* * Bicycling through exhaustion

These days, 40 miles is a long bicycle ride for me.  How about 400?

An old friend, Barclay Kruse, who I met during my years in Seattle, Washington, wrote me recently to ask if I could give his son Taylor Kruse (age 25) and his friend Chris Ardnt (29) a sofa to sleep on the night before a bicycle race, starting the next morning in Blacksburg. Little did I know what it would entail for these kids.

The race was 400 miles long! It followed the course of Allegheny Mountain Loop charted by the Adventure Cycling Association. It’s considered a bike-packing adventure race. The granddaddy of this type of race is the “Tour Divide,” which goes from Banff, Alberta, Canada, to Antelope Wells, New Mexico. This was the first running of the Blacksburg event. Eighteen riders competed.

The idea is to start as a group but everyone is timed individually using GPS transmitters each rider is required to carry, which also supply course instrucitons, since there are no checkpoints. Where the rider eats (and obtains food), sleeps, and takes breaks is entirely up to the rider, but no outside help is allowed. So there is no chase vehicle and no support. It’s hard to imagine a more grueling event.

Taylor and Chris arrived at our house late Thursday. We were already in bed, but they let themselves inside and got some sleep on the couches. I woke up with them on Friday morning as they were preparing to depart for the starting line at the War Memorial Chapel on the Virginia Tech campus.

I was actually able to chart their progress on my computer. A website was set up where each rider was represented by a dot with their initials (e.g. “TK”) and their position on the course. Taylor and Chris left town at the conclusion of the event, so I didn’t get to hear about it until later by phone.

“Well, we won,” Taylor said modestly, “so I’d have to say it was successful. We broke the course record by 6-1/2 hours.” Taylor and Chris took just under 39 hours to complete the ride.

“The course was very hard, particularly the second half.”

It goes down to the New River, then up to Mountain Lake, down the other side into West Virginia, then up to Caldwell to the Greenbrier River Trail. From there, it connects with the West Fork Trail to Glady (in Randolph County, WV), where it turns around. The trails are essentially flat, but crushed gravel and bumpy to ride on.

Both Taylor and Chris used cyclocross bikes, with tires heavier than racing bikes, but still with curved, racing style handlebars.

“I used to ride normally, but years ago I decided to do a randoneering event. It is non-competitive distance riding. I did a 300 km (180 miles) ride, then up to 1200 km (720 miles).

“This course was 427 miles total with over 30,000 feet of climbing. Once we got to Glady, the return trip had more climbing and more mountain passes. Lots of it is on Forest Service dirt roads. Some are well-packed and fast, others have lots of loose gravel, making it hard to climb or descend.

“Our average, including stops and sleep, was just over 10-miles per hour, with a moving average of around 14-15 mph. We rode all day Friday and into the night, as fast as possible. We got to Glady, the half-way point, and then took a nap of about 45 minutes at about 1:30 a.m. We rode most of the two trails in the middle of the night, illuminated only by our battery headlights. Most of that section has no services. We ended up sleeping on a picnic table, but it was cold and when our alarm went off, we hit the ‘snooze’ button a couple of times but were then eager to get going again. That’s all the sleep we got!

“Riders aren’t allowed to draft (catching each others’ slipstream) but we were able to ride side-by-side. That really helps overnight because we were able to chat with each other and use the light of two headlights. Once the sun rose, it was easy to stay awake, but in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, it’s a real challenge.

“It was scenic, really nice. We had awesome weather, with no rain. It was as good as it gets. But it was extremely difficult with all the climbing. Every turn had new view, more scenic than the one before. It was notably fun the entire way along, which is pretty exceptional for over 400 miles of riding.

“The last fifty miles down from Mountain Lake into Blacksburg there were more miles left than we thought, but we tried to end with some adrenalin and some speed. At the finish line at the War Memorial, there is no fanfare and nobody to greet us. We rested for a few minutes. Then we packed up and went home. The next finisher was almost 20 hours behind us!”

