Seventeen years of February 27ths, and you know what I've learned? This date has a thing for testing me. Whether it's frozen fish-stick fingers facing down 15 rams on the Blackfoot, or last year's slush-fest disaster that had me making terrible Homestake Pass puns... this day doesn't do easy.
The through-line is almost comical. In 2008, I was marveling at a resting heart rate of 33 while feeling like a "three-legged mountain goat," then getting drizzled on in the South Hills. By 2014, I was questioning every life choice while pushing through fresh powder to Elkhorn, my partner announcing her retirement from fat biking somewhere in the darkness behind me.
But there's tenderness woven through too. That 2010 Montana sunrise that reminded me why I came home. The paraglider shadow in 2016 that sent me tumbling while they floated effortlessly above. Watching the Iditarod tracker in 2012, aching to be out there suffering with them. Even 2018's wordless photo post carries weight.
The later years brought heavier contemplation... that lone beach tree in 2023 mirroring complicated feelings about home, and 2024's discovery that familiar trails had transformed into something unrecognizable, complete with "No Trespassing" signs and boiling deer heads.
February 27th keeps teaching me the same lesson: we're always in some kind of passage, never quite arriving. And maybe that's the point... the slogging is the story.