The Need for Predicaments

Something I wrote up from an ill-advised trail ride about a year ago, and thought I'd post it here for those who enjoy some longer-format story telling : 

“I hate to recommend drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but it has always worked for me”

- Hunter S. Thompson

A narrow rut of sand and loose rocks; a thin thread of time marking the decay of granite mountains splits off the dead end double track loop. Heat rises from the idling engine of my moto, just warmed up from the ride back from our trail project.

I’m feeling a little zesty buzz as well from the ride, senses tingling from the dance between the trees on freshly groomed singletrack; a distinct feeling of “aliveness” after several weeks of hustling to wrap up projects, and mobilize equipment to the new one. Regardless of what you do for a living, it all comes down to being a job at some point, and I have felt my nose uncomfortably close to the grindstone for too long.

What lies before me is distinctly ungroomed, and unmarked. I have a vague sense of where the trail goes from a local description. I am in a half shell mtb helmet & skate shoes. I have no water, and no tools. No one knows where I am at if I drop in on this trail. In short, it is an immensely ill-advised adventure that beckons.

The wise thing would be to turn around and go back to camp, and stuff these wandering feelings of discontent down deep inside, and crack open a beer. I click into gear, circle around back to camp, lean my bike against my box trailer, and take off my helmet. A wave of depression and defeat washes over me, the ocean of the responsibilities of adult living tearing at the shores of my sanity.

When day to day life turns into a drudge march, sometimes what you need is a good predicament; the sort of adventure that you know is bound to become more complicated than you are prepared for. I generally consider myself a man of moderation, but anyone who has taken motorcycle down an unmarked & unknown trail knows that there is a high probability that some form of violence & insanity will likely be required to make it out the other side.

I put my helmet back on, pop the starter button, and head back for the trail. Barely a few bike lengths in, and a dead, silvery lodgepole pine  trunk is laying across the trail, an omen of things to come. It’s an easy blip of the throttle to get over, but I can’t help but start wondering what I’m getting myself into. The trail begins to drop down a ridge line through the jumbled remains of beetle kill pine, and forest fire. Downed trees quickly become the primary trail obstacle, either as dams holding back the eroding trail, or forcing a new curve in the trail to avoid the spikes of weathered grey. The series of stair steps are easy enough to navigate going down, but will be substantially more challenging if I have to make my way back up. I look for places to pull off and re-evaluate my decision, but the trail begins to drop steeper, the trees narrow, and forward is the only viable direction.

My bike teeter-totters down the log steps, I swoop through the rut berm turns, and try to balance between the giddiness of following a new trail, and the gravity of the situation I am getting myself into. Going downhill, the trail is moderately challenging, and opens into some faster, flowing sections as the terrain begins to flatten out. Each twist of the throttle, each corner carved commits me deeper into this unknown predicament; how will I gain back all the elevation I am losing?

At a low saddle in the ridgeline, I pause to look out over the fire-scarred landscape; blackened skeletons of pine trees rising from the granite boulders fringed by the new green growth of aspen & pine saplings. The contours of the landscape are more visible through the burn, but the scale & sweep of the landscape offers little consolation for the predicament I am getting myself into.

I vaguely recall something about a challenging hillclimb, but brush it off in the pleasure of the moment. “If it’s too bad, I can always turn around and ride back up,” but the thought of how little traction the logs steps will provide on my way back up begins an unsteady pirouette in the back of my brain.

The trail drops from the saddle down into a lush valley; the rut that was just a few inches deep suddenly becomes a foot peg deep chasm, lined with loose rocks ready to sweep you into the maw. Staying out of the bike-swalowing chasm requires clinging to the steep off-camber walls at the very edge of the trail through a combination of momentum & commitment; looking far down the trail at where you want to be, and ignoring all the ways that things could go wrong.

My feet in their flimsy cardboard & synthetic leather wrapping begin to feel like fragile bird bones at the edge of my very immobile engine cases, and I do my best not to think about what would happen if my foot were to be caught between native granite and finely engineered Austrian metal.

Even on rogue trails, I cannot turn off my trail builder brain, and find myself contemplating how just a few degrees of difference, a slight variance from the fall line to more of a contour across the verdant, sloping meadow would make the difference between the current gaping maw of rubble that defines the trail, and a sinuous ribbon of dirt tracing across the hillside.

