Month: January 2017

Aging is so many different things, and cells being able to self-renew is part of the picture, but not all of it.          

Elizabeth Blackburn 2009 Nobel Prize Medicine

Tracing the beginnings of the interwoven stories of science can be arbitrary, as beginnings are so often lost in the mists of time.                                                Elizabeth Blackburn 

 

“Wake up.  Jack Frost was here!  Ol’  Man Winter can’t be far behind.  We need to get over Lolo pass.”   Just like a looney toon, Gnomeboy was lifting up my left eyelid.  With no heat or running water in the cabin, I  stumbled to the restroom for a hot shower.   He kept this incessant jabbering about the frost on the ground, and  winter is nearby.

“Keep your hat on.”   I put him on the sink in front of the mirror and turned on the shower.  I mumbled , “Tell someone who cares. Tell a mirror.”

He moved towards me and laughed, “TTAGGG your it, no touch backs.” He then repositioned his cap.

When I got out of the shower, Gnome boy was still staring in the mirror.  I had a flash back to Glasgow, Ky eighteen months ago while on our first trek.   On May 5, 2015, he stared  into the mirror not sure if he could climb  over the Tennessee plateau. ( pic below).   A lot of water  has flowed under this bridge.  He had his nose back then.

 

I asked if the cross country biking stressed him out.

“Quite the contrary,  exercise make me use my thinking cap, biking  gives me purpose, keeps me young.  Am I any taller?”

“Tell a mirror, not me.” I smirked. I stuffed him back in my pocket.

I remembered that I was to have breakfast with Ryan and Mindy back at the lodge and then bike with them to Missoula.

 

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Last night (Wednesday) after dinner I talked to Steve (pic above) and five other Brits. They rode motorbikes from Anchorage, Alaska and were on their way to Portland, Oregon.  They had planned their trip’s details for years and waited until retirement to ride.   We exchanged tall tales about being on the back roads and the wonderful people we met.  Funny, we seemed to have identical stories except they used gas power and I used pedal power.  Carl Jung while cleaning glasses behind the bar extrapolated,  “Today’s events occurred with no causal relationship yet seem to be meaningfully related, Synchronicity.”

 Steve rolled his eyes, “Brilliant.”

Gnomeboy pulled at my sleeve and wispered, “No, really it’s Brilliant.

In the corner of the bar, bike shoes clicked on a wooden floor.  I shuffled on over and introduced myself to Mindy Ahler and Ryan Hall.  They were rehydrating from today’s ride up Rt. 12 with  Cold Smoke Scotch Ale .  They arrived at the lodge two hours behind me, and set up their tents outside the lodge. They were biking across the country for www.lowcarboncrossings.org. We exchanged tall tales about the backroads and the wonderful  people we met. Gnomeboy whispered,  “Deja vu, all over again.”

I repeated, “Synchronicity.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mindy suggested that I ride with them to Washington DC. I thanked her for the offer but their adventure was just beginning  while my trek  had just completed  act three. 

  “I’m not sure if  I’ll ever leave Lochsa Lodge. My trekking from  Portland to Portland ended  today.”  I zipped up my vest and showed the Lolo Pass logo for emphasis.  “Over the past 18 months I trekked from sea to shining sea. Tonight I am at peace, my world is in synch.   I’m just waiting for a little comic relief… you know, waiting for the fat lady to sing.”

Tomorrow after climbing  Lolo Pass… again, I will coast into Missoula, Montana and have my picture placed on Adventure Cycling’s  Hall of Fame.  My reward for the Portland to Portland trek  will be riding Glacier National Park’s   Road to the Sun.  I bought a round of beers, and suggested we ride together in the morning.

 

 Strolling back to the cabin the Milky Way illuminated the trail.  Gnomeboy and I were retracing Lewis and Clark’s footsteps over Lolo Trail. Their explorations turned the myth of the Northwest Passage into reality. The 1805  path above  (pic taken one year ago) was modified and became the Oregon Trail.  Millions of people now live west of the great divide.  Above Oregon’s 45 lattitude farmers grow the world’s best hops. Beer lovers from around the world salute  Lewis and Clark.

