AlaskaCross 2020: 27 Hours of Fun

 I looked up the definition to Type 2 fun to start out this report, and upon further review this may have been a Type 1.5 fun for me. 

Type 1 fun is fun the entire time you're doing the activity. Type 2 fun is usually more suffering, and will be considered fun anywhere from the last quarter mile, up to a few weeks after before you think it was fun. Type 3 fun isn't fun. It sucks. But you still forget the suck and remember the highlights, and it turns into Type 2 fun. 

I'm a type 2 fun junkie. Every now and then I branch into type 3 and it sucks but it's addicting. 

Ahhhh, AlaskaCross, such fun and such misery. How can I look back on you so lovingly? Livengood to Eureka, Brent Sass' homestead to be exact. About 100K of wilderness to attempt to run through.

This report includes such wonders as 24+ hours of nonstop movement, beautiful sunset/sunrises, the most mosquitoes I've ever seen in my 30 years of life in AK, bear tunnels, getting lost, wondering if my feet would ever be the same again, and much much more. I'll try to keep it concise and interesting and still make you want to run it next year.

THE START

There's not much info on this race to begin with. A few emails, a vague description of the start area, and a loose set of directions to the finish. Nothing quite gets you excited for a ~60 mile "race" like vague instructions. I drove up from Anchorage all night, got a few hours of sleep, and then met my buddy Daniel and we drove to the start up north of Livengood. 

There was only a car or two at the parking lot, where my buddy Brian Atkinson and his buddy Nick Janssen were getting ready, and my friend Matt Blood showed up, and some other guys I knew. The "race director" Mark Ross was there, wearing jeans and a crazy fur hat, goofing off and making fun of us. He handed out a sign in sheet, which asked if you had completed the Alaska Wilderness Classic before, and if you hadn't, you were a rookie and the butt of every joke until we started. I was a rookie. I planned to run this alone, because for such a "short" race, a partner would only make it more difficult. Matt went solo as well, and we both got lovingly harassed for this option.

There was a quick group photo, a short period of time where I wondered if short shorts really were the best idea since everyone else had long pants and gaiters, a downed can of Red Bull, and then the race instructions: "All you have to worry about is lightning and bears. Anyone bring too much food? Yeah? Ok, I'll leave my food in the car."  And we were off. 

THE PACK

I quickly ran to the front of the pack (All 18 of us) so I could know where the trail went. It was a super boggy, wet, marshy four wheeler trail through the black spruce. We dodged puddles, stepped on falsely stable tussocks, and mostly soaked our feet thoroughly in the first two miles. Just about 3 miles in, the main trail up to the ridge started. We stopped and listened to Brian and Nick and Bobby Gillis discuss staying low, and I decided to stick to my plan of taking the high road. I like ridges. 

Hiking up the ridge I passed everyone, and kept up a strong pace up to the ridge, along the sweet trail, and then the trail died out to a small trail that someone took a four wheeler on once in the past 5 years probably. It was still better than no trail, I tried. It was hard to stay on the trail, there were hidden bogs every few hundred yards, and this ridge went for 30 miles or so before changing. At least it was wide open with no brush and no bugs!

Looking back I could see everyone behind me, not too far, so I shifted out of "race mode" and into "endurance mode" and let Matt catch up. We chatted a bit, complained about how bad the trail was, expressed that we were glad that there WAS a trail, and then moved on. We were together until the alders started, and the mosquitoes got bad. Did I mention we were both in shorts? The bugs got so bad I stopped and pulled out my bug jacket, but it was still too hot for real pants so I sucked it up. I started bushwhacking through a nasty segment of alders, and the ankle pain from bushes whacking me prompted putting on my only pants, a pair of rain pants. 

THE PUSH

Somehow at this point I ended up behind Matt and a few others, and those people behind me got way behind me. From this point, it was about 18 hours before I talked to another person. I kept on, running when I could, as the Sawtooth Mountains finally got closer. At about 10pm, I came around the corner under the mountain, and looked down into Chocolate Creek drainage. There was a very muddy trail coming up from the Elliott Highway, and it went up and over a pass. I figured I'd aim for that pass and see if the trail went where I wanted to go. I worked my way down a moose trail through the willows, shouting "HEY BEAR!" every 5 seconds, and came upon a sweet old mining trail through a willow tunnel. At 11pm. In June. That's bear thirty to you who don't know.  On a narrow trail with nowhere to run with bear tracks and Salomon tracks down the middle. Well, at least Matt's been through here!

This trail was exquisite compared to the past thirty miles, and I ran a lot and enjoyed the views and old machine parts along the trail. But all good things come to an end, and I started coming to huge puddles that were difficult to get around, and ankle deep to go through. I fought through this for a mile or two before busting through the brush to my left to start my ridge traverse to the Hutlinana River, near the end.

The mosquitoes had been bad for a few hours. Like bug net, face covering, cursing these beasts for a few hours. I walked across this 2-mile wide valley at midnight, and hell descended on me in the form of mosquitoes. I couldn't believe how many there were. There were a ton INSIDE my head net, but thankfully they just wanted out. I breathed in lots of little protein packets. I thought when I got to the top of the ridge the wind would keep them at bay, so I hoofed it up there to the much anticipated relief. 

