Alex Skazat tag:alex.skazat.com,2009-10-08:/sketchbook//1 2011-01-03T09:21:37Z Alex Skazat is not Justin Simoni. Movable Type 4.32-en WOMAN3 tag:alex.skazat.com,2011:/sketchbook//1.643 2011-01-03T09:11:40Z 2011-01-03T09:21:37Z four color screen print on #120 bristol vellum Original Drawing: Crow quill pen and ink on bristol board.I've drawn/painted this model/pose a few times now. The original photo is of wanting quality and although the model is attractive, it's... Alex Skazat

four color screen print on #120 bristol vellum

Original Drawing:

Crow quill pen and ink on bristol board.

I've drawn/painted this model/pose a few times now. The original photo is of wanting quality and although the model is attractive, it's not what I'm attracted to.


Previously: Woman#1 Woman#2

]]> Continual Failure on Longs Peak tag:alex.skazat.com,2010:/sketchbook//1.642 2010-10-23T03:46:13Z 2010-10-23T20:04:48Z Upon waking up at 5:30 am, I turned back over to, perhaps, wake up at a more agreeable time. Waking up was becoming an increasingly larger problem in my life. My mornings slipped to afternoon and then, later afternoon, until... Alex Skazat agreeable time. Waking up was becoming an increasingly larger problem in my life. My mornings slipped to afternoon and then, later afternoon, until I was by last Tuesday, getting up nearly at 5:00 pm. A vampire.

I am not immune to mood swings. There always seems to be a pull downward from any fanciful feelings - real, or imaginary, that I posses. I'm not one to really be satisfied by anything I do for very long and sometimes, well, you just don't know what else to do, after finishing up a project.

Found myself checking trip reports, route descriptions and the weather for one big rock: Longs Peak. Tried once to reach the summit of Longs this year already. Back in August, my friend and I left Denver in the early evening, with the clear intention of camping out at the trailhead, getting up around 4:00 am and making the summit, before the inevitable thunderstorms roll in.

It was something my friend really wanted to accomplish, his Father tried and failed, but came back with the usual Longs ghost stories of people perishing on the hill. To prepare, he stopped smoking and drinking for weeks. A difficult step, but when one does smoke and drink in regularity, the first step in getting in better shape would be to stop those things.

My preparation was a few bagged 14ers already that year - but none too technical. I rarely drank, almost never smoked (unless drinking - and bored) and brushing off a 100 mile bike ride here and there was no real big thing. I sort of felt that it was my job to get a somewhat out of shape friend up a sort of difficult trail. That was really OK with me, this is a real friend and we do incredible things for each other. I'll play guide and support and my ego, I've noticed has simmered down in the last few years. Grays appear on my beard, now.

We talked animatedly during the drive up. How we'd have to wake up very early, the meteor shower that was happening right then and how we'd be seeing it, while hiking in the middle of the night - magical. Perfectly timed. Until we got to the campsite:

Booked solid.

So, we drove around. Other campsites in the area were also, all booked up. We talked about the situation at a picnic area, not far from a campsite. I suggested, animatedly (my usually composure) that we just camp (pointing) over that small hill, behind the restroom, next to the picnic table: no one would know - or really, care and we'd be up really, really early anyways. The chances of getting caught would be minimal and shit! we'd save some money! Or, we could just hang out in this car all night and sleep. I can, literally, sleep anywhere. We could even sleep in the bed of the truck, we could just move over the -

My friend objected.

"No. No, it's really shady to me. Maybe to you it's fine- you're more adventurous, but I wouldn't be comfortable. I wouldn't get any sleep. I'd be a wreck tomorrow and I'd be in even worse shape up on the trail, when it starts getting technical. Fuck this - let's go home."

And so, we did. That was my first attempt up Longs Peak, ending before it began. I wasn't too destroyed of the sudden change of plans. I could understand his view and the last thing I wanted was to go home without my friend and having a helicopter pick up his corpse.

Today, though was supposed to be my second attempt. If only I could get up. I currently sleep in a hammock. I have no bed - I gave it away and I just don't want to own one right now. Since putting one up, I have had no sex life, but sleep is incredible. It's going to hard to give up. Hard to describe the appeal, but one does feel the tension of the hammock around you, the slight swing. Being enveloped.  

7:30 am came around and I got up. Better than 4:45pm the previous night, but with only a few hours of sleep and a strange day before of only being away for less than 10 hours. I was not on form.

Packed my gear, much less than the start of my last trip for two weeks - this one would only be three days. Mostly, it would be less books to read. Today, I had to bring more clothes though, snow had fallen on the mountains. How much was really to be seen.

Wednesday seems like an odd time to start such a trip. I had wanted to do this trip on Friday, but the weather wasn't cooperating. So that got pushed to Saturday. Sunday. Monday...

I only left when the entire seven day forecast showed sunny days and clear nights. I sound almost as neurotic as perhaps my friend who doesn't want to camp in his car, but Longs Peak is a killer. No other trailhead in Colorado that I have been to puts up a Death Count, next to the terrain profile. Longs is the gateway from fanciful hike to climbing a mountain.

My wait was one in purgatory. I had nothing I felt like working on. I just wanted to go on a bike ride, go on a hike, come back with a clear head and maybe figure out what to do, afterwards. Having to go on a little adventure is truly a irresponsible excuse to just not get your shit together, but I was opting into it. Look, some people drink, I loaf.

I talked a bit about my intentions to people, mostly with the same response: it's way too late, man! And I agreed, I agreed. The season to try and hike the mountain passed a month ago and what I wanted to do couldn't be done. I got myself ready for disappointment and another summit attempt foiled. But I also got ready for a successful hike to the top. Just maybe. And once my imagination grabs ahold of something, it just takes off.

"Maybe bringing crampons would be a good idea!", I thought. "Just in case, you know - there's a little bit of ice in my way - and that's it. I could get across, no worries, continue on my way, until- "

Until the last obstacle in the standard, Keyhole Route up Longs Peak. Homestretch. A three hundred foot friction climb. Almost vertical. Not something I'm afraid of and in fact, something I have much experience with when I was a sport climber a, uh, half a lifetime ago. The impossibility comes with the ice that should now be on every hand and foothold.

I start my journey again from the doorstep of my house, with bike, trailer and all my gear packed in a day pack, with a few other things, all wrapped up in an enormous bright yellow bag, wrapped tight with two yellow bungee chords, fraying.

I feel a little angry at myself for ditching the night's French class - I hadn't fully prepared, anyways. The assignment was simple enough: 10 sentences on Anything. I chose one of the most important and confusing periods of 20th century French history, the May, '68 student revolts, uprising and almost political takeover of France, itself. Ten simple sentences in an attempt to explain that with my abilities would be much like this trip I'm taking instead: wrapped up in good intentions, almost guaranteed to fail. Questioning the effort to attempt it, knowing full well of many, many different, easier and more successful options, ignoring them all.

Three miles, three miles into the bike ride of eighty-some-odd and I get a weird feeling. I stop and unhook the bungee chords, I peer in. My weird feeling had some traction. I had forgotten something: just, all of my clothes. I turn back. Back to the house. Find my black waterproof stuff sack of clothes, start again. Questioning why I use so many black waterproof stuff sacks for everything and how that doesn't help when taking count on what I have and what I have left. The stove is in a orange one, my toothpaste/contacts/eyeglasses/pain relieving Stuff is in a white one. Everything else is in one of many black, waterproof stuff sacks.

I ride out of Denver as I've done many times, up West into Highway 72 towards Nederland. It's fairly uneventful. I go slow, knowing I have a lot of road to get past me and there's really nothing to do, except make camp, eat and sleep, once I get to the campsite. This will be the same campsite as before when my friend and I found it completely booked, but I have a hunch it won't be this time and if it is, I don't mind ditching anywhere, for a few hours.

The ride up is beautiful and quiet on a Wednesday afternoon. The grade is not too bad, except in small places and I just lose myself in music and keep the crank moving the chain over the cassette. I get to Wondervu Hill, a named mountain pass of 8,660 feet. Already hucking up 3,000 feet for the day. Not a bad haul, for not trying all that much.

From Wondervu, one can see the main 13,000+ peaks of the Front Range. I take a good look, from left to right. They all have snow - could had been any winter day just a few miles west. Except my mountain, Longs. It seemed to have escaped whatever storm passed by. I had heard reports of over a foot of snow falling in one day, just a few days before. Crippling to my summit bid. As I checked the reports for Longs before I left. Sometimes, every half hour, I would watch the reports for the weekend got from 10% chance of 2" of snow, to 70% of 6" of snow.

After Wondervu, it's a small descent and then a climb back up to Nederland, at 8,234 feet. The last time I came this way, I broke a spoke going down the hill on my front wheel. Front brake got all wonky at the same exact time.

Can't remember - might have been wanting to do a Very Large Ride, maybe even a 300k that day and those plans had to be changed, since the bike needed to be repaired instead. That time, I had gotten to Nederland and found that the bike shop was actually in the coffee shop I usually stop at. The mechanic was on hand, as luck would have it, just coming back from riding himself.

He was able to repair the spoke just fine, but he also kept fidgeting with the front brake. Wasn't working. He kept at fidgeting with it for over an hour, at one point taking a ball-peen hammer to it, to "loosen some parts up". I'm not a squeamish person when it comes to things I own, but something didn't look right on that idea.  One unidentified part flew off the brake at one point. It was searched for, with much obscenities, until found and forced back in place. The mechanic finally gave up, gave me his card and asked if I could call him if I ever figured out what was up with that brake.

