At Least It Isn’t Trout Lake..

Some of you know.. only a few years ago did I really start biking. I met my wife a few years after moving back to Alaska and she, being an avid mountain biker, convinced me on a few occasions to go ride bikes with her. My old Trek hardtail, with its 26” wheels got me on my first Kincaid rides and even my first bikepacking trip. Well.. That first bikepacking trip is a story in itself and riddled with all the ways not to do bikepacking but as type 2 fun as it was, I was totally hooked.

Type 2 fun.. Now there’s a concept! A type of “fun” that you can only think of as “fun” after the fact, as the memory of the misery and discomfort subsides over time. Well.. this type of fun seems to be the hook for me. Maybe the misery of that first experience spurs perseverance to do it again but better. Optimism? Probably but it can’t possibly be as bad as the first time, right? That first experience establishes the baseline for all other adventures after that point and obviously.. it can only get better!

The problem with a baseline.. You can re-baseline it. Each new low of “type 2 fun” brought on a new baseline of misery. A new level of “but did you die” that all others would be gauged against.

“At least it isn’t Eklutna!”.. with 150lbs of gear and kid weight in a trailer to Serenity Falls hut in Fall.

“At least it isn’t Caribou Creek!”.. a nice easy 3 mi backpacking trip that turned into 12 and a broken foot..

And then it was “At least it isn’t Trout Lake”..

So, I had spent some time biking on Res Pass that summer and had this great idea to do a bikepacking trip to the Trout lake cabin and managed to convince my wife and our friend Adrian that we should do this in April.

Yea, I know, Res Pass in Spring.. right..

We booked our trip in Fall but then there was lot of snow that winter and then it just wasn’t melting..

We kept watching social media, Strava... Searching for a glimmer of hope that we would be able to bike our planned bikepacking trip. A few days before someone reported it was clear to Trout Lake! We were extremely relieved. This bringer of good news didn’t have any good pictures of the trail conditions but shared that beyond Trout lake, there was some punchy snow getting to Juneau lake but, who cared about that- Trout lake was clear! Bikes it would be.

The weather was perfectly Spring as we loaded up bikes, gear and dogs and headed down to begin our adventure. The closer we go to our trailhead, the thicker the snow got. Had we made a bad decision by bringing bikes?

We pulled into the Bean Creek trailhead, somewhat defeated by the unexpected conditions. We discussed our options.. opt out and go home? That’s lame and we came all the way down here for an adventure and how bad could it really be?

We loaded up and biked up the road towards the trail. This would be the most biking we would do the rest of the day.

Bean Creek was a sloppy, muddy mess from the start with huge patches of punchy spring snow. We pushed on and just kept telling ourselves little lies like “it’ll be better when we get to Res Pass”, “There’s just so much snow because of the tree cover”

No, it didn’t get better. The closer we got to the trail intersection, the more snow there was and the deeper the snow got. We celebrated every rideable section but soon even the enthusiasm to try to ride faded along with our energy and the effort of throwing our leg over the bike for little reward. We resolved to a long hike with our bikes.

2 hours of hard pushing in the deep snow, we finally made it! To Res pass.

For those of you who like to bike and math, that means about 1 mile an hour.

Soon after, we crossed paths with a couple of skiers who questioned our decisions.. Out loud. They offered the soul crushing confirmation that the trail would not in fact get better but that it most certainly was worse the farther in we got.

On we trudged. Another mile ticked down. 3 miles in. The half way point. The point of no return. Just as many miles back to the car as to the cabin. What do we do? Well. We all know I wouldn’t be telling this story if we had turned around. We all agreed that if we were going to do this, there would be no complaining, we had to stick together and remain positive. Embrace the suck.

The snow kept getting deeper. Now post holing to our knees, questioning of our life decisions, we pushed on.

Finally, the sign for Trout lake! There it was in the distance. The anticipation of the end so close gave us a newfound energy. Wait. Does that sign say another half a mile to the cabin? How could that be? That’s too much. We pouted then swallowed our disappointment, picked up our million pound bikes and pushed down the Trout lake turn off. Deeper and deeper snow. Knee deep post holing turned into thigh deep.

At the cabin steps, we dropped our bikes and sat, taking in the journey we had just had.

6 hours. We had been on the trail for 6 hours and had less than 6 miles to show for it.

The cabin was everything we hoped it would be. There was wood in the wood shed, even the lake was melted enough we didn’t have to work too hard for water. Our rest day brought about lazy cabin chores, the company of an otter snacking fish on the frozen lake surface. We ate every morsel of food we brought and recovered from our hike with bikes. Tomorrow we would have to face the trail again but, today we could relax.

In the morning, we loaded up our bikes, hoping the snow melt evident around the cabin applied to the trail as well.

The half mile back to the main trail was sketchy but borderline bikable! A little strider bike action and hang on but we made it down with far less effort than up. The main trail and back to the car only further improved and while it was still not “clear” it was far more bikable with every mile closer to the trailhead. Muddy and icy but gravity helped propel us forward, arriving back at the car in less than half the time it took us to get into the cabin.

The thrill of the adventure was not lost on us and ending on a high note only lends to the “type 2 fun” perspective for years to come. When the trail gets tough and we want to quit, we just say to ourselves “but at least it isn’t Trout Lake”..