A four-day bike trip along the 140 mile (or so) Denali Highway from July 31…
Author: Cory
The Crow Pass Crossing is a foot race through the backcountry of the Chugach Mountains. It starts south of Anchorage, near Girdwood, and travels up and over Crow Pass, down to Eagle River which is about halfway through the race. You then ford Eagle River, which the race entry form describes as a ‘quarter-mile wide, glacier-fed, thigh-deep, torrent’ (its not quite a quarter-mile wide). From there the ‘trail’ (and I used that term loosely) follows Eagle River, with a couple more smaller river crossings, out to the Eagle River Nature Center, which is north of Anchorage and is the finish line. The whole race is between 24 and 28 miles (no one really knows because it is too hard to measure).
For the six years that I lived in Park City, my training partners (Erik Stange and Scott Loomis) and I always talked about riding the White Rim mountain bike trail in Canyonlands National Park near Moab. It is 103 miles, and though most people ride it over the course of a long weekend, we wanted to do it in a day.
A couple months ago, some friends of ours, Mike and Tanja mentioned that they would really like to hike the Resurrection Pass trail. The Resurrection Pass trail is a 38 mile trail on the Kenai Peninsula that is known for being one of the most popular backpacking routes in Alaska. Aft era dismal winter, Linda and I were also anxious to get out and start seeing this great state and this seemed like a great way to start.
March 1
I was determined to not let the fact that this weekend’s Tour Of Anchorage was canceled ruin my weekend. I had to develop a plan to break the downward spiral that was my emotional state. Linda and I thought about heading north into the mountains for a couple days of skiing, while staying at a rustic mountain lodge. Sounds great, doesn’t it? But our other option was to stay in town and watch the ceremonial start of the Iditarod.
February 1
It has been many months since I last wrote a journal entry. It seems that when my dream of making the 2002 Olympic Team ended, I felt like there was no reason to keep sharing my story with everyone. But after quite a few months away, I am now in the middle of another winter and I have the urge to write again. Actually, I’ve had the urge all along – just look at all my work on my new general ski racing site, FasterSkier.com. But FasterSkier, as well as my job as a website designer and maintainer, meant that this site suffered from neglect. But I now realize that all those other sites are for, and about, other skiers. This site is simply about me, with no ads to sell or website sponsors to please or censures to tell me what I can and can’t say, and there is something very rewarding and therapeutic in that.