Posts Tagged ‘white mountains 100’

A Family Tour of the White Mountains

Tuesday, May 3rd, 2022

Leaving my office, I headed out into a dark -36f late afternoon to start my car and drive home. I started it up, then got out to unplug it*. Just after I unplugged it, I heard a “beep,beep” as it locked itself..
Crap.

After trying all the doors, I headed back inside. We have two keys to this car, and the other one is at my house, three miles away. After calling my wife Nancy who didn’t pick up, I started panicking and I called my daughter Lizzy, asking her (very optimistically!) if she could bring me the other keys.

Much to my surprise she said “Sure!”

30 minutes later Lizzy showed up on her fat bike, with the keys, and quickly unlocked it and headed out. We had to stop for gas, as it turned it was almost out. Wow.

Covid has been a bit rough on the twins. One year of online schooling, then it was back to school, with masks. First home made cloth masks, then N95s.. Limited social interactions, and so much fear. To top it off, the school bus was only running ever other week due to driver shortages. The twins decided this school year that they were just going to bike to school, as it is only three (ish) miles one way, mostly downhill in the morning on the way in. After finding out they could beat the school bus (the biking route is more direct) they were even more excited about biking. As the fall transitioned to winter they switched to snow bikes, with bright head tail lights lights, reflective vests, and warm clothing. A bit to my surprise they kept doing it even as it became honestly cold, close to the -40s. As far as I know, they have never been late. I tried to bike a few times a week with them for the ride in, but school starts early (7:30am!), and I am not as a consistent of a bike commuter as they are.

Cold biking Cold biking

Photos from a different, slightly warmer day where I biked in to school with the twins.

Fast forward half a year, and we were heading out on a family trip, heading around the White Mountains NRA “main loop”, stopping at Borealis, Windy Gap, Cache Mountain, and Moose Creek cabins. The twins had been to Moose Creek in the winter before, were I had to make the “no complaining while going up hill” rule as the twins (Lizzy in particular) would complain how miserable the biking was going up each of the hills, then would be perk up and continue on happily when it flattened out. They had also been to Borealis before too, but in the summer only. It would be their longest winter bike trip, and I was a bit worried they would be unhappy, warning them in the days leading up that they might have to walk up a lot if the conditions were really bad.

Yeah yeah, Dad.

The first day of the trip, three miles from the parking lot, after several crashes and one mini soft snow melt down, everyone had a break to snack and recover.

My bike is so heavy!” – Lizzy.

I was a bit worried that this was going to be a long, long trip.

Five days later, 90+ miles later we were back in the same spot, heading the other direction, everyone, tired, but happy and joyful.


First day went by quickly, with great trails besides a bit of soft snow.

Whites Loop with the Family

The ride was mostly uneventful, though at the top of the first decent Molly and I stopped a bit for her to take some photographs from the first scenic view stop.

Whites Loop with the Family Whites Loop with the Family Whites Loop with the Family Whites Loop with the Family

Eventually Molly finished taking photographs and we rode down the final hill, only to see a group of people with several dogs teams making camp. I stopped and chatted then looked for Molly and Shiloh the dog. No Shiloh or Molly. A bit more chatting, and still no Molly or Shiloh the dog. It was starting to get awkward, as they were waiting for me to go by… so I turned around and headed back up the hill. Part way up Shiloh the dog and Molly showed up. Apparently she had dropped her sunglasses at the top of the hill, and had to go back. I grabbed Shiloh, and we passed the dog teams with lots of barking – apparently this is the most exciting thing that had happened to the dogs in the team all day.

We arrived at a pre-warmed Borealis cabin, with embers in the stove that were soon rekindled into a nice blazing fire. The evening was spent hanging out, cutting wood, and enjoying a mellow evening.

The morning it was -30f ish at the cabin, probably much colder on the river, so we waiting until 10am or so when the sun was hitting us before heading out. It was in the single digits but felt warmer in the wonderful sun.

Whites Loop with the Family Whites Loop with the Family Whites Loop with the Family

The twins enjoyed the firm trails, and the great views. And hot lunch – since this was a “mellow” trip, I brought various dried or freeze dried meals that could be made with hot water from a thermos for lunch. It was a hit.

