The ‘payoff’ is all around us
One morning not too long ago, my wife and I went for a hike in Wiregrass Canyon in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.
We were walking at our usual pace when we explore together – which is to say, we were meandering at the speed of a pair of desert tortoises as we scrutinized the ground beneath our feet, the clouds above out heads, and many things in between.
Nothing is too “ordinary” to catch our attention on such hikes: Rocks, soil, plants, flying insects and flitting birds are all subjects of fascination. On these walks, we often have no destination in mind and no specific distance we want to cover. At some point, one of us will say something like, “We should turn around soon,” which the other might ignore for another five minutes or 30 minutes or an hour, before agreeing, yes, let’s start heading back.
On that cool, cloudy day in Wiregrass Canyon, we didn’t see any other hikers on the outbound walk. But after we turned around, about halfway back to the trailhead, we encountered a middle-aged man and woman who rounded a bend in the canyon at such a rapid pace that we nearly collided.
The man skidded to a halt with the aid of his walking sticks, wished us a good morning, and breathlessly asked, “Is there good payoff at the end?” I confessed that we hadn’t reached the end of the trail, wherever that was, and added, “We’re just enjoying what’s around us.”
“Yeah, this place is amazing,” the man answered while making only the slightest effort to swivel his head and look around. “Well, have a great day,” he added, then leapt back into action and continued on his way, his hiking companion following in his wake.
There are many ways to enjoy the outdoors, one of which is to set out on a quest for the “payoff” at the end of the trail – whether that be taking in the view from the peak of a mountain, soaking in a remote hot spring, watching the sun set behind a natural sandstone arch, or commiserating with the lingering spirits of an abandoned 19th century mining camp.
But over the years, I’ve also come to realize that, at least for myself, those goals are secondary to the “payoff” of simply being outdoors, of slowing down and savoring the subtle sights, sounds and smells of the desert that can escape the notice of those who are in a hurry and whose minds are focused less on the “here” that surrounds them and more on the “there” at the end of the trail.
That’s not to say I’ve completely abandoned the notion of goal-oriented hiking. Last year, my wife and I scored a permit to hike The Wave – one of the most coveted “destination” hikes in the Grand Circle region. And even earlier in the year, my wife and I tackled the Spencer Trail at Lees Ferry.
At the outset of the Spencer Trail hike, we weren’t sure we would make it all the way to the top of the steep, rocky 2-mile path. We spent a lot of time standing still, not only enjoying the increasingly expansive view of the Colorado River as we gained altitude, but also studying the rocks and their many variations in color and texture, identifying different species of cacti, searching for bighorn sheep tracks, and watching, mesmerized, as a pair of California condors surfed the wind currents a few hundred feet below where we stood.
Eventually, despite overworked lungs and tired legs, we did make our way all the way to the top and took in the spectacular panoramic view south toward Navajo Bridge and Grand Canyon, and north across Horseshoe Bend and Page, all the way to Navajo Mountain. We sat and ate lunch, spent some time following another set of bighorn sheep tracks, and eventually decided it was time to head back down.
The roundtrip journey took much longer than the three hours we were told it would take. The “goal” of the effort was to reach the top of Spencer Trail, but the true payoff was the living, breathing and seeing that occurred each step along the way. For us, the way down wasn’t much faster than the way up. We were in no hurry to enclose ourselves in our car and get back to the “there” of civilization.
Tonto Gravity Riders: Reclaiming trails in Arizona’s Pinal Mountains after the Telegraph Fire
THE parking lot at Icehouse CCC in Tonto National Forest, 5 miles south of Globe, Arizona, was unusually busy one Sunday morning in early December.
Gathered there were six mountain bikers, two hikers and two US Forest Service employees – but they weren’t there just to enjoy a day in the outdoors. The plan for the day was to drive up the mountain in a bike-rack-equipped shuttle van provided by Topo Joe’s bike shop in Globe, and then ride or hike about a mile down Icehouse Trail to spend several hours doing trail maintenance work.
By the end of the day, with the Forest Service employees providing support with chainsaws, the crew had raked, moved trees and removed loose rock and debris on half a mile of trail.
Then came the fun part: riding or hiking down a few miles of trail that had already been cleared on previous weekends, all the way back to their cars at Icehouse CCC.
The mountain bikers and hikers were volunteers with Tonto Gravity Riders (TGR), a nonprofit organization dedicated to building and maintaining trails in the Pinal Mountains, as well as conducting advocacy work to bring the Pinals into the limelight and get more recreationists into the mountains.
The work on that Sunday in early December was part of a push by TGR to finish trail restoration on the last half-mile of Icehouse Trail before cold weather and snow brings an end to the season. By the end of the day, crew members figured there were about four more days of brush work left to open Icehouse and lower Telephone Trails.
Founded in 2010 as a grassroots group, TGR originally consisted of mountain bikers who drove up from the Valley on weekends to ride trails like Sixshooter Canyon, Telephone and Icehouse. The term “gravity riders” in their name was a nod to the nature of riding in the Pinals – from the top of the mountain, the only way to ride is downhill.
TGR President Chris Johnson, who has been a serious mountain biker and trail builder since around 2005, said the Pinal Mountains are great for mountain biking, offering an uncrowded, off-the-beaten-path vibe.
“The main thing is all these trails are downhill in nature, so they drop about 3,000 feet off the top of the mountain,” he said. “You can imagine you start off in ponderosa pines with wide, expansive views up top, and as you’re coming down the trails, you get treated with views across the valley toward Roosevelt that are just breathtaking. As you come down, you come through so many life zones – you go from aspens and ponderosas to scrub and lower desert, so the ecosystem itself is extremely unique.”
As one of the main user groups on the Pinal trails, mountain bikers like Johnson felt compelled to start spending time not only riding but also volunteering to keep the trails maintained. That was the impetus behind the formation of TGR in 2010, and their hard work soon caught the attention of local U.S. Forest Service officials.
“We were approached by the Forest Service,” Johnson said. “They liked our dedication and our work ethic and wanted to work with us, so we came onboard in an official status.”