“Why are you DUPLICATING their exploration of discovery?”  Gnomeboy asked.

“Well, you need one last tree for your circle, and I’m looking for self renewal,  to turn the circle into a square. You know the Philosopher’s stone.”

 Thursday morning  we had a delicious breakfast, hot cocoa, hot tea, huckleberry pancakes, crisp hash browns, and huckleberry jam on sourdough toast.  Ol’ Man Winter rattled the windows as we cleaned our plates next to a roaring fire.   We started rolling about 9:30, one hour after breakfast. Once again I felt like a stuffed bear getting ready to hibernate.

 

As Gnomeboy had mentioned, there was frost on the ground.  The temperature hovered in the mid thirties. Mindy and Ryan  rolled up their wet equipment.  I couldn’t watch.  Once again, I salute all campers.   At five o’clock today I’ll be lying on a king size bed and they will unroll their damp equipment. Enough said. 

 

 

Lolo pass (5233 ‘) was twelve miles away from Powell and Lochsa Lodge (graph above) .  We hit clouds at 4000 feet (pic above) and rain/ sleet mixture at 4500 feet.  After a two hour climb we staggered into the Lolo Welcome Center (pic above),  changed clothes  and warmed up with hot tea.  Last year I bought a fleece vest there. I was wearing it today. The forest ranger  predicted snow above 5000 feet in one hour.  

We were on our way.  The first few miles were very steep and wet. I lost sight of Mindy and Ryan as they sped ahead.  Every thousand feet of vertical decent we would stop and shed a layer of clothes. By midday we needed only shirt and shorts.  To the South, the skies were partly sunny with snow on Morman Peak (pic below).

 

 Rt. 12 had a dedicated bike path the for last few miles into Lolo, Montana. We coasted into Mc Donald’s for food and wifi.    We had been without cell service for two days. We called and text friends and spouses to say that we had arrived safely in the Bitteroot Valley.

“Why don’t you ever take you cap off when your inside a building? ” I asked Gnomeboy while munching on a french fry.

With an air of superiority Gnomeboy started to lecture ,”Gnomes age slowly because we leave our caps on. My red cap keeps all my thoughts bundled up, stops them from unraveling, you know…frayed loose ends. If I lose a cap my wife knits me another. You should wear a hat.”

I egged him on. “Do you hide aluminum foil under that cap to keep out radiation?”

He leaned over. “YOU’RE ONLY 65. Humans wait until they have lost all their thoughts.  Then YOU cover the few remaining gray hairs, and that  old, bald noggin. Why bother?”

Gnomeboy tipped his head, repositioned his cap, “TTAGGG, Your it.  No touchbacks.” He smirked like he said something important.

“Why do you keep saying TTAGGG and then grab your hat?”

“Because you said Telomere.” Gnomeboy held on to his hat again.

I said, “tell a mirror you narcissistic Nincompoop, not Telomere.“

“Me a Nincompoop ? Don’t think so.  Your the one who’s getting old and senile. You’re looking for self renewal not me.”

Gnomeboy continued his lecture, ” Vonnegut wrote, Science is magic that works. Today telomeres hide in that hazy region where science dissolves into magic. That misty image on the road ahead is it real or is it an illusion?”

“Elizabeth Blackburn untangled the cloudy genetics of aging by studying Telomeres, the tiny caps on chromosomes. Aging has so many seasons. It includes more than Winter.  Spring, Summer, and Fall also age. The art of aging gracefully is in the realm of the scientist as well as the poet.”

“In 2009 she received the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Her message,” you’re only as old as your your chromosome’s caps, your shoelaces’s tips, your telomeres. So the take home message for me, Keep my hat on!  And no, I don’t have aluminum foil under my cap…see.”

I winked, “That’s some tangled yarn you spun. And to think I had been waiting for the fat lady to sing. I take my hat off to you.”

Ryan had a sore knee that day and was pleased to have finished the mountain pass.  We  chatted until four PM.  Mindy and Ryan were camping at a church in Lolo and so I rode on to Missoula.  After wishing them a safe journey we took the selfie below..   

