Dogs, hawks, coyotes, and my spine

Yesterday, I had packed my favorite snow bike trails to perfection. I could hammer along the hard snow, riding almost like I do on dirt. Then, the wind swept in from the west, hurling the fine dry powder into the air. For some reason, powder tends to settle in the trail depressions. Then, the top layer becomes an almost impenetrable layer of windpacked crust. As I tried to ride the same trails that were so perfect yesterday, the snow crust shattered into pieces, like a glass breaking, leaving behind scattered jigsaw puzzle pieces. After shattering the crust, I foundered in the fine powder below it. It was tough riding to say the least.

K didn't mind in the least. She zipped around like a wild animal, left ear wildly flying into the air.

We stopped and enjoyed the crystal clear view of the Divide. The cloudless blue sky felt endless. If I gaze at it for long enough, I feel like the world is limitless.

After K and I slipped and slid around our trail network, I dropped her off at home and switched bikes to my winter bike with studded tires so that I could ride on our dirt roads. Sometimes, riding becomes like meditation for me. Today, I found myself mind completely absorbed in pedaling and breathing - with no other thoughts - for miles. It was a wonderful escape.

Then, nature caught my attention. A hawk soared low over my head and alighted on atop a pine tree. At first, he turned his back and ignored me. Notice the fiery red tail hiding under the black tips of his folded wings. The light streaks higher on his wings provided another clue.
Then, he warily watched me but let me take more photos. His chest feathers were a streaked light color.
His face was dark and his beak tips hooked downward.

All of these features told me that he was a Red-Tailed Hawk. I'd never seen one perched so close. He was perched over a small meadow, likely watching for rodents or small birds to snag for breakfast.

A little later in my ride, I passed a frozen lake that almost melds with the snowy meadow in mid-winter. I spotted three coyotes crossing the lake. A friend recently saw a trio of coyotes frolicking like puppies on a frozen lake. Today's coyotes didn't play. My presence seemed to alarm them. It's funny that animals seem more afraid of a person on foot or on a bike than in a vehicle.
Interestingly, we had a trio of coyotes visit the area under our birdfeeder last night. The lake was about 6 miles from here so I doubt that both trios were the same coyotes.
Later in the same evening, a buck visited. Over the 7 months with our wildlife camera outside the house, this was only the second deer visitor.

More storms will hit in the coming days with temperatures plummeting below zero. Over the course of my ride, thin clouds formed over the Divide, portending the coming storms.
The upcoming week holds some scary steps for me. To make a very long story short, I have 5 very bad discs in my neck, some of which are deforming my spinal cord as it travels towards my trunk and legs. They also are pinching the spinal nerves that go to my arms. I also have a huge disc herniation in my lower back. Surprise, surprise, it's the disc directly above the fused part of my lower back. It's a classic long term complication of spinal fusion. For now, the docs suggest that I 'try to ignore the lower back disc herniation' because the neck situation is much more dire. Thus, on Monday, I'm having an epidural steroid injection around the spinal cord in the worst section of my neck. The hope is that it will reduce my symptoms - at least until I've made a decision about whether to get my neck fused. I also have an appointment with an awesome surgeon but not until the new year, unless I can pull some strings.

I'm curious if anyone has experience with having neck fusion at 4 or 5 levels (i.e., 4 or 5 discs removed and replaced with bone). Do you know anyone with such a massive fusion? If you do, I'd love to hear about how well they've been able to function with so little neck mobility.

After looking at my MRIs, the doc asked me "how do you do it?". I had to ask him to clarify because I had no idea what he was asking. He explained that he wanted to know how someone functions with the level of pain that I must experience on a daily basis. He knows that I don't take many drugs for it. I explained about daily exercise and meditation being my holistic methods to cope with pain. He asked lots of questions - saying that he hoped to pass along advice to other patients. I felt vindicated. I always wonder if I overdramatize the pain in my mind. I guess not.

Slickrock, white cliffs, and snow biking

Before departing Moab, we hiked on a dome of Entrada slickrock. The rock contained ripples that looked like high-tide marks, likely left behind back when the sandstone slickrock was deposited by receding waters at least 100 million years ago.
I have a very hard time understanding geology, even though I desperately want to comprehend how the domes and canyons of Moab and Fruita formed. However, I find it very difficult to visualize the three dimensional landmass interactions or the 100's of millions of years involved. Does anyone have a suggestion for a good book about the geology of the Colorado Plateau?