TGR attained 501(c)(3) status in 2021, and they’re now the Forest Service’s go-to people for trail restoration and maintenance in the Pinals. Core membership stands at around 60 people, but on any given Sunday, there might be only five or six volunteers on the trail. On Saturdays, Johnson often works alone.
“I’ll find myself out here by myself sometimes. I can move along pretty quickly and get more work done,” Johnson said. “Right now, until Mother Nature pushes us out, we’re coming as frequently as we can, no matter how many or how little people we have. Every amount of work we do gets us closer to that goal.”
The main push to restore trails on the northern side of Pinal Mountain started two years ago, in the wake of the 2021 Telegraph Fire, which burned more than 180,000 acres in Tonto National Forest near Globe and Miami. The fire occurred in June, but starting trail restoration had to wait until October, after the end of monsoon season.
During the two years since then, TGR volunteers have finished restoration on Sixshooter Canyon Trail and Kellner Canyon Trail, both of which have been officially reopened by the Forest Service. In the past several weeks, the focus had been on Telephone and Icehouse Trails.
“We’re two years in now, and we’re just finally getting to the last two major trails that come up off of this north side,” Johnson said. “We’re in the process of doing restoration work on Telephone, and then of course we’re still working on Icehouse because it sustained pretty heavy flood damage that we’re working through, reestablishing tread that’s been basically erased off the mountain.”
In November, a large part of the work consisted of cutting back plants encroaching on Telephone Trail that threatened to make the path disappear into the landscape of the mountains.
“It’s been quite a big task because it’s quite heavily overgrown. A lot of it you couldn’t actually hike through,” Johnson said. “Up near the top [of Telephone Trail], the last half mile, if you don’t have route-finding skills, you’re lost. You’re not going to find your way through. It’s been burned heavily that bad, and new growth has come in to where you can’t even see where the trail once was.”
Clearing the path of unwanted plants is preparation for volunteers to come back through and do actual trail maintenance, which entails cleaning up the tread, and installing drains or cleaning existing drains to mitigate damage from erosion.
“It’s quite exaggerated when it comes to fires because after the fires, there’s nothing on the ground to slow the water down, so it picks up speed, which takes away more sediment,” Johnson said. “So, keeping the treads clean and the drains clean is a big part of the maintenance.”
TGR aims to have Telephone and Icehouse ready for reopening in spring of 2024. Once work on a particular trail is complete, TGR notifies the Forest Service that it’s now safe for the public and that users will be able to find the route.
“That’s the important thing, you don’t need people getting lost. After the fire, you get a lot of floods, you get a lot of overgrowth that obscures the trail. Users start following cattle paths and stuff like that,” Johnson said, adding, “Some of it, too, is getting signs reinstalled. The Forest Service is in the process of getting signs reinstalled, and we’re also replacing signs so users are able to know which direction to go and which trail they’re on.”
Telephone and Icehouse are the last two major trails on the north side of Pinal Mountain that will be restored. Some of the other trails on the mountain will be decommissioned because their usage was always low and damage from the fire was too great.
The trade-off is that TGR has developed a master plan, which they have proposed to the Forest Service, that would add new recreational opportunities for mountain bikers, hikers and campers. Among the proposals is a 6.5-mile loop trail at the top of the mountain, which will allow flatter, cooler hiking during the summertime at 7,000 feet. The plan has not yet been officially approved, nor is there a time frame for completion.
In the meantime, trail work continues lower down the mountain. Sheryl Cormack, the U.S. Forest Service’s recreation management specialist for Tonto National Forest’s Globe Ranger District, said that without the work of TGR volunteers, the trails would not be open in the Pinals in the aftermath of the 2021 Telegraph Fire.
“They really came to bat for us, and every winter they’re up there until it snows, and then once they can get up there after the snow melts, they’re back up there every weekend doing brush work and tread work, doing a lot of water bars, real intense trail building,” Cormack said. “Without their partnership, we wouldn’t have the trails open. We really appreciate what they’re doing for us and how they’re helping us.”
TGR Volunteer Brenda Stroud moved to Arizona from Lake Tahoe two years ago. She’s one of the small number of volunteers who prefers hiking to mountain biking.
“I’m not a city girl. I love doing work like this, so I decided to join them,” she said. “This is my serenity, coming up here, having a purpose, helping them out, helping the hikers and the bikers, so it works out pretty good. I like it.”
TGR board member James Vanvorst has been a mountain biker for more than 20 years, and many of those he has spent riding in the Pinals.
“I’ve always enjoyed working on trails and being outside, so it’s great to come out here and maintain these trails so we can have fun riding them and so other people can come out and enjoy them as well,” he said. “It’s just a great way to be out and hang with cool people and do something you can see the results of right away. That’s really important: make the trails more sustainable and more fun so that we’ve got them for generations.”
Johnson said he would like to see more involvement from the public – including more volunteers from the Globe area.
“Of course, we’d like to get more locals from Globe involved,” he said. “It takes a special breed of person to come spend your free time to enhance everybody’s user experience for an area. The more support we get on that end, it also helps show the Forest Service that it’s not just a small group of people that are interested in mountain biking, but the recreational possibilities provided are drawing in people from different areas.”
More information about Tonto Gravity Riders, including how to volunteer, can be found on the organization’s website at http://www.tontogravityriders.org or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/TontoGravityRiders.
This story originally appeared in the Dec. 6, 2023, edition of Arizona Silver Belt.
Kodiak Spotlight: Wilderness mystery writer Robin Barefield
Robin Barefield knows the Kodiak wilderness. For more than 30 years, she has worked as a naturalist and guide at Munsey’s Bear Camp at remote Uyak Bay on the western end of the island.
Barefield owns the camp with her husband Mike, and they live there year-round. Using the knowledge she gained from earning a master’s degree in fish and wildlife biology from the University of Hawaii, she spends her summers taking guests bear viewing, whale watching and sport fishing.
