The Vast Beauty Is Big Enough....

Spring flowers in my yard.........

I have mountain biked in some crazy conditions over the years during adventure races.

I biked in severe thunder and lightening during a race in Tennessee - a storm so bad that eventually my team-mates and I ended up ditching our bikes and packs, putting distance between each other in the middle of a field and making ourselves the smallest targets we could make until it was over.  Scary stuff at the time.......

In pouring rain so bad that no sane person would be out in it overnight in a race in Virginia.

Standing on a sorta-kinda trail in the mountains of North Carolina, holding onto a tree with one hand so I didn't slide down a drop-off while trying to hoist my bike up and over a huge boulder to my waiting team-mates with the other hand, who were both standing on top of the rock trying to grab a hold of it.

In driving sleet and freezing cold weather in the middle of the night in the mountains of West Virginia.  I ended up rescuing a kitten that night and stuffing him into my jacket on the trip down the other side of a mountain, riding down endless gravel downhills with him squirming around and me hoping to neither ditch the bike nor smother the cat.  He ended up being adopted by a racer from Florida and hopefully now lives a quiet and spoiled life in the sunshine.......

Falling asleep twice while riding after having been on the move for more than 24 hours straight.  Once I woke up just a split second before hitting blacktop in Viriginia.  Ouch.

And once coming to my senses sitting on the tailgate of a truck in South Carolina wondering why the heck all these people were standing around looking at me.  I had fallen asleep while riding, hit the deck face first, knocked myself out and given myself a concussion and cracked ribs.

Getting snowed in up in the mountains of North Carolina.  Got down to the bottom of a steep hill (barely) and realized that my brake pads (this was before I moved over to disc brakes) were worn down due to mud and ice.  I stayed upright all the way down the hill and then could only stop at the bottom (in the middle of the road) by putting my feet down.  When I looked around snow was coming in sideways at us.......

Asking my male team-mate to urinate on my drivetrain in the middle of the mountains in freezing and snowy North Georgia so I could change gears before everything froze up again........

And not once have I ever broken a chain.  Until today.

I got geared up this morning intending to bike further Out the Road to.....somewhere.  Destination to be determined.

I got about 10 yards out of my driveway, heard a snap, looked down and saw part of my chain still where it was supposed to be, and the other half of my chain dragging on the ground.

Damn!

Since I did not have a replacement chain I walked the bike back to the house and tried to figure out what Plan B for the day was going to be.

I was going to be on foot today, and since I had promised LC that I would not walk in the mountains until he got up here to Juneau I decided to walk on a trail close to home that I had not explored yet - Peterson Lake Trail.

I drove to the trailhead and headed up the wooded steps to the trail proper.

After climbing the steps I quickly became mired in a very muddy trail.  I walked it for 10 minutes, and began to wonder if the entire trail was this same muddy mess.

Another 10 minutes and I was still in mud.  I was not enjoying this trail so far - between the mud (and there was plenty of it), and all of the mosquitos (there were plenty of those as well) I decided that I would give it another 10 minutes and if the situation did not improve I would head back to the car and move on to another trail (Plan C).

After a few minutes the trail was less muddy, but I was still not enjoying myself a whole lot. 

I ran into a lady heading my way, who loaned me some bug spray (which solved the bug situation), and I asked her what the trail was like up ahead.  She had not wandered very far so could not provide a whole lot of information about what to expect. 

I decided to continue a bit further and see what it all looked like.

Just when I was about to turn around I came to a plank trail, less bugs, and more sunshine.  I decided to continue moving ahead.

I was almost two miles into the trail when I came to open meadows full of fields, small wildflowers, sunshine, and I finally began to enjoy my walk and committ to this trail.  

OK - it had potential after all and I decided that I would stick with it and see if I could get to the lake that I knew was at the end.

The remnants of old gold mining train tracks.....

Yes.........it was a sunny, comfortably warm day, I was walking in beautiful meadows and I was definately beginning to enjoy myself......

A new and partially finished bridge.  According to the lady that I met along the trail, Trail Mix, the non-profit in Juneau dedicated to trail building and trail maintenance had definate plans for future work on the trail. 

By the time I was a couple of miles into the trail it was not in bad shape at all, but the early part of the trail definately needs a lot of work.

There was a good mile of very rooty and rocky technical trail. 

Usually I love the challenge of this type of trekking, and I had a lot fo fun with it today, but my knees and hips are still messed up from my climb up Mt McGinnis last weekend, so it was a bit tough on the body.

After only a couple of hours I looked up and there was Peterson Lake.  I smiled when I saw it.  It was incredibly quiet, incredibly beautiful and I loved that I was there. 

The only sounds that I could hear were birds.

I am so accustomed to lakes down in Tennessee that were  manmade by the Tennessee Valley Authority. 

Many of them are beautiful and they are very accessible in that you can easily drive to them.

Peterson Lake is a natural lake that stands alone in the middle of nowhere - the only way that you can get to it is to walk to it. 

As I have done so many times I stood looking at it and wishing that my Mountain Boy was here to share it with me.

Soon...........

These bones (I don't know what animal they are from) were in the middle of the trail.

Once I arrived at the lake, I continued along the trail for another 20 minutes looking for a grassy place to sit and eat.  This is the place that I chose..........

I sat for about half an hour - eating sandwiches, drinking my "turn around diet coke", wishing I had brought more food with me......

And for a few minutes I lay on the grass and used my pack as a pillow - resting in the sunshine and loving the peace and isolation of it all.

Tennessee in retrospect seems very crowded compared to where I am now. 

It would be so very easy for someone to live off the grid in Alaska - if I had been younger and at a different stage in my life I could very easily see myself doing that during the summers here..........

After I arrived back at my car a couple more hours later (with tight hips and sore knees) I stopped on the way home at the Arboretum.

This beautiful place, operated by the City and Borough of Juneau literally changes every couple of weeks.  There are new flowers and it is more beautiful every time I stop there now........

I was reading a message board about Alaska the other night, and a member of the board wrote something interesting when talking about the mountains and beaches in Alaska. 

I thought it was very compelling, and it is a thought that I have had on my mind for the past day or so:

It is like the vast beauty is big enough and wide enough to fill up even the emptiest spaces in your heart.....