If this lunacy appeals to you, check out the website at http://alleghenymountainsloop.blogspot.com/

* * Carl Absher works to reintroduce the American chestnut

On a perfectly crystalline fall morning with wisps of fog hugging the lowlands, I rode my motorcycle to McDonalds Mill in the bucolic Ellett Valley to meet Carl Absher, a man working to let his grandson understand the legacy of the American chestnut tree that his grandfather knew.

“I’ve lived in this valley most of my life. I was born here and went to Virginia Tech. But I’ve only been aware of (the chestnut legacy) and proud of it and wanting to encourage it for the last few years. My degree is in forestry, but I’ve just begun to take pride in being in the center of the original chestnut range.”

The American chestnut tree was decimated by a fungus that was accidentally introduced to North America around 1900. By 1940, essentially every mature chestnut tree had been infected and destroyed. Because of the immense value of the resource, the devastation has been called the greatest environmental disaster the world has ever known. As many as a quarter of all the trees in our nearby forests were chestnuts. They grew straight and branch-free for 50 feet and sometimes exceeded 150 feet tall. The wood was light in weight, strong, easily worked, rot resistant, fire-resistant and attractive. Until its destruction, most homes and barns in its range were made from it. In profound ways, rural Appalachia took an economic hit from which it has never fully recovered.

“As a teenager when I first started hunting on the ridge across from the house, there were old, dead chestnut snags. I grew up in the house where I still live, as did my father. My grandparents settled here in the 1920s. My grandfather ran a store in front of the house. There were more people living in this valley 100 years ago than there are now. Before the advent of the railroad and the birth of Roanoke, the major transportation corridor was from Fincastle to Christiansburg and beyond, along this road. McDonald’s Mill, just up the road, was the center of the community. We had our own post office. Most of these hillsides were cultivated.”

He stroked his bushy, grey beard and continued, “There were lots of chestnut trees around. It was said that you had to get up early on fall mornings to gather the chestnuts before the turkeys could get them, because by afternoon they’d be all gone.”

In an era before the blight, with the immense ability of the chestnut to produce edible nuts, it was the cornerstone resource of an enormously more productive forest than we have now. A typical adult tree could easily produce 8000 nuts, feeding squirrels, deer, rabbits, voles, mice, raccoons, turkey, and other animals spawned greater populations across the food chain. And the chestnut population was probably higher when the blight hit than when the pioneers arrived because the settlers encouraged its use.

Absher is retired from a career in arboriculture, now working with the American Chestnut Foundation to develop blight-resistant strains to re-introduce the chestnut to its original forest range.

“When I was studying forestry at Tech, a professor had a list of 25 reasons why the chestnut would never again be part of our forest. But lots of people are determined to prove him wrong.”

Nowadays, scientists have increased their understanding of the fungus to the cellular and molecular level. But understanding it is only half the battle. Resistant strains must be developed and bred, and then propagated through the forests.

“There was lots of work going on at a farm at Meadowview (near Abingdon) and in Northern Virginia, but I wanted to do some work here in the New River and Roanoke River Valleys. I helped found an orchard at the Virginia Tech Sustainability Center in Catawba.”

European and West Asian chestnut trees are also susceptible to the blight, but less so. Absher and others are working to cross-pollinate the various strains to build better resistance in the American chestnut.

“We’re on the brink of breeding and releasing blight-resistant American chestnut trees to over 400 million acres. Because the seed is large relative to something like pine seeds, they are more difficult and expensive to distribute. But there are many avid, determined, and brilliant people working on it.

“I’m working for my grandson. I see in his future a mature forest including chestnut trees that are blight-resistant and that are self-propagating and sustaining, so he can enjoy the benefits of the nuts and the wood like my grandfather did.

“I’m not sure what this grand tree will mean to a generation that has cars and airplanes and the Internet, things my grandfather’s generation didn’t have. The chestnut is an annual, nutritious food crop that we don’t even have to cultivate, fertilize, or spray with pesticides. I hope future generations appreciate the value.”