No relief. There was a little bit of wind, but not enough to relax. I looked downwind and there was a horde of winged hell hounds, just six inches away and trying for all their might to get to me. Sigh. No rest for the wicked. I started in on my maze like route of small ridges. 

I had marked on Gaia (gps smartphone app) my route, with key junctions and distances. Ridge travel comes pretty naturally to me, so I did some sanity checks along the way, but mainly just enjoyed my midnight travel of these sweet ridges. I hiked all the uphills, and ran all the downhills. I even found a tent with someone in it up on a ridge, in the middle of nowhere! Turns out it was Eric from Fairbanks, not racing, and not out in the mosquitoes. He heard me pass, but was smart and didn't open his tent.

At about 4:30am, after watching the sun set and rise for the past 3 hours, I got really really tired. This is the hardest time of night for me. I had some caffeine clif bars (They make coffee ones!!) and some caffeinated clif bloks, and drank some water, and then I kept moving. I was close to making it under 24 hours, and that would put me in 3 hours before the leaders the year prior, though I knew I was following at least one or two people. I could see their tracks occasionally, and their dropped red vines were delicious. (When you're tired and hungry and pushing for so long, something as random as a bit of red vine on the ground can make you really excited. Leave no trace, right?)

Around 6:30 I got to the last ridge before the Hutlinana, and then the six mile road to the finish. I was tired, but still excited to maybe finish really quick. I stopped and made sure I wanted to climb this huge now-treed ridge, and decided on it. As soon as I hit tree line, it started to pour rain. Out came the raincoat, and the mosquitoes held out for me, and on I went into a very wet and itchy ridge experience.

LOST?

Ok, climb to the top of the ridge, check. Hopefully find a moose trail, no such luck. Ok, work my way along the ridge, over heaps of deadfall, and everything is wet. It was tougher travel than I had hoped, but that's what I signed up for. Everything seemed to take longer than it should have, but finally I was in the right spot. All I had to do was cross over the ridge and down to the river. That's all. 

So I did. Up and over, start down a steep drainage that's very wet. Get halfway down, check my progress... and wait, I went down the wrong valley? I'm backtracking. Shoot. Ok, back up to the top. Figure out my direction, ok, I see my mistake, cross the ridge and head down. Get halfway down, check my progress... what? How did I do that twice? Another wrong gully! I guess being awake for 24 hours is making a difference right about now. Ok, so I hike up to the top. Spend extra time figuring out the way to go, follow my gps map super close, and start down. Third time's the charm, right? No. I don't know what I was doing wrong, but I was still going the wrong way. I went back to the top, sat down, and thought it out.

Maybe my gps app is screwed up. Ok, I'll use my inReach compass, and the satellite view on the map to go the right direction. It's hard to walk a straight line in deadfall and big wet trees. I finally get into the right drainage, and after triple checking my location, I decide it's right and navigate the worst bushwhack so far. Downhill, in bear central, and I'm so tired and frustrated that I don't even care about bears. I was definitely in an interesting state of mind. 

FINAL STRETCH

I got to the river, not where I wanted to, but it was the river so I was happy. I crossed a couple times, and that cold water felt so good on my waterlogged and sore feet. I came out in someone's backyard, so I backtracked and just bushwhacked straight through the woods to the road. They probably wouldn't have minded, but this is rural Alaska and people shoot first. Especially when you're a crazed runner who's been up all night and lost for the past 3 hours. 

The road is six miles to the finish, and it was so nice to be on a road. I ran for a while, despite my feet feeling super ravaged. I tried not to think about what my feet probably looked like, and kept on until I saw someone hobbling in the distance. I caught up, and it was Matt! His feet hurt too, bad enough that he could barely walk. The route he chose was wet the whole way, and his feet were trashed. Since he wasn't looking for company, I went on past and finished. 

I finished just under 27 hours. 26 1/2 hours, I think. 64 miles counting all those loops on the ridge. I was 5th out of 11 teams, and not too far behind the leaders. I would've been 3rd probably if I hadn't gotten turned around out there. Oh, and the mosquitoes were still awful, even at the finish. I started to hear thunder, and was really glad I got off those ridges before the lightning happened. 

THE LOWDOWN

This was a super fun race. Super Alaskan, very find-your-own-way, use your best outdoors skills kind of trip. It crossed a beautiful part of the state, and was both very wild and very desolate. I didn't see any live animals the whole way, only tracks. 

Upon talking to other people, everyone who crossed that last ridge I crossed got lost. People went all the way down wrong valleys and ended up bushwhacking 5 miles up nasty creeks, or going out onto the winter trail (it's summer) and having a bog fest. I think we were all expecting an average ridge, but it was a very flat almost plateau that was not easy to navigate on without a compass.

I didn't want to do this again for a long time. That's an indication of type 3 fun. But, I had fun while I was out there almost the whole time. That's type 1 fun. And now I want to do it again, which means it's type 2 fun. 

Thanks Mark Ross for a super fun AlaskaCross 2020 event! Maybe I'll try my legs (Or should I say, ankles) at it in 21.