Adventure Cycling was closed when I arrived in Missoula. The phot op and Hall of Fame would have to wait until tomorrow.  However, I did arrange for a hotel, a car for the am and next Wednesday’s Bike Flights from Open Roads Bicycle Store.

After spicy chicken fahitas, at El Cazador, I biked the Riverfront Trail paralleling the Clark Fork River. The Blue Mountain’s snow covered peak glowed pink as the sun set. Folks were out strolling, and the crisp scent of a beautiful, fall evening lingered in the air. I watched the mountain fed waters stream past boulders on their way to the Pacific. The river was babbling but I didn’t hear a word she said.

Instead, as I was gazing upstream my dreamscape recurred (pic above).   But the forest grove and snow capped mountain were missing.  Mountain spring  water cascaded from Ol’ Man Winter’s cave.  Winter had melted and Spring had sprung. The clear waters keep Bubbling, a new cycle was beginning.   But it wasn’t the water or the cave that I focused on, but the pebbles at the base of the cascading falls…. the philosopher’s red stones.

I said, “Tag, your it.”

 

If that’s not nice I don’t know what is.

I have a long way to go before I get back home.

The river flows not past but thru us

John Muir

Five turkeys trotted across the road (bottom right in pic above).   This sounds like the beginning of a fowl joke but I  tracked the Galliformes as they waddled across Rt. 12 and down to the river’s edge for the photo op, not for the riddle Jake asked the bartender. “What do you get when a turkey lays an egg on the hillside?  An egg roll.”  

Morning fog lingered high above the riverbed. The surrounding mountains faded from forest green to winter white.  I sat by the riverside,  snapped the photo ops  below, and waited for Lochsa’s song.  I could spot the water streaming, the firs swaying, and the fog drifting.  With this commotion there was only babble. The raven’s short, shrill, call accentuated the river’s silence.  Like some Celtic druid, I expected a rhyme or a riddle.   I didn’t want to leave her shoreline  but some days the Magic doesn’t works. My stomach was growling and no water sprites spilled over these boulders.

 

 

Gnomeboy read my thoughts by watching the crows feet around my eyes.  “You know,” he hesitated, “She doesn’t  rhyme or recite in blank verse.  When this river sings, listen for her  free verse,  the gap between the notes, the sounds of silence.”   He touched the water. “Understand her wordless directions,  recognize her unspoken course, and you will hear her psalm.”  He smiled and then looked away.

 Of course Gnomeboy was right, and  hallelujah,  he didn’t call me a Nincompoop.  He must be mellowing. We  stepped onto the boulders until Lochsa’s waters whirled around us.  From those slippery rocks her gypsy soul directed my wandering thoughts upstream.  Visions of Glacier National Park emerged from Lochsa’s shoals like a Cubist puzzle.  Like disjointed jigsaw pieces, I spotted a glen of evergreen trees, listened to a cascading waterfall, climbed a mountain where time stood still.  She wept, “Be forever wild.” 

 I waited for the wind to Howl because some days  Magic does work.

 

Today’s journey to Locksa Lodge will cover sixty-six miles,  and climb two thousand vertical feet . There were no services between Lowell, Idaho and the Lochsa Lodge.  I bought gatorade, water, and homemade huckleberry muffins at the diner.   I sat and chatted with the cook while  he was drinking coffee with a neighbor.

 He joked,  “The kitchen is closed unless you know how to cook.”  I replied that I could cook them any breakfast they wanted.  He asked for  crepes.  I got up, headed for the stove, “Just direct me to the crepe pan.”

John scrambled eggs, grilled hash browns, and hot cakes with  homemade clover honey.   What a great hot meal.   I felt like a bear getting ready to hibernate. The neighbor had closed his cabin for winter and was leaving for Phoenix.  After salutations I  was on my way.

 

 

The fog slowly lifted and this Idaho wilderness unearthed a sunny and breezy day.  The Garmin kept track of the milage and my map located  the four Pack Bridges (pic above)  into Selway  Bitterroot Wilderness for those 66 alluring, dazzling and pleasing miles. At Warm Springs Pack Bridge a group of hikers were on their way to Jerry Johnson Hot Springs and invited me to tag along.   The Hot Springs were one mile off road.  “The woods were lovely dark and deep” (pic above).   But I had no reservation at the Lochsa Lodge and so felt obligated to continue up Lolo Pass.   A string of cars passed every ten  minutes, but otherwise the Lochsa River kept me company.  And, oh my, did she babble on (pic below)..