More information about the American Chestnut Foundation can be found at their website at www.acf.org.

* * Down the road on a classic motorcycle

I love motorcycles. From my earliest memories, I’ve been intrigued.  Mom wouldn’t let me own one until I was 14, but I’ve owned one – and sometimes way more than one –most of my life since.

Protective gear is an every-ride thing with me: stiff boots, padded outerwear and a full-face helmet. Good gear makes a world of difference if something bad happens. Ask me how I know.

I have four bikes now, coincidentally all Hondas. But my favorite is the oldest, a classic 1981 Honda CBX. It has a magnificent 1047cc transverse in-line six-cylinder engine. This is my second bike of the same model. The first I bought with 22,000 miles on it and put another 50,000 myself before selling it. The current one I bought two years ago with a mere 900 miles; it’s essentially a brand-new 30-year old motorcycle.

Lashing on my helmet on a clear, crisp recent Sunday morning, I turn the key “on” and push the electric starter, and the motor spins to life. The six cylinders feed two mufflers which are stock and pretty quiet. I once had a bike with loud, aftermarket pipes, and I hated the excessive noise. I don’t like the noise myself and don’t feel that I should be inflicting the auditory onslaught on others.

Good motorcycling roads are something my local friends and I take for granted, but the Central Appalachians are one of the world’s best places to ride. On this day, I head down to Ellett Valley and take North Fork Road towards Ironto.

Like most of our country roads, North Fork is lightly traveled and curvy, making it a great road for a quiet morning’s ride. The fall leaves are at their peak, and the color is striking. It seems that all summer, the trees stand quietly in the forests looking uniformly green, content to be part of the choir, but in the fall, each one wants to stand out in brilliant colors and be a soloist.

I ride all the way to Masons Cove in Roanoke County, overtaking only one car. My speed is held in check not so much by the curves or the speed limits, but by the ever-present fear of deer. Years ago, I led a ride with five bikes behind me, and the fourth rider struck a deer which was evidently undeterred by the other bikes. I’ve never hit one or even had a close call, but I know the damage they can do. I’ll swerve if I can to avoid a squirrel, and on this morning several seem to have death wishes. Fortunately, I miss them all.

I turn northwards on SR-311 and over Catawba Mountain to Catawba. This is one of the typically wonderfully curvy mountain roads we have around here, with good pavement, gently sweeping curves, and great views; it’s the type of road most drivers hate and motorcyclists love. Sometimes when there is a car in front of me, I pull to the shoulder and wait several seconds to allow a gap, because it’s frustrating to follow one on a twisty road.

At New Castle, rather than turning home right away, I drive up and over Potts Mountain, one of the most spectacular roads around, to Paint Bank. This otherwise perfect motorcycling experience has been hampered by VDOT since they patched cracks in the road with “asphalt snakes” last summer, which can are unnerving at best, dangerously slippery at worst. Otherwise, I’m in two-wheeled bliss. This bike, even being as old as it is, is capable of incredible lean angles, and its movement is elegant and satisfying. My concentration is heightened, intense. Riding this machine, arching back and forth on the many combination curves, is viscerally and aesthetically pleasing and appealing. I have the road to myself; there is nobody else around. The views from the mountain are grand and full of color and awe. I feel a smile pressing my cheeks against the inside padding of the helmet.

Back in New Castle, I turn right on SR-42 and ascend the gap between Sinking Creek and Johns Creek Mountains. SR-42 in Craig and Giles Counties, I’m convinced, is one of the most beautiful 30-mile stretches of road in the world, with constantly changing views of farms, forests, and pastures, bordered by parallel mountains. The fall colors are superb and the warm sun warms my leather jacket. I fall into a meditative state and my mind wanders wherever it will. Nirvana.

I rejoin the world of superhighways and traffic in Newport for the final leg of the journey back into Blacksburg, watching my speed carefully. The bike purrs like a kitten, its dated but still potent engine seemingly as delighted by the ride as me.

