Becoming Frozen by Jill Homer

Author:Jill Homer [Homer, Jill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arctic Glass Press
Published: 2015-08-16T21:00:00+00:00

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Long Ride

January 21, 2006

I have a little of that serene, drugged-out drowsiness going on right now ... long ride, big dinner, warm house, storm raging outside.

Today I set out just before sunrise with the intention of putting in an eight- to ten-hour ride that would mimic my attack of the Susitna 100. To do that, I had to ride on a lot of soft, rutted trails that are punchy and slow and there’s no way around it (winter riders call this stuff “mashed potatoes” ... in my case, very lumpy mashed potatoes). I rode the ice roads, open snow (about 5 inches of powder) and on Caribou Lake itself. I also did a fair amount of pushing. Any food I ate, I ate while pushing. I kept my full stops to an absolute minimum, to keep my core temperature higher, and also because it’s the way I deal with the muscle strain of long rides ... just keep moving, moving, moving, and there’s less time for hurt.

*****

In marketing materials, the city of Homer often advertises itself as “The End of the Road” — but it’s not. A narrow strip of pavement continues east for forty miles beyond the edge of town. This road eventually tapers into a boggy dirt track that leads to the reclusive Russian immigrant community of Voznesenka, which then tapers to ATV-trammeled mud flats at the lip of Kachemak Bay. If one were to keep walking across the tidal plain, they could access the glaciated valleys of the Kenai Mountains, then climb the towering granite peaks that appeared unobtainable from Homer’s side of the bay.

It was my dream to someday cross this point of inaccessibility. Still, the end of the road — the point where East End Road curls into Basargin Road, bringing thousands of miles of the North American highway system to a splintered end — held its own mysterious allure. An overcast sky threatened snow as I drove along the icy pavement, past the fancy restaurant at the edge of town, then past the outlying estates occupied by Homer’s wealthier residents. Beyond the city residential zones were the outliers — ramshackle cabins with Tyvek siding, hand-built dwellings that seemed to not only defy building codes but also a few laws of physics, and the driveways of the longtime homesteaders. Eventually there was only the occasional street intersection leading into the woods. As the road climbed several hundred feet above sheer bluffs, views opened to the far end of the bay. At that elevation, roiling whitecaps appeared as diamonds glittering in a charcoal sea.

“It’s windy today,” I thought.

I turned off the road just before the outskirts of Voznesenka, and parked in a small clearing alongside a half dozen trucks with empty snowmobile trailers. As soon as I stepped outside, I had to battle a surging panic. The air was a humid ten degrees — moderate cold that becomes bitter when infused with moisture and driven by a steady breeze. The sensation of transitioning from a

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