Whites Loop with the Family

Enjoying Heather Choice African Peanut Stew from the discount bin at REI. So fancy!

The twins had a blast and were handled the single digits in an occasionally brisk breeze. Nancy was also excited to be riding this outside the White Mountains 100 race, at a slower pace, and enjoying the trail.

Whites Loop with the Family

Shiloh and Eddy the dogs also had fun, though Shiloh likes to pretend he wasn’t..

Whites Loop with the Family Whites Loop with the Family
Whites Loop with the Family Whites Loop with the Family

Molly needed to take some panoramic photos (panoramas?) for school, and I told her about the new climb a few miles before Windy Gap cabin, where she stopped to get a bunch of photos. They turned out pretty well.
The twins handled all the biking and the hills pretty well – all those days riding to and from school had given them lots of biking base!

limestone jags panorama

Then it was a long downhill and a few flat miles to the cabin. Alas, the cabin hadn’t had any recent visitors and was much colder inside than out. Walking into it was like entering a freezer. Once the fire was going it started warming up, but Lizzy was quick to find the warmest spot, in the loft directly above the stove.

Whites Loop with the Family

It was still mid afternoon once the cabin warmed up, so I headed out with Eddy to go checkout Windy Arch, a few miles from the cabin. Eddy wasn’t having it though. He kept looking at me like, “What are you doing?” and once he figured out I was going for a ride he abandoned me and ran back to the cabin. I had a great ride though, even though not even the dogs wanted to join me.

Whites Loop with the Family

This was the first cabin that was totally new to the Twins, and they enjoyed hanging out in it, with lots of reading, snacking, and dog snuggling. And doing puzzles – someone had left a small puzzle that gave into a relentless attack by Nancy and Lizzy.

Whites Loop with the Family

The next day we headed up and over the divide to Cache Mt cabin.

Whites Loop with the Family Whites Loop with the Family Whites Loop with the Family

We stopped briefly in at the “Ice Lakes”, a mile (ish) long section of ice for Molly to take another panorama and to have lunch.

ice lakes panorama-2

Photo taken by Molly

The trail was remarkably good, and we rode almost all the way up and over the divide, following some recent wolf tracks.

Whites Loop with the Family

Once over the divide it was a quick ride down to our next stop, Cache Mountain cabin. I had one over the bars crash right in front of Lizzy which she found endlessly funny.


The next morning we headed to our final cabin for the trip, Moose Creek cabin. I was a bit worried the trail would go downhill, but it stayed nice. The twins were troopers, riding up all the hills, including pushing up one really steep and rock hard hill that I almost couldn’t get my bike up.

Whites Loop with the Family Whites Loop with the Family

Molly’s rear break did explode all over the trail at one point, but we were able to get it back into some assemblance of working. Apparently her pannier hand been banging on it all year, and eventually the outer park of her disk brake broke and shot off powered by the return spring.

Moose Creek cabin had a deck of Uno cards, and many, many games of Uno were played.

sleeping shiloh

Photo taken by Molly

The final day went by fast. It was much warmer, in the mid 20s which felt so balmy! Everyone in the family had done this last 17 miles of trail several times at least, and were well aware of the climbs and zooming fast downhills.

Whites Loop with the Family Whites Loop with the Family

Eddy caught doing a 180 to checkout a sniff. He did it so fast it looked like his nose had been glued to the ground yanking his body around..

Whites Loop with the Family

A happy family, almost out..

When we finally made it out I was happy the trip went so well, but sad it was done. I had been very worried the trail would be a mess with lots of walking, but everyone had a blast. The twins had enough biking base they were not super tired at the end of the days, but tired enough they didn’t get bored – perfect! 🙂 Nancy enjoyed doing the loop outside a race context, and I had fun spending time with the family. Eddy the dog just enjoyed being out, though he has all the cabins memorized at this point, as he had been around the loop three times this year, but I think enjoyed the slower pace, with more time to sniff things. Shiloh the dog I think thought the days should have been shorter, maybe eight to ten miles, with lots more stops to pee on things, and more snacks.