Arriving at Nederland this day, I went over to the same coffee shop. They seem to have the cutest baristas anyways and copies of Adventure Cyclist, whom I could more than likely land on the cover, some day, with the same weighed-down bike and the same dopey look on my sun and wind-burned face. I also wanted to see if the mechanic was in town to at least confirm that I still have no clue as to what the problem is, with that brake.

Grabbing some coffee and talking with the barista, the conversation went to injuries, after I pointed out that the photo of someone doing some impossible yoga pose in an ad tacked up to the bulletin board must have been her and she asking if I stretch all that much. She had fallen on the threshold of her door, on her knee and split it, enough to bruise - or even crack her knee cap. I thought that was wild. She wasn't sure what to do, but I was sure to keep the conversation delightful and engaging, until the next customer.

I drank coffee and started on an Edward Abbey book, Desert Solitaire. I was already in love with it. The introduction ends like this:

Suddenly it comes, the flaming globe, blazing on the pinnacles and minarets and balanced rocks, on the canyon walls and through the windows in the sandstone fins. We greet each other, sun and I, across the black void of ninety-three million miles. The snow glitters between us, acres of diamonds almost painful to look at. With an hour all the snow exposed to the sunlight will be gone and the rock will be damp and steaming. Within minutes, evan as I watch, melting snow begins to drip from the branches of a juniper nearby; drops of water streak slowly down the side of the trailerhouse.

I am not alone after all. Three ravens are wheeling near the balanced rock, squawking at each other and at the dawn. I'm sure they're as delighted by the return of the sun as I am and I wish I knew the language. I'd sooner exchange ideas with the birds on earth than learn to carry on intergalactic communications with the world of Betelgeuse. First things first. The ravens cry out in the husky voices, blue-black wings flapping against the golden sky. Over my shoulder comes the sizzle and smell of frying bacon .

That's the way it was this morning.

The man could write.

After a half hour, I leave again. Another slow ride for forty or so miles more, on my slow bike, up another thousand feet, to the campsite I hope is available. It's of some possible curiosity why I opt to go this slow way, almost all the time. By car, you can reach this trial head in less than an hour. Camp, with as many amenities as you can fit in your car and be infinitely more comfortable doing it - fresh for the hike early the next morning.

It's the question I have on my mind, as I find myself up the first hill, directly after the small township of Nederland is conquered. It may be the romantic notion of an arduous trip, just to start the actual challenge. The challenge then, starts first at my doorstep and becomes more of an adventure and less of a hike. Riding eighty-something miles, only to have to hike 14 more miles and then to ride eighty-something miles back home is a doozy. Any way you put it. The total elevation gain then becomes larger than any other mountain hike in Colorado from any trailhead. From 5,000 feet, to 9,000+ feet.

There's commitment involved. Whatever I bring, is what I brought. Whatever I didn't bring, I don't have, can't use, can't just go to the nearest town to pick up (wouldn't have the time, or energy!) And I can't bring everything, because there's just a limit on weight I can carry under human power and the space everything takes up. It becomes a strategy just to complete everything and its good practice for a Very Long Trip somewhere Very Far Away. You could also scale up the exercise - what, if I didn't have the time/money/resources/space of a full time job and a large house and even a support group made up of my family, what would I utilize in my every day existence?

There's also just the time alone with oneself for reflection. Of the constant of pedaling and doing so, slowly. Seeing the world go by before you, knowing that it's all happening under very small forces from human legs. Knowing the muscles are learning from being exhausted. In my mind, they take on the appearance of those Juniper trees Edward Abbey talks so lovingly about: just hard, dense and scraggly. There's no bulk to them, only the fibers that can take such punishment remains.

The complete exhaustion. This is not something I can all together explain, except there is a point where your body does not want to go on, that your mind starts getting loopy and yet, you must. 7:00 pm was coming and with it, most of my daylight. Having not made the campsite, I still needed to go forward, even though my legs were about to quit for the day. Eighty miles is not a lot to ride. Eighty miles over thousands of feet of elevation gain, pulling a trailer that weighs 60lbs is altogether a different story. One could extrapolate that since it takes me twice as long and I'm going half as fast, it's almost as if I'm doing 160 odd miles, instead of 80-odd. I'm willing to at least play with this idea, now, safe, while just writing about it.

I find, finally at mile marker 9 my turnoff to the Longs Peak trailhead and campsite. I get off my bike and start walking. I almost never do such things, but I had enough of riding for one day. It was only a mile or so to the campsite, but I still had no idea if there was room. Slowly making my way, I spied possible places to rest my body. Many places seemed reasonable, at this hour, at this time of year. I wasn't worried.

Surprisingly, I find the campsite completely deserted. I took #10 for myself, made camp, made dinner and ate inside my tent while attempting to finish another chapter. Set my alarms for 3:00 am, passing out. It might have been 8:00pm. Having almost flipped my sleep schedule around seemed as if it would be traumatic to my health.

The trailhead itself is at ~ 9382 feet, 5,000 more feet to the top on foot. It's all about relations. A few years back, I tackled, La Marmotte course in France, used in one of the hardest Grand Fondos that there are. The high point in the ride, Col du Galibier at 2,645 meters (8,678 feet) would be below me.

col du galibier
col du galibier, 8/17/08

by almost a thousand feet.

The highest point on Earth would be another 20,000 feet, a little shy of 4 more miles. I'm at the bottom-middle of what we'd call, Heights. I can't really feel the elevation, the summer has put me in good form after many small challenges. I can remember, maybe, a time when it wasn't like this, though.

3:00 am came and I unbundled myself from my liner, sleeping bag and bivvy and got out of the tent. So many protective layers. Even in the beginning of October, it just takes a little bit of elevation to make the nights go below freezing. My sleeping bag has lost all of its down fluff. If it has feathers still in it, I'd be surprised. Needs a date with a dryer and a tennis ball.

Needed little to do this morning to get ready - just move some things out of the day pack and some things in: extra clothes, camping stove, bivvy (for emergencies), hiking poles, crampons, food. Secure the campsite for, perhaps someone to wander by and see a tent a bike and nothing else. Keep the mystery of just what I'm up to.

Trailhead was gotten to by 3:45 am. Signing the register with, "BICYCLE" in the, "License plate of car" was enough to make me a little delighted on being up so early. There was only one other person who had signed the book today before me.

The stars were out, stoping me in my tracks. Even so close to a major city, the sky this night was clear enough to see a faint band of the Milky Way. Twinkling through the trees of, "The Goblins Forest". Everything on this hike has a name. I never understood why this forest was even named, until I was hiking through it, with a head torch and watching all the shadows bounce around. Good name.

Twenty minutes of easy hiking and I met my first hiker and the first person I had talked to, since the barista all the way in Nederland. A bro-dude dude, he was actually already going down the mountain, having the beginnings of a migraine. A good choice and he stated he'd try again, a different time. My friend and I have still beaten him, though, on quickest failure up this mountain. I feel prickly proud.

Hiking, I looked for sources of water. I hadn't too much left as I can only bring what I can ride in with. A gallon of water weighs about 7 pounds. I noticed even at the start of the hike, there was snow. It accumulated alongside the banks of the stream, where it became precipitous, or made a sudden change of direction. The stream that the trail followed looked good enough, the snow itself probably wouldn't even need filtering.

Hiking at a modest pace, I didn't feel too tired from the bike ride the previous day. Those sorts of thoughts fill my head - how one type of exertion affects another. Surely, they overlap. My cycling has gotten, on the average, a lot better since I started hiking so much. Perhaps maybe from just being at elevation more. Perhaps from taking long, slow hikes, instead of short, intense rides.

Tree line was broached within a couple of hours of silent hiking in the dark, alone. No more people passed me. I would look down and think I could see some other head torches, but they turned out to be lights from houses, all the way in Estes Park. I would look up and see again, what I thought were head torches in front of me, they transformed into bright stars and would disappear behind the mountain's ridge line, sometimes as a meteor would streak almost directly vertical, as if to accentuate my exceptional lose of both sense of distance and scale. I kept looking for others, as all the reports I've read said that one of the marvels of this early hike was seeing a faint line of other people's torches, tracing the trail before you. This day, I was well and truly alone.

At the fork in the trail of Chasm Lake and the Boulder Field, you get to the first privy, sort of the last thing you'd expect, but a good idea, none the less. Other famous mountains have gotten the reputation of being piles of shit in the summer time, as the winter snow and ice melt, leaving what used to be pure white well, pure shit.

Made a wrong turn and started hiking towards Chasm lake. This supplied me with an incredible view of, "The Diamond" and the lake below and The Loft, farther ahead. Debated a while if this wrong turn was in fact a good idea. The trail could actually lead me to the top of Mount Meeker, instead - another reasonable goal for today, but I had no idea what that trail really was.

The sun was starting to come up - almost 7:00 am, as I turned around and faced East for an incredible view of the oversaturated bands of color that were about to explode in front of me. The horizon was a blood orange mix without definite boundaries, right above faint blue-green. The rest of the sky started its slow transformation from dark, dark, dark to light. The stars slowly faded away and I turned off my head torch. The sun eventually rose and overwhelmed everything, throwing the orange band completely away, almost all at once. The highest sunrise I have ever seen at around 11,000 feet coupled with an almost uncompromised view of the eastern half of the country which doesn't begin to rise again, until the Appalachian Mountains. Not even while on a sailboat in open waters has a sunrise attempted to tear me up so well.