At the top of the dome, sun-bleached sandstone blocks sat, teetering on the edge of tumbling down the slope. Behind the blocks, the snow-covered La Sal Mountains barely peeked through.
K gazed at the alien landscape while sitting next to me on the warm stone.
Alas, eventually the hour of reckoning arrived, and we hiked back toward the car. Although it was early afternoon, our pack cast long shadows on the slickrock. Our images almost look like rock art!
Because of my back pain, we always divide our trips into short segments. We were ultimately heading for Aspen, to meet our family for a late Thanksgiving celebration. However, we first drove to Fruita, spent one night, and took one last ride/run in the warm desert.

The trail that K and I played on in Fruita was at least 10 miles from the White Rim Trail that I wrote about the other day. However, some sections bore a striking resemblance to it. In this section, the trail followed the top of a series of undulating white cliffs. What a glorious place to ride!
Our ride also took us 'inland' away from the cliffs, onto deep crimson soil, with overlooks to the Colorado River.
One part of the ride became very technical, and I was having an 'off-day' where my reactions seemed a split second slow. It was partly that I'd busted yet another spoke in Moab, and my front wheel wobbled from side to side with each revolution. My record for breaking spokes is getting out of control. Maybe I need to drop a few pounds!
Believe it or not, this tumble of rocks was the trail. No worries - I didn't even try to ride it. However, just hoisting my bike down it was a major challenge. K didn't understand why her human was such a slow poke after she danced down it in seconds!
After a short ride, we started our drive back to winter, arriving in Aspen to see the ski area bustling and snow on the ground. We ate tons of delicious food, laughed a lot, and had a howling good time with our family.

The next morning, we headed up to the spot where the road to Independence Pass is closed. It's such a high pass, over 11,000 feet, that no attempt is made to keep it open over the winter. I'd brought my snow bike just for this occasion, and it didn't disappoint me.

We started as a pack, one snow biker, one human runner, and two dog runners. The dogs greeted the snow with ecstasy! They played with wild abandon.
I love their body language. They both look joyous!
After the rest of the pack turned around, I kept churning up toward the pass. For a while, the only other tracks were left by a coyote. He'd trotted purposefully toward the pass within the past day or so.
On a south-facing rock wall, melting snow had frozen into a cascade of ice. I kept wondering how moving water freezes. I can't visualize the process but the final product is astonishing.
The pedaling became much tougher for a stretch where ice lay under the powdery snow. But when this mountain appeared in my view, my motivation to keep climbing soared.
Eventually, I met snowmobile tracks (but no actual snowmobiles!) that had climbed up from the east side of the pass, probably starting in Twin Lakes, near Leadville. The packed snow made riding much easier, and I felt like I was flying toward the pass. I rode hard, striving to make it as high as possible before my turnaround time.

Alas, eventually, I knew that it was time to descend so that we could drive home. I took a short break and donned my extra clothes for the downhill.
At the beginning, I felt euphoric as I flew down the packed snow. Mountain ranges spread out on the horizon, and I rode easily toward our van. However, I soon realized that I should have packed extreme winter clothing for the never-ending descent. I'd worked up a sweat while climbing, and I was paying a serious price as I gradually froze. By the bottom, I was shivering so hard that I could barely hold the handlebars. I hopped in our van and sat directly in front of the heater (to the dismay of the comfort-seeking dogs). Soon, I was warm again. I love our van's propane heater.

We visit Aspen regularly to see our relatives, and I'm planning to summit Independence Pass on my Fatback on a future winter trip. That would be an amazing experience!

We headed for home, satisfied with a vacation that showed us the extremes of our region, from deserts, to rivers, to slickrock. I wished that scary things weren't waiting for me, like my spine situation, but I'd managed to have a very fun time before dealing with them. That seems like a victory!