Given her long-standing familiarity with Kodiak’s outdoors, it only made sense that when she started writing mystery novels, the island’s rugged terrain and tempestuous weather would factor heavily in her stories.
“Kodiak is just such a wonderful backdrop for anything,” Barefield said. “But for a mystery novel, you’ve got the environment, you’ve got the ocean, you’ve got the difficult terrain, you’ve got bears, the weather, so many different things that can play into it. I try to use the environmental aspects as much as I can.”
From the start, Barefield’s mystery writing has been deeply rooted in her own experiences. Her first story unfolded unexpectedly as she sat in the hospital with her mother, who was battling cancer.
“I sat with her every day. It was very depressing, so I started to write down my feelings,” Barefield said. Before she realized it, her anguished journaling had veered into the realm of fiction.
“I had this character who had been sitting in the hospital with her mother and she goes out on a drive to get away from everything for a bit. She started to think about all the things she would never be able to do with her mother again,” she said.
“Then, all of a sudden, this guy goes off the road and she goes to help him, and he tells her this mysterious message, and that starts the mystery. I just laughed because it’s like, here I am sitting here and I’m supposed to be writing my feelings down, and I murdered somebody.”
That brief scene sowed the seeds for a story that Barefield would work on for the next 10 years. It eventually grew into her first novel “Big Game,” which she self-published as an e-book in 1992. The story involves a band of politicians hatching a sinister plot in a remote Alaskan hunting lodge.
Since then, her mystery novels have come more quickly. The manuscript for her second book, “Murder Over Kodiak,” caught the attention of Evan Swensen of Anchorage-based Publication Consultants.
Swensen said that when he read “Murder Over Kodiak,” he knew right away that it was a book he wanted to publish.
“Most of our Alaska-themed books were nonfiction biographies. We needed a good Alaska mystery author, and we felt that Robin would fit that bill — we haven’t been disappointed,” he said. “She’s a book publisher’s ideal author. Readers of Dana Stabenow, C.J. Box, Joseph Haywood, Craig Johnson and Keith McCafferty will love Robin’s works.”
Publication Consultants has been publishing Barefield’s novels ever since. She followed “Murder Over Kodiak” with “The Fisherman’s Daughter” in 2017 and, most recently, “Karluk Bones” in 2019.
Although Barefield originally thought of her stories as straight mysteries with a “whodunit” angle — early influences included writers like Sue Grafton and Dick Francis — she has come to be known as a “wilderness mystery author.”
“I never actually read any wilderness mysteries and didn’t really think of myself as writing wilderness mysteries. I just set the characters in the place I knew, which is the Kodiak wilderness. So my publisher called me a wilderness mystery author, and I thought, ‘Oh, maybe I am a wilderness mystery author,’” she said.
For Barefield, though, the categorization of her stories seems of secondary importance to the writing itself.
“I started writing and I’ve just never quit. I love writing stories, I love telling stories, I love making up stories. I don’t have a background in writing, but I just use what I know. I studied and I learned as I went.”
What she knows is not only Kodiak but also wildlife biology. The main character in her novels, Jane Marcus, is a fisheries biologist who works at a marine center in Kodiak. Whale necropsies and paralytic shellfish poisoning have played roles in her plots.
Getting the science right in realms beyond biology is also important. For “Karluk Bones,” whose storyline involves the discovery of human remains in the middle of Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge, Barefield did extensive research to figure out what information forensic anthropologists could glean from the study of bones, such as how long the person has been dead and how old they were at the time of death.
For many people, balancing life as a bear camp owner, naturalist and prolific mystery writer would be enough to keep them busy. But not Barefield. She also finds time to produce a true crime newsletter and podcast.
The online newsletter came first, stemming from her desire to find more readers for her books. There is a crowded market for mystery novels, so she was advised to create free content that would introduce new readers to her writing.
“If they like your writing, they’ll want to read more of it and they’ll be willing to pay for it,” Barefield said. “I thought, true crime is so popular, Alaska is so popular. True crime in Alaska has got to be a goldmine.”
For someone who mostly wrote fiction, which gives the author complete freedom of invention, she found writing true crime to be much harder than anticipated because of the research involved and the grisly content of the stories, not to mention the challenge of turning passive historical facts into engaging tales.
“I always pick an Alaska crime or a mysterious disappearance that I hear about or read about. I’m always researching,” she said, adding, “It’s tougher and it’s darker because you’re writing about real people and real murders. … A lot of them are so crazy, I don’t think anyone would believe them as a plot.”
Eventually, some of her newsletter subscribers suggested that she start a true crime podcast. At first, she resisted the idea, but then she started looking into it and realized it might be another fun outlet for her urge to tell stories. Her husband built her a small office at the bear camp with a sound studio in the corner, and the “Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier” podcast was launched.
Her first episode was about a 1983 murder spree in McCarthy, Alaska, that was part of a convoluted, and ultimately unsuccessful, plan to steal a mail plane and blow up the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. More recently, she did a podcast on the Birdman of Alcatraz, whose original crime was killing a man in a Juneau bar.
The podcasts have helped Barefield gain more attention for her work. She’s received multiple enquiries from the producers of true crime television shows who wanted to interview her, or who were searching for information on crime in Alaska.
“The podcast has been the most successful thing I’ve done by far, but it isn’t the thing I like to do the most. I’d much rather write my novels,” Barefield said. “But it reaches so many more people. I think it might be a sad statement that not many people read anymore.”
Yet another one of Barefield’s ongoing projects is her nature blog. Many of the posts about animals and the environment are inspired by questions that guests at Munsey’s Bear Camp have asked during guided excursions. Those questions, and their answers, grew into the idea to write a book about Kodiak’s wildlife, a project that Barefield has been working on for about 10 years.
“Our spring season last year [at the bear camp] was completely canceled, and then our summer was about 50%. I got a lot more writing done. I finally said, this is getting finished,” Barefield said.
The resulting book, “Kodiak Island Wildlife: Biology and Behavior of the Wild Animals of Alaska’s Emerald Isle,” will be released by Publication Consultants at the end of April. It will feature not only Barefield’s writing, but also her husband’s photographs.