 

 The Lochsa River sparkled as she retold the 1805  adventures of Lewis and Clark (pic below) .  She hummed a mournful song for Chief Joseph’s attempt  to escape the US Army in July 1877.  Near Bear Mountain, she  babbled and blushed  about her geological age when I stopped to admire her beauty.  Women don’t know how to take a compliment.  It’s better to say a woman is unique than to say she is beautiful.

 

Near Old Man Creek (pic above)  I stopped and ate a Honeycrisp apple.  As I thought of tossing the apple core,  Diane Armstrong and her partner Jose Auladell walked on up (pic below).  They removed the litter from the segment of Route 12 dedicated to her parents.  The couple lived in Moscow, Idaho.  Her main message,” When on the road be highly reflective.”

I replied “One sees what one knows.”

She also spoke about beer cans on this stretch of road.  She was the world’s foremost authority for this small segment of Route 12, and wanted to ban Miller lite, Bud lite, and Coors lite beer cans. They always littered the road.  She would allow people to drink Cutthroat Beer, her personal favorite,  because Cutthroat Beer never littered the roadway.  Diane and Jose were charming and offered me a room for the night in Moscow.  I said thanks but no, and was back on the road again. She took the apple core before they left.

 

I followed K’useyneisskit, I am the trail to the Buffalo, up to Lochsa Lodge.  The lodge was serving dinner when I arrived tired, cold, and dripping with sweat.  Their very last cabin, which had no water and no heat cost 200 dollar for the night.  I was so grateful because the next lodge was 15 miles away and another 2000 foot climb over Lolo Pass. At the bar, I downed two Cutthroat beers and retold Diane’s story to the bartender.  He placed the bottles in the Recycle Bin before I went to the cabin.  After a long hot shower, I returned to  the lodge and devoured fresh trout and wild rice. I slept under a stack of blankets just 12 miles from Lolo Pass.

 I salute all the hikers in the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness staring at the Milky Way tonight.  I’m such a denning animal.  I want to be in a  room, or a cave, not out on the open range while I sleep.  While drifting off, I mumbled a grateful prayer to Lochsa’s wild ways and open skies. “Be forever wild.” 

 

 

….. because “the river flows not past but thru us.”

If that not nice I don’t know what is.

 

 

      

 Never mistake motion for action.

Ernest Hemingway

 

At Grangeville’s city limits this elk made of welded horseshoes (pic above) welcomed all travelers.  Last night the Gateway Inn and the Palenque Mexican Restaurant could not have been more friendly, but the Modelo Beer and hot tub might have influenced my  five star review on Travelosity.  I was asleep a little after dark.

 At sunrise and eight miles down Luke’s Gulch Road, the route had  a 2000ft. descent ( graph above). I wanted to be riding in the Clearwater River Valley before logging trucks started hauling their loads. It’s not nice being chased down a switchback by a 20 ton logging truck.  Been there, done that.  As it turned out not one logging truck passed me before I reached the South Fork of Clearwater River and Rt. 13 with its three foot wide shoulder.

 

In the picture above I am about a 1000 feet above the South Fork Clearwater River and Rt. 13. The sign tried to explaine the harmony the Nez Perce achieved with their environment.  They called themselves the  “Nimiipuu” or “real people” or “we the people.”  Essentially the poster stated that even though these nomadic tribes wandered they were not lost.  Their daily  and seasonal patterns depended on the land’s bounty:  the Chinook salmon river runs, the wild game in the high mountains, the blue camus bulbs  and early spring plants.  Like so many hunter gatherers, it was inconceivable to  “real people” that  one white man could own  the land which  Nami Piap allowed the “Nimiipuu” to harvest.