Freeze frame

The sky radiated a deep blue this morning with frozen white pine trees silhouetted against it. It was a crystal cold winter morning.
The thermometer read -10°F this morning - even freezing our internet antenna. I was sorely tempted to skip my snow bike ride but I knew that spending some peaceful time in nature would make me calmer for the rest of my tough day. I wore more layers than ever before, including multiple jerseys, jackets, and pants. Although my outfit seemed ridiculous when I was indoors, it kept me warm for my entire ride. I rode my Fatback on fresh snow.
I had the company of rambunctious R.
And the comparatively serene K. Both dogs instantly developed frosty beards. The duo makes me smile - a very good thing.
The snow squeaked under my tires as I rolled over fluffy dry snow. The cold seemed to freeze-frame the world. No wisps of wind disturbed the forest. And, no animals stirred.

Despite the extreme cold, I ended my ride feeling happy that I managed to overcome my reluctance and went out into the forest. It was a special ride that I won't forget anytime soon. And, I was right - it soothed my soul later in the day as I looked at sobering MRIs of my spine. Unfortunately, I have a lot of training in human anatomy so I knew what I was seeing. I have some big decisions to make... One reader commented that he'd like a post that tells all about my spine so he can understand it better - I just might do that soon.

For now, all that I can do is enjoy each day that I can ride my bike with my canine companions.

I can't imagine a more dramatic contrast than my frozen world today compared to my sun-soaked world one week ago. I'll continue my series about our trip west tomorrow.

In a sea of rock

Our first morning in Moab dawned clear and chilly. Our thermometer read 18 degrees before the sun hit our campsite. At 8 AM, the rock wall to our west still looked dark and gloomy. The sun's rays hit only the spires atop the cliff because another large rock wall adjacent to our camp blocked them.
However, within a half hour, the Navajo sandstone glowed in the sunlight. The shadow along the base of the formation shows the shape of the rock cliffs next to our camp.
K and I moved slowly, waiting for the sun to warm the world. I have plenty of opportunities to ride my bike in frigid air at home. By waiting an hour, we rode in a comfortable 45 degree world.

As we started our ride, we ran into the boys, finishing their run. R donned a lot of paraphernalia for his run. His boots protected his paw pads from the slick rock, and his electronic collar is our life insurance policy in case he decides to chase a coyote.
K believes that she is utterly incapable of even walking while wearing boots. She refuses to move and stands stock still while holding one or two paws in the air. I usually can convince her to start to walk and maybe even run. However, she soon halts and refuses to move another inch until I remove the offending boots.Due to K's boot-phobia, she and I took sandy jeep roads for our short rides together in Moab. Almost immediately after seeing R with his paraphernalia, we saw coyote tracks, making me glad that both dogs wore their 'life insurance' policies.
Coyotes are astounding. They can live in the snowy cold environment of the Rocky Mountains but they can also flourish in the desert. Simply amazing.

The coyote tracks tended to purposefully trot along the road, that is, until they crossed the tracks of a kangaroo rat or a rabbit. The coyote would veer off to investigate, hoping a tasty rodent meal awaited him. I saw one set of bobcat tracks which followed exactly that pattern - purposeful walking until he crossed the scent of a rodent or lagomorph. Then, he left the road to investigate.

Kangaroo rats are graceful rodents who hop on two legs like a kangaroo. They're well adapted to deserts. They're active at night to avoid the heat of the day, and they have specialized kidneys that prevent them from excreting much water at all. Most mammals are forced to excrete lots of water to flush toxins and waste products out of the blood. However, with an amazingly simple adaptation to the kidney, kangaroo rats can go long periods without drinking much water.
Along the sandy roads, K and I also ran across rabbit and bobcat tracks but no reptilian tracks. I suspect that all the lizards and snakes are hibernating now.

Although we tried to avoid slickrock, it was almost impossible. Here's a view down one of the canyons near our campsite. Sandstone covers the canyon floor until the bottom, where I suspect that millions of flashfloods deposited the pits of sand that take over.
K's chocolate fur was only slightly darker than the Navajo sandstone cliff behind her. Sandstone comes in many colors. The dark red is created by iron oxide embedded in the stone.
As we navigated a sandy jeep road, it seemed like an island in the midst of rock. Smooth rocky surfaces surrounded us with the snowy La Sal Mountains behind them. This juxtaposition of desert and alpine typifies our area.
It was a bit frustrating. I chose our route entirely with the goal of minimizing K's running on slickrock but she chose the rock over the sand almost every time. Fortunately, her paw pads held up over the trip. I need to work on the boot issue with her! Does anyone have experience with desensitizing a very sensitive dog to boots?