Barefield describes “Kodiak Island Wildlife” as more in-depth than a simple guidebook. It focuses on the island’s endemic mammals, as well as those introduced to the environment by humans. Ocean and avian species are also covered, including sea otters, sea lions, porpoises, whales, bald eagles, puffins and arctic terns.
“The Kodiak bear is a huge section, of course. I talk about the biology, bear and human interaction, the crazy history the bears have on this island, management,” she said. “I didn’t spend a long time, say, on caribou because there’s some on the south end of the island but it’s not a major animal that most people are going to run into here.”
Aside from “Kodiak Island Wildlife,” other Barefield projects that will hit the shelves later in the year include her fifth mystery novel, which she hopes will be out by the fall, and a true crime book based on stories she has published in her online newsletter. She has about 60 stories — enough for two books — but will start by publishing a single volume with some of the major Alaska crime stories.
In the midst of all these projects, Barefield’s primary motivation remains a simple love of writing, which includes her dedication to bringing Kodiak to life for her readers.
“For me, writing just relaxes my brain. It’s a great pastime. It’s something I love. I don’t think you go into writing to make money. You hope that happens. But you go into writing because you love to write,” she said.
Hopefully I describe [Kodiak] well. The best compliments I get from people is when they say, ‘Oh I love this, it just brought back Kodiak to me when I was there or when I visited.’ That’s what I’m trying hard to do.”
Robin Barefield’s website can be found at http://robinbarefield.com, where she writes a blog about Kodiak wildlife. Her “Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier” podcast be found at https://murder-in-the-last-frontier.blubrry.net. She is also a charter member of Author Masterminds: https://authormasterminds.com/robinbarefield. Her books can be purchased online through Publication Consultants (https://publicationconsultants.com/).
Like water frozen in time: A hike to The Wave
One morning last May, I was sitting in my kitchen in Page, Arizona, drinking coffee and trying to decide what I wanted to do on my birthday, which was two days away. For starters, I would be a no-show at work, which, of course, everyone should do on their birthday. The other plan that came to mind was riding my mountain bike from Big Water, Utah, to Alstrom Point in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, a ride whose roundtrip distance would roughly approximate the age I would be turning – 56.
But I also thought it would be fun to spend the day hiking to The Wave, located in the Coyote Buttes North Special Management Area of Pariah Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness. The catch was that the hike requires a permit from the Bureau of Land Management, which are allocated by lottery and can be particularly difficult to get in the popular hiking month of May. I decided to apply anyway and hope for the best. I’m generally not a lottery-winning type of person, so in the meantime, I started making a mental list of everything I would need to carry for a day-long mountain bike ride to Alstrom Point and back.
That evening I checked my email and, to my surprise, saw the congratulatory message from recreation.gov – I had scored a permit for me and my wife to The Wave. I logged into the website and confirmed that I would accept the permit. The next step was attending the mandatory orientation meeting the following morning in Page.
There were two other groups at the orientation: A 30-something couple from Prescott who had been trying for a Wave permit for four years, and four women from North Carolina, who mentioned that, coming from sea level, they could already feel the effects of Page’s 4,500-foot elevation while walking around town.
The orientation, led by a knowledgeable staff member at the Page Lake Powell Hub Visitor Center, offered safety advice for walking in the desert (carry 1 gallon of water per person, eat salty snacks, wear sunscreen), rules for hiking in the permit area (groups must stay together, walking sticks must be equipped with rubber tips to avoid damaging the rocks), and directions for the 3.2-mile hike from Wire Pass Trailhead to The Wave, since there is no marked trail through Coyote Buttes North. Hikers are given a cue sheet with numbered directions and photographs of geological formations to use as navigations aids.
Another bit of advice was to get an early start by arriving at the trailhead by dawn, which at that time of year was around 6:30 a.m. But according to the weather forecast, the temperature wouldn’t rise much above 80 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the day. Being residents of the Southwest, my wife and I often hike in hot weather, so we weren’t too concerned about getting a super-early start. We took the time to make pancakes for breakfast before embarking on the hour-long drive to the trailhead – west on Highway 89 for 36 miles, then south on unpaved, dusty, bumpy House Rock Road for 8.2 miles. We arrived around 8 a.m. Utah time, and there were already five or six cars in the parking lot, including the group from North Carolina.
We took our time getting started, making sure our water bottles and snacks were packed comfortably, applying sunscreen and signing the trail registry. As we set out along Coyote Wash, we were a few hundred feet behind the North Carolinians, but as we left the wash after about half a mile and started walking uphill, they stopped to rest. My wife and I paused to say hello as we passed, and they said they were starting to feel the effects of the elevation – around 5,000 feet at that point. They would be fine, though, just a little slower than they had anticipated. We would cross paths again at The Wave later in the day.
The rainy spring in the West had resulted in an abundant desert wildflower season, and although Coyote Buttes North is not particularly famous for its blooms, we did spot small clusters of reddish-orange Indian paintbrush, purple larkspur, and white and yellow primrose. At the same time, there hadn’t been much rain or wind during the previous two weeks, so the abundance of footprints made it easy to follow the unmarked “trail” as we crossed the sandy plain toward our next navigation point, a small saddle on a sandstone ridge on the horizon.
Once across the ridge, the terrain became rocky and uneven, with no footprints to follow. But we could see distinct geological formations in the distance for which we could aim. We saw no other hikers across the miles in front of us. The morning was sunny and cool as we traversed the landscape, the vast expanse of Pariah-Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness extending off to the left and Coyote Buttes rising sharply to our right.
Some of the slickrock formations looked like melted sherbet, others like jagged, knife-edged extrusions from the underworld. We skirted rocks that looked like colossal, scaled pinecones, and walked over others that we imagined could be the brains of petrified giants. The colors occurred in countless subtle variations of white, brown, yellow, red and green.