Strange to hike so far without seeing what I've tramped through. The route slowly meandered with lazy switchbacks, until the Boulder Field, where the trail abruptly ends and everything, except the tops of the largest boulders are visible. The Keyhole is easily seen not far ahead, a ridge between Longs Peak proper and Mt. Lady Washington, featuring two prominent overhangs of rocks.

Between The Keyhole and myself, I spotted a campsite occupied with campers, just getting up. I make smalltalk and find that their plan is just to go a few hundred feet higher to The Keyhole and turnaround. I tell them, because of the conditions (snow, everywhere) that's probably my plan as well. I also tell them I'd kill for coffee. They offer some they have, lucky for me.

I make my way up to The Keyhole, where I meet a few other people, trying to figure out how they might have missed my roving attention for 5 hours and what time they could have possibly had started. They were having a very very hard time trying to get up the Boulder Field. One asks me where the trail is. I tell them, there is no trail, but follow the cairns and I point to one to the left of all of us. They continue to the right, I have no idea why. I tramp up to the left cairn. Everyone is slipping around, as the rising sun quickly melts the snow.

I ascend to The Keyhole without much trouble and attempt, fool-heartedly to make a phase change from ice to boiling water at 13,200 feet, using my very small propane/butane stove. I melt more water than I need for an 8oz coffee, just so I have some drinking water as well. It will be worth it. A little worried I'm going to blow through all my fuel, the fuel canister is optimized for cuteness and size, rather than fuel. Expensive little critter, too.

As I boil water, a few other people come up that must have started just after me. We all look at the other side of the ridge, the West side. There's nothing that looks like a trail. Even the painted bulls-eyes on the boulders, to signify the way through, are difficult to even imagine their placement. The ridge line is fairly narrow to begin with. The drop on the other side is around 1,000 feet. Probably more. Everything is covered in snow. Looks fraught with hidden crevices. We all discuss. Come to the conclusion that it's impassible for anyone, except the truly insane, that no one is really willing to give it a go, including myself and we all seem to be of sound mind, knowing full well that the mountain is not going anywhere and we'll all have another chance again, some other time.

And three people have died on this mountain, just in the past year.

Statistics like that put things in perspective. A fall from the route in front of us isn't only dangerous, it's deadly. Very easy to feel different, having this year personally summited about a dozen 14,000+ foot peaks, some more than once. One has to respect a mountain as if it's alive and realize the massive proportions of the mountain, in relation to yourself. I'm OK with all of this - hoping, perhaps in my mind that somehow I'd be able to summit, but not quite sure exactly how. To be honest, I was hoping to summit Longs, then Meeker, then, I dunno - make a  hang glider out of random rocks and sticks and write my name in the sky with smoke, but I'm a dreamer.

I finish my coffee as everyone else that has joined me up top starts the descent down to the trailhead towards relative comfort. A new group comes up, about three guys. They do the same lookie-see script as everyone else. They talk.

"So, what do you guys think, doable?"

The oldest man in the party, the one going, actually, the slowest responds.

"Oh, yes, of course, 100%, no problem!, Let's go!"

And like that, they're off. I am flabbergasted. A minute ago, I had made a sound, safe decision, based on my skill level, equipment, fitness and freshness and a myriad of other concrete and realistic points. There's something though very dangerous in seeing a small group of people tramp away from you, through a route you just deemed, "impossible". You realized you imagined that it was impossible, but, oh, it's so very possible.

To these people. Still, not you. What they have in equipment trumps what you have: basically hiking gear and a pair of rented crampons, which you cannot remember how to strap onto your low-cut boots. It's been over a year since you have worn crampons, and that was a world away on a enormous glacier, not on a snow-filled, narrow and precipitous ridge line. There's no real experience to judge how to use them, here. The party ahead also all have ice axes. Damn it, you think. If only, $6? more? I could have rented an ice axe and summit this damn mountain. Don't know how to use an ice axe either. Details, details.

But what they also have are themselves: they're in a group and you are alone. They have cumulative knowledge, you're just some punk city kid who's imagination gets away from yourself. Often. I watch the party slowly make their way through the ridge line, until, they're gone. I'll never see them again.

I put on my helmet and start following them. The bulls eyes painted on the rocks, that mark out the route slowly do reveal themselves. "Ah!", I thought, "Not so hard, just a little snow. Just... about a foot of snow. Just... go slowly, in a foot of snow, with a 1,000 foot drop to the right." Just go, go, go, go. Humming sea shantys, as I do, when nervous along, or drunk, held up only by my bicycle, when walking home, broken-hearted,

In South Australia I was born
Heave away. Haul away!
South Australia round Cape Horn
And we're bound for South Australia

It is not easy. My heart rate is already higher than normal. The coffee is not helping. I reach a point, not far into this malarky of an idea where there is a brief gap from one rock, to another to step over. To counteract this, there's two, what look like stainless steal pins, with a diameter of about 1 1/2" drilled into the rock. To step on! These do not create confidence in me, but I use one as a foothold and one as a handhold anyways. And, over the first, "problem".

Problems in rock climbing are where the crux of the climb are. They're called, "problems", because you need to use a little forethought, before attempting them. If you answer the problem wrong, you fall. I do not want to fall. Going farther and ever so slowly higher, I follow the painted bulls eyes and the shuffle of snow of the people I'm following, like ghosts.

I get to some more problems, mostly slabs at around a 45 degree angle, covered in snow and nothing - absolutely nothing on the West side of them. Three in a row, which slowly change my direction counter-clockwise. I begin to feel I am about to trap myself, as climbing them up is arduous, but not impossible, but by the third one, I will have nothing to the right side of myself and then, nothing at the bottom of myself. The change in direction of the trail has left me very exposed. Not something I realized, until I was above.

I pause. I look. I assess. The way forward is finally, I succumb, above my ability. The risk vs. reward game I play in my head has finally become a landslide of, NO. I listen. I look back from where I came. Treacherous.

This is where I lose my shit.

I cannot help it. I become short of breath. Adrenaline flows into my blood. I realize finally how cold I am, how wet my boots and gloves are and how oh-so ill-prepared I am. How bad of an idea this was. How I may have really screwed myself in this one.

With no real good plan on how to get out of this situation, I just wait until this wave of fear recedes. I hatch a plan. There's no real plan, except go back. Going back will be difficult, as going down will mean slipping down and slipping is not the action verb I want to use, as slipping means loss of control. I just don't have any control on how to go down. Fear is still in me. I again pause.

Little steps. Time to take little steps. Each ridge by itself. Five feet at a time. Stay low. Go slow. Focus on this only. Do not look over the ridge line. Impossible, but don't. Do not think of the guy who was in this very position and slipped. On snow and ice. A month ago. Do not.

Ever so awkwardly, I get myself down the last ledge I climbed up. I take a break. Remember to breath. Repeat. Second ledge, First ledge.

Off the first major hurtle. A simple walk back, around some boulders and back to the break into the trail with the steel bolts. Up and over. You got it. Back to The Keyhole, still without anyone else.

Totally lose my shit. Again. DEEP breathing, almost hyperventilating. Talking out loud to no one. "Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. -

THAT WAS INCREDIBLE! I need to try that out, again, as soon as possible!"

I pencil in a mental note to perhaps, ride back in two days, with an ice axe and try again. I am somewhat embarrassed at how excited in almost every way at doing something so idiotic, but I do not know how else to make myself feel alive anymore.

I walk down and meet up with some people who have congregated near a tent site, just below The Keyhole and the Boulder Field. We all walk down the trail, at slightly different speeds. In only a few hours, I'm back at the campsite. Spending so much time already on the trail, I don't do much, but make my way down. The trail seems boring, especially compared to what's after The Keyhole.

Talk briefly with a few people at the campsite with a lot of gear who are about to go back up. So much gear. More gear than I would ever want to own. I feel as if I'm at an impassé. There are things I want to do with this mountain, with Mountains, but I'm not committed to having the equipment take over my life.  A pair of hiking boots and a pack were perfect, I couldn't possibly own a large truck to put bins of rope and climbing equipment in. What to do. Keep having these little adventures, catalyzed by my roots in being an urban idiot, hopelessly ill-prepared and too-eager to jump into harm's way? How long, how many times can one do that, before they must grow up, old and out of that? Or before they perish from this tightrope of lack of foresight I've strung between me and everything I try to do?

I make noodles at my campsite. A little jerky and that's dinner. My caloric deficit will be incredible. I read. At around 8:00pm, I'm ready for bed and I fall, safely, silently and easily, to sleep.

My alarm sounds at 6:00am and I rustle up without too much trouble. Getting my gear in order, I melt some snow and ice I collected the day before going down and then make another cup of coffee, eat the last of my food - just some trail mix and shove off. I note that I haven't taken one picture. It seems to me, most of the time, that there's no need for photos of something thousands of eyes have seen. These mountain hikes give the impression of an amusement park ride to me and a photo taken that wasn't for a purpose, even just to illustrate something in this story, would leave a bad taste in my mouth. As if a mascot from whatever place I'm at was also in that photo, waving. Thinking these things now is worthless, since in 10 years, I'll want that photo, as I will have forgotten everything.