The scraggly, rocky ridgeline transitions into lush grass and aspens at the bottom of the valley. The trail dives into a tunnel of dappled green light under the aspen thicket, the waving grass brushes against my pants, the damp dirt folds softly into the knobbies. It is just the sort of singletrack dance I dream of; I slide further forward on the bike, twist the throttle a little more, and weight my toes on the pegs. Even in the midst of this giddy elation, a foreboding lurks. 

A small creek trickles over a miniature gravel bar, overhanging branches slap at my face, basketball size rocks litter the trail, I ping-pong through the rut, and suddenly the trail turns into a vertical elk escalator; a parallel series of yawning scars across the landscape fitting of a Balrog were clawing out the depth of Khazad-Dum. Skeletons of downed trees litter the slope, time-sharpened snags reaching up from the rock.

My throttle hand snaps from happy cruising to panic rev, flogging all 35 ponies into a mad scrambling of rubber knobbies into the scree as my bike tilts toward the sky, and all the alarm bells of the potential predicament I’ve been ignoring becoming an air-raid klaxon sounding in my brain as my eyes dilate in panic.

I aim for the outside edge of the Balrog’s booby trap, where the grass fades into the gaping wound in the earth; focusing on the edge of disaster beckoning so charmingly. My eye focuses on loose rock right in the midst of my line around the broken spear point of a downed tree. Sure enough, the adage “You go where you look” holds true once again, and I tag the rock with my back wheel. The orb of loose granite meeting my furiously spinning wheel activates into a wrecking ball of destruction, kicking my bike loose from the surly bonds of earth with the vigor of a pissed-off jackass.

My heart rate spikes with a double shot of terror & embarrassment, even though no one is around for miles. The social media of my mind explodes with howling trolls.

  “Total dipshit goes out without safety gear and gets fucked up.”

“You are making us all look bad.”

“WHAT A NEWB”

“Shoulda kept it pinned.”

“I rode that climb on my brother’s kid’s PW50”

By a combination of grace and deep wired instincts, I manage to wind up on with my bike laying uphill. My breathing is the deep-chested wheezing of a drowning man, exhuming a summer’s worth of allergies and spliffs into a mucus that has me glad for my half-shell helmet as I expectorate anxiety onto the pine needles. All the things come rushing to my mind - how easily I could have twisted/smashed/broken my ankles protected only by a few thin layers of fabric, how no one knows where I am, how I have no cell coverage to call for help, how long the walk back to camp would be.

A tempest of “I told you so” rages in my head as I wrestle my moto into a more manageable position, and attempt to aim it back downhill. There is a fascinating difference between how easily a dirt bike rolls over any number of obstacles with an application of throttle, and becomes a recalcitrant water buffalo minus the assistance of internal combustion. The part of my mind that isn’t fighting off the social media trolls is attempting to assemble an academic dissertation on the various compound effects of gravity & mechanical advantage as proof of disinterested observer status to the faux pas at hand.

I wrestle the bike back towards the fall line, and point myself back towards the creek crossing, a bump start, and roll back down the trail to the grass-covered gravel bar. I take a piss of emotion, and evaluate my situation.

Here I am, well & truly in a predicament. Either I face the challenge of a million relatively tiny log steps to get back up the trail I have descended; a series of modest consequences compounded by repetition, or passing the Balrog’s gauntlet of far steeper terrain, erosion ruts and tree skeletons.

The question of “What is Wisdom” was much more clear-cut back at camp. Stay close, and don’t take inappropriate risks. Having ignored that bit of advice, wisdom in the present circumstance becomes a bit more murky. Do I face the personal humiliation of not completing the loop AND subjecting myself to the risk of countless minor miscalculations on the route back up, or do I roll the dice on the steep climb ahead, and the valor of completing the mission? Having made the choice already, it simply seems a matter of honor to double down on my perceived exceptionalism, and throw myself at the Balrog’s handiwork once more.

My trailbuilder instincts trump my ego for a few moments, and hike back up the trail to kick clear the offending rock, and stack the odds in my favor as much as I can. The work I am doing of sweeping loose rocks into the rut is of a momentary & highly questionable efficacy, but the placebo effect is strong. I talk myself through my line choice, remind myself to look ahead, and most importantly, not back off the throttle under any circumstances whatsoever.