Sinbad the cat was very happy to see us on our return, even giving the dogs a few sniffs to say high, but probably thought our trip was way too long and had way too much time away from the cat who was surely going to expire from lack of attention! (Sinbad did have several caretakers who spend several hours with her, so she was not completely deprived.)

I do feel so lucky to have the White Mountain NRA – the trail and cabin system is top notch, and is one of the highlights of life in Fairbanks.

Yay for winter!

Editors Note: This post was edited and all the wrong details were corrected by the super amazing and very superb Molly!

Good think you have me to fix all your mistakes!” – Molly

2022 WM100

Tuesday, March 29th, 2022

As sort of a last minute thing I signed up for the White Mountains 100 last fall, in a last minute panic that another winter would go by and I wouldn’t do anything “fun”. I ended up being on the waitlist, and promptly forgot about it. Fast forward several months, and a few weeks out Stacy the organizer told me I was in, just as I got back from the Iditarod Trail Invitational. My motivation was a bit lacking, but I said yes, and thus found myself at the starting line at a wonderful 8am morning. I went out as hard as I could, and stayed riding as hard as I could. It was much hotter than I expected, and I was overheating right out of the start, and missed my tire pressure by a lot. When I finally stopped to put more air in just after the first checkpoint I put in 30 pumps, and it was noticeably faster. Duh! 45 ish miles in I tapered it back as my legs and body started objecting loudly. By Borealis I was pretty toast, and was having a hard time eating, and went pretty darn slow for the last 20 miles. Such is life. It was fun though, the second most fun I have ever had in this race (the first being 2019 when I rode it with my wife Nancy). I didn’t do as well as I would have liked, though better than I deserve for not getting in much high intensity riding this winter.

The weather was fantastic!

2022 WM100
2022 WM100

I didn’t plan my food very well, and ended up having trouble eating after the first 50 miles, but such is life. I had a blast though.

A few miles out from the finish I saw Tyson F riding towards me, and I stopped and congratulated him on his win. He said something about riding around the loop again, and I thought he was joking. It turned out he was serous, and he did another lap, finishing before the cut off. Wow!

When I finished I checked in with the headquarters to see how everything is working, as I provided the laptop, and a few other computer items for them, but alas, apparently I suck at it as I gave them the wrong charger cord and they had to round up another computer. Duh! Next year I will have to be a bit more organized about it I guess, I felt pretty bad to have messed that up. Fortunately they found something that worked out so it wasn’t the end of the world, but I should have screwed that up!

A huge thank you to everyone who makes this race happen, as always it is the most fun 100 mile snow race out there!

Photos:

Strava:

Whites Loop

Tuesday, January 19th, 2021

Photos from biking the White Mountains 100 course as a two night overnight trip. The trail was great, with warm weather and mostly great trails.

One item of note – few miles below Windy Gap there is a new reroute, with a good 400ft+ climb instead of a gentle downhill grade, but on the upside, no ice or overflow.

Whites Loop

Wandering in the Whites..

Monday, March 19th, 2012

With the Whites 100 only a week away, Tom, Remus, and I decided to do a last minute overnight trip to Caribou Bluff cabin to check out the race course. I was on the snow bike, and Tom was on skis. It was a wonderful trip, with nice weather and fantastic biking. The trails were in great shape..

There was minimal traffic on the trails and I only saw two parties of snow machiners, otherwise I had the whole place to myself. There were occasional signs of other users though..

The ride in was fast and I decided to go a bit further and check out the trail heading out of Wind Gap. This was the first time I traveled this trail in this direction, and the views were pretty spectacular.

I turned around near Windy Gap Cabin and headed back to Caribou Bluff where I caught up with Tom and mellowed out. We had a nice evening of goofing off and lounging, and eventually hit the sack. I woke up around 2am to a wonderful display of the aurora, though I was not motivated enough to get up and grab the camera. In the morning we headed out. It was a slow ride for me on the way out, as the 50 mile ride the day before apparently was a bit too much for Remus the dog and he was quite sore.

So we took our time on the way out, taking photos and enjoying the nice weather.

