sagwagon for his clients plying water to a client just starting from his lunch-hour start at White Crack, 1.4 miles down a side trail. I wondered, as His Wickedness was not here, if I should question and follow to the camp; two other clients came up, but I still kept my question to myself. I waited, straddling the bike and breathing, and decided that I would not ask. Asking would be wanting assistance, unneeded help, and the path was almost obvious. There would be no lunch here. I remounted and rode on, ahead.
I cursed His Wickedness, looking for his vile presence along the sides of the trail as I continued to pump along now thankfully flat and mild downhill sections, enjoying the relief of not going uphill after so many seemingly endless uphill hard miles approaching the junction. I passed my first riders heading the other direction, more and more over the next several miles; unbeknownst several of them were from our area, on their own other-direction WRIAD, one on a suspensionless cyclocross bike. We had made good time, but they had started on the easier flat sections, 25 miles of warmup before hitting their grinds. They looked stronger than I. I was not pleased. I felt as though, riding past strong, trained, seasoned riders, that I was very much out of my league, again, the same way that I have felt in so many running outings with Boulder folk in the past years, before learning that they are sponsored, nationally ranked, professionals in their sports before or as well as their paying professions. I kept biking. I knew I was only halfway through this. I didn’t know what that meant, and did not dwell on it. Only the immediacy of continuing right then kept me moving.
The fresh rider, getting water from the sagwagon’s tank, passed me in a few miles. He was wearing all cotton, and not carrying any pack at all, just a bottle cage. I knew. I knew he felt good for passing me, for being stronger. The same way that being able to lap people on a closed running course feels. The feeling was not pleasant, but I don’t know that he knew that WRIAD was the only pure way; WRIAD, completing this, came back to my head. Do this unsupported, do this and know that it won’t be pleasant, but will be worthwhile, registered. I continued. The ground rose again, approaching a series of ridges; I didn’t stop to look and see what was ahead on the map, just knew that somewhere ahead was a steep 400-foot climb up Murphy’s Hogback. The rises continued. I was out of energy, deprived of my right to lunch and not wanting to stop and delay my partner without at least his knowledge. I went into conservation mode, and hiked uphill, riding short flat sections, then hiking again.
The Hill came. I couldn’t even see that there was a trail up it until I’d gained the rest area, where several riders who had passed me had stopped; I didn’t stop, I was hiking. As I came around, the sag for the first campers we had passed came up; obviously some of those riders had caught me as well. A female rider kept going past the rest, responding to her team that she was going to keep going up. I followed her, pushing miserably and having to stop to relieve the lactic burning every dozen stops, the one working brake not holding my bike up the slope acceptable. A long, long climb; I moved out of the way of a couple of guys trying mightily to make the hill without spinning out, yelling encouragement when I could. It’s something different to each of them, I knew, and their successes wouldn’t be diminished by their non-WRIAD tactics. I was proud of their efforts, wished that I could do the same. Conservation was the rule, however, and I was doing a different race than they. Finally the top was there, and I could almost see it through salt-bled eyes. I remounted, unsteady, and fifty meters further I knew it was the place.
The Master of Uncertainty and Confusion awaited me, sitting in the shade of a large boulder, very near to a very large Raven who had lit. I ate, drank electrolytes, took prophylactic anti-inflammatories. I took longer than he would like, but he had already begun to stiffen. I had half a mind to tell him to go back down the ridge and join me in a few, but I was afraid of the consequences. My soul was still mine, and no matter the physical trauma ahead I would keep it. I wolfed, slammed my maltodextrose, and remounted.
There was a blur ahead; fortunately a mostly downhill blur, with a few scenes that come up from the rush. A good brief photo-op, and a word with some of the dayriders atop a drop just past the Hogback. More rim running around deep incuts. Sandpits, unexpected at high speeds, that bring one back to the present extremely rapidly. Eight miles ahead, as planned, the Incarnate awaited below Candlestick, so I could continue to fuel and stay ahead of the bonk.