I refill with regular gasoline after 120 miles (37 miles per gallon), and park the bike in its place of pride in the garage.

* * On aging, sore legs, and zippers

In every backpacking trip, a theme seems to emerge. This one might be “On aging, sore legs, and zippers”.

I’ve been backpacking since I was a pup, my early experience culminating in a 10-day trip at the national Boy Scout reservation, Philmont, in New Mexico. I’ve backpacked in 17 states. Over the decades, there have been many constants, but many things have changed and every trip is different.

One thing that has never changed is the strenuousness. I’ve always been small and not particularly athletic, and hiking mountain trails with thirty-five to fifty-five pounds on my back has always taxed me physically. More about that in a moment.

Another that hasn’t changed is the allure. More on that in a moment, too.

My most frequent hiking partner in recent years has been Jim Kline. I met Jim during my last years in college and we’ve been friends since. He raised two boys who are now in their late twenties and they did some fabulous trips together in the Rockies, Sierras, and Cascades when they were younger. Now that the boys have moved away and are on their own, Jim and I have gotten together typically in the equinox seasons for three to five-day trips.

We chose a hike on the Appalachian Trail, walking southbound through Bland and Smyth Counties in Southwest Virginia, over four days, three nights.

Our gear has changed over the years, but Jim is a traditionalist to the point of using the trail name, “Retro”. He carries a dated external frame backpack and an old-style white-gas stove. Proudly eccentric, he eats quirky, made-at-home meals (e.g. lunches of mixed nuts with olives soaked in olive brine). I’ve become more modern, with a new internal-frame pack, a nifty self-contained stove, and a brilliant LED flashlight. Zippers are old school, but mine gave me fits.

We caught a shuttle to the starting point from a friend in Marion and emerged from the car in a steady drizzle. We walked uphill to our first overnight stop at the curiously named Knot Maul Shelter.

The rain didn’t overly dampen our spirits as both of us were expecting it and had adequate rain gear. The zipper on my rain-coat jammed and I had to don and remove it sweater-style.

These days, Jim and I schedule modest distances. He’s in his early sixties, with a thin, chiseled ageless physique. I’m five years younger but I take five steps for every four of his, so I always struggle to keep up. The “through-hikers” whom we encountered on their way from Maine to Georgia or vice versa often traversed fifteen to twenty miles per day, but we planned only half that.

I over-hydrated at dinnertime and so my sleep was interrupted by several chilly trips to the woods to relieve myself, each time struggling with the zipper of my sleeping bag. We awoke the next morning to still more clouds, but as we ascended two major mountains and several smaller climbs, the sky inflicted upon us no further rain.

With most things, repetition brings familiarity. And so it is with backpacking. Yet each trip, typically months after the prior experience, still brings surprises. The terrain is different. So is the weather. Our bodies age. My feet are oddly shaped and boots never seem to fit. Minor aches and pains are accentuated. Lessons need to be relearned or modified. What once worked well may not work as well now. A backpacker’s life is one of constant adjustment.

In mid-afternoon on the day’s longest climb, my strength was fading and a new, troublesome pain arose in my chest, just below my lungs. A heart attack coming on? I’d been on a hike once where a companion had one.

On a high ridge, we found a flat spot and pitched a tent. Three through-hikers marched past briskly and purposefully towards Georgia; their walk wouldn’t end until after dark.

The next morning, we had a fleeting moment of sunshine. We traversed several ridges, then the Great Valley of Virginia, crossing I-81, US-11, and a railroad track. We visited the Settlers Museum of Southwest Virginia, generously free to hikers, with its restored circa 1894 one-room Lindamood School. Back into the woods, we walked through a fantastic rhododendron tunnel to the next shelter. My chest pains had gone away, but my thighs spasmed in pain well into the night.