Returning to my moto, I flip up the kickstand, punch the starter button, click into gear, whack the throttle on a quick 1-2 gear change, duck the face-slapping aspens and point for the far side of the death spears, and ravenous ruts.

My self-amped bravado carries me past the spruce spears, and the trail keeps clawing skyward. What? It turns?! A hospital of amputated granite baby heads fills the flat spot, another series of opportunities to pin ball off the trail on an otherwise easy cross slope, then the trail darts uphill again. All my professionally educated ethos of “Stay the Trail” evaporates in the interest of survival, and I aim for the edges, away from the eroded chaos of the trail, and parallel the trail as best I can to the top of the ridgeline.

The trail drops off the other side of the ridgeline into another fall-line free fall to to a 90 degree corner with a 6” rut berm to catch the combined mass of rider and moto between series of loose logs, and cut-over stumps, then another series of zig-zags as it drops to the next valley floor.

I have a few breaths to steady myself, and think, “Wow, that was crazy,” congratulating myself on survival, and then the trail turns vertical again. There are no face-slapping aspens to distract my view, only a tilted shift of the horizon into an emergency escape route for elk.  My throttle cable is preemptively stretched, but the trail keeps clawing upward in defiance of all respect for gravity, with a host of the orphans of the Rockies rolling their way towards obedience of Newton.

At my skill level, I know there are a finite number of times I can roll the dice and get away with it, and the slope above me shows no signs of relenting as I alternate between weighting my rear wheel for drive, and keeping enough weight over my front to avoid looping out on the near-vertical slope. Statistics catch up with me eventually, and I spin out on a deep trench of loose rocks. I catch myself as the bike stalls out, and manage to keep it pointed uphill. The deep-chested wheezing is not so alarmed now, a resignation to the circumstances I have placed myself in. The possibility of turning back is even more remote now, the possibility of continuing onward & upward seems even more absurd than before; the absurdity of the situation wears a familiar patina.

It has been said that “Experience is the sinking feeling that you have made this mistake before.” To turn back means to go up against the entire evening’s roulette roll, now with the hand of gravity playing against me. The slope above me is far steeper than anything I have ever considered reasonable to point a motorcycle at. Heinous as it may be, I know there can only be few hundred feet separating me in this vertical nightmare from the more placid double track above.

I am grateful for electric start, and simultaneously trepidatious of draining my battery with no kickstart backup. A few bumps and spins, and stalls, and I step to the side of my bike, and push it with the rear tire churning up the loose scree until I make it to the side of the trail where the vegetation affords enough purchase for me to mount my bike again, and point for the top of the slope. All regards for the existing trail have disappeared, all I care for is getting myself and my bike to the top without another dismount and the associated energy panic. I’m not sure how many more of those I have left in me. I slide my butt over the back of my seat, drop my head towards my handlbar, and write a blank check for my right hand, a first gear rev-limiter scream towards the promise of a horizon where things eventually flatten out. I mow over brush, spewing rocks out my back tire towards the valley I have just escaped; in general not giving a damn for any impact I may be causing in my single-minded focus to reach some sense of safety.

At last the tilted  horizon of trees, grass, brush, and rocks gives way to open sky, and I can feel myself approaching the shores of reasonableness. The trail spits me out onto another dead-end double track loop / cul de sac; I hold down the kill switch, deploy the kickstand, and pause to take a breather, looking back at the precipitous plunge to the valley floor below. I breathe deeply to calm the nerves of adrenaline, exertion, and uncertainty, and walk about a bit to prove to myself that I have made it back to what counts for level ground in the Rockies. 

Riding back to camp on the double track littered with rock outcroppings and erosion ruts feels like a Sunday evening parkway cruise in comparison to the singletrack terror I have just subjected myself to. Back at camp, my cohorts give the nonchalant inquires to my whereabouts typical to those of use who choose to make their living in the implacable Great Outdoors. They had just returned from a ride to a point just opposite of where I clawed my way up. The evening's Modeleo tastes better than it has all week, pairing well with the contented exhaustion of having flung myself into the Abyss, and survived.