The ride out was uneventful, though I did pass some folks from BLM picking up stuff off the side of the trail. Apparently a guided mushing group ran into some sort of trouble and had to be medivac-ed out by the Alaska State Troopers. The more details can be found here: . Fortunately no one seems to have been hurt.

The overflow this year appears to be fairly manageable, though there was one section of wet overflow that was maybe two inches deep. It was all easily ridden on the snow bike though, so long as I kept the speeds down and was careful.

If the trails are like this for the race we should see record times for the folks on bikes and on foot, and possibly the skiers too, though the snow was fairly cold and slow. Good luck to the racers this weekend!

The 2011 Whites 100

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011


“Let’s take a ride in an electric car
To the west side in an electric car
How can you deny an electric car
Won’t you take a ride with me
Come on and take a ride with me!!”
– Electric Car, They Might Be Giants

I am not sure why folks need music players on long races. I am so busy keeping the bike on a fast line, eating, thinking about the trail ahead (checkpoints, huge hills, etc), and generally “being there” that I have never had need of music to keep my mind occupied. I have now done three “ultras”, all with a music player of some sort stuffed into that mp3 player pocket jackets seem to come with these days and have never turned it on. Perhaps someday the player will be required, as I am pretty new to long races, so I will, I expect, keep taking a player along. I am not sure it will ever be required though, as after several hours have gone by music just starts to randomly play in my head, and fortunately I always seem to like the songs. During the last hours of my Whites 100 I had several They Might Be Giants songs stuck in my head from albums I have been listening to with the Twins. Somewhere between the final checkpoint and the trail shelter the “Electric Car” started playing in my head, keeping me entertained while I pushed up the Wickersham Wall and a short while later finished the 100.

The race started on a Sunday morning, so on Saturday I packed up the bike and got everything ready to go. I took a short test ride around the local trails and bumped into the eventual fourth place finisher who was on a similar quick jaunt to make sure the wheels still spun and other bike bits all still worked. Everything seemed in order, so I loaded the bike into the truck, and spent the rest of the day with the twins and Nancy. In the evening I headed to bed early, but soon found I was much too excited to actually sleep, and so I kept Nancy up with my tossing and turning.

Eventually the morning arrived and we headed out after leaving the Twins still sleeping away in their beds with a friend. We headed out of town after picking up Tom, and in a little less than a hour we arrived at the start of the race. The trailhead was full of excitement and activity, with folks unloading their bikes, skis, and sleds. Eventually everyone lined up at the start, and after a count down everyone was off. The start of the race was a bit of a mad house – lots of skiers and bikers heading up hill on a narrow trail. I ended up pushing for the first quarter mile or so before things thinned out enough that the folks were actually moving fast enough to warrant riding. The trail was very, very fast – wonderfully hard and good riding.

My goal for this race was to push my self a bit more than I normally do – the last two 100 mile races I have done I did in a pretty mellow conservative style and didn’t push to hard in order to make sure I didn’t completely collapse before the end. The end result was I finished with quite a bit of energy left and the feeling that perhaps I should have gone a bit harder, so for this race the idea was to push a bit harder and see how things go. I hoped to reach the high point of the race, the Cache Mt divide, before the afternoon when I expected things to get pretty soft and warm. Once over the divide the trail is sheltered by mountains and trees, so I expected it would remain pretty firm even durring mid day, so the riding would still be good durring the warm part of the day. Or so I hoped anyway. I reached the first checkpoint fairly quickly and past a number of skiers on the way. The skiers were really hauling, but the firm snow definitely gave bikers the edge.