There was plenty to see, but hiking over the craggy, off-camber rocks also required paying attention to where we stepped. Anyone not accustomed to walking on terrain other than smooth trails or level sidewalks will find that they’re using leg and foot muscles they don’t normally use, which can make the hiking a bit more challenging and fatiguing than expected.
The most difficult part of the hike is the last steep sand embankment just before The Wave, which, with the loose, shifting soil, can feel like a game of one step forward, two steps back. Even when taken slowly and patiently, it can be a leg-burning aerobic workout.
At the top, just before entering The Wave, we encountered the first hikers we had seen since passing the North Carolina group – a couple with a pair of dogs who must have gotten an early start and were starting their trek back to the trailhead. With their departure, we had The Wave all to ourselves.
As the name suggests, the rock formation looks like brilliantly striated, undulating water frozen in time. Standing in its center was like being encased in a womb of flowing color. We stood there for a long time, simply absorbing the atmosphere and unexpected silence. Then we leapt into action, checking out angles and sightlines, and positioning ourselves for the obligatory flurry of photographs to post online and prove to the world that we had been there.
Our solitude lasted for about 30 minutes before the hikers behind us started arriving, at which point my wife and I headed deeper into the wilderness. There are several named geological features beyond The Wave for which hikers can aim – The Second Wave, Melody Arch, Top Rock Arch, The Alcove among them – but we didn’t have any destination in mind other than prolonging the hike and enjoying the colors, formations and views in every direction. Spending at least a few minutes exploring the area beyond The Wave is highly recommended for those who have the time and energy to spare. We spent about two hours walking a couple extra miles, taking photographs and simply sitting and basking in our surroundings.
By the time we headed back through The Wave, the North Carolina group had arrived and were engaged in their own photo-storm. My wife volunteered to take a group photo for them, which they greatly appreciated. We also met a woman in her 60s – a fit hiker from Kanab equipped with rubber-tipped walking sticks who was working as a volunteer checking permits and dispensing information about the area.
As we prepared to head back to our car, we encountered the couple from Prescott at the top of the steep, sandy slope just outside The Wave. They were accompanied by their three kids, all of whom had paused to empty the sand from their shoes. As we started down, we said hello to another couple who had stopped for a rest halfway up the steep slope. It’s not a long climb, but it can knock the wind out of those who try to go up too quickly.
Now that we were oriented to the area, on the return trip my wife and I wandered a bit from the straight-and-narrow path we had taken on the way to The Wave, checking out the expansive views to the east and exploring some side canyons to the west. We got passed by the volunteer from Kanab several times – she was hiking much faster than us, but she stopped several times to talk to groups that had started their hike later in the day and were still heading out toward The Wave.
Meanwhile, the afternoon temperature had crept into the low 80s, but a cool, moderate breeze kept the air feeling just about perfect for hiking. By the time we got back to the car, we had walked about 8 miles in 6.5 hours – four of that actually moving, according to the app I use to track my hikes, and the remaining 2.5 standing still and gawking at the landscape.
On the drive back to Page, I mulled the fact the hiking to The Wave didn’t mean I had lost the opportunity to pedal my mountain bike to Alstrom Point. I would be 56 for a whole year – plenty of time to tackle the ride.
This story was originally published in the Fall 2023 edition of Gateway to Canyon Country.
Five lessons from a legendary cycling coach
Late last month, I read the news that renowned cycling coach Eddy Borysewicz had died from COVID-19 at the age of 81 in his native Poland. He was well-known, among other things, for preparing U.S. cyclists for medal-winning performances in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, and for helping develop a young Greg LeMond into the first American to win the Tour de France in 1986. (Earlier this month, LeMond became the first cyclist, and only the 10th individual athlete in history, to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.)
Borysewicz, or Eddy B. as he was known, also played a key role in the development of an entire generation of young wannabe bike racers in the 1980s, including me.
I started racing in 1983 at the age of 15. At that time, detailed information about cycling was hard to obtain in places like rural Pennsylvania, where I grew up. My “training” consisted of riding 25 to 40 miles a day through the hills around my hometown – good enough to prepare me for small local events, but not enough to avoid getting thrashed at the regional level by faster, fitter cyclists.
Something essential was lacking in my training program. Then, in early 1985, along came a book titled “Bicycle Road Racing: A Complete Program for Training and Competition” by Eddy Borysewicz. It opened my eyes to the concept of carefully planned, year-long training programs. To be competitive in May, I learned, training started in December, and each day of the week must be dedicated to a specific aspect of race fitness: endurance, tempo, intervals, sprints, recovery.
My copy of “Bicycle Road Racing” was lost years ago, and much of its 20th century wisdom has long since been supplanted by updated training techniques. But I recently looked through an old copy of the book at the local library, which helped jog my memory about a few of the other ways Eddy B. influenced my approach to the sport.
1. Bicycle racing is hard, so toughen up
Sample quote: “In Poland I have trained when the temperature was 5-10 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit). There was no such thing as saying, ‘Oh, it’s so cold. We will train if it warms up tomorrow.’”
As a young, ambitious cyclist, I took Eddy B.’s admonishment about training in bad weather to heart. I was out on my bicycle in all conditions, whether it was endurance rides in the chill air of January, intervals in the steady rains of April, or sprints on sweltering afternoons in July. There was a sense of accomplishment, even pride, in returning from a hard, three-hour training ride soaked to the bone and frozen half to death. As I have grown older, I’ve become less dedicated to cycling in inclement weather, but sometimes it can’t be helped: In June 2019, I signed up for the 130-mile Michigan Mountain Mayhem event near Traverse City. During the first four hours of my seven-hour ride, rain poured from the clouds and the temperature hovered in the mid-40s. The reward was finishing the tough, hilly course in the beautiful, warm sunshine that followed the storm.
2. Intense, sustained concentration is required
Sample quote: “Racing takes great power of concentration. Many a rider has failed to concentrate for one moment and suddenly found himself at the rear of the field. This is the most dangerous position because there is no self-determination.”
