Ghost Trails: Journeys Through a Lifetime

Jill wasn't an athlete, at least not in the more insecure corners of her identity. What she was, was cold. And frightened. And alone in the frozen wilderness of Alaska, more than a hundred miles from the nearest outpost of civilization. As she struggled to maintain forward motion, she couldn't help but strive to piece together the reasons that brought her here in the first place, to the Iditarod Trail, with nothing more than a bicycle and a few essential pieces of gear, in February. What possessed her, a timid Mormon girl from the suburbs of Salt Lake City, to sign up for a 350-mile bicycle race across frozen Alaska? How was she possible going to survive, let alone finish, this grueling adventure through the heart of her deepest fears? She muddled for answers from the wind, the mountains, the tundra, the faint trail she followed, and the ghostly trails of her memories.

"Ghost Trails: Journeys Through a Lifetime" is the inspirational journey of an unlikely endurance athlete locked in one of the most difficult wilderness races in the world, the Iditarod Trail Invitational. Through her struggles and discoveries in Alaska's beautiful, forbidding landscape, Jill begins to understand the ultimate destination of her life's trails.

This second edition includes the account of her return to the Iditarod Trail in 2014, traveling 350 miles on foot.

"There is no ideology that can shield us from the searing wind, the frozen emptiness, and the desperate loneliness of a night in the Alaska Range at 20 below. And there are no words that can prepare us for the raw amazement, the sweeping beauty and the quiet joy spread across white, unbroken land. We find so much wonder it makes civilized life seem shallow, and so much pain it makes death seem kind. We find love we can€t express in a place so uncaring it breaks our hearts. We find that we€re stronger than we ever hoped to be and weaker than we ever imagined. We find that there is reason to hope, and there is always reason to hope, as long as weary hearts keep beating. And what we realize is that everything we were looking for was inside of us, all along."