To the Rockies!

What a great ride it has been. From my last post written in Whitehorse I've made my way along the Alaskan Highway, then south along the quiet and remote Cassiar Highway and for the past few days now I've followed the Yellowhead Highway into the Rockies.

A short detour on the Alaskan Highway for groceries brought me to Watson Lake where sign post city lives. A Wonderland of stolen signs of all sorts. The 10000th sign went up in the 90s and I think maybe they stopped counting after that. It was really colorful and fun to wander through.

Heading down the Cassiar I rode through large burn areas. The rest stop information signs made it clear that it was very healthy for the forests to burn. I must say the living sections seemed very healthy. The forest floor was thick with moss and lichen. The trees were diverse. All day and night birds were singing about how neat it is to fly. I saw multiple bears every day. I walked down a dirt road to look for camping one evening and two black bears along with two elk were in a field eating dandelions. The bears are always eating dandelions. I spent time with a father and son who are biking south and fishing for dinner along the way. They had fish with dinner two out of the three nights I camped with them.

Once I got onto the Yellowhead Highway I was back to civilization and glad to have grocery stores at frequent intervals. The forests changed a little. Very large birch and cedar trees began to appear. I biked past a section of old growth forest with trees more than 1000 years old, it was in a section of rare inland rainforest. The Yellowhead Highway follows the lowest pass through the Canadian Rockies which made for mostly gentle climbing up into the mountains. They remind me of Colorado. Mount Robson, the highest Canadian Rockies peak appeared around a bend. It rose enormous and snow covered directly down the road in front of me. There were many majestic peaks to pass on the way to the pass.

Now I am in the town of Jasper in Jasper National Park. It is a pretty and small mountain town with good pizza. A 15 month old little boy was dancing to my guitar in the park, I must be getting better. I hear that hot springs are to the south. That sounds good to me so I'm heading that way next.

 I saw a lot of mirror lakes.

 Mountains every day.

 Lunch break.

 Sign post city!

 More signs!

 I really like clouds.

 A burned forest.

 I never pass up a swing set with a view.

 The Cassiar Highway, it is great not to have road lines.

 Arctic/Pacific water divide. My first time in the Arctic basin.

 New friends to camp with.

 More of the Cassiar Highway.

 A typical evening view.

 Flowers for you

 A visitor center sculpture.

 Yes, that is the world's largest fly rod.

 It is a bit rustic here.

 View from my hammock.

 So many nice sunsets!

 The tallest mountain in the Canadian Rockies.

 Glacier blue river.

A really nice day. 

Yukon do it!

I'm in Canada now. It has been beautiful. I've been biking in broad valleys with the tallest mountains in Canada to the south. They are snow capped and huge and impressive and I cannot even see the heart of them. The foothills block my view, and according to one museum I stopped at there are actually no roads that go far enough into the mountains to give views of the tallest peaks. Where there are roads the towns are few and very far between. Keeping enough food to get to the next bit of civilization continues to be tricky.

The wildlife fills in where the people are not. Camping next to the road one morning I was woken up by a woman yelling from her car that a bear was coming my way and to be careful. A few minutes later the bear strolled past only 30 yards away. It must have smelled me considering it's been 10 days since I washed my shirt but it wasn't interested and continued down the road. Caribou have started showing up along side the road too. We stare at each other briefly and then one of us scampers off. I saw little horn sheep high up in the hills from an observation center. They were white as snow roaming through the green pastures.

Besides the bears wandering by camping has been great. Gerry and I found a  traditional log house to sleep in one night. It was a display outside of the Yukon First Nation's cultural center. In the cultural center the next morning I met some of the natives from the local tribes.

The weather has been great so far. Warm days, sometimes tailwind. The night are cool and comfortable. It rains just enough to rinse me off when I need it but never soak me.

I met a northbound cyclist coming from Argentina. He was French and only spoke French. His odometer read 21000 kilometers. He had been going only since December, faster than me so far. For all those wondering how my legs can handle all this biking, he was 62!

A Hammock in the Arctic

I spent a night sleeping in my hammock under the vivid pinks and reds of the arctic summer's sunset-sunrise transition. It is never dark here. I flew from Denver at 9PM in the dark and landed in Fairbanks at 1AM in the light. I do miss the stars but they don't give me energy like the sun. The biking days stretch late in to the night. Partly because of the difficulty of the terrain and partly because the sun never gives me a cue to stop. Shortly before midnight the sun sets; slowly sinking below the horizon after a 2 hour light show which the clouds and white birch trees capture and expand upon. By 1240 it is already getting lighter, and at 130 it feels like morning, re-energizing me as I try to fall asleep. 

The terrain part of the long day equation is the mountains. Gerry and I set out from Fairbanks towards the arctic circle. In my mind and my food bag I had planned on it taking 4 days to get there and come back. In reality we slept just north of the arctic circle after 4 days. The hills were big and many of them forced me to get off my bike and push. Not such a terrible thing as it helped warm up my feet during the cold mornings and nights. The sun was warm and it shone around light cloud cover most of the days. Short stretches required squinting into blowing snow squalls or suiting up in my rain gear. I did manage to stretch my food until I got back to Fairbanks, however the meals got rather unique as my assortment of ingredients dwindled to nothing. Peanut butter and rice anyone? 

I saw some great things along the way. My wildlife sightings included two moose, a brown bear, giant hares, and so many birds. I met a man running from the northern end of the highway in Alaska south toward the southern end of the road in Argentina ( Roadsendrun.org ). I crossed the Yukon River. I saw the Ray Mountain range from a new angle every day. I followed the pipeline for a hundred miles at least. It was all good enough to see twice and so I got a second pass on my way south. I've wondered how different the view would have been if I had gone the other direction during my journeys and this was a good sample. The view is great both ways and surprisingly different. Every racing decent that requires focus on only the road turns into a long climb with the focus turning entirely to the vistas for distraction from the burning climb. The light is different, the wind is different and in this case even the trees were greener as they had marched a few days further into spring. 

Now I am 400 miles into the trip with already 39000 feet of climbing done. The next leg will take me into Canada and the headwaters of the Yukon river. I am excited to find out what Canadian food is like! 

Away again

"Only the truly intrepid traveler has wandered this lonely path."

Adjusting back to my current tame life was easy. It is so easy to live like this. There is so much less stress knowing where I will sleep every night, but a bed in my room is not better than a hammock somewhere new. They are just different. And so I go. Another grand adventure laid out ahead of me. Tomorrow I will catch a late flight from Denver Colorado to Fairbanks Alaska. Waiting for me there right now is Gerry from Russia (I'm in Asia). From Fairbanks we will head north to the Arctic circle then south again. If nothing stops me I may end up in Ushuaia Argentina, the world's southernmost city, I've heard it's lovely.

My bike has been given another overhaul. The only pieces left from when I first bought it are the blue frame and the front derailleur. It gets better with every iteration. This setup steers like a tug boat, accelerates like a school bus and is as cushy as a park bench; trade offs I happily accept for its indestructibility.

Of course my hammock comes along again. I am so excited to be spending my nights hanging among the trees. My guitar comes too. I've gotten better and may soon be able to use it to entertain someone other than myself.

Follow along if you will. I'll be posting stories and pictures here as regularly as I can. The link on the top right side of this blog takes you to see where I camp every night. I don't know my route yet so it is a mystery to me too how I'll get to where I am going. I bet it will be interesting though.

Jacob

That is one super cool bike. 

A fish-eye lens will be coming along. 

My first test ride. If I continued down that street and never came back I would have been fine.