  Their guardian spirit,  wyakin, provided daily assistance for food and shelter. They had no need to farm.  For the “Nimiipuu” there is no separation between the spiritual and  material, the natural and the supernatural.  Spirits exist, not only in humans, but also in animals, plants, rocks, and geographic features such as mountains or rivers.  What anthropologists call Animism.  “Nimiipuu” had no term or name for religion. Religion (dualism) evolved once you leave the Garden of Eden.

“My little tree hugger, are you a Druid?” I smirked.

  “I’m a  Uniformitarian you Nincompoop.”  He knows how much I hate being called a nincompoop.

“Natural laws that operate in the universe today have always operated the same in the past.  And they apply everywhere in the universe.”  He rocked his little, red conehead from side to side.  “Spirits are everywhere. Always have been and always will be.”

 “Today is the keystone to your geological past.” His head was rocking again.  ” We both felt the wyakin  in that “Salmon River touchstone”  and in that “smooth bluestone” that found you at Bar Harbor, Maine.  They are  lodestones. They unlock  true north…. if you only look.   I might be short but I’m not small minded you Loggerhead.”

He also knows that I hate being called a loggerhead.  I bowed my head,  “I will fight no more, forever.” I wanted to add “my little touchy-stone,” but stoney silence prevailed.

 

Biking Rt. 13 next to the South Fork of the Clearwater River I stopped and picked apples from volunteer apples  trees  growing on the river’s edge (pic above). They tasted tart and were the size of tangerines.There were hundred of these trees lining the road to Kooskia, Idaho.  I thought of  Aitor Basajuan  and his Gala apple.  I hope he had a safe journey home and  a successful Giza probak.

  Last year the town was preoccupied with nearby wild fires, and the tent city of smokejumpers.   What a difference one year makes!  After a quick sandwich at the Kooskia Cafe, I hustled up Rt. 12 (top pic) for twenty-three miles  to avoid heavy rains in the western skies. I reached Lowell before the afternoon storm (pic below).  I had booked a reservation at Ryan’s Wilderness Inn for Tuesday night.

 Lowell, Idaho is situated on the confluence of the Selway and Lochsa Rivers and the source  of the Middle Fork of the Clearwater River (pics below). These rivers are to remain forever wild and the wilderness undeveloped.  There were no telephone poles or jet trails overhead. The Selway Bitterroot Wilderness was pristine. Who would ever dam these rivers? The law was signed by a president and the rivers rafted by Carter and Clinton.

 

Just East of Kooskia all phone service stopped.  East of Lowell there were no services for 66 miles, only wilderness.  Wednesday’s ride would include a 2000ft ascent up to Powell, Idaho and the Lochsa Lodge where services resumed. After the rains past, I sat on the river’s edge and watched clearwater.  What a peaceful view (pic below)!

 

 

 

In 1873, President Grant unilaterally broke the Walla Walla treaty and reversed the ban on homesteaders developing the Nez Perce  land. The  gold and silver rush was on. War was inevitable as well as its outcome. Gen. Howard was castigated by eastern newspapers for the three month delay in capturing Chief Joseph.  Land belongs to the powerful, but the heavens to those with “wyakin.”

 I biked  Rt. 12 along the same terrain Chief Joseph walked 1877, as the Nez  Perce retreated towards freedom.  I see women and children, the cattle, and the horses recrossing these untamed streams as they trekked up narrow trails to Lolo Pass.  The Wilderness prevented  heavy artillery from following.  1877 epitomized the Gilded Age, glittering on the surface but corrupt underneath. A time of greed and political corruption, with social problems masked by a thin gold gilding.  But there is no going back.  Today, trek for a free, just, and equal America for all. Trek for Clearwater. 

In a few short weeks I will be sixty-six.  With 133 miles to Missoula and only Lolo Pass separating me from Adventure Cycling’s Hall of Fame,  I am stating that attitude accounted for my cross-country success. Positive attitude is more important than the road ahead, the mountains to climb, or the logging trucks that surround me. How we respond to daily challenges is much more important than the challenges themselves. A can do attitude is the best equipment for the day’s ride.  With the right attitude, no mountains pass is to high, no descent too crazy.  Mariah is never too windy, nor weather to hot, cold or wet.   Attitude is that singular ingredient that kept nudging this old dog on this new trek  .

If that’s not nice, I don’t know what is.