After about two hours I reached the first checkpoint, where I signed in and out right away, and headed back out. Soon after the checkpoint I dropped my camera after passing a skier and that was the end of the photos. I passed several skiers and one biker before reaching the next checkpoint around noon. Checkpoint number two, Cache Mt cabin, was staffed by several happy souls, including one fellow, Bob, who had skied the race the year prior. I did a quick check in, topped off with water, grabbed a foil wrapped baked potato, and headed back out. The next 10 miles of the course are gradually uphill and eventually lead to the highest point on the race, Cache Mt divide. This section of trail always seems to take forever on skis, but zoomed by on a bike in the race. I had pretty much assumed I would be pushing up this hill, and was very, very surprised it could be almostly completely ridden. It appears from the tracks that the leading bikers rode the entire way up – alas I was a bit to wimpy for that and pushed in a couple of spots. Amazingly at least one skier skied the whole way up, and appeared to have double poled up several steep sections where the trail was narrow. Just before I reached the divide I was passed by a skier, Cory Smith, who was slowly skating up the divide. Slowly skating, but going quite a bit faster than I was pushing.. The divide was marked by a snow sculpture this year, which I assume was put up by some of the race staff. Just before the divide there is a little tiny windswept tree with a single marten set in it – when ever I pass it I always wonder what the trapper was thinking, as all the marten are safely back down the hill a mile or so back in the trees.

The ride down the divide to the ice lakes was a exciting exercise in punchy snow riding, with several crashes and lots of flailing. Just before the ice lakes started I was passed by three skiers going full bore. It would be another two hours or so before I would catch up with them again. The trail at this point was fairly soft and marginal for riding. A biker caught up with me and suggested I air down while passing me, and taking his advice let some air out. I probably should have aired down right after heading down the divide, as it made riding much easier, and before I knew it I was back in the shade of the trees and the riding sped up again. I made a brief stop at checkpoint three, Windy Gap cabin, getting more water and a bowl of meatball soup and then headed back down the trail.

I have done the section from the ice lakes to Windy Gap cabin several times before, but only in the dark, and was very, very impressed by the wonderful views. I will have to get back this way again some time in the daylight again. The next twenty miles of trail were super fast. I caught up with the three skiers who passed me and eventually got by them and on to the final checkpoint, Borealis Cabin. I checked my GPS just before I passed the final skier and was amazed to see them going a little under 15 miles an hour, on an ever so slight downhill – amazing! I ducked into Borealis, signed in, drank some Coke, had some chips, and headed out again, just in time to see two of the skiers arrive. They were making quite good time – I think they averaged almost 10 miles an hour from Windy Gap to Borealis, which is pretty darn fast. I think I have skied this in section in around 5 hours before, and they had just did it in around 2 – mind numbingly fast!

The next section of trail was a bit harder for me, as my legs were starting to feel the effort, but it was not too bad. I stopped at the Trail Shelter, an “unofficial checkpoint”, chatted a bit with the Kat the volunteer staffing it, and then headed out. I finally passed the “let more air out” biker at this point, and soon caught up and passed another biker just before the final big climb, the Wickersham Wall. She was the last racer I was to see until I finished.. The last miles of the race were a bit of a slog – it started to snow a bit and the trail got to be pretty soft, making for slow, uncertain riding. Eventually I reached the parking lot a little after 9pm and I was done. Alas, I didn’t get to hang out that much as I was in a hurry to get home and take over Twin care, but I did say hi to the racers hanging out watching folks come in. After a couple of minutes of hanging out I packed the bike up, and drove home find to the Twins snorting away and relieved Amy of her child care duties.

I was super happy with my race – I felt good the entire time, with no energy or stomache troubles of any kind. I attribute this mainly to my race mantra of “When In Doubt Drink, Eat!” If I started feeling even a little bit low energy I chugged down more water and gobbled up some food in an attempt to stave off the monsters of dehydration and bonk. This appeared to work pretty well. I could have gone a bit harder in a couple of sections, but all in all I think I did a fairly good job of pushing myself, so I was pretty happy. I got to bed at 12pm or so, and made it up in time to take the Twins to school the next morning. In the afternoon we headed back out to the start and end of the race to wait for Nancy.

Nancy was very surprised to see the whole family waiting for her. She had a great race and I think enjoyed herself immensely – go Nancy go! You can read her account here.

This race is very fun, and highly recommended! The folks running it really understand how these sort of races should be put together, and it shows. Hopefully they keep at it, as this race is sure to be a major hit in the coming years.

Only two more days…

Friday, March 25th, 2011

There are only two more days until the Whites Mountains 100.. I had a blast last year and have been looking forward to this race all winter. Good luck everyone!