By 7:00am, I'm on the road, back to where I started. The road is undulating, but the majority of the time, I'm losing elevation, which is a relief for my legs, which are coming close to their limit of what, exactly, they can do. I stop frequently and marvel at how much easier it is to pedal, given my legs just minutes of rest.

I make it Nederland in a few albums on my portable music player's time. I'm listening to the Basquiat soundtrack. In the film, the character who's really just a thinly veiled Julian Schnabel comforts Basquiat's alientation, telling him that, "his audience isn't even born yet". I'm now 2 years older than the age that Basquiat killed himself in a heroin overdose and people my age can't horribly imitate his work fast enough. I'm on GrandMaster Flash And Melle Mel's track, "White Lines" at the most steep of descents, realizing I'm attempting absent-mindedly to follow the white line that separates the main road from the shoulder. I chuckle.

Decide not to spend much time in town, but high-tale it to Boulder. There's a dangerous road that connects Nederland to Boulder, HW 119. Steep grade, following a canyon's cut, little if any shoulder, twisting and I'm told by a large sign that there's construction being done on it and a, "Alternative Route is Advised". John Cale sings, "Hallelujah".

Before reaching the 10 degree grade, one of the more steeper roads in all of the front range, there's a small reservoir you pass. Sun bathers will attempt to soak up anything in the atmosphere, regardless of the weather, with optional clothing on. It's distracting.

Within minutes, I'm attempting to breach twice the speed the trailer I'm towing is rated for. This excites me. Keeps my mind on the road. This road seems somewhat cursed; it's more dangerous than one would think and it's probably the last place I should be, but, well, I'm on it. I keep having these fantasies - if you could call them that, of violent interactions with motorists that start something with me on this road. Perhaps, they've veered too close to me, and then give me the finger. Those things happen.

The next part is pure fantasy: I somehow then find the car parked in the middle of the town. I take something heavy and, in my fantasy, I start pummeling the car until the owner comes out and I pummel them, until the police show and then... well, I become less than human. Another scenario plays after the altercation on the road, where the motorist finds me sitting, enjoying a cup of coffee and a book, wanting to start something and I defect, as I'm well and truly a civilized person. This does not sit well with their anger, so they go outside and take it out on my parked bicycle. Kicking it.

This is where I lose my shit and kick them. And then we fight, the cops come... it all sort of becomes the same primal fantasy.

None of this happens today.

I stop at Trident coffee shop and continue reading Abbey's Desert Solitaire. I am now his #1 fan, almost unable to control my brimming love for his writing. As I read this book, I observe the people around me, with stuffy contempt;  mostly students with large, very large egos and no experience to keep it inflated. Well intentioned liars, all of them. I could probably include myself in this category, if I was to be honest, but my honesty is nullified by the fact that I smell horrible and the bathroom in this joint will soon bare witness to a mass migration of clothing from this morning, where it was at the freezing point to now, where it's a balmy, 85 degrees.

I leave without starting a fight and after purchasing a copy of Gary Snyder's "danger on peaks". Seemed fitting. From Boulder, Denver isn't too far away, with only one small, steep hill to worry about on McCallison. When I was just starting to explore the environs of Denver on my bicycle, this hill was the huge brick wall between myself in the closest city to Boulder. Getting up and over it was the accomplishment I remember. Of course this day, it seems very small and plain; it's hundreds of feet in elevation, not thousands and the top that seemed to incline into the clouds really is just a little bump in the road.

I pass through Standley Lake, following the green spaces as much as I can. Standley Lake has some simple paths of dirt to go on and opt for those, over the road, for a little variety. I pass a girl with tattoos of musical notes on her sleeve which I found queer; I passed her the last time I road this same path. A strange coincidence, my jonesing mind showing me my desires or nothing at all. Will never know.

Downtown Denver is found is short time. I stop at the giant outdoor sports store and give back the crampons and end the afternoon at My Brothers Bar, sucking on a soda pop and eating a most unforgettable cream cheese and jalapeño double cheese burger, medium rare.

]]> If Only a Few Miles Away on a Gravel Road - Part Two tag:alex.skazat.com,2010:/sketchbook//1.641 2010-10-11T07:13:17Z 2010-10-11T07:16:05Z Part OneI was now over six hours behind my schedule. Parts of my personality that I don't care for tend to bubble up to the surface, when I find myself in such a position. I think of myself as a... Alex Skazat
  • Part One


    • I was now over six hours behind my schedule.

    Parts of my personality that I don't care for tend to bubble up to the surface, when I find myself in such a position. I think of myself as a very patient person. I don't ride bikes because I need instant gratitude of getting to a destination as soon as possible. I ride because of the things that are important to me are the in-between things, that are missed with such high speeds we're now all accustomed. I like to see the landscape slowly reveal itself, the bend in the road going around an entire mountain, remembering the south side of the massif, while the east side comes into view, as if time and space slowly do converge on itself:  A cubism work of art.

    What I generally have a hard time fighting is being off a set route, off schedule - some task I've given myself. Maybe because it is so hard to first get oneself on the schedule and then, seeing your planning being dashed off and needed to reschedule it again, in hopes of fitting everything you wanted to do and a now, impossibly small space.

    The schedule for this day was important. I wanted to get to the top of Mt. Evans. It was Labor Day and the top of Mt. Evans closes on this very day. The last day up: that was the goal. And I was about to blow it. It would have been important to no one except me and I found it important because it seemed poetic.

    I slowly climbed up Lookout Mountain Road, thinking of what my options were. Lookout Mountain Road has been ridden by me countless times. I knew the bends, almost by privately made-up names, much like the more famous climb L'Alp d'Huez has every one of its twenty-one hairpin turns named and dedicated. I know the gradation of each leg is and at what point to accelerate to gain the advantage of speed of most anyone to the top. Today, though, was a thinking time for me. I'm an illogical thinker.

    My train of ideas started. "I could... still climb Mt. Evans to the top! Right before midnight! I would be at the top of a 14,000+ foot mountain in the middle of the night! Punk. Rock. I could... uh... SLEEP up there! Sleep on top of a 14,000ft peak. In... just the bivvy! Amongst the mountain goats and uh, mountain... Lions! And BEARS! Oh my!"

    I repeated such plans to myself, circulated them through my mind, much like a mantra, matching my cadence, slowly pushing myself up. I think of adventures at home the same way, during nights I can't sleep and have electric anxiety attacks and nightmares. The best way I've found to get rid of them is to first, realize it's just a dream and then just attune your anxiety onto something larger than yourself: an adventure. One that just gets bigger and bigger, too impossibly big to pull off. You forget most dreams anyways, but the ones that repeat - there must be something to them, a longing inside yourself to fulfill, if these dreams weren't made up of too much caffeine, too much work, too much working out and too little time to sleep.

    I was sincerely getting ahead of myself, having only gained 2,000-ish feet in elevation, with another 7,000+ feet to go and just turning into Evergreen, up Highway 74. My first flat tire happened. "It's really no problem.", I was telling myself, as I turned into a strip mall, just off the highway. Found a large supermarket. Will remember this location. Fixed the flat, as curious kids looked on and skated a set of three stairs. Stopped in the store for some fruit and - coffee, before heading back out, taking Rd 66 (Squaw Pass Road) West, towards my destination: Echo Lake. The only thing that separated me from Echo Lake - the entrance point to the Mt. Evans Highway was Squaw Pass and it was all just one big straight shot west.

    That's one way to think about it. It was already approaching dusk and I had to already stop to turn on my lights. Twenty Three more miles to go, just to Echo Lake. Thinking I could get to the top of Mt. Evans before midnight (that magic time!) still seemed reasonable. What I forget to calculate was my payload was seriously slowing me down. What could, with a fast bike and eager legs, take maybe two hours at a good clip, would take me now at least, double that: four hours.

    Squaw Pass Road is nothing but a two lane road, not much of a gutter, as its carved on the side of a ledge. Just enough, though to utilize. With night swiftly approaching, I started using a technique from past trips: Cars are much, much louder than you'd think - the rolling resistance of their tires makes an awful lot of noise. High-beams also provide an easy early warning system. So not to make myself road kill on such a narrow path, I simply listened and watched for cars. When one came close, I stopped on the side of the road and waited. Through the entire night, maybe 12 cars passed me. Why would anyone be on this road on this day?

    With such few cars and nothing but dense forest on both sides of me, I was already feeling quite isolated. The forest started to reveal a few of its secrets. Whole groups of elk ran out into the road, their steps so heavy and numbering so many as to rumble the ground. Rustlings of trees along the way let me know they continued to be near. Stars came out and even as I was so close to downtown, the Milky Way spilled out. Hidden cabins were revealed through their lighted exteriors. What once was familiar was now alien.

    I slowly - very slowly made my way on. It began to get cold. I realized a great mistake of mine: I forgot to bring full-fingered gloves. A slow leak had also formed in my rear wheel. Little things that gnaw at your conscious. I pushed on, though, every so often topping off the tire and adjusting my arm warmers to cover my fingers. There really wasn't too much to do, but enjoy being out in nowhere and watch the grade continue on its slow, limbering way every so slightly pointed up and look at the opposite side of the road for the tell-tale yellow diamond sign with an icon of a semi-truck pointed down a steep inclined plane. That would be the top of the pass.

