Seeking Self at Escape L.A. 2024

Photos by Stephen Shelesky + the Riders

Escape L.A. was the single hardest effort I’ve ever completed in the outdoors. It is a compelling 311-mile, 45,000-foot tapestry of world-class singletrack, jeep trails, urban pavement, and punishing hike-a-bike delicately woven together around one of the most populous cities in the world. It occupies a liminal space between front and backcountry, with extremely remote, dry mountain terrain clashing with bustling tourist centers and suburban infrastructure. Like any self-supported endurance challenge, Escape LA was a communal hero’s journey infused with a DIY, punk-rock ethos; a GPS ouroboros to reconnect us with ourselves and the world around us.

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The Abyss

Suddenly, it’s 4 a.m. again. The sun is still two hours from peeking over the ridge line. Ahead is a thin sandy ribbon of trail improbably snaking around the mountainside that quickly fades into the darkness beyond the dim illumination of my headlamp. I push my bike overhead with tired shoulders and lock the brakes. My rear tire nearly slides down a sheer drop into the dark abyss below, while a mass of sand hisses as it falls away from the hillside, fading into an uncomfortable silence. I take two steps and give the bike another overhead shove. Lock the brakes. Two more steps. My foot slips downhill, and I swear loudly to no one but myself. Looking at the GPS, this trail will continue for another two and a half hours, climbing almost 2,500 feet in just three miles. Another big push, pull brakes, two more small steps.

The big why doesn’t present itself until moments like this. If there’s one common experience in every bikepacking event, it’s the moment of Great Doubt. There is no external reward driving us to push our limits in these events. No prize money, no trophy, no fanfare. No social capital or glory, other than a mutual recognition among those who have completed self-supported endurance challenges themselves. Those who have experienced the Great Doubt and made the decision to push beyond it for no other reason than to see what’s on the other side.

Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey is a classic framework from which all stories in human history loosely follow. It also perfectly accommodates the stages of a bikepacking race. The basic structure is as follows:

I. – Departure: A call to adventure.
II. – Initiation: The crossing of a threshold away from the ordinary world followed by a series of Trials where one reaches a peak crisis or doubt to be overcome; The Abyss. A death and rebirth.
III. – Return: Crossing back over the threshold into the ordinary world, along with a treasure used to benefit others.

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Departure

Leaving the Santa Monica pier at exactly 7:11 a.m. on November 7th, there was a lot of nervous excitement in the air. Around 25 people gathered to take on one of the most challenging bikepacking races on the West Coast. We immediately began climbing into the Santa Monica mountains before ripping through some incredible singletrack along the legendary Backbone Trail. The group naturally splintered throughout the day, temporary alliances formed, and spirits were high. Our first food option would be 70 miles into the route along the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH), which for me would be around sunset. After many hours of glorious singletrack shredding and a white-knuckle paved descent down to the PCH, I found the small seafood restaurant meant to be the first meal of the day was uncharacteristically closed. The next possible resupply was a 24 hour McDonald’s, another 20 hard miles away. The sun began to set, and the chunky suburban singletrack in between seemed to drag on forever.

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The Threshold

After several dark, techy hours, I arrived at the Golden Arches. Inside the restaurant, a dirtbag convention was taking place. Bikes, bags, and thousands of calories were strewn everywhere. Ninety miles in, with over 10,000 feet of rough climbing had taken its toll on all the riders, and plans were being made as to how far to continue before stopping for a dirt nap. Reluctantly, a fellow rider and I pushed on another 15 miles, with another 6,000 feet of climbing before bivvying right on the trail next to someone’s back yard and rising at 4 a.m. to avoid detection.

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Initiation

The following stretch was even more muscular than the last. Highly technical singletrack, jeep roads, and impossibly steep hike-a-bikes through highway underpasses, backyards, and public green spaces were tied together by busy urban centers and short stretches of shoulder riding. Another small dirtbag convention took place in a Starbucks in Simi Valley, weekend crowds completely oblivious to the bizarre, smelly miscreants devouring iced coffees and pastries, leaning dusty loaded bikes all over the front of the store. The vertical miles and mid-day heat were beginning to take their toll on everyone. We pushed onward, yo-yoing through yet more singletrack and gravel roads before reaching Santa Clarita, the final opportunity for food before the long, remote 100-mile stretch through the San Gabriel Mountains.