Continuing. The fresh rider from the White Rock junction was beyond. One rider from the dayriding group was right there as we moved on. The next miles, around Candlestick and down to Potato Bottom, were mild and fast, and quickly came down to the level of the Green River; I tried to keep up with the dayrider. He was always in view, sometimes farther away, sometimes I would close until he picked it up again. He knew at that point that we were WRIAD; he knew that he could take that section and never look back and see me. The other riders were never in sight behind either of us. The game for the section was playing with this rider; another small victory each turn that I could continue to see him, a major one each time he stopped for water that I did not. I never caught him, but I passed him when he had stopped at his destination for the day, gave him a kind word. Atop a rise overlooking the river, I found that Unspeakable again, waiting for me.
Another short break and meal, this time prior to the climb that would take us far above the Green and then drop us back down to it, and I finished my last solid foods for the ride at 78 miles. We pushed up nearly to the Wingate level of the cliffs above us, and rode around the last major bend below the Island. I knew my lone remaining brake pair was being destroyed, ground down to nothing, as I descended again, my heart breaking with losing so much elevation only 400 feet from the rim. The sand in the Barrens leading to the exit of the park was long, painful, the worst section and requiring the most hiking thus far; probably the most technical part of the trail for a 4x4 as well, even on the flats.
The trail turns back to a maintained, graded road as it leaves the Park. The technical difficulties are over. Beyond, WRIAD is just a grind; a decent day ride, particularly if you are fresh, hydrated, and energized. I began to sink, though. I stopped alone and stretched back over a rock, had my last maltodextrose; I was down to 1-1/2 liters of fluid now, from the huge pack full of it I had started with, but knew it was necessary to keep drinking so that I could metastasize the last sugars. I approached the turn away from the river, where we would finally make the last big climb up and out, back to the plateau, and Mephisto’s Apostle had taken an unintentional sidetrip down to Mineral Bottom, just returning to the junction as I arrived.
The Big Climb out, not all that imposing until you eye the switchbacks so far above, compares favorably to the first drop down the Shafer. Until you’ve already ridden 86.6 miles and are looking up at it; I realized that I loved chairlifts just then. The push up the hill was my undoing, one and a half miles; for the first time I had to stop and fuel on the hill, delving into the emergency supply of jelly beans for simple carbo energy. I could feel the resolve slipping away, as the light from the day did the same around me. We had started early, planning carefully to avoid the loss of daylight, if I could keep the pace that we needed. The circumstances had changed during the day; two months of training from a zero-bike level weren’t doing it.
I didn’t know it then, but I hit bottom on that climb. That Sprite of Spite could see it, something in my eyes and how I was moving, when I gained the crest and rejoined. I think I knew something at that point; a few more jellybeans didn’t seem to make much difference. I was still mentally aware, I was still strong and knew that there was still something ahead. I didn’t know what, but I knew that it was growing into something other than what it had been, a few hours prior. I passed my still half-full bike water bottle over, because I still had some and he didn’t. The team is sacrosanct.
I left, resigned, in the dark. Sean had headed out; he was cold from waiting for my bonk-induced, still unknown to me, climb. My headlamp was dead from the morning ride; my headlight, flickering. The light was gone, and I hoped that the road ahead was flat, hard, and fast. I pushed my bike up a hill, and saw both a small headlight headed away fast, and a far-off burn from the KBR drilling action near, I knew, the end of the ride.
Too many things passed there, those hours alone in the dark, in the world and in my mind. I pushed my bike, until I was too shaky to hold onto the bike and stand alone; I mounted and rode, somewhere in the low gear, only knowing that I was making progress by seeing scrub pass in my peripheral vision. When I started drifting, wobbly, not completely focused on the road under me, I stopped and walked again. I walked up rises and past hills somewhere just south of the road, and when walking was too difficult I remounted and rode. Without light, I didn’t know what sort of progress I was making except that hills, scrub, and washes passed; washes were full of deep sand and too many times I was almost too far forward. I walked. My last water and small handful of jelly beans, emergency food, were gone very shortly.