    That sign, as furious as I attempted to find it, didn't seem to reveal itself easily. When so removed from basic cues, it's hard to know how much time has passed and one gets anxious. I was becoming anxious. My legs were getting heavy. The bike seemed very slow. I cursed myself for bringing so much stuff, even though I brought almost nothing extra. I had to reassess what goal was today. Echo Lake. Make it up to Echo Lake, 10,600 feet up. Find camping - anywhere, get up early and maybe ride as high as one can go with the main Mt. Evans highway closed. Try to summit. Maybe sneak on the road. Maybe ditch supplies to make things go a little faster. Maybe just hike from Echo Lake. Whatever the case, that mountain would be mine, tomorrow.

    Finally, the gradual grade up became a gradual grade down and I knew coming to Echo Lake, after over four hours of cycling in the dark, has almost been attained. As fast as I wanted to go, having no gloves meant going fast means freezing my fingers fast and I had to watch my speed, least I get frostbite. So strange how little problems can become big problems, once you've dedicated yourself to a simple vehicle and being self-sufficient. How embarrassing would it be, 60 miles from home and lose a finger?

    The road evened out and I saw the familiar pullout to the Mt. Evans Highway, who's terminus 13 miles west was the top of the mountain. Glance at my watch. 11:00pm. It would take me around three hours to make it to the top, with all the supplies to camp. Not happening. As it stood, I hadn't the energy to go the 300 meters to the toll booth to see if the road was even open to go up, or if the road was going to be, with some stroke of luck, open tomorrow. I just wanted to make camp, to eat and to pass out.

    Another question though - where? I knew not where the campsites were - I hadn't planned on stopping here, but instead, I planned to summit Evans, roll down and camp near Idaho Springs. I forgot to make an alternative plan. There were campsites here, I just didn't know where. And they were close, which adds a little annoyance. What I did know, was where the day-use-only picnic area was. Perhaps camping was near there? So, fumbling around in the dark, going down the main road, towards the lake to find it. No dice. The day use area would have to do, even though I did not like the idea of stealth camping in a national park, that provided camping. It's an unwritten rule of stealth campers: if there is a campsite near you, you must use it. I've broken this very rule with terrible regularity -  but only, like tonight, in adverse situations: I don't know where I am, I don't know where the campsite is, or even if there is a campsite. It becomes not a question of comfort, or frugality, but merely: I have 30 minutes to do what I need to do, before I pass out and anywhere, anywhere at all that will provide me some sort of protection from something, will have to do.

    So, into the thickest part of the picnic area, I bounded to. Camp was actually quite nice. A flat, pine needle-covered area to pitch a tent and a table to cook on. I've done worse in much more affluent parts of the world. One time on an another misadventure, in the middle of France, I had broken a spoke, turning onto the bike path that follows the Loire River. It was, like this night, cold and dark, but this time, I hadn't a clue where I was, what I could find, or what kind of trouble I would get myself into. I wheeled into the closest town.

    The closer you're in town, the less stealth camping spots are available, but I picked a meager spot underneath the only tree in a upturned and barren field. The ground was so dry, I had trouble even getting a tent stake in. On the other side, the town started proper and every so often a car would stop near me - teenagers making out. I just wanted to be alone, to wait for morning, get my bike fixed and go. How strange I must have seemed to the locals. Someone who's very familiar with the area and who's familiarity tends to shrink actual distances of various resources. But it was true, by train, I was, maybe 3 hours away from Paris, even though on this trip, I was weeks into riding the countryside.

    Like many places in France, I found out later that this town (Saumur) had a very comfortable camp site in town. French campsites are strange, rated on a scale of one to four stars - a four star campsite could find you a heated swimming pool and a mini golf course. This place was also one of the cyclo-tourisme centers of France. I went to the tourist office with my broken French, looking for, hopefully a bike shop, "ooo eh un maj-ah-san duuu velo?" (my French, is a little better, these days). The girl working the counter just blinked at me, circled three places on a map and said good luck! The closest one was 2 blocks away. I passed flower sculptures of bicycles, bicycles hanging as kinetic sculpture from street lamps. I felt as if I was Dorthy, having fallen into Munchkin Land and I liked eating munchkins. I couldn't believe my luck. Of all places to break down. And they had a tank museum -

    Back at Echo Lake, I quickly made camp and started boiling water for tramping noodles aka Ramen. Every so often, a truck would show its high beams and I would have to shut off my head torch, in an attempt to be inconspicuous, just waiting for my position to be revealed. I was probably very much visible from the road and was fearing the question, "What are you doing here, and - why don't you have any lights on?" and then, having to mumble some sort of half-assed reply.

    This night, everyone let me alone and I slumbered by around 11:30 pm, to awake the next day - early, to avoid discovery and get a mountain climb out of the way. I was less than 50 miles from my doorstep. A very, very long day, filled with not much and then night riding without a plan, afterward.

    ]]>     Mount Bierstadt to Mount Evans Travese, via The Sawtooth, Class 3 tag:alex.skazat.com,2010:/sketchbook//1.640 2010-10-07T09:09:26Z 2010-10-07T09:43:27Z Sunday, October 3rd, ~ 730am - ~7:30pm Sawtooth, Bierstadt All was well, with a successful and safe traverse across the Sawtooth, until N. developed a migraine headache on the top of Mt. Evans. It took five hours to get her... Alex Skazat Sunday, October 3rd, ~ 730am - ~7:30pm Sawtooth,

    Bierstadt

    All was well, with a successful and safe traverse across the Sawtooth, until N. developed a migraine headache on the top of Mt. Evans. It took five hours to get her down, through the Class two gully full of scree, and across the maze of willows at the bottom of the valley. She seemed to have aged an extra 50 years. She apologized profusely, through bouts of not clearly understanding what she needed to do to get down. I was worried she would pass out and then, what were we going to do? Snow flurries came and went throughout the day, nothing to worry about, but gave an idea on what a night out without proper shelter would do to us. A wild fire from the Northwest was first identified as a thunderstorm from hell. It made the sunbeams exhaust themselves off in a orange haze. I told her not to worry - I knew we'd make it through and this was, if anything, good practice for when something actually goes very, very wrong.

    The Abyss Lake area was mystic; creeks drained into the lake were filled with fish in shallow pools, the willows seem to reach out to you with infinite arms. Daylight in October was become a valuable asset and N.'s migraine would not allow her to move at a quick pace. We became worried we would be caught in the darkness, in the willow maze, but thankfully, we found the main trail in time to make it to the car, a little after the darkness totally enveloped us. 

    This was my fifth time on top of Mt. Evans, third time this year and only the first time by tramping up  a trail. Every other time has been by bicycling, starting from downtown Denver.

    ]]>     If Only a Few Miles Away on a Gravel Road - Part One tag:alex.skazat.com,2010:/sketchbook//1.639 2010-10-05T09:57:07Z 2010-10-05T10:07:51Z In Lower-Downtown-of-Denver, colloquially called, LoDo. We're in the parking lot that the local weekly music/events/opinion rag just called, "The most dangerous spot in LoDo." All of us, about twenty, are wearing all black, congregating around the payment area. We look... Alex Skazat The most dangerous spot in LoDo." All of us, about twenty, are wearing all black, congregating around the payment area.

    We look like a gang.

    I couldn't help but notice that about half of everyone that's running around on this Sunday is wearing white and that's there many, many people in downtown. More of a Friday/Saturday than a Sunday. White dresses are everywhere. Tomorrow is Labor Day. We are already not fitting in.

    We're all in a guerrilla, masked, anonymous, marching band and we have a gig, for the 15 year anniversary of a burrito joint. I have been given a large, a very, very large pair of symbols to play, since I am the only cymbalist in the group for this soiree. Easily weighing 15 lbs together. All my parts this night were just, a little off, the sole reason being I had neglected to take into consideration that the added mass of these new symbols changed the velocity of which I could crash them.

    My other duty tonight is the piñata. Unbeknown to anyone except the marching band, the promoters and the club, the large, papier-mâché hanging logo above the main area of the club, was in reality, a large, papier-mâché hanging piñata.  It is a beast. I was prepped, a few minutes before going on by the band leader:

    "So. We're going to play (song I forgot, as soon as it was mentioned) and once we get to (part of song that made no sense to me), YOU'RE going to take this boat oar," shows me the boat oar, "and you're going to start bashing the shit out the piñata, that'll be dropped right on top of us! Got it?!"

    I think I said yes. I then, found a beer.

    Our set was going well, we came out right after the Clash cover band, The, "Nuns of Brixton", complete with nuns outfits and all the favorites, finished up. On cue - someone's cue, the piñata did drop - but on the wrong song! What to do. I went over to our tricycle (we have a tricycle) and talked it over with the tricyclist (we have a tricyclist) who screamed over our own noise,

    "THAT'S THE SIGN - THE PIÑATA HAS DROPPED!".

    I could only respond, "Uh huh!"

    He takes the boat oar, leaving me searching for something else. A golf club! -  also conveniently tucked away besides our portable sound board, on the tricycle's payload area. I did the quick back-of-envelop physics, a subject I failed in high school, of how well a golf club, weighing so precious little will fare up against the 6' x 10' piñata, made of old 12-pack cardboard beer cases. All I could think of was: I am dangerous. I am going to hit someone in the head. I am glad that I, at least, am wearing a motorcycle helmet.

