Semi-Thoughts

What are the middle tires (the ones that often don't hit the ground) on an 18-wheeler for? Are they so the trailer doesn't get high-centered? Is it just a convenient way to carry spares? Both? Are they adjustable so that they do hit the ground and help spread the load? [EDIT: I learned later this day that yes they can be lowered when carrying heavier loads.]

Also, what's next? From Fairbanks I'll fly to Durango, Colorado to run my third Hardrock. If...

OK, I just got awesome footage of a fox crossing the river. That was amazing. (Interesting to compare to having seen wolf pups play on my last trip with no camera. Which will I remember better--through my own eyes, or only through the camera LCD screen but that I can watch again and again? Por que no los dos? That really would be best.)

Ok, back to Hardrock. Third time overall, first time in this direction. I still think the lottery system is... I'll be my most restrained self here... very bad. People who have run it 10-15 or more times have similar or better odds of people who have run it zero times but applied 10 times. (Those exact numbers might be slightly off, but I believe that's the gist of it.) Only the two winners get automatic entry. Instead of an arbitrary selection of RD picks, which are biased toward top competitors anyway, why not use a rotating selection of the qualifier races to have three "Silver Claims" (golden tickets) for the following year? Make awesome community-oriented events like Scout Mountain or Hellbender seriously competitive for a couple years? One in North America, one in Asia/Oceania, one in Europe, or some sort of geographic balance. If the permit allows, why not expand the runner field for every runner who promises to run it solo (without pacers and without crew leaving paved roads)? This isn't Barkley where nobody'd finish if the field were full of virgins. The course is marked, GPS'd, and is 25% road! (Don't hate me, Katie Scheid called that out! I don't claim credit for these ideas, Boulder Boys or Singletrack germinated them.) People love pacing and crewing Hardrock, but that's at least partially because there's only a snowball's chance they'll ever get in the race themselves. I'm running without pacers this time, and Amy will probably only crew me two or three times.

I should have applied for the open position on the board.

So I'll run it this direction, and depending how it goes this time, maybe never again, or at least not for a while. If this is my worst time of my three, maybe I'll try again in this direction in a couple years, and four times will be enough. There's plenty of hard, pretty, community-oriented, well-organized races out there. I also don't love having to use a whole week of vacation to acclimate, and spending every November putting next summer's vacation planning in the tumbler with everyone else. Sometimes controlling your own destiny is nice.

So should I come back to Alaska? I don't know if one to two weeks of PTO at a time is the optimal way to do it. This December I'll graduate into the 8 hours/pay period (5 weeks plus 1 day per year) PTO group. I'll be starting from zero after this AK/CO trip, but dogs-willing, that's time for some races and a decent adventure.

The Arizona Trail, Greater Yellowstone Loop, and Alaska come to mind. 

Alaska: I've started trips from Anaktuvuk Pass and Atigun Pass, which I'm pretty sure are the only cheap way to start in a place that's good for hiking in the Brooks Range. (By cheap I mean a couple-few hundred dollars each way on top of airfare to Fairbanks. Non-cheap is more like a few thousand dollars each way in charter airfare.) There are probably cheap packrafting trips worth doing, some of which would start from Anaktuvuk Pass and solve my issue with going west out of there (I've only hiked in/out to the East of AP, but the west the most obvious hiking route is less interesting to me because of a native hunting ATV trail that apparently goes for quite a ways.) So yeah, maybe a packrafting trip from Anaktuvuk to Bettles? Or suck it up and pay for a charter flight and hike a bigger chunk of ANWR?

The AZT: This has always (or at least since I did a stretch on the Hayduke in 2020) just seemed like something I could knock out in 20 days/three weeks. It's 800 miles, so instead of my previous PCT speed of 200 miles/week for three months, I bump it up a notch to 40 miles/day for three weeks. On a hot, marked trail, that seems doable. But maybe boring? Don't I own a house in the desert? Couldn't I just go remodel the bathroom there and learn something that way? The interesting challenge would be to go more ultralight than I have recently, maybe ever. It might be more fun to do the AZT with desert-lover Amy some day when we're based nearby again.

Yellowstone Loop: I don't remember whether this was 800 or 1200 miles when I mapped it out, but that sounds about right. I wouldn't be doing 40 miles days because the trails are likely less well-maintained (there are almost certainly stupid beetle-kill/old burn sections with blowdowns like pickup sticks), plus have interesting high route and peak bagging opportunities, and I could fly there and have friends pick me up or just start walking from the airport like Mother Nature intended. So maybe half this in one go? I'm looking forward to getting to see part of this area during the Wyoming Range 100 in August. Reminder to self: buy your airplane ticket as soon as you get service!

As far as normal person vacations to, I'd love to go to Japan and back to Korea. Obviously I'd time it with Lake Biwa 100 or something like that.

Alaska Gear Thoughts:

My bigger items mostly worked. After all the rain I'm glad the Durston X-Mid is double-walled. But maybe I should shell out for the lighter Dyneema version. My ULA Catalyst is a workhorse, well deserving it's high sales numbers.  But after 18 years the shoulder straps have lost some life, and technology has improved enough that I'd like to replace it with a Durston Kakwa 55. Can that be used without a pack liner and hold a bear canister horizontally? (Is horizontally actually best? I want to believe it is but IF you can fit stuff on both sides to efficiently use space does the body carry weight better vertically? Maybe hard sided bear canisters are just heavy either way!)

My Patagonia R1 fleece hoody is still kicking. New Alpha fleeces are just warmer and lighter, however, and the snagging is a non issue since I'm never walking around in a fleece without a wind breaker/water resistant layer on top. When other than kicking it around camp or around town is it that cold AND dry and NOT windy?

I brought far too much food. I haphazardly told myself I was doing a lollipop loop I could drop my bear canister after a day and just carry the Ursack. Instead I just carried both the whole time. The culprit is last minute acquisitions in Fairbanks. I had 3,000 calories/day *before* I added the Fritos and cheddar cheese and Reese's Cups. I also bought a cheap blue foam pad as a quick sit pad, which would have been OK if I'd truly cut it to butt size rather than knee to shoulder size. I call it my "blue foam of shame" as a sop to the gods of Ultralight. Gaiters are also unnecessary. Long pants (my Arc'teryx hikers are fantastic) cover just enough of the shoe to keep most stuff out, and not even gaiters will stop river silt from getting in during water crossings or fun descents of crushed slate slopes. My ditty bag was also overstuffed with useless stuff: TP (I bideted, rope, sewing thread, a Deuce of Spades (you're not supposed to dig past the gravel layer anyways). Lastly, as much as I love my Exped 5R sleeping mat and Nemo Fillo Elite pillow, I could experiment and see if something lighter gets the job done.

I'm uncertain about neoprene socks. I didn't wear them until I was basically done, so I guess you don't *need* them but I think they do keep toes warmer than just a pair of good wool socks (I mostly was fine wearing the same pair of crew length Darn Tough hiking socks the entire time, with one backup for sleeping.)

Book Thoughts: After Dickens, what's next? I saw a copy of Nelson Mandela's hefty autobio at the hostel. If that's still there when I get back, I'll do a swap. I wonder if I can be so obnoxious to my sister that she'll hit me in the head with it? (Deep cut inside family joke, I'm not sure even she'll get it, but trust me, it's a classic.)