The only things that were clear were that I was not in shock, and that I was not in danger of it. I could feel that I was severely hypoglycemic, but couldn’t do anything about it; there was no more fuel, just distance that needed to be covered. I was clear that I had clothes to stay warm if I needed them, and cared about them, but didn’t feel that they were necessary; my hands have always been my guides, and if they are cold then I’m starting down a bad slope. That never happened, and I kept going. I remembered long nights in prior careers, learning how to continue when things got worse and began to suck in huge sucky ways. I kept going. Somewhere along a couple of dirtbikers and truck passed me while I was walking; the truck went another half mile and then came back to check on me. I was resolute, but very happy to hear a voice and concern from strangers. I let them go; WRIAD, after all of this, is also sacrosanct. It has to be pure to be pure.
Sean, who completed the Leadville bike 100 last year, was ready for this; he finished well ahead of me, pushing with a light through the last 15 miles on the plateau. He came back after he finished, still wearing his bike shoes and driving through the dark looking for whatever state I might have been in, moving, sleeping, or unconscious on the road. He met me 3.7 miles before the end, at the last left turn in the road before the end; unsupported means unsupported, though, and I traded headlamps with him knowing how far it was to the finish. I rode, adrenaline and energy from somewhere that I didn’t realize was still in me, keeping the gearing as high as possible for the last 3 miles, all uphill. On small downhills I pushed harder, and worked higher than 20mph as I counted down the last tenths of a mile. The group that had stopped to make certain I was okay had a campfire a quarter mile before the finish and cheered, as they had for Sean.
And then it was finished. I don’t know why I felt I needed to accomplish the WRIAD. Every chance was afforded to bail, early and late. It wasn’t necessary, though. Would I do it again? I have a poor short term memory, as evidenced by my continuing to sign up for things like this and ice climbing; give me a few weeks and ask me again.
Adrenaline collapse wasn’t far behind; I expected it and welcomed it. Sean took my bike apart as I found my rain jacket, something to keep the reflected warmth from my last burst. Sean half-heartedly offered me jelly beans, the available energy source; I knew that was a bad idea, and we smiled about it for a few seconds. My left foot, crammed into a tight shoe for so long, was a priority, and I found the energy to take it off; I didn’t have enough to take off the other, so I sat there with it on. Of course there were no rooms left in Moab. We made quick calls back to home to say we were out and alive; thought about what to do next. I considered the parking lot at Big Bend, but it was too close to the late night traffic. After throwing some cold water from the spring on my salty face, I almost enjoyed the post-stress relief of driving the curves, Sean crashing next to me and not answering my silly talking to myself on the way to Onion Creek, away from the lights and noise of River Road.
I was wrecked; I knew it and so did Sean. Sean was certain he’d be fine to drive on with a couple of hours of rest; I knew I wouldn’t. A couple of hours later I was awake, acidic, hoping I wouldn’t dry heave stomach lining in the dark. Later still I didn’t care as a light intermittent rain came down on us. I knew it more later, when a couple of days later I couldn’t use my left arm; some sort of strain and tendonitis injury in my left rotator cuff. The welts went away after a few days from the excessive time in the saddle. There was no way I could stand up to training for the Basic right after this. Ski season, still far enough away, seems like a reasonable goal now.
I don’t know why I continue, and will continue, to do these things. I always come away with some strange story, and usually I wish I’d had more time to make the trip more satisfying in other ways. I want to have taken more time to have enjoyed the environment, to stop and smell the earth, to see the ground and the hidden life, to photograph and preserve more than just my memories. Instead I enjoy those things only partially, and live inside myself, try to escape from my body’s limitations for a while. Perception is a dangerous thing, when you sense it from inside and see these things from somewhere you haven’t seen before.
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