    I approached the piñata with the fury that only Hell and I, presumably, hath. The piñata held its ground. I swung more. Wildly! I cursed it! The band continued playing without its so important cymbalist.

    I found that I had made a small hole in the piñata, with the club - golf-club sized, even. Without too much forethought and with a rebel yell, I jumped onto the piñata and started to rip that thing a new one, while hanging from it. The only thing holding me onto it, I found out later, was one burly stage hand, holding onto the other side of the rope, that connected to the piñata, by a pulley.

    I throw down the golf club, as the attendants of the event - hundreds of them, started clambering directly towards the center of this place, where the piñata had dropped, the marching band is making all sort of ruckus and I am currently hanging from a rope. Drunk and wanting the innards of this Thing, all form of order has been lost.

    The piñata's skin slowly relented and putting my hand into its warm insides, I started throwing the party favors towards the crowd. Eye patches. T-shirts. Condoms. I could hear nothing but our noise and see nothing but a constant strobe light showing arrested silhouettes, mostly in fucked-up marching band uniforms of purple and gold. A flash of the odd Lower-Downtown-of-Denver goer. Sweat.

    Having fulfilled our contracted agreement and exhausting our repertoire of songs, we marched out, packed up and went home. Contrasting this night, my next two weeks would be vastly different.

    Having ended the show, packed out and back at my homestead, I had the task of finishing packing and prepping for an Adventure, outside of the city, outside of lights and alone. Just my bike and myself. Lots of little tasks had to be completed.  Bike needed new inner tubes. Pack list had to be created, then lightened, double-checked, then lightened again, so as to be able to fit in the trailer that will wheel behind my bike and I go through the mountains of Colorado, in the most difficult and illogical way I have yet come up with.

    A common problem reared its ugly head: no matter how I packed and repacked, it always seemed too much stuff - it would barely fit into the trailer's bag. It seemed to weigh too much and would be impossible to get up the mountain passes I challenged myself, with the same forethought as jumping onto a floating piñata, swinging a golf club wildly in a crowd filled with drunk patronages, not an hour before. I kept throwing out things. One pair of underwear, I'll bring just one pair of underwear. But, two head torches - and extra batteries. I need both pairs of wool socks, but this floppy tramping hat is staying.

    How many cameras? Three? OK, two. Ok, ok, just one. How many lenses? Just one? Ok, one. Ultra light tent. Sub-kilo sleeping bag. But a sleeping bag liner. And a bivy. A bivy? Yes, a bivy, I don't know what I'm really up against. It's only the beginning of September, but it's been known to freak blizzard in July in the mountains. 15 ounces now or dead forever, what's it gonna be? The final food provisions - enough to last a few days, until I can get resupplied, the final list of maps and books, so not to get lost and then to purposely get lost, somewhere else, for a little while.

    Precious minutes were ticking. It was now 3:30 am, I had planned to leave at 5:00 am to get a good start, wanting to climb to the top of the highest paved road of North America and to summit Mt. Evans at 14, 264 feet, starting at my doorstep in Denver, CO.

    For a warmup.

    Setting the alarm to 6:30 am after inflating the biggest pair of tires I can fit onto the cyclocross bicycle, I drifted into sleep, a little nervous. This is the same bike that I have taken to France and four other European countries on two separate trips. I have taken it through New Zealand and across American length-wise. Keeping a low profile, painted flat black with chalkboard paint except in the places where my legs have worn it off after millions of pedal rotations and carrying with it dings from the past accidents of my travails over the years after I bought the frame used on Craigslist, it is beginning itself to become sentient from mere observance and attendance of all the destinations I have brought it to.

    In my mind. In reality, it just sits in the corner, looking slow. More a half-blind mule than a prize-winning Arabian stallion. It will have to do. It's the only thing I own that has a name. Its named after my Father's two small sailing boats he owned when I was growing up: Marserena. In Spanish, it translates to, "Calm Seas" and was probably thought up near the Catalina Islands, where my parents would go on dates - dates to look at sailboats and talk about maybe owning one, one day.

    Yes, I have taken strange and wonderful journeys on this bicycle before and for much, much longer stretches of time, but never in such a way. My bicycle is fitted with what one may describe as Aggressive tires. They are not the smooth, accommodating touring tires with slight tread that I have always used. These tires can literally take anything save a sheath of ice on a frozen lake. They are meant to be taken off road and off road is where I am going. Hopefully. Eventually.

    One of many things worrying me: The build of this bike finalized itself with the correct sized inner tubes being put into the wheels. I have never taken a ride more than 10 miles with this bike. I haven't take it off road at all. I haven't pulled anything in the trailer. The parts are cobbled together from the contents of a few stolen milk crates that litter the living room of this house. The tires themselves are borrowed from a wrench at the bike shop. The shift levers were machined when Sonic Youth released, Day Dream Nation in 1988. Nothing is perfectly tuned.

    Especially the rear derailer, which seems altogether wonky. I'm too tired and worrying about other things to give it enough attention. I've screwed in the limiting bolts one way, I've screwed them the other way. I've found different screws and repeated, I've said, "Screw it" to adjusting them perfectly. The rear derailer likes to sweep terribly close to the fragile rear wheel spokes. I'll have to watch out for that one. Could be a little tenuous.  

    Set off around 7:00am. Cursing myself. Already late. Already too late. Today's itinerary finds me riding to Golden, up Lookout Mountain and to Evergreen, taking the Squaw Pass to Echo Lake, 10,000 feet up, a small break and then up the Mt. Evan's Highway, presumably, the highest paved road in North America. No higher one exists, as the expense to keep a road in working condition, even for the summer, far outweigh its usefulness. Even this road serves no purpose, except to give you a parking lot to park, so that you can take a quick, five minute walk to the top of one of Colorado's highest peak at 14,262 feet.  

    It's a beautiful ride in a car. I hear. I have never driven up it. The mere thought sounds incredulous. Why? Why could I do that, when I could ride a bike up there, instead? What is certainly an exhilarating if easy ticket to an incredible panorama, becomes then a challenge for any cyclist. There are no higher roads to ride, anywhere near. And to start from your doorstep. This, this is it.

    Not that I haven't done it before. A few weeks before starting this trip, I set off, not much earlier in the morning to see, not only if I could do it, but how quicklyI could do it. With a time of 11 hours flat, I had daylight to grab dinner, take a nap in a park downtown and go to a party at the local bike shop to boast about this shit. I bettered my last time by hours. 130 miles in itself is a fair chunk of road to ribbon away, topping that with 10,000+ feet of elevation gain is, well, commendable.

    But, this time will be a little different. Today, I only wanted to do half that. Get up and then find a place to camp a little ways down. The goal seemed reasonable, but there was one thing different. I wasn't on some aluminum and carbon fiber road bike, complete with lightning bolts affixed to its down tube, high-pressure tires and neat-o brakes and gears and gear shifter-bits... whatever they're called. I was taking my slowest bike, weighed down with the only gear, sans food, I'd have for two weeks, plus hiking gear enough to do a Class 3 climb; a day pack, trekking poles, clothes. Huge, knobby - and slow, very slow tires.

    All my gear was to be pulled behind the bike in a one-wheel trailer. Alone, the trailer starts to weigh around 15 lbs. The weight alone made me cringe at the thought of using the trailer at all. The only saving grace was that the trailer has its own wheel to bare some of the weight. It also allowed me to bring my hiking pack, without modification and fit it snugly inside the trailer. Inside the day pack, I could fit the bivy, sleeping bag, toiletries, cooking stove and utensils and my sleeping pad. Outside of the day pack, haphazardly, I could stack the rest of my gear; clothes - enough for sub-zero temperatures, but just barely, bike tools, food, camera. All this was stuffed into a huge, yellow waterproof bag and tied down by bungee chords. The total weight, including bicycle, trailer and gear is over 80lbs.

    I had only gone a few miles - far enough to reach the local bike shop, which also has an early morning "bike thru" coffee shop within it, when I first realized the tenuous situation this gear system was going to present to me. Deciding to take a photo of the bike, next to the shop's serving window, I  unwind bungee chords, move gear out of the way to find the camera, which meant, taking gear out of the bag, to make room for my wandering hands and eyes to find the camera bag. The trailer, having only one wheel and one pivot point with the back wheel of my bike, has a tendency to jack knife, if loaded with anything. This is what it then did.

    Trailer jack knifes and misc. items spill from it. I then have to prop the bike up on something so that both bike and trailer are in a stable position. Moving either causes instability. For example, looking for a camera. The jack knifing maneuver continues on the entire trip.


    The Happy Coffee Bike Thru

    I order coffee - I'm already exhausted, my arms pulsating from the poundage just a few hours ago and talk to the owner of the bike shop. He's going to be in Las Vegas in a few weeks for an industry-only bicycle expo, where all the flashy new bike gear is showcased. As luck would have, I will also be in Las Vegas at the same time, for my best friend's wedding and ask him how exactly a nobody like me could gain access to a industry trade show. He hatches a plan, I won't mention the details, that sounds good to me and I wish him farewell and that I'll see him in Las Vegas, if not sooner.

    Being so tired, so early on is not a good sign, but the next few miles through the environs west of Denver are easy. It's a gentle incline to Golden, Colorado and after that, the foothills and the Front Range. I stop once more in Golden for more coffee. Still tired.