Below, I asked her to stand-stay for a photo. A cliff too steep for me to peek over it dropped off about 10 yards behind her. She'd been confidently staring over the brink before this photo. My palms get sweaty with nervousness just thinking about it. Perhaps the tongue flick in the photo tells us that the dizzying heights scared her too!
After I left K at camp with the rest of the pack, I went to play on some slickrock. A pair of buttes sat in the distance, with an ocean of slickrock surrounding them. I climbed up to them.
Slickrock lets a bike go anywhere. No trails are needed. I just glided around the buttes, exploring the nooks and crannies and glimpsing far off mountains.In sandy spots around the buttes, juniper and pinyon pine trees flourished. Those fertile patches are so rare and fragile that I never go too close to them.
The buttes sat on a high plateau so I could see dramatic features of the canyon. These towers loomed at the opening to an adjacent canyon.
After playing for a while, I descended toward camp, marveling at the water accumulated in a series of bowls that stepped downward through the canyon.
I followed next to the bowls and saw that they eventually coalesced into a continuous gully that undoubtedly carries rushing water after an intense thunderstorm. At the bottom of the gully, the water has deposited tons of sand, likely eroded from the rock during the storm water's rush downhill.

I arrived back in camp tired and happy, ready to relax with the pack. We watched the sun set and the moon rise simultaneously above the honey colored cliffs. Spectacular.
The very same moon rose last evening during our end of the day hike but over strikingly different terrain.

Moab: A hike down memory lane

After a couple of days in Fruita, we drove to Moab. After leaving the interstate, this drive felt like it transported us onto another planet. As we drove along the Colorado River toward Moab, the canyon dug deeper into the ground with glowing ember cliffs looming on both sides.The roiling river eroded such a steep canyon that the north-facing cliffs harbored snow in their craggy faces. When the view opened up down the canyon, snowy high peaks, the La Sal Mountains, hovered on the horizon.
As we drove south along the Colorado River, we reminisced about our cross-country drive 18 years ago. On that drive, we didn't know it but we were tracing our future. First, we found that we were unable to tear ourselves away from Colorado. We camped within a half hour of where we now live. It was February, freezing cold air and deep snow surrounded us. Yet, we couldn't leave. We instantly loved the area.

When we finally departed Colorado, we drove to Moab and were truly awed by the canyonlands. The sheer and impossibly tall red sandstone cliffs seemed surreal. On that trip, we hiked a side canyon off of the Colorado River with two dogs who are now deceased, Astro and Acadia. On our recent trip, we decided to repeat that hike, taking a walk down memory lane, and letting our current duo walk in the pawprints of their predecessors.

We remembered it as a narrow canyon with looming, almost claustrophobic, walls. Funny, the canyon turned out to be spacious, with a flat marshy area around a rare perpetual stream down its center. The photo below peers straight up the canyon from the trailhead. We started the hike in mid-afternoon but, due to the high canyon walls, all but a few spots were already engulfed in shadows. In fact, I began to wonder if sun rays ever touch this canyon floor in the winter.
The moon barely peeked over a sunny rock wall.
We realized as we hiked that our memories from 18 years ago reflected our awe when we visited the red rock canyonlands for the first time. Of course the canyon seemed unbelievably narrow - we'd never set foot in a deep canyon before!

After our hike, we headed to a tried and true campsite that sits in an exposed spot bathed in sunlight from about 8 AM until 3 PM at this time of year. We rapidly learned that finding sunny spots is tough in the midst of a labyrinth of canyons and mesas. Those cliffs cast long shadows when the sun arcs so low in the sky.

Fortunately, no one, and I mean not another soul, was camping in this magnificent area. We were surprised beyond words. This is a popular spot in the spring, where other campers sometimes crowd closer to us than we'd like. It was all ours on this trip.
My bike fit beautifully with the view from the campsite. It was primed and ready to ride.
Before sunset, we took a short walk to loosen up and gaze at the beauty.
And, our duo decided that they'd lay claim to the spot, standing tall on a massive red boulder in our campsite. We acutely felt S's absence because this was the last spot that he ever camped with us. But, the duo carries on his spirit.
No doubt, early winter is the best time to visit popular desert spots. The term "Desert Solitude" resonated with me as I took long bike rides surrounded by stark and stunning landscapes but almost no other people.