Bedrock & Paradox

If there is any place where the abyss looks into the observer with ease, it is overlooking Grapevine canyon on the Tonto trail. The black schist is stark and vertical, the dull-pink granite intrusions laid diagonally. Huge and consistent stripes that blend the near wall into the far, without the river inlayed at the bottom…

Courtesy Mike Curiak, from the Iditirod Trail race in years past. Black and white is good stuff.

Through mysterious circumstances at work, I have Monday off. So, I’m headed off to the Grand Canyon tomorrow for a three day solo backpack. I haven’t been backpacking in ages, given that overnighting on the river last September to alpine-start Choprock doesn’t really count. And solo backpack, I can’t even recall. Solo backpacking is freaky…

The course map. The 5.4 “crux”, freesoloing in running shoes after a ton of hard up.

I gave up. Julie wins, and is back to a singlespeed. More filing the cog and messing with the chain yielded no results, and brought me up against my prolegomena to any future cycling: I am a poor mechanic with a limited tolerance for tinkering. A character flaw, yes, but so be it. I’m going…

In February 1994, after 18 months of research, Unibroue launched La Fin du Monde (the end of the world). It is a 9 percent alcohol, triple fermentation beer. This type of beer was originally developed by the monks of the Middle Ages to be served on special occasions. La Fin du Monde is a deluxe…

My legs are feeling quite good. I can bound up and down stairs as normal. All signs that hiking was the right choice, that no real damage was done. About that I am very happy. I got distracted from filling the Endless again and messed with my project frame, an old Specialized mountain bike I…

I’m beginning to look at how far I can go, and it looks good. When I commence my course of full force strengthening and rehab next week, I’m going back to the Red Hot next year, and going sub-6 hrs. And there I go fucking it all up by attaching a goal. Weak. I love…

Real deal (you guessed it) tomorrow because I’m (yep) tired. Smoked the first half, old knee issues came back a bit near the top of the Gold Bar climb, so I decided to hike the rest to be safe. Succeeded, though I had to run the technical bits of the Poison Spider descent; blowing by…

Don’t expect to see a computer until Sunday evening, so, off it is. Yesterday and today are final prep time: finished up a bunch of odds and ends at work, sat around, am finalizing the iPod all hits all the time list, and will eventually pack. M is unemployed at the moment, so delegation is…