The Bear Twinkie, Mad Moose and Other Good Times!

Hello,

It is safe to say that while winter is nothing short of brutal, summer is sweet, sweet, sweet! News of late is that Chris has signed up for the Fireweed 400 bike race. He is opting to do the 200, solo division on his mountain bike. Yes, that's 200 MILES not Kilometers. He also managed somehow, to talk me into signing up for the same race. Obviously, I am in NO condition to take on 200 miles, but they offer a 50 miler for the weaklings like myself. By doing the 50, I will also be able to serve in my usual support role for Chris along his much extended race route. The course begins outside of Anchorage and travels to Valdez via the Glenn highway and Thompson Pass. For the real race nuts, they can tack on an additional 200 miles and ride back to the original start the following day making for an even 400 miles which also serves as a RAAM qualifying race.

Chris has started training in earnest, and I'm about to kick myself in the tail to get going as well. We started Chris's training rides off with a short, 71 mile spin to the Hope Junction for an overnighter. The spot we chose was right along a river in a fairly secluded spot. We only passed one other set of folks camped out and they were at least half a mile away. We set up camp, started walking the dogs and just as we both relaxed and commented on the quiet... BOOM! Gun shots! Our quiet, idyllic spot was being overwhelmed with the sounds of a very large caliber, canon-like gun that had me and the dogs jumping half out of our skin. My first thought was "Oh shit... bear!" and then "Crap... if they scare it off, is it headed our direction?!" But, no, no such thing. It was simply a couple of drunken idiots target shooting at rocks on the other side of river. The shooting went on for quite some time until presumably they either shot themselves, got too drunk to find the trigger, or ran out of bullets. In any case, we were glad when the noise finally subsided. Our poor dogs, Zev especially, were on extreme high alert for the rest of the evening.

To make matters worse, the bear scare became far more real to me at least, when I realized that in my haste of packing to meet up with Chris, I forgot the damn bear spray on the kitchen counter. Stupid! I knew better than that. Then, as if flaunting my forgetfulness, we stumbled on an old moose kill off in the weeds, not 100 yards from where our tent was set up. Granted, it was very old - just chewed up bones scattered about with no icky bits left, but it still made me a little nervous. Chris, tired from his ride, didn't seem to care much and laughed at my paranoia. He had just purchased a new, super light-weight back packer's tent which we decided to name the "Bear Twinkie" in honor of his twinkie sleeping bag we named during the Christmas camping trip. We figured if a bear really wanted to harass us in the middle of the night, we would effectively be like a packaged Hostess Twinkie, complete with filling. Fortunately, we elected our then highly alert Zev to be the "Bear Twinkie Guard Dog" while we slept. We drank a bit of wine, a few beers and ate a good dinner. Zev did his job well. In the morning, we lazily drove back to Anchorage.

Speaking of large cranky animals... Just prior to my father's visit in April, while Chris and I were camped out in Talkeetna, we met a rather cranky bull moose. We were on a long stroll along side the railroad on a packed down snow machine trail with the dogs, perhaps five or six miles out side of town, which may as well be in the middle of nowhere. Talkeetna has no roads on the Denali side of the river so you have to hike, ski or snow machine out of town in that direction. The snow this year was huge! On either side of the packed trail, the snow was easily chest deep, even on Chris. Of course, like all creatures, moose like to travel on the easiest path as well and the packed snow machine trail serves as a super highway of sorts for moose in winter. We casually spotted a very large bull moose about 3/4 of a mile away. We could tell he was a big boy, but still well within a safe distance.

Then, out of nowhere, we both heard this galloping sound only to see the huge bull running at full speed toward us. At first, we thought that he was spooked by something, but then when he didn't slow down and was starting to gain on us quickly, we realized we were in a potentially VERY bad situation. Chris, turned with Lax in tow, ran and urged me to RUN, FAST. Well, I'm not a runner. Never have been, never will be. My dog, Zev, is not a runner either. But, we knew we had no choice. So we ran, hard.

Sadly, the moose was gaining on us much faster than we could put more distance between us. There was nowhere to ditch behind a tree as just moving even 10 feet in the chest-deep snow would have taken me at least 15-20 minutes, far too slow for a pissed off, charging bull moose. So, I just resigned. I made my peace with my self and settled back into a walk. Chris kept urging me to run, but I think even he knew it was futile. We just stopped and nodded in agreement that we just had to stand our ground and be at peace with it. Of course, you know how this ended since I'm obviously alive and well. The moose stopped before stomping and smashing us to bits. He followed us slowly for another half mile with his rack turned down, snorting and occasionally stamping a hoof, but as long as we kept moving away, he stayed back and eventually let us go. It was a first (and hopefully last for both of us). Upon our safe return to Talkeetna, exhausted and tired, we bellied up to the Fairview Inn Bar and tossed back a few drinks before meandering back to our camp spot for the night at the top of a dirt road just out of town with a full view of the Alaska Range. The chilly, 20 degree March air felt nice after such an exciting day.

Flashing forward now, to the beautiful month of May, we are bracing for the busy summer of visitors, races, travel and other events that will come our way. I am training regularly for my 50 in the Fireweed. I had a personal best ride of 50 miles this past weekend from our house south along the Seward Highway to Indian, home of the Brown Bear Saloon, and then back home. My pace was slow at a 12 MPH average. My friend Liz, who is apparently a glutton for punishment joined me on the ride. Judging from how much she laughed both AT and with me, I must have provided quite a bit of entertainment to her along the way. The entertainment was either of me diving into the bushes to pee, and then finding every bit of Devil's Club to send me scurrying out cursing, or the more embarrassing and more funny entertainment of falling over in public!

I purchased new clip-in pedals and shoes last week and I'm still getting used to them. This means I fall a lot at very slow speeds, like 0 MPH, forgetting to un-clip at the most inopportune times. She has described me as performing slow-motion falls with a lot of cussing on the way down. To date, I have fallen at two cross-walks, on one trail, crossing a small foot bridge with a steep turn, on the side of the Seward Highway (away from traffic) and twice in my own drive way. I have twin bruises on each side of my hips, but they don't hurt. Alas... only my ego is really bruised and even the ego is laughing out loud at my cartoon-like antics.

With that, I'll leave you until next time. We look forward to the many visitors and trips throughout the summer!

Vered

(...and Zev too)