This is one of the hardest aspects of bicycle racing, which those who have never participated in the sport have trouble understanding: the need to maintain laser focus from start to finish, even throughout a four-hour race. One momentary lapse in awareness could mean being out of position during a crucial point in the race or, even worse, going down in crash. Over the years, I have also dabbled in running and even trained up for the 1997 Los Angeles Marathon. Although I would never describe running 26.2 miles as “easy,” the luxury of being able to zone out for minutes at a time over the course of four hours made it far less mentally taxing than even the shortest bike race.
3. Bicycle racing is a contact sport
Sample quote: “If you bothered me when I was racing I would hit you with my rear wheel – bang it right into your front wheel and knock you down if you weren’t a good bike handler. I would say, ‘You want to play? What kind of game do you want? I’m ready for anything. C’mon!’”
Thankfully, the majority of cyclists (including me) never indulged in such dubious or dangerous tactics. But we needed to be prepared for those who did. More often, though, contact during races was unintentional, the result of riders not paying attention (see previous lesson), or swerving to avoid a dropped water bottle, or simply lacking the skills to hold their line through a corner. Dealing properly with unexpected physical contact while speeding down the road at 25mph meant honing bike-handling skills on easy training days: for example, finding a grassy field to ride across at slow speed with teammates while bumping elbows, handlebars, and wheels. The object was to learn how to ride straight, stay upright, and, if necessary, push back without going down. Unfortunately, this is a lesson that many road racers in the U.S. still have not embraced, and too many of them don’t spend time developing these skills. As European cyclists are fond of saying, Belgian grandmothers have better bike-handling skills than most American professionals.
4. Data and metrics can improve training
Sample quote: [After nine minutes of hard effort on the indoor trainer, stop and take your pulse.] “Do this with your fingertips on the carotid artery beside your Adam’s apple. … If it is 170 beats per minute this schedule is perfect. If it is 160 or less the work was too easy and you should use bigger gears. … When you get 180 or more the work was too hard and you should use lower gears. When your pulse exceeds 180 on the first set you won’t be able to handle the second one.”
This was the first time I had heard about paying attention to heart rate. Of course, using your fingers to take your pulse in the middle of a training ride is less than ideal, and has long since gone the way of the dodo thanks to technology. Also, it is woefully unscientific to suggest that all athletes should train based on the same heart rate levels. (According to the old 220-minus-age formula, my maximum heart rate should be 167, but in practice I still reach the low 180s during interval sessions.) Now, with heart rate monitors and power meters dominating the training landscape, it’s hard to remember that long-ago era when I measured my cycling efforts purely according to my own perceived exertions while chugging up the hills of central Pennsylvania.
5. Proper nutrition is important (but don’t always take dietary advice from an old-time European coach)
Sample quote: “You may burn twice as many calories in a four-hour road race as a factory worker will burn in a full day. To replenish these calories you must eat food that is necessary as well as food that you like. For example, I never ate horse meat in my life until an eight-year period when I was racing. Horse is considered very good meat because it has no fat. In Europe riders eat it a lot. It is also much cheaper than beef and pork. But horse meat? It didn’t sound good at all. At first I ate only a little, then more, and then I was eating a lot. I rode well on it. When I stopped cycling I stopped eating it.”
This was one of the most memorable passages in the book, and in the 1980s it resulted in baffled parents of young cyclists across the country fielding queries about where to source horse meat. But it did help me realize that I had to put more thought into what went into my body to fuel my training and racing program – a lesson that seems increasingly important as I grow older.
Above: The author in action in a bike race somewhere in New Jersey circa 1988, while riding for the New Age Cycling Team based in State College, Pennsylvania.
Kodiak Spotlight: Bear biologist Joy Erlenbach
This article was originally published in the July 17, 2020, edition of Kodiak Daily Mirror newspaper.
Joy Erlenbach didn’t spend much time outdoors as a kid. One of four children of a single mom who was always working, Erlenbach never really had the chance to go outside except to do chores.
So to this day, she says, it boggles her mind to think about how and why she became enamored of wilderness experiences.
The love affair started when she was a teenager in Burlington, Washington.
“When I was in high school, a friend and I saw an advertisement for a search and rescue organization that needed volunteers, and so I joined and went through a bunch of training,” she said. “That was my introduction to backpacking and surviving in the woods. And I just sort of fell in love with being outside.”
Meanwhile, Erlenbach had always harbored a love for animals that made her think she would someday become a veterinarian, but as she spent more time outdoors, she realized she didn’t want to become a zookeeper or spend her days working in a vet’s office.
“I wanted to be outside with the animals,” she said. “When I was researching degrees for college, I stumbled upon wildlife ecology, and I read the description and it was like light bulbs went off – this is it, I get to be outside with animals, this is what I want to do.”
In 2004 she started the wildlife ecology program at Washington State University, which is home to one of the few facilities in the world that houses adult brown bears for research.
“I guess that’s where it all started because I got to interact with bears at pretty close range like most people don’t get to do,” Erlenbach said, adding that her early volunteer work at the research facility mostly consisted of “just shoveling poop and helping feed the bears a couple times a week.”
But she also began getting a sense that each bear had a unique character, at a time when there was not a lot of discussion among wildlife ecologists about animal personality.
Her interest in bears was reinforced when she was asked to join a research project in Yellowstone National Park, during which she spent a summer tracking bears and measuring what they were eating. She got to see firsthand how resilient and adaptable wild animals could be, as they survived in an area characterized by frequent interactions with park visitors.
“The bears could switch from day-active to nocturnal, and mediate those risks between encountering humans in the park,” she said. “They could exist by doing all these different strategies. Some bears ate elk calves, some bears didn’t. Some bears hung out at streams, some bears hung out at high elevations. The variety really got me.”
Erlenbach went on to earn her master’s degree, with a focus on the nutritional ecology of bears — what they eat and why — as well as some study into behavior. Not considering herself to be a “standard academic type,” she thought her university career had reached its conclusion. When the opportunity to apply for a Ph.D. program in Alaska arose in 2014, her initial response was to say no.