The allure of backpacking doesn’t lend itself to simple, logical explanations. Tramping over hill and dale, cooking on a tiny stove, and sleeping outside either appeal to someone or not. But for me, each trip begs for the next. Jim and I recognize that with all things, our last trip will come someday. Jim said, “I do it because I am still able, secure in the reality that someday I won’t be.”

The next morning was brilliantly, refreshingly sunny for the first time, and our climb of Glade Mountain brought us our first truly spectacular view, with ridge upon colorful ridge vanishing in the distance to the north. My legs felt blissfully rejuvenated and strong.

On the way home, I realized that the mind is a wonderful thing, jettisoning the discomfort and latching onto the pleasantries, eager for the next trip.

* * Meet Silvia, a new citizen of the United States of America

Silvia Kohnke is a citizen of the United States of America. So am I. Likely, so are you. To many of our neighbors, it’s not such a big deal. Many of us don’t know the three branches of government, can’t name a single Supreme Court justice, and don’t bother to vote. To Silvia Kohnke it is a VERY big deal.

Silvia is a nationalized citizen who obtained her citizenship only two months ago. She’s originally from the mega-city of São Paulo in Brazil. Her path to Blacksburg has taken her from her homeland to Germany, Canada, and finally here. She met her ex-husband in college, a Brazilian born to German parents. They lived in Berlin for ten years where her twins were born.

“From five years old, I have always wanted to know new worlds and see new places. I liked the ideas of exploring other countries and other cultures. We lived in West Berlin when it was still divided, from 1988 until 1996, and then two more years in Nuremburg. I never applied for (German) citizenship.

“When I moved to Germany, I didn’t know German at all. You need your mind open to learn new cultures and accept them. You can’t rebel against the culture or you’ll be unhappy.”

She flashed a bright smile. She is an attractive woman, with a stylish, layered hairdo and warm brown eyes.

“Germans have a very rich and distinct culture. In my opinion Germans live for tomorrow; Brazilians live for today”.

“Americans?” I asked her.

“A little bit of both. That’s what I love here. It’s a mix of cultures.”

Eventually, they returned to Brazil, then moved to Canada, and finally her husband was offered a job in Blacksburg.

“I accept new places easily and I learn languages quickly,” she said in accented English. “My mom’s family is from Italy. My dad’s family is from Spain and Portugal.

Eventually, they returned to Brazil and in a couple of years got another job transfer, this time to Canada. A more exciting job opportunity brought her husband and family to Blacksburg.  He and she eventually divorced.

Since arriving here in 2004, her family adjusted to the new lifestyle and new schools. In June 2006, she received her Green Card, which allowed her to look for work. She now works for the local American Red Cross office.

She joined my Rotary Club, where I met her. Everyone adores her and appreciates all the energy and vitality she brings to her life.

“I want to live as close as possible to this culture. I will always have my funny accent, but I want to be American. I love the freedom you have here. I miss my family and cultural aspects of Brazil, but I feel freer and more at ease here in America.

“The process to get citizenship is long and hard. They learn everything about applicants. It’s intimidating. They take fingerprints.”

Her application was complicated by a snafu years earlier at the DMV when she got her drivers license. But after several meetings and taking several tests, she finally passed. She was granted full citizenship at a ceremony with 43 other applicants in Roanoke.

“It was emotional. I was so excited, so happy. We were all sharing the same experience. People were from all over the world: India, Africa, Pakistan, and Somalia.

“I love my country (Brazil), but the United States has my heart. Getting deported would have been horrible.

“They had us raise our right hands, read the words they give us, and say the Pledge of Allegiance. They called my name and gave me a certificate of citizenship. At that point, I was an American! I went to the post office and got an American passport. It is the most beautiful passport in the world.

“Americans need to appreciate how special it is to live in freedom, to be accepted and to be welcomed. This country welcomed my family so well.” Her eyes moistened a bit. “This is a multi-cultural country, and that is its greatest strength, the mix. Now as a citizen I can also vote, and I think people need to vote. It makes you responsible for the future of the country. I want to be part of this new future. 

“It is very special for me to be a citizen of the United States of America!”