A Fine and Pleasant Misery

The title of one of Patrick Mcmanus' books (A Fine and Pleasant Misery) is about the best words I can think of to describe my experience at Arrowhead 2013.  It was fine and pleasant in that all of my gear worked well enough and my body was working well enough that if trail conditions had allowed for riding I'm fairly confidant I could have finished.  And, even though I didn't finish, I'm satisfied that I gave it a good shot and that things beyond my control were the limiting factor.

The limiting factor was that we got something like 8" of wet snow.  Riding bikes was impossible - at least it was for anyone I talked with (this was the Misery part).  We ended up getting into our bivy bags and sleeping for 5 hours or so.  I have never even considered sleeping in either of my other two Arrowheads.

This is before Gateway (and before it started snowing).  We were making slow but steady progress - our bodies and bikes were both working well.

Fairly soon after it started to snow.

What the trail looked like the morning after we bivied.

John's bike when we woke up from our sleep at the bivy site.

The title of the book says it all.

A "real" write-up will follow in the next couple of days.