Two riders were leading the race, so far ahead of our amorphous group of five that there was no chance of catching up. The race became a battle for third, with the 7,200-foot jeep road up to Mount Gleason shaping up to be the race decider, marking not only the high point at 6,200 feet but also the halfway point of the route. We were all blissfully unaware of the extreme difficulty that awaited us after Mount Gleason, and we set off at our own paces up into the mountains. Halfway up the climb, I bedded down early for the night, only to be awoken a few hours later by a curious bear looking for my crushed Doritos bag. It bolted as soon as I moved from my sleeping bag. Too freaked out to sleep, I packed up and finished the jeep road in the dark, topping out at sunrise.

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The Abyss

The next 15 hours would be the most challenging miles I’ve ever experienced on a bike. Famous local day rides of Condor Peak trail, Grizzly Flats, and Strawberry Peak Loop were strung together back-to-back for a brutish mountain bike death march. Each was a varying combination of loose, sandy, highly exposed, and stunningly beautiful. On Condor Peak, I ran into the shop ride of Let’s Ride Cyclery. Someone asked if I was doing Escape LA, and when I answered yes, the whole group began clapping and cheering. I was so sleep deprived and exhausted at this point that I wondered if I was hallucinating.

During the Trial phase of the Hero’s Journey, help from others is received to ease the burden. From this improbable interaction, my stoke and resolve skyrocketed. Two other interactions with local riders later in the day would gift me the mantra “love yourself” and a bag of blueberry granola, without either of which I would not have been able to pass through the Great Doubt on Kenyon Devore Trail the following morning.

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Death & Rebirth

And now it’s 4 a.m., and I’m trying not to fall off the side of a cliff. I’m moving frustratingly slow and will be for the next two and a half hours up to Mount Wilson. My food stash has dwindled to a handful of granola, a package of M&M’s, and an energy waffle. This is the Great Doubt, the penultimate challenge before crossing back over the threshold and returning to civilization. Somehow, after a perceived lifetime of pushing and sliding, I make it to the summit, counting my steps all the way to the top to keep my mind from unravelling. I take a snack break and begin the final rowdy double-black diamond hikefest-from-hell push into Altadena on Idlehour, Lower Sam Merrill, and Sunset Ridge linkup.

Return

I am elated when I finally hit pavement again a few hours later, and make a beeline for the nearest Golden Arches, marking the final threshold before the return to civilization. I tend to avoid fast food in my normal life, but during these types of events, it tends to be the only thing that fills the vacuous hunger void created by burning thousands of calories over the course of multiple days. On this adventure, the Arches became a kind of mystical portal into the backcountry netherworld, offering caloric respite and fleeting sensory pleasure at the edges of reality. From the Arches, it was a hectic blast through Hollywood lots, up and over the Griffith Observatory at sunset, winding up Mulholland Drive back into the Santa Monica mountains before one final singletrack victory rip down Backbone Trail and arriving unceremoniously to a bustling weekend evening on the Santa Monica Pier. I turned my tracker off, breathed a sigh of relief, and limped back to my motel for my first shower in three and a half days, finishing at a respectable but meaningless seventh place, the cyclical Hero’s Journey finally complete.

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So… why? The biggest cliché in bikepacking racing. Why do we voluntarily take on these enormous challenges? What’s the metaphorical treasure we possess after pushing through the Abyss, if not riches or glory or fame? What’s on the other side of Great Doubt? For me, and perhaps for others, it’s a deepened knowledge of self which compels us to take on self-supported racing. We push our minds and bodies to the absolute limit, coming up against our known limitations and finding out just how much farther they might lie. Deep in the Great Doubt, we push our bike a few more inches, lock the brakes, take two small steps, and realize a well of determination and endurance inside us that we hadn’t recognized before.

When we return to civilization, we’re able to apply this knowledge of self to our daily obligations, often with a greater sense of ease and composure. This great capacity to endure is one of the defining traits of our species. With skill and empathy, perhaps we can pass this knowledge onto others, to help them recognize a resilience that exists in us all.

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Escape L.A. Route

Find the latest Escape L.A. route below. For more information on the event, check out LABikepackingSucks.com or LABikepackingSucks on Instagram.

Further Reading

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