At the same time, she recalled photographs of Alaska that a graduate student had shared with her when she was an undergrad, and she also knew she wanted to keep working with bears.
“Just seeing the pictures, I fell in love with the scenery and had in the back of my mind this idea that I wanted to go to Alaska,” Erlenbach said. “The Ph.D. project was really amazing, and I talked to a lot of people and they sort of convinced me that I just had to do this.”
The project involved spending four years in Katmai National Park studying the link between coastal bears and the marine environment — more specifically, what consequences oil spills, climate change, ocean acidification, warming water and other factors might have on the animals.
The project also brought Erlenbach one step closer to Kodiak. During her research, she would spend a month camping along the coast while conducting bear observations, and then head back to civilization to shower and restock food before returning to the coast for another month.
“I had spent four years over in Katmai staring at Kodiak,” she said. “Kodiak was one of our ways that we reported weather. If we could see Kodiak, that meant it’s a good day because there weren’t that many rain clouds between us and Kodiak. So I stared at Kodiak for years and always went, ‘Gosh, I wonder what’s over there.’”
After the Katmai project was completed, Erlenbach returned to Washington. She was preparing to defend her Ph.D. when some friends told her they had seen a job posting for a bear biologist at Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge that seemed perfect for her.
She looked at the posting, agreed that it was an ideal fit for her experience and interests, and promptly applied. She was in the middle of a trip to Thailand — a pre-graduation present to herself — when she was notified that she was going to have an interview for the job, which she ultimately landed.
“It was all pretty crazy,” she said. “I knew there was a history of a lot of really great bear research here (in Kodiak), and so to be able to come into a position where I knew there was a history of good research and an opportunity for good future research was pretty appealing.”
Erlenbach arrived in Kodiak on March 1 to take up her position as the refuge’s new bear biologist, and promptly sprained her ankle on her third day here. The injury prevented her from immediately making it out into the field, but gave her plenty of time to start digging into the data that has been collected over the years about the island’s bears.
“The first thing I’m doing is taking stock of what all the past surveys are saying, and … making sure we really understand where we’re at with populations, and whether there’s any reason for concern going forward or if we think everything is fine,” she said. “Kodiak bears are so iconic and it’s so well known for its hunting. I think the main issue is just making sure that we continue to keep the bear population thriving.”
Erlenbach said there’s a fair amount of evidence showing that changes in salmon populations are occurring around the world, so it was important to look at salmon abundance in the areas where refuge bears are consuming them, how changes in salmon abundance might be affecting the bears, and what can be done about it.
“Everything is connected, right? So it’s hard for me to point a finger at any one thing, especially at this point with being pretty new to the area,” she said. “But I think food supply is really high up there on my list of concerns. If animals are being affected by a dwindling food supply, then things like hunting can become more of a pressure than they were in the past. We just need to make sure that we don’t trend that way.”
As for Kodiak itself, Erlenbach said she has been “pleasantly surprised” by the town and the island.
“Never having been here, I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but it’s beautiful,” she said. “The people I’ve met have been really warm and welcoming.”
With her ankle sprain healing, she has also been able to get out and enjoy some of the local hikes, including Termination Point, Pyramid Mountain, Sharatin Mountain and Cope Mountain. But what she’s most anticipating is exploring more remote areas of the island away from the road system.
“I’ve been able to get out, and the hiking is awesome,” she said. “But I can’t wait to see the refuge because I hear it’s also pretty fantastic.”
Kodiak backyard hikes: Mission Beach gallery
Mission Beach is only about 1.5 miles from our apartment. Getting there involves walking through quiet neighborhoods rather than trail hiking. The beach is usually calm and quiet. People sometimes come to exercise their dogs, collect seaweed for fertilizer, or launch sea kayaks. We come to walk on the stones and the rippled black-and-tan sand, looking down in search of sea glass, looking up to breathe deeply and take in the ocean and the wide sky. On some days, silver-gray water melds with silver-gray clouds on the infinite horizon; on others, the blue waves shimmer with unimpeded sunlight. We’ve seen sea otters swimming and bald eagles searching the shoreline for food. We’ve skipped rocks, and we’ve simply sat watching the sunrise or the fishing boats coming to and from the harbor.
Kodiak Spotlight: Dedicated voter Margaret Hall passes away at 101
On October 28, I conducted a phone interview with 101-year-old Kodiak resident Margaret Hall about her lifelong commitment to voting, and how she considered participating in elections to be an “obligation” and a “duty.” She was friendly and sharp-witted, and at the end of the interview she thanked me for calling and listening to her opinions.
Two days later, she passed away. But her wise words resonate, particularly on this contentious Election Day, and are worthy of noting down for posterity.
Margaret was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1919 – one year before the enactment of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. Having gained this hard-won freedom in her lifetime, Margaret’s mother made sure her daughters grew up understanding its importance.
“I first voted in 1940 at age 21,” Margaret said. “It was very exciting because my mother had taken us three girls to the polls with her every single year, all the time, and she was always an advocate for women to vote.”
And so began Margaret’s lifelong commitment to voting, which she saw as the foundation of a democracy “of the people, by the people, for the people.” Like her mother, she also sought to pass her enthusiasm down to her own four daughters and two sons.
“The Constitution doesn’t say ‘we the president’ or ‘we the senators’ or ‘we the Supreme Court.’ It was written so it says, ‘We the People,’” she said.
The only presidential elections she missed were those in 1952 and 1956, following her move to the then-territory of Alaska in 1948. She said she found the inability to vote during that time “very frustrating.”
“For the first election (in 1952), I had just recently become a resident of Alaska,” Margaret said. “I could have still voted absentee in Minnesota had I not done that, but I had become a resident of Alaska so I couldn’t.”
When Alaska achieved statehood in 1959, she was finally able to start participating again in 1960.
“Probably the most memorable election would have been the first time I was able to vote in Alaska (in 1960) after I had not been able to vote for two elections because we were still a territory,” she said.
