Ice and Indifference
Winter’s spite, barely survived
The plan was simple. Get to the Peninsula, National Forest Recreation Area, find a dispersed camping spot, and pretend January isn’t actively trying to kill you. We pulled in and immediately realized everyone else had the same idea. NO ONE, was camping. We crept down the road looking for anything flat enough to park on, and that’s when the ice started. Not snow. Not the good stuff. Just rain that froze into a skating rink the moment it touched dirt.
We barely snagged a spot. Barely. Below us, the hill was pure glass. One wrong step and you’d slide all the way down to the reservoir like a human toboggan with no say in the matter.
This is the time of year when everything stops. You buy a fat bike specifically for winter, and then winter doesn’t show up. Just cold. Just ice. Just that gray weight settling into your chest where the riding used to go. The trails are locked up, the motivation is locked up, and you start to wonder what the point of any of it even is. The smiles stop. The movement stops. You sit there waiting for conditions that never come, and the waiting hollows you out.
That rock face we found, though... tilted layers of rust and green and purple, ancient sediment pushed sideways by forces that don’t care about your mood. Little pines clinging to cracks where nothing should grow. The geology doesn’t ask permission. It just exists, indifferent to the season, indifferent to our problems.
We made it home after two nights. Fun, I guess. I guess. The kind of fun you have to talk yourself into believing was worth it. But we went. We stayed. The van didn’t slide off a cliff. The cold didn’t win, not completely.
Sometimes that’s all you get, these small, grudging victories against a season that wants you to stay inside and disappear. You show up anyway. You look at rocks that have been tilting for a hundred million years and realize your bad mood is, in the grand scheme, a blip. A tiny complaint in the face of all that time.
Maybe that’s enough. Maybe showing up, even half-heartedly, even while muttering “I guess” under your breath, is its own kind of defiance.
On This Day
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2005: Fixing a Flat – Yesterday I ordered a fender and a couple cross tires for my bike so I can leave the car at home and save money on gas. On my way to pick up my car yesterday I flatted and I had to do some bike...
2007: 50k Race This Weekend – Got my hot water bottle positioned so I can sit down for the first time today. I have made breakfast even though my body fat project is in a lull. And now I can blog just before I realize that I am...
2008: Frost, Flakes, and Future Adventures: Gearing Up for the OSCR and Beyond! – Good morning from a frosty Missoula! Winter’s icy grip still holds our city, but beneath its breath, whispers of spring stir. Tomorrow, I’ll trade frosty air for a flurry of snowflakes as I take on...
2009: A 5.5-Hour Mountain Bike Epic – Fueling Up and Freezing OutHey from the City Brew, where I’m devouring this scone like it owes me money! And yeah, I deserve it. Just finished a 5.5-hour mountain bike adventure, starting midday and...
2010: Monday Mayhem – This morning, my eyelids fight a losing battle against the sunrise. Why? Job stress from last week, a persistent gremlin in my brain, gnawed away at my weekend sleep, leaving me with Monday Blues...
2012: Pushing fat – To ride a snow bike for 27 miles in 2 hours, a few things are crucial.
2017: Getting Perspective – We had hiked our bikes up here. Through drifts and deep snow. And it was hard enough for me to give up on the idea that we were going to be able to do any biking this weekend. Previous plans were...
2018: Elixir – A life lived to identify an existence. Deep, perhaps ... like the snow. Probably just a bunch of silly nonsense dribbled out of a morning coffee induced brain dump. Still, I am stuck on it.
2023: Blue – I have found a friend. No, I don’t feed him. And no, I do not let him into the house. I don’t want to feel like my new friend is coming to me for food or a cozy place to lie. I just want to know that...
2024: Fat Biking and Hiking – Picture this: It’s a bright morning, the kind that screams adventure. You, my friend, have decided to conquer Cape Disappointment, but not in the usual way. No, you’ve chosen to blaze through its...