    I go through the Colorado School of Mines campus, watching students bustle, even on a holiday. I'm invisible here, as bicycles are a main form of transportation of the soon-to-be engineers, who probably have some sort of math problem in their minds, anyways. It's a scene I've seen many times - maybe a dozen times, just this year alone as I'm heading up to Lookout Mountain, the first major outcropping of elevation from Downtown Denver. It's maybe 15 miles away from my doorstep. A quick enough day trip that people drive their cars to the start of the hill, to get a ride in after work.

    I can't help but find it puzzling that someone drives, just to bicycle, but I'm the weird one in this world, which I constantly have to remind myself. If you want more of a workout, you can just do its 2,000 feet of elevation more than once. On one training ride, I think I rode to the peak four times. I never really know what I'm training for. Perhaps the fall of contemporary civilization. My contingency plan is to run/bicycle/anything, to the mountains and stay there. Try to survive.

    I turn the corner out of the campus and am a block away from HW 6, the other side being the start of the climb up Lookout Mountain. I change into my lowest gear, to grind up, slowly. And, well, it happens. A terrible sound of forcefully shattering things.

    The rear derailer had lodged itself into the wheel, tearing out two spokes and working upon a third. Exactly what I worried about and exactly what I never thought could happen. Maybe, I thought it wasn't something that couldn't happen to me. It was only 9:00 in the morning. I had gone all of 15 miles.

    I got off the trail and assessed the situation. Other cyclists passed around me. The back tire did not want to turn, the tires being so wide, they were hitting... something - the brakes? Took them completely off. Turned the wheel, still not moving freely. The wheel had become untrue because of the drastic change in spoke tension - enough where the tire was rubbing against the frame of the bike. I've never had this happen to me before, having never ridden such wide tires. Looking at my front wheel, unbroken, I realized I had about a millimeter of  clearance on each side of my frame for these wheels. Any problems with the wheels and I would be rubbing.

    As best I could, I tried getting that wheel to turn smoother and began the slow and noisy march of shame back towards downtown Golden. I only had to go through the School of Mines campus, but it was enough to feel embarrassed. The closest bike shop was at a convenient place, so I parked the bike, popped open
    the book I brought. The Joke, by Milan Kundera. Waiting for this bike shop to open at 10:30 and see if they couldn't help me fix the wheel.

    Sometimes, so much damage is done to a wheel from spokes breaking, that you cannot fix the wheel and be sure it won't break again. I was hoping that his wasn't the case. I spared no expense with this part of my bicycle. Special ordered the rim from Australia, bronze spoke nipples, high spoke count. Other details of little importance. I spec'd the wheel to be able to cross Africa, it shouldn't die crossing Denver county.

    I also didn't know if the bicycle shop would open, today, at all! It was a holiday - Labor Day and it was very much in the realm of reality that they wouldn't and then, what? 10:30 came and went and no sign of life. I search for other bike shops and found one, on the same street a mile away. Again, I dragged the bike and my gear across town, trying to feign that nothing was out of the ordinary.

    The other bike shop was open, but very, very busy. I tell them my problems and curtly they tell me they can fix it, but what ETA was I hoping? I tell them as soon as they can, that I'm touring and am stuck until this wheel gets fixed. I'm embarrasses again and don't mention the tour did not start many thousands of miles away, but many thousand of feet and, "stuck" really means I have to call a somewhat annoyed friend to pick my crap and myself up, if all fails. I wasn't about to give up yet, but I have a schedule for myself and my window for getting up Mt. Evans today are very quickly closing. They tell me they're very, very busy, have many, many other bikes to work on and don't know when they'll even be able to start on wrenching. This all makes me severely frustrated, but it's not their fault.

    Dropping off the bicycle to hopefully get fixed, there wasn't much to do, but to wait it out. I didn't know the shop and being so close to my starting point left me restless. Stuck. I retreated to a park and read. I ate lunch and drank more coffee. Visiting a town so close to your own as somewhat an outsider, a visitor is a strange experience. Your whole perspective feels as if you're in a different country. Mannerisms are just a little different, at least imagined to be so. Tourists are every where, ever here, annoying.

    Five hours later I get the call that I've been waiting for. The wheel is finished and ready to go. I walked back, thanked the shop owner and mechanic and gave both a tip for some beer. They replaced the spokes and found the problem with the derailer - mis-installation. And since I put installed it on my bike, it was my fault. Suddenly, reading a book entitled, "The Joke" wasn't of such an abstract subject. I could hardly laugh, but what else could I do?

    Start out again, start out again.

    ]]>     Mt. Belford to Mt. Oxford Traverse. Class 2 tag:alex.skazat.com,2010:/sketchbook//1.638 2010-09-30T08:00:04Z 2010-09-30T08:12:50Z A fairly unsuccessful drawing of N. Proportions are all wrong. Was attempting to make a drawing fairly quickly. Fairly quickly made a million mistakes. There is a pen version of this drawing that was too much crap to even save.... Alex Skazat A fairly unsuccessful drawing of N.

    Proportions are all wrong. Was attempting to make a drawing fairly quickly. Fairly quickly made a million mistakes. There is a pen version of this drawing that was too much crap to even save.

    Some photos from our successful attempt to climb Mt. Belford and Mt. Oxford on  8/29/10 - all of her. She took some photos of me. She's an expert photographer, but with manual, expensive, hard-to-use film cameras. She didn't understand how to use the automatic focus on my camea! And all the photos of me are blurry.

    This was our second attempt at these summits - our first attempt, on 07/04/10 was thwarted, as we managed to take the incorrect trail head. We found ourselves on the top of Hope Pass, by accident. We never said we were any good at this stuff. We just, I guess, like walking places, together.

    One more photo. What I'm guessing is some type of thistle?

    For being at 13,000+ ft, it's an incredible hardy little fellow.

    ]]>     laisse tomber les filles (KALON KAKON) et autant de fous trous (ras-le-bol) tag:alex.skazat.com,2010:/sketchbook//1.637 2010-09-29T22:30:11Z 2010-09-29T23:46:12Z autant de fous trous (ras-le-bol) pencil, crowquill pen and ink, rapidograph pen and spray paint on bristol board, 11" x 14" "autant de fous trous (ras-le-bol)", roughly translates to, "all these crazy holes (discontent)". Why is the title in... Alex Skazat autant de fous trous (ras-le-bol)

    autant de fous trous (ras-le-bol)
    pencil, crowquill pen and ink, rapidograph pen and spray paint on bristol board, 11" x 14"

    "autant de fous trous (ras-le-bol)", roughly translates to, "all these crazy holes (discontent)". Why is the title in French: French has less words to work with than English, so words sometimes have more than one meaning, a common meaning and a familiar meaning. "trou" can be translated to, "hole", but if you call someone a, "trou du cul", you're calling them an asshole. The holes in this drawing are the ones the figure (which is a self-portrait) makes. His clenched fist, pinched ear, wide-open eye, his gaping mouth - pulled open, the view of his nostrils, the space made by the bend of his arm - even presenting the armpit for inspection. "trous" here is sexually charged. "ras-le-bol" can also be translated to, "fuck it!" - giving up in anger. Presenting, without receiving. "FT" stenciled with spray paint points back to, "fous trous", but could also be shorthand for, "Fuck This". The line work is scratchy and over-energetic.

    laisse tomber les filles (KALON KAKON)

    laisse tomber les filles (KALON KAKON)
    spray paint on plastic coated paper, ~4' x 9'

    Installation view:

    "laisse tomber les filles", also French, is a title of a France Gall song, about her being a good girl, watching all her peers have sexual fun and thinking they'll regret it later, most likely because she was in an innocent state and got hurt by one of her peers. It's unclear if she sings this truthfully, or if it's tongue-and-cheek. The song wasn't written by Gall, but rather by Serge Gainsbourg, who had nothing but a fairly public reputation as a womanizer and all around kook in the best way. Albums of his include, "Rock Around the Bunker" filled with Nazi references (Gainsbourg is Jewish). "laisse tomber les filles" came out well before the student uprisings later in the 60's, it's certainly fun to wonder what the song meant to students in '68.

    KALON KAKON is latin for, "Beautiful Evil" and refers to greek mythology of the Original Women:

    Out of any context, kalon kakon would be irresolvably ambiguous. It could mean "beautiful evil" or "evil beauty" or "beauty-evil". We would have no clear indication as to which of woman's elements is substantive and which is only modifying. We could not know whether woman, in being called kalon kakon, was being called: (a) essentially beautiful through qualifiedly evil; or (b) essentially evil though qualifiedly beautiful; or (c) essentially both evil and beautiful. In this tangle of words there lie profound differences, which Hesiod for his own purposed sorts out for us. When he is through, there is no ambiguity left. In the context provided by Hesiod, it is kakon that defines the substance or essence of woman. Repeatedly, kakon is made to stand alone, stripped of kakon. The trust of woman is stripped of pretense, and woman is revealed as unambiguously evil: "Thunderous Zeus made women to be kakon for mortal men;"12 "he fashioned this kakon for men to make them pay for the theft of fire" 13> What then, has become of the kakon, the beauty of women? The meaning of Helen: in search of an ancient icon By Robert E. Meagher (Link)

    I originally repeated the phrase, because I liked the patterns the stenciled words made - lots of arrows pointing down. The repeating phrase also shows that there are many Kalon Kakons and they're all essentially the same. The musician, April March re-recorded Gainsbourg/Gall's song, translating the title to, "Hang Up the Chick Habit". I like the pun of a title of art work that tells you to hang itself up.

    Thinking of women as essentially evil, using beauty to lure men towards destruction is essentially stupid. Just like Gainsbourg, I've received my fair share of attention and that's lead to my own share of bad decision making when it comes to relationships with women. Some of these women were amazing beings and I screwed them over, however slightly. Some of them were just plain nuts and certainly showed forth their own, kalon kakon.

    But the choice to seek and find these individuals was mine. To act the way I did was mine. I am to blame for whatever I had engaged in and that any kalon kakon was originally (this is the key word here) my own. This piece is about hanging something up and letting something go. Moving on and growing, instead of repeating the same mistakes with new innocent individuals.

    ]]>     Café Drawings tag:alex.skazat.com,2010:/sketchbook//1.636 2010-09-28T07:33:31Z 2010-09-28T07:36:06Z Campbell Soup in pencil and Rapidograph sourced from photos I took of his wedding last week. ~2 hours for both.... Alex Skazat Campbell Soup in pencil

    and Rapidograph

    sourced from photos I took of his wedding last week. ~2 hours for both.

    ]]>     Mr. Pacman, International Espionage, Ryat tag:alex.skazat.com,2010:/sketchbook//1.635 2010-09-20T03:35:20Z 2010-09-20T03:40:52Z Rhinoceropolis, 9/18/10 Mr. Pacman: Ryat: International Espionage:... Alex Skazat Rhinoceropolis, 9/18/10

    Mr. Pacman:

    Ryat:

    International Espionage:

    ]]>     "A" is for, "Anal" tag:alex.skazat.com,2010:/sketchbook//1.634 2010-09-19T08:19:18Z 2010-09-19T21:20:22Z Crowquill pen and ink, spray paint, marker and pencil on bristol board... Alex Skazat A is for, Anal

    Crowquill pen and ink, spray paint, marker and pencil on bristol board

    ]]>     Autoportrait tag:alex.skazat.com,2010:/sketchbook//1.633 2010-08-19T14:16:33Z 2010-08-19T14:18:12Z Autoportrait, Crow Quill Pen on Sketchbook Paper... Alex Skazat

    Autoportrait, Crow Quill Pen on Sketchbook Paper

    ]]>     Identity. When you look in the mirror, do you see yourself, do you see yourself tag:alex.skazat.com,2010:/sketchbook//1.631 2010-08-14T11:06:07Z 2010-08-16T03:41:28Z Gave myself a year and decided to cut off all my hair. Went a week with half-all hair, half-all gone, to provide a little transition time for myself. Took a photo series while cutting my hair - something I... Alex Skazat

    Gave myself a year and decided to cut off all my hair. Went a week with half-all hair, half-all gone, to provide a little transition time for myself.


    Took a photo series while cutting my hair - something I did almost 10 years previous - wanted to revisit the idea, perhaps with a decade of experience and self reflection. Below are just a few of the images - I haven't yet decided what I want to do with the images - the final product. It could potentially be a large project itself:


    I made a small-run, two-color poster to give to friends and associates I knew that I bumped into, in my regular errands. Just made a few.

    There's a lot of loaded content that I - hopefully, will someday wring out of this project: identity, mirrors, self-reflection, etc.


    ]]>     My Personal BEARD GANG MANIFESTO tag:alex.skazat.com,2010:/sketchbook//1.630 2010-08-03T07:46:38Z 2010-08-03T15:53:10Z (Previous: Inventing a Beard Gang) Three-Color, hand-pulled screen print on paper. A BEARD GANG MANIFESTO Except for THIS ONE PARAGRAPH (or at your discretion, without it!), A BEARD GANG MANIFESTO should be grown, sheered and shaped in any way... Alex Skazat Denver Beards

    (Previous: Inventing a Beard Gang)


    Three-Color, hand-pulled screen print on paper.

    A BEARD GANG MANIFESTO

    Except for THIS ONE PARAGRAPH (or at your discretion, without it!), A BEARD GANG MANIFESTO should be grown, sheered and shaped in any way judged redeemable by the personal wearer of the BEARD GANG creed. There should be as many BEARD GANG manifestos as there are beards to hang them from. One may choose to potentially base their personal MANIFESTO on another Brother's or Sister's MANIFESTO as a gesture of sharing, as we are all truly a part of Global Family. The only requirement to join a BEARD GANG is to grown your own BEARD GANG MANIFESTO. My BEARD GANG MANIFESTO is thus:

    I, a member of a shared, public and inclusive BEARD GANG unify under the anti-flag of what growing a beard in our contemporary age represents:

    • Freedom of expression through patience

    • Cultivation of personality without self-editing

    • Expression without fearing the critiques of others

    • United non-conformity

    • A signaling of maturity

    • A fierce wish for freedom to flourish as one's unique body, mind and soul take care of it's own self.

    My BEARD GANG MANIFESTO is not limited to any one gender or sexual orientation, but rather only uses the beard on a young man's face as a symbol of a wholly, as well as wooly icon. One my find similar outcroppings of wild locks between your legs and under your arms. The important part to remember is to grow as one may like, in any direction one my like, for as long as one may like, regardless of your personal gender, sexual orientation, etc.

    PERSONAL HONORY BEARD GANG MEMBERS Allen Ginsberg, Isabelle Eberhardt, Aleister Crowley, Patty Smith, Grigori Perelman, Amelia Earhart and Christopher McCandless

    ]]>     A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle tag:alex.skazat.com,2010:/sketchbook//1.629 2010-06-22T10:20:00Z 2010-07-06T09:03:49Z Alex Skazat A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle

    A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle

    A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle

     A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle

    A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle

    A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle

    A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle

    A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle

    A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle

    A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle

    Recently designed and created this costume (with a lot of help). I have just gotten over months of physical therapy for my knee - been hurting since September and was diagnosed as several things. Was homeless for a good part of the first part of the year, to be able to save up enough for insurance to get it properly looked at.

    The costume took a few days to create. We started with a cast of my torso, created by wrapping my torso in cellophane, taping that cellophane with packing tape and removing the tape with scissors. We then taped back the seam we created and stuffed the cast with packing popcorn and foam-in-a-can. Brutal process in my sweltering studio.

    I wore the costume at the first annual Denver Century - a 100 mile bike ride through Denver, Colorado. The ride is not a race, just a fun ride through the environs of Denver. While riding, I cracked really bad fish-related jokes,

    "How ya swimmin'?"

    "I feel like a fish outta water!"

    "I'm floundering out here!"

    As well as reciting the theme from, JAWS, while sneaking up on people.There's a million things you can do in a fish costume, whilst riding a bike.

    I got a lot of looks, a whole lot of smiles and made I think, a few people a little more happy to be alive.

    I also packed a bunch of business cards and gave them out to anyone who would talk to me.

    I would introduce myself like this:

    "So, you know who Smokey the Bear is, right, well, I'm Oily The Fish!"

    The front looked like this,

    A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle

    And, the back of the business card:

    A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle

    Here's the text:

    The disaster caused by the Deepwater Horizon explosion has dumper tens of millions of gallons of oil in the Gulf of Mexico. An ecological disaster, entire fish habitats may now be destroyed. The extend of the damage is still unknown - the data to make estimates has been withheld by Beyond Petroleum. It's probably really bad news. Something as simple as riding your bike, instead of driving your car could lessen the pressure to drill for oil in such environmentally-dangerous locations. If I can ride 100 miles in a fish costume as protest to the BP disaster, what incredible difference can you make with your bike on a daily commute, to lessen your personal dependence on oil?

    My hope was that my humor and my comedic look would serve as a ice breaker to talk about more serious matters - what wouldn't you talk about to a giant fish riding a bike?

    It didn't really work that way and I have my theories. This ride cost money - $70 to ride! You have to be somewhat well-off to ride it, since you can ride your bike any time you want, for basically free! Cycling can also be (but doesn't have to be) a rich man's pursuit - you can very easily spend thousands on a bicycle! These well-off people may not have been so interested in hearing such bad news, since they're so established in their lives: they have a job, a family and a home. They probably felt that I was intruding on a day off of their busy schedule. I was literally, a fish out of water, without any peers and very few sympathetic ears.

    The people at Denver's Pride Feast, also the same day, also enjoyed my costume, immensely.

    ]]>     Registration tag:alex.skazat.com,2010:/sketchbook//1.626 2010-05-18T16:57:46Z 2010-05-18T17:06:39Z Registration Test - two color. No traps. Testing new registration system using two hinges, a few pieces of tape and a three hole punch - the kind you can keep in a binder. It's pretty primitive. Self portrait, four... Alex Skazat Registration Test - Two Color

    Registration Test - two color. No traps. Testing new registration system using two hinges, a few pieces of tape and a three hole punch - the kind you can keep in a binder. It's pretty primitive.

    Auto Portrait

    Self portrait, four color screen print, using that same registration system. Ink is acrylic paint - ~ one part Heavy Gel Medium, ~1 part screen print medium, 20 drops of Golden Open Thinner and a touch of actual pigment - whatever was on hand that was the right color. The pigment has to be extremely transparent, without being too weak. Acrylic paint is very very pigment heavy.

    Cheap acrylic paint works very well, since it's a little weaker than the pricey stuff. This makes it more transparent - better for the above use.

    ]]>