Margaret made her way to the polling station in every election thereafter, even as she saw a disappointing drop in interest in politics among her fellow citizens.
“I think voting has changed over the years. I don’t think people think it’s an obligation or a duty or a privilege anymore,” she said. “They just don’t feel it. They think ‘I can vote or not vote. I don’t need to vote. Nobody cares if I vote. I don’t know who to vote for.’ They have every excuse in the world for not voting.”
She also noticed a “definite” decline in civility among politicians — a shift that she said is readily apparent when older political speeches are compared with those offered up by some of today’s candidates.
“It’s changed. Well, the only word I can really think of is ‘uncouth,’” she said. “When one candidate gets up there and says he’s going to kick someone’s butt, I don’t care for that kind of language. I don’t use it and those things can be expressed in many other ways … I’m afraid it’s changed forever. I don’t think we’re going to go back to the same kind of polite, sensitive conversations we used to have.”
Margaret was also less than thrilled by the increase in over-the-phone polling in the days leading up to elections.
“I do not like people calling and asking me for my opinion on an issue,” she said. “I’m firmly convinced that the secrecy of the ballot is important.”
The deterioration of respectful political rhetoric aside, Margaret continued to believe in the integrity of the electoral process. She also had a message for those who have grown jaded about U.S. politics or who don’t think voting is worthwhile.
“Two things I would say: You need to wake up and realize that an organized minority can overrule an unorganized majority of the people of the country,” Margaret said. “And you also need to realize that you, as ‘the People,’ have an obligation and a privilege to vote that many people in many countries do not have.”
Kodiak backyard hikes: A spine-tingling animal encounter
Kodiak Island is a wild place. My wife Pauksi and I never set foot in the forest without carrying bear spray, and rare is the bike ride outside of town when I don’t spot at least one Sitka black-tailed deer crossing the road.
During a hike last weekend, we had an unusual encounter with a wary species of mammal that, up to that point, we had not yet seen on the island.
We started our walk by heading for Pillar Mountain, the base of which is only a few blocks away from our apartment. The sun was shining, and the temperature in town was cool but had not quite dipped below freezing during the night. As we gained elevation, though, we saw more frost as well as a few puddles topped with an icy glaze.
We hiked about three-quarters of the way up the 1,240-foot (378-meter) peak on the gravel access road, and then followed a forest path that branched off to the north and descended for a mile to a paved road leading out to White Sands Beach.
Another half mile of pavement walking brought us to a dirt lane leading not to White Sands Beach, which was 5 miles farther along the paved road, but to a coastal cove with black volcanic sand that we had previously seen from the mountaintop but had never visited.
After spending an hour or so eating lunch and hanging out at the beach, we set out to return home the same way we had come.
While walking back along the short stretch of paved road, I spotted movement in the bushes bordering the left shoulder up ahead. At first, I thought it was a small dog, but when the animal stepped out onto the road, I saw that it was a red fox. In its teeth was what appeared to be the spine of a rather large animal, which it was laboriously dragging across the road.
My wife and I stopped and watched from afar, but when the fox reached the other side of the road, it suddenly noted our presence, dropped its prize, and scampered up a steep embankment into the forest.
We slowly walked forward, stopping to look at the spine, which appeared fresh and bloody. I thought it might have belonged to a deer but wasn’t sure. I couldn’t imagine how a fox could have taken down such a large animal, and thought it more likely that the deer had been killed by a bear or hit by a car.
As we contemplated these possibilities, we realized the fox was still there, sitting motionless and observing us from the trees with its sharp, intelligent eyes. Was it merely curious, or was it waiting for us to leave so it could come back down and reclaim its food? For a few minutes, we watched the animal watching us. Then we moved on, retracing our steps over the mountain and back down to our neighborhood on the other side.
Kodiak backyard hikes: An autumn morning in North End Park
After a week of stormy weather that brought heavy rain and gale-force winds to Kodiak, the first Saturday in October dawned bright and clear. My wife and I were keen to get out of the house and enjoy the crisp fall weather.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of Kodiak is the amount of exploration that can be done without the need to get into a car and drive somewhere. Forest trails and beaches abound within a 3-mile radius of our apartment.
On this day, we headed for North End Park, just 1 mile from our front door on Near Island, which is accessible by bridge. With the previous week’s storms now passed, as we crossed the bridge, we were able to catch our first view in many days of the mountains to the west.
We entered the park the back way on Channelside Trail, which at the start is lined with salmonberry bushes that bear fruit in the summertime but whose leaves were just beginning to show the discoloration of approaching winter. Farther along, Sitka spruces and some deciduous trees started appearing. The mossy forest ticked with water droplets from the all-night rain that had tapered off shortly before we left our apartment.
Channelside led us to the Northend Trail system. We followed the path to a set of wooden stairs that descended to a rocky beach. The tide was low, and the shoreline was strewn with seaweed, tangles of bull kelp, and other debris washed up by the previous week’s high waves. At one end of the beach, a small, temporary waterfall cascaded down the rocks.
Re-entering the forest on the other side of the beach, we picked up a trail that took us to land’s end, providing a clifftop view of the ocean and local fishing boats heading to and from Kodiak’s two harbors.
From there, we followed the forested coast, where mushrooms sprouted in the shade beneath the trees and, on one occasion, an unseen but vocal squirrel bombarded us with pinecones from high up in a Sitka spruce tree.
We stopped at another small beach, drenched in sunshine and caressed by the cool wind blowing off the ocean. The calm was occasionally broken by small aircraft landing at the Near Island floatplane base.
We later happened across another interruption in the natural splendor of the forest in the form of a rusted vehicle dating back to World War II – a remnant of the U.S. military forced deployed on Kodiak to defend Alaska from invasion from Japan.
We eventually made our way back to the first beach, where the tide was reaching its highest point and the morning’s waterfall was now silent.
We climbed back up the stairs and followed the forest path through the tunnel of trees to exit the park at the main parking lot. A short walk back across the bridge to Kodiak Island had us home